ASSIGNMENTS:
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Lisa
Chicago, Illinois USA
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REPORTS:
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I was born on January 14, 1982, in the middle of a blizzard. I was not prepared, but after waiting a week later than expected I was cut out into the world. My mom told me I was a difficult baby because I refused sleep and liked to get sick only on weekends when doctors weren't available. My parents discovered the only way to get me asleep was to put me in front of Mtv.
I had a fairly comfortable childhood. When I was four, I built a mountain out of chairs and climbed to the top only to have it topple over and break my arm. I remember my mom was cooking pancakes for dinner and the nurse gave me a yellow balloon. Everyone signed my cast. That was the year everyone laughed at Eric because he thought the president was Ronald Macdonald.
We lived on Oak St., a dead end road in Caseyville, IL. All my neighbors were boys, except for a girl that would visit her grandma. We would pretend we turned into clocks whenever a car drove by. I was obsessed with the movie Beetlejuice and I wore out the tape. For Halloween one year I went as Lydia from the film. My friend went as Bing Crosby, which convinced me he was gay. I punched him once because he told me my grandma's doghouse had seven rooms and made me crawl in there. He didn't talk to me all summer.
My grandma died when I was 8. My mom had a complete breakdown. She would cry while doing laundry, or dishes. My parents began fighting constantly.
One of the last memories I have of my grandma's house was finding a kitten outside and bringing it in. My mom and grandma were having coffee and both told me to put the cat back outside because it may have a disease. I did, and my grandma's dog grabbed it straight from my hands and ripped it into shreds in front of me. I understood everyone has their own natural predator.
We moved a couple towns over to Collinsville after my grandma died. Around the 8th grade, my best friend Nicole and I began acting out, doing things like lifting our skirts to oncoming traffic and smoking on the playgrounds of our rigid catholic school. We got into a contest of making out with as many boys as we could.
I gave a boy a blow job and Nicole told everybody. Two boys in my class talked about it loudly while walking past my house when my dad was taking out the trash. I was so upset because more than anything I didn't want my dad to think poorly of me.
My first real boyfriend at the time and I would dry hump any chance we got. He had a hot tub and a bed, both of which we never got into. He broke up with me for a more popular girl and I was crushed.
Nicole and I would go off into these woods by my house. There was a tree there that was split in half. I would sit there for hours, or maybe take the trail to this clearing in the woods. It was probably the only time around then that I felt safe, or innocent, in the sense I felt 5 years old again.
There was not else much to do then but go to the mall, which me and Nicole did almost every weekend. She got into petty theft, which was never much my thing. I did meet a boy there. We became close and he told me he'd kill himself if I ever left him. And he tried when I did. Years later, he would succeed by a bullet through the head. I went to his funeral and his mom didn't remember me.
In 1997, I entered high school. It was probably the pinnacle of existence, proving to be a great escape from grade school. All the people I met and just existing was quite enough. My freshman year, I lost my virginity to a boy in my bedroom, very cautiously and confusingly, like it should be.
I also meet a boy named Matt who proved to be a constant companion, still to this day. His locker was next to mine and he pets my head, telling me I had pretty hair. He was there the day I shattered my front tooth into a million pieces. I don't know what I'd do without him.
What I liked about high school was the freedom I had. Also I fell head over heels in love with a boy named Chris. He occupied my every thought, It's the only time I can say I've fell scarily in love with somebody. I met him the year I was expelled from high school for drinking. I was miserable, going to summer school and working at McDonald's. But when I met him, as soon as he entered the room, I was puddle. Suddenly, I didn't know myself anymore. I let him treat me horribly, but I convinced myself he cared for me. He said he liked me because I looked sort of mean. He left me for a mutual friend, only to break up with her 5 years later, come back to me and leave me again for a girl he married in Chicago.
I had best friend at the time named Mike. We began sleeping together. As it's hard to maintain a male/female friendship without doing so. I maybe loved him, but in this way that I felt he maybe knew me better or at least in a different way than anyone else did. I became pregnant from him and he became unresponsive to me. We ended up aborting the pregnancy, which I did not want to do. I wanted to try and make a family work, but I was terrified to go about it alone. It was a boy, I know, because it was the only one I was meant to have. I worry I lost my only chance. Years later, I saw Mike at a bar. He told me he's been having dreams that he thought I would only understand. A little boy comes to his house and sets his porch on fire. "I know who that boy is", he said. And I started to cry because I knew who he was too and also because having him tell me that was the closest I've felt to anyone in years.
I'm going to skip ahead because at this point, anything I write cannot begin to describe the memories I have or the strange connections I've made with people. I will say, I'm not better, far from it. I make mistakes constantly. But I can't escape my past choices. I can only embrace them and prepare for what lies ahead.
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