MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

As a child my birthday always felt more like a curse instead of something to look forward to each year. Other than my mother, how could anyone be excited by the hallmark of that day?  Public schools always went back in session the day after Labor Day.  That meant many times the first day of school fell on my birthday, September 5th.  My very first day of school when I entered kindergarten at Vine Street Elementary School was much more memorable than any of the others because of the events that unfolded.  My birthday had been the day before, so this special day as I began my educational journey remains etched in infamy as being showcased by the fancy footwork of an awkward 5 year old klutz.

My next older brother is 4 years older than I am.  He had been delegated the responsibility to walk me to and from school until I got old enough to either walk by myself or in a group with my friends.  Since we went to the same school, it shouldn't have been that big of a deal to him, but anything involving siblings has a funny way of becoming complicated and drama-filled.  His biggest issue was having to deal with the shame of walking his kid sister to school.  Oh, the horrible things our families cast upon us, but like I always say, "what doesn't kill us, only makes us stronger".  I'm sure my brother is a much better person today for having had to deal with all the responsibilities of being an older brother to a pain in the ass like me. 

We both were decked out in our fine new first day of school apparel as we left home that day.  The journey up Walter Street seemed like such an arduous trek for a five year old child. The route contained two hills, Little Walter and Big Walter, crossing a sometimes busy Third Street and navigating Vine Street to arrive safely at school.  As we walked down Little Walter, I discovered many other children doing exactly the same thing we were doing.  All the older brothers and sisters were walking just ahead of their younger siblings prompting them to stop being so slow.  

As I walked I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing or where I was going. Before my brother noticed and could redirect my focus, I fell face first into a rather large pothole in the sidewalk. It all happened so fast that I didn't even have time to put my hands out to help break my fall.  BAM! My nose and forehead took the full impact of my fall. As my brother helped me up and took me home, he bitched at me the whole way there. I had blood and tears running down my face, but to hear him tell it, you would have thought I had planned the whole thing out just to embarrass him and to make him late for school.  Contrary to popular belief, I may have always had a devious streak in me, but not that devious!

Our family doctor, Dr. Dearborn looked me all over and patched me up.  My nose wasn't broken, but I had two black eyes and my forehead had been split open. My face was a mess for awhile and that was no way for a shy, little girl to start school, but I developed a great poker face at a young age so no one knew just how deeply that fall had hurt me. I like to say I learned to watch where I was walking, but that skill was developed at a much older age.  The only real lasting effect from my fall was the daily ridicule I endured from my brother as we walked to school.  I was so glad when the city finally patched that hole and my brother stopped tormenting me.  We laugh about it now, but I often wondered if any of my brothers ever realized how inferior to them I grew up feeling. 

HOW DO YOU DEFINE PHYSICAL BEAUTY?

We are taught from a very young age to revere physical beauty. It isn't until we get much older that we figure out it's inner beauty that matters most. That interim time we spend soothing our eyes with what we consider aesthetically pleasing is often times accompanied by mending our broken hearts. For most of us, those wasted days we’ve spent with "eye candy" pales in comparison to the real thing. I think it's a travesty that people are coerced by society into developing meaningless preferences for their most intimate relationships based solely upon what a person looks like and not what type of character they have.  

We overlook anything that may have depth just to possess beauty for a fleeting moment. We’re so hoodwinked into believing that outer beauty is the important thing. We’re not told that physical beauty wanes with age and then in hindsight during some brief moment of clarity, we suddenly get it. Aging no longer seems scary when vanity is put into its proper perspective. Gray hair and wrinkles no longer are dreaded. Some people wear them well and like a fine wine, they become better with age. 

Many people alter their appearance thinking that a youthful appearance might grant them the key to happiness by cheating the aging process when in reality all it does is buy their plastic surgeon's a new Porsche and helps put his children through college. So why does aging scare people? Why do we feel less desirable? When we turn 60 is it really necessary to look 30 in order to feel the happiness we so desperately seek? Vanity is such a powerful force that rules supreme from our early years right up until the time we realize vanity is a waste of time. Physical beauty is so subjective and filled with individual preferences. If asked to name the three most beautiful women in the world and the three most handsome men, the list would vary from person to person. What we might find out by comparing lists is how we differ in our definition of physical beauty. 

No wonder so many teens develop eating disorders and remain confused and unsatified with their appearance for years. When beauty is defined in terms of this picture, what we strive for is not only unhealthy, but is a hideous facade as well. The picture features a model who looks anorexic. Because most of us have too much meat on our bones, it makes us ugly by society’s standards. Yes, physical beauty is governed by our preferences. What looks hot to one person might make someone else run away in search of a paper bag and a Phenergan suppository. 

Gratitude statement: After looking at this picture, it makes me thankful vanity has passed me by and the only use I want a paper bag for is to cover this lost soul until she gains alittle weight. 

TO STACY WHEREVER YOU ARE

WHY CAN'T JOHNNY READ AND WRITE?

I woke up this morning thinking about why so many people are up in arms about prayer not being allowed in schools. I remember as a child praying in school, but now I look back and see how wrong it was to impose Christianity upon everyone. It's great if you believe in a Christian god, but what if you don't? What if you're family is Jewish or Muslim? What if your family is Buddhist or Hindu? What if your family is Wiccan or Scientologists? What if your family is Agnostic or Atheist? What's wrong with just having a moment of silence in respect of all belief systems and not just favoring one? What's wrong with teaching tolerance and respecting all differences? What's wrong with teaching a child God has many faces and sometimes God is a faceless entity called science and reason? Shouldn't schools be more concerned with teaching our children math, reading and science than instilling religious doctrine? I guess it's okay not to be able to read or write as long as you can recite the Lord's prayer because God takes care of all His followers and will provide for you when you can't get a job. If I sound angry, I am! Religion is not the cure all to everything! It belongs in church and not in our public schools!

A CRY FOR HELP

Each summer during my mother's vacation from work my family would go stay at my Aunt Leah's camp on Eddington Pond. My family wasn't fortunate enough to own a camp so we had to rely on the generosity of others. As I got older, my brothers stopped going to camp and opted to stay home so they could have legendary parties. While the cat's away the mice will play! 

I hadn't reached the "I don't want to go to camp" stage yet. The highlight of my days at camp as I got older were the boys who had a camp next door. As with any 13 almost 14 year old girl, I immediately developed a crush on one of the boys named Jimmy. I've always had a run of bad luck with guys with that name, but I finally learned my lesson after marrying one.  This "ginger" Jimmy gave me my first real taste of what rejection felt like. How humiliating it is to feel like the ugly duckling and the odd man out. I hated feeling not good enough. I hated being me. Why couldn't I have been born short, petite and gorgeous? 

I've always had self-destructive tendencies as far back as I can remember. Although I've only halfheartedly tried the big "S" a few times, I now wonder what was my actual goal when I downed a whole bottle of aspirin chased by a massive amount of straight whisky. Did I have any idea that it could have killed me? Was I disappointed when it didn't kill me? 

My mother brought a whole gallon of Canadian Club whisky to camp that summer and now I wonder why she did that. My mother wasn't a drinker. Did she have plans of entertaining after the children were tucked snugly into bed in the loft overlooking the pond? If so, I never saw any evidence of it. Were my actions a cry for help or was I just looking for the attention I obviously wasn't getting? So many questions in hindsight, but never any beforehand.

After going on a very animated teenage tirade that probably resembled the Tasmanian Devil going after Bugs Bunny and ingesting the only things available to me at the time...a bottle of aspirin and whisky, I remember continually vomiting until all I could do is dry heave and heave and heave. At that point the desire to die was more than just a fleeting impulse. I felt so bad, dying would have been a welcome relief. The next morning when asked about my "illness" I passed off what was wrong with me as being some type of intestinal ailment when in reality I probably should have been in the hospital. 

It always amazed me how strong my mother's sense of denial was. She was a nurse and never "saw" all the classic signs I exhibited of a teenager in crisis. All my stunts went unnoticed until I eventually overdosed on barbiturates at school less than two years later and was rushed to the ER. Since she worked at that hospital, it was out of the question for me to try to cover up that one. Oops! I got too high and forgot how many I had taken! Actually, that was the truth. I ate pills like candy. If 3 were good, 6 or more were spectacular. Who knew how many drugs I had in my system at any given time? Like an alcoholic, one could never be too high unless unconscious or comatose. Oh, what a wonderful gene pool from which I come!

My ears rang so loudly for the better part of a week that I could hard hear anything, but the ringing. I felt like I had a severe case of the flu. I hurt all over and I couldn't keep anything in my stomach for several days. My best friend, Margie witnessed me sink into my dark era. She accompanied me to camp that summer and fretted over me. When I look back, I wonder how close she came to ratting me out. It must have been hard for her to watch me be in so much pain and self-destruct. (I'm sorry, Margie!) 

Now, I look back and wonder where my mother was during all my brouhahas and why she had left my friend and I unattended that evening. The unattended theme carried through the next summer as well when I did have a boyfriend and that boyfriend was allowed to come stay at camp with me. Oh, what a summer that was! I was 14. He was 16. Skinny-dipping, frolicking in the summer sun and lazy nights and early mornings spent listening to the loons while wrapped in each other's arms. For awhile, I got the attention I needed and wanted and then poof! It was gone and so was I. And to this day just the smell of whisky makes me nauseous.

THE LAST MILE

This is dedicated to Helen Evancheck who recently passed away at 98 years young on September 21, 2022. 

When I walked away there was no turning back. I knew from that point on my life would never be the same. Yes, I longed for the familiar surroundings I called home, yet that house would always remain with me no matter where I went. Running away only made the things I loved no longer a physical part of my life. I could hold them close in my mind and take them with me.

Looking back on it, I know now that my decision to leave was totally wrong, yet at the time it seemed I was trapped and had no other choice. That few weeks I spent on the psych ward after my first overdose, made me realize I had very few real friends. Each night when Wayne's mother came on duty, I would sit with her at the nurse's station and talk until I could fall asleep. We never once discussed her son or why I was on her floor. I knew she had read my chart and was familiar with all the notes written in it. What was there to discuss? I know I should have been ashamed, but she never made me feel uncomfortable. She talked to me as if she truly cared for my well-being and I always appreciated that. She was kind and gentle: warm and loving...all the things I needed most at that time.

I acted horrible during the day...defiant and always questioning authority. I refused to participate in any group therapy and used any recreation time to create weird things to decorate my room. My pride and joy were the bats I had made from modeling clay. I had painted them black with red eyes and then hung them with sewing thread from the pipe near the ceiling in my room. It seemed everything I did was aimed at getting a reaction. But no matter how outrageous I acted Mrs. Evancheck treated me the same way she treated me from the first time she met me when Wayne brought me home to meet his parents. She treated me like one of her own. 

I still remember the outrage I felt when my mother had brought me an electric razor so I could shave my legs and underarms and it was immediately taken away from me. I quickly challenged them by asking if they thought I was going to shave myself to death. Surely, they couldn't think I would try to hang myself with the cord...it wasn't long enough for that and besides hanging just wasn't my style. They never did give me a reason why they took it. They didn't have to give me a reason, so I went on being my usual obnoxious self. Why they didn't just medicate me was a mystery to me, but it probably had something to do with the fact that I would have enjoyed zoning out on some good psychiatric drugs. 

The law required any drug overdoses to be sent to the psych ward for 2 weeks of observation after surviving the ER and the ICU, but many people weren't that lucky. For most the only trip they took was to the morgue! The two weeks I was on C-4 was some of the hardest decision making time I have ever had. Due to my impaired judgment and being so screwed up, I made all the wrong decisions at that time! I had no adult I could turn to for guidance.  I just didn't trust anyone that way.

So I was alive! The overdose had not been intentional...I simply was out of control and on a very self-destructive path. I loved getting high and staying high. I feared nothing...not even death itself. I slowly retreated into a silent, safe place where I no longer felt any pain. Along with feeling no pain, I discovered I also felt no happiness, joy or love. Wayne had threatened to leave me if I didn't stop getting high as if that was going to stop me! Ha! Now, he was gone and I was truly alone...except for my drugs. Somehow they had replaced everything that was good or right in my life. They dulled the pain and I learned how to live being comfortable numb. 

Lynne, someone I considered a friend, offered me a way out and I took it.  I believed that nothing could be worse than what I had been experiencing. It wasn't until much later until I discovered that things always can get worse. It only took me a few days after being discharged from the hospital to realize going back to school and trying to straighten out my life was just not going to happen like everyone else wanted it to happen. The day I left home, I took one last look at Wayne's house before I walked down my street and walked towards the interstate with Lynne. That last mile was my point of no return. As we set out on the road, I left some of my pain behind but the biggest portion was something I would carry with me until I learned how to forgive.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost-