As I made my way to the ominous list, vivid yellow, orange, pink and green butterflies danced playfully around in my stomach. Encircled with plastic smiles and girls doing cartwheels, they stood still as I walked into that office with my head held high, confident I would leave with what I came for. As my eyes anxiously traveled down the list of numbers, the butterflies began shooting around inside of me, fluttering excitement, banging into the spot that sent panic to my brain.
“10. Come on! Where’s number 10?!”
I wanted to be a part of it so badly at the time. The motions in the blue and yellow uniforms synchronizing to one beat and a girl with a perfect white bow tied to her ponytail was launched into the air with the thrusting of her feet. I was sucked into this whirlpool of smiling faces that I, too, got twisted into somehow. It seemed so simple back then. If you were one of them, you knew where you fell. You were a Mt. Lebanon cheerleader. Apparently, my feet were staying on the ground for a while.
In the instant that the door slammed shut behind me, I knew that I was no longer welcome into their world, and the butterflies dispersed, leaving way for the pit in my stomach to plummet.
It would seem that emotions are the curse, not death—emotions that appear to have developed upon a few freaks as a special curse from Malevolence.
-- Annie Dillard
It was the kind of crying where you can’t feel tears streaming down your cheeks, because your face is drenched already. You move your chest up and down to welcome a breath of air, but the harder you try, the more your body struggles. The combination of gasping for air and coughing begins to choke you, and your face becomes more of a contorted mess. When I cry like this, my mother always has a proverb for me. This time it was:
Far away in a medieval village lives a man who owns a breathtakingly beautiful white stallion who means the world to him. One day, the king offers the man anything in his village in exchange for his horse. Undoubtedly, the man loves his stallion too much to give him up and denies the king's offer. The next morning, the man wakes up to find that his horse has run away. He is then visited by a townsman who consoles him, reminding him that just yesterday he could have had anything in the entire village. The man replies, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” The villager, surprised, responds, “What do you mean is it a good thing or a bad thing? Yesterday you could have had everything, and today you are left with nothing!” The next day, the man’s horse returns, bringing with him six other stallions that are just as beautiful. The man is revisited by the townsman who exclaims in excitement, and the man responds “Is it a good thing or a bad thing?” The following day the man’s son is playing with the new horses and is thrown off one of their backs, breaking both of his legs. The villager returns, sympathizing for the man about what had happened and the man replies “Is it a good thing or a bad thing?” The townsman is shocked! “Your son has just broken both of his legs because of your horses! How could this be a good thing?” he asks. Shortly thereafter, the king orders all of the young men in the village to leave home and fight at war--all except the men who are unhealthy or injured.
The day after I didn’t make the squad, I didn’t break my legs, and nobody was sent to war. When I saw that list without my name on it, there was not a proverb in the world that could have relinquished my pain. Trust me; my mom is chock-full of proverbs and sayings that can usually surrender a smile. This time, though, I held my ground. What I wish that someone had reminded me was that when one door closes, another one opens.
Just a pile of thoughts
I have an entire drawer full of three-subject, multicolored Five Star notebooks.
Each night before I fall asleep, iPod headphones plugged into my ears, staring up at the neon star stickers dimly radiating from my ceiling fan, I let my mind wander. I think about anything: what people in far-off countries are doing right that second, favorite pastimes, what I’m hopeful about for the future, even narration of my life to the song lyrics blaring through my headphones. I think about anything really. The only problem is I always fall asleep before I get around to finishing my thoughts, so I incessantly buy Five Star notebooks instead. I scribble in each of them, but never fill any one of them up. Why don’t I just buy the one-subject ones, or rather one big five-subject one? I don’t know. I guess I like to view each one as a different phase of my life. Since I’m the only one who ever reads them, it's okay if my thoughts are undeveloped or my poetry doesn’t flow neatly. This paper scares me. It’s like answering the question what have you done in your life? That’s the problem with American society, though. We let what we’ve done explain who we are for us. With this memoir, I know that I’ll have to face aspects of myself that I wander away from or fall asleep before addressing. Who knows, maybe you’ll save me $3.79, Mr. P.
Time is a barrier
All of their voices mended together resulting in one sentence: “In time, you’ll get over it.”
Why do people never know what to say?
It’s funny to think about how much the idea of time has changed since elementary school. Before I started going to school, my mom would explain this concept through Nickelodeon.
“We’ll leave in an hour.” “How long is an hour, Mommy?” “Two episodes of Rugrats.”
Then I’d understand. It was so easy to understand back then. I knew time would become harder after second grade. I don’t know why, but I remember this moment so distinctly. My class was sitting on the undersized, scratchy rug in Mrs. Smith’s otherwise friendly classroom when she asked one student to move the hour hand on the cardboard clock to show what time their family ate dinner. I moved the hour hand to eight o’clock, and my classmates laughed.
“Your family eats dinner at eight o’clock, Kalin?”
“Oh, no...I meant six o’clock!”
No I didn’t. We never had a specified time to eat dinner and we still don’t. In big families, you don’t have a specified time to do anything and frankly, who cares?
My old best friend had a “perfect mom.” She had a calendar in their kitchen that was color-coordinated for each one of her daughters, a mat by the door where you were required to take off your shoes, a snack waiting for her girls right when they got home from school, and every night without missing a beat, their family ate dinner at 5:15. I hate how society still has that idea of keeping up with the “Joneses.”
Sometimes I flourish from the influence of order, but I could never live like a cookie cutter mom. Having every moment in your life preplanned? I don’t know who (other than mothers who refer to their kids as ‘My Olivia,’ that is) could be content living without one bit of spontaneity.
Identity Crisis
I wrote a letter to myself before I came to high school. I know it sounds lame, but I am an incessant list maker. I also have a slight case of OCD. I’ve noticed recently (especially at Forensics tournaments) that other people seem to suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as well. I’ve tried to figure out why I do certain “rituals” (I hate calling it that), but the only thing I could come up with is that it helps me feel a sense of organization without eliminating my spontaneity. They’re like subliminal messages I send to myself as a reminder that there is order in my life.
Anyway, I needed a new format so I wrote a letter instead. I figured someday I would want to look back on it and read it and if nothing else, maybe my kids would be interested in it one day. The letter, in short, rambled on about where I would fit in in high school.
Would I follow Renée and envelop myself in a brilliant world of art and poetry? Would I take on the role of an actress on stage like Elyse? Would I find myself mostly on the turf practicing cheers or breaking track records like Vanessa? Or would I spend most of my time at school joining extracurricular activities and working at The Coffee Tree like Dina?
The problem with this letter that I wrote to myself is that I didn’t leave any blank space on the page to fill in a spot for me. I didn’t allow myself a spot anywhere to find my own niche. It never even crossed my mind that, “I could go. I could simply angle off the path, take one step after another, and be on my way” (Dillard). Instead of following Dillard’s advice, I tried to compact four lives into one.
I have never had the chance to be lonely. And maybe that’s just it. I have been part of a group of some sort for my entire life. I grew up in a family with five sisters (I know, I know: “Your poor father!”). I’ve always been part of large friend groups. Henry David Thoreau reflected on the simplicity in his natural surroundings. I can’t think of one person I know who is simply simple. If all I do is spend my time around people, how can I ever reflect on myself?
Soul-Searching
Don’t get me wrong. I practically thrive on my alone time (If I can ever find any). In reality, with all but one of my sisters out of the house, I find myself catching more of it each day. But you know what? I don’t find myself to be any happier. So I decided to hire a professional. I asked my parents if I could see a psychologist. Before I went, I knew that I wouldn’t like her. I just had a feeling.
Her name was Wendy. I personally think that I could do a hell of a better job than she could. I am not a crier, so I didn’t take it as a good sign when I stepped into her office where the hostile walls greeted me and I found myself holding a box of Kleenex. Wendy sat me down on her uninviting couch with mismatched pillows, showing me a perfect view of her bare work space where she sat in a chair with a laptop on her lap. She gave me “sympathetic” head nods while her fingers typed furiously at her keyboard as she spoke.
“Do you feel:
Angry?
Sad?
Alone?
Helpless about the future?
Hopeless?
Scared?
Depressed?”
I consider myself to be a very in tune person, and I usually favor that quality in myself. But sometimes, I hate it when I can tell that people aren’t listening to me, or understanding how I feel. If you don’t get what I’m saying, then don’t pretend to.
When her response to the first personal aspect of my life was, “How do you feel about that?” I knew I was never stepping into that building again.
During this treacherous hour long session, I thought mostly about Peter Pan. Her name was Wendy and she needed to do some serious soul searching. So did I.
“Did you want me to change?”
I searched for ways to find myself. I longed for it. I remember a specific morning last summer. That morning I liked the narration playing in my head. For once, everything was pretty because it was untouched. The world was sleeping, except for me. No cars. No people. No one to treat me any differently; squirrels didn’t even get out of my way. I’m up and I’m thinking. My.mind.will.not.stop.thinking. It was the excessive thoughts of teenage marvel keeping me awake. I am not a morning person, yet I found my tennis shoes hitting the pavement two-and-a-half miles without stopping. I’ve never come so far. I could feel the sweat on my forehead and my knees yearning to bend. They wanted to snap; they shared this feeling with my entire body. It’s been different lately. Difficult. My mind won’t quit. It won’t let me go and I want to let go, but I want to keep going. The sun was blazing in my eyes and I liked it. “Did you want me to change? Well I'd change for good.” Coldplay kept my legs moving...I wanted to keep going though. The second I hit my porch I tore my shirt off. Laying on the concrete, my back felt the coldness, my stomach moved up and down. Up. And back down. My headphones taken out, I could hear everything. Or maybe I was just finally listening. There were water droplets hanging off of the grass blades. I wondered why...dew. Do's that so many people forget to do. They forget to look. Forget to listen. Let this all pass them by: Life
But I ran to see the world as it was when people slept. And it was better. I was better. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter that I threw my hair up, that my clothes didn’t match, that my face was like a stone, or that my breathing was hard. These beautiful things that people miss, I saw. I didn’t run for my weight. I ran to make my mind stop. It didn’t, clearly. 5:45 AM. It felt good. My sequence of picture taking didn’t stop after the dew. But it ended with a picture of just my shadow. And maybe that meant something.
Medium mocha frozzachino with two pumps of chocolate, skim milk instead of water, ¼ scoop of vanilla powder, two decaf shots and a little bit of whipped cream
Since the day I started working at The Coffee Tree, the specificity of the way people ordered their drinks baffled me. I can relate to idiosyncrasy, but when you come back after you order a drink and it “doesn’t taste right” because there isn’t enough vanilla powder, then way too much of your time and money is invested at Coffee Tree Roasters. One day, some cranky woman came in and demanded I give her a nut roll. Apologetically (it’s in the job description) I told her that we were out and that we would probably have some more in the next day. She caused a scene like you wouldn’t believe. This woman was, to my knowledge, not ill in any way and in her mid-forties. In one stomp of her foot and screech of her whiny voice, she ordered that I tell my boss to order more nut rolls, and fast.
It’s times like those when I do either one of two things:
1. Laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation
2. Ask myself why I felt like a lit candle wick whose flame fluttered, sank to the
bottom of the wick and blew itself out? Why do I give these people a second thought!? Her life consists of yelling at 16-year-old Coffee Tree Roaster employees about nut rolls. I try to remind myself that some people don’t even fear being yelled at by anyone. Why can’t I be that way?
Greece
It was a twelve hour plane ride. I didn’t mind. I love transportation. I love taxi cabs, car rides, bus rides and especially plane rides. It’s the closest most people can get to flying. It’s the closest I have ever been to the stars and the sun. Through my window alone I saw the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. I dug around for my notebook in my carry-on and started scribbling down every emotion that I felt. It didn’t take long for me to put the pen down and just become present in that moment. It also didn’t take long for the flight attendant to address me.
“People are trying to sleep, miss. Please close your window.”
I looked around, and not.one. other person had their window open.
The Right Way
In first grade, I learned that there’s a right and a wrong way to do everything. Mrs. Ferguson liked to point out the right ways, her ways, to do everything. Sometimes I hate people. I hate them for tainting my optimistic outlook on the world. They let their experiences influence my yet-unexperienced ones.
I am one of the few people who holds her pencil with her left hand. Did I notice this in first grade? Yes. Did I try to change it? No. Did Mrs. F? You bet she did. I can still remember her forceful hands (with a rubber witch finger that she slid on to help kids follow her when she pointed to words) twisting my wrists trying to hold my pencil the right way. Ever since then there has always been part of me that feels I need to live my life a certain way.
The first time my feet touched the fourth floor domino section of the high school was when I was four years old and my oldest sister, Renée, was frolicking around the blue lockers. Every time I walk past that wing of the school, I think of her and how she inspires me to write, but she is not why I do it.
I plan to make a life out of film acting, not because of Elyse, but because acting is my true passion. When I act, I get lost in my character; I feel like myself being so many different people.
In seventh grade, I ran track. Eighth grade, I ran track and became a cheerleader. Ninth grade, I didn’t make cheerleading and quit track. It’s amusing how such earth-shattering moments in life can turn out to be such “a good thing.” For once in my life, I did something for me. I took Theatre 1 and Theatre 2 as electives. I know, it sounds like I did that for Elyse, but the difference with acting is that I truly love to do it.
The end is a beginning
Despite all that I’ve copied from my sisters, I have to believe that I am me. I build off of ideas that other people brought to my attention, but I do what I do because it’s mine and I love it. Quitting track, “quitting” cheerleading, pursuing acting, being a Coffee Tree Roaster employee, participating in extracurricular activities, and finding my own niche. Mine.
My sister, Vanessa, got off her plane in Africa and told me she felt for the first time in her life, that she was exactly where she was supposed to be. Some of us aren’t that lucky. We don’t step into one perimeter and just know that we are happy. There are still doors to open; places in this world where no one knows my name. There are still plenty of doors to open.
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