#now we might not be able to afford groceries anymore and my mother will hate me even more

[madebysoupy]

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[sailorsilverladybug]

An Apology to My Readers: Delays

I wanted to let everyone know that I fully intend to finish my stories, but over the past few days I just haven’t had any will to write. Unfortunately, I am afraid. I’m afraid for my life. I’m afraid for my family. I’m afraid for my town. I’m afraid for my state, and for my country. I live in constant fear, and it hasn’t been helping me find inspiration. It’s been tearing me apart.

I have asthma, or more specifically severe allergies to perfumes and chemicals that react like asthma. This means that I am more likely to have a severe reaction if I come into contact with Covid-19. Comorbidity. You see that word and all you can think is that this is a death sentence. I have left the house three times since early February. Each time I come back and worry for the next several days that I’ve somehow been exposed. Except, my husband is a necessary worker and went to his job every day through the lockdown and continues to go now when the country is reopening too soon and there are thousands dying.

Worse, I have a son in the marines, and he doesn’t always have time to contact his worried mother. I’ve always been a worrier, but never like this before. I wish I could tell you why I am so afraid, but I don’t even know myself. I’m not afraid to die, I suppose, but I don’t want to go out struggling for days, maybe weeks, without enough air. That sounds horrible to me.

So I haven’t been able to write. I haven’t been able to find the hopeful part of me that never writes an unhappy ending. The part that believes there will always be another miracle. The piece of me that thinks everything will work out if you just do your best. How can I, when all around me thousands of people are dying and many of those deaths could have been avoided if people had common decency.

For all those people out there who think a mask is a political statement, please stop. It doesn’t mean you support the democrats. It means we want to live. I am horrified that you could play Russian roulette on not just your life, and the lives of your parents, siblings, spouse, children, and grandchildren, but on MY life, and the lives of MY husband, my son, my nieces and nephews, my sisters and brothers, my mothers and fathers, my grandparents, my friends, and my neighbors. Please stop thinking just because you might survive it, that everyone else will. Some of us won’t.

Be a hero, wear a mask.

Social distancing, proper safety precautions, and wearing masks shouldn’t be political. Stop listening to ANYONE who says it is. Keep your politics away from my immune system. At least let me have the RIGHT to live. That’s all I can ask of anyone.

So no, I haven’t been writing, and I haven’t been responding to emails, because how can I have hope if the very people my town needs to survive are ignoring that we have to live and are refusing to social distance, refusing to wear masks, refusing to remember that people live here all the time. They hear people say we had no cases in our area, so they come in droves, bringing it from outside. My community is almost HALF senior citizens, and the rest of us are made up of couples and young families.

I want to live long enough to meet my own future grandchildren. I want to live long enough to walk the Appalachian Trail, and to see the rest of my beautiful country. I want to live long enough to publish my novels and see them sell millions of copies. I want to live long enough to accomplish my dreams.

Sailor Moon is the type of hero we really need right now, and I so wish that I could sit down and give you a story with her hopeful tone and her joyful light, but I can’t. Right now I would put her on a mission of vengeance, and that isn’t my Sailor Moon. My Sailor Moon always does what is right, even when it’s hard, even when it hurts, even when it means she will lose, because she is the true hero, who refuses to give in, or to give up. My Sailor Moon could never be turned dark because there isn’t a scrap of darkness in her. She has everything she could ever want or need. She is a good daughter and tries to obey her parents and do what they’ve taught her. She is truth and hope and unconditional love.

Sailor Moon would wear a mask. She would wear that mask and walk right out into the middle of town and she would stand up for those of us who need someone to hear us. Not just those with compromised immune systems, but those who have been treated badly for centuries, for the ones who need a place to flee because they don’t have a home anymore due to war or terror. Sailor Moon would love the way we need a hero to love. She would show us that anyone can change, that any heart could be healed, and that any barrier can be breached with a hand outstretched, with love, with friendship, with faith.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the world we live in. It isn’t the world around me right now. I live in a world where a man drove into a grocery store parking lot in MAINE with a rebel flag proudly displayed on his back window... who walked into the grocery store full of necessary workers and refused to wear a mask because it was his ‘right’ to make a political statement. I live in a world where people think it’s perfectly fine to treat others like their lives are meaningless, and where those who are the most necessary workers among the population are often paid the least. Where they can’t afford to stop working even to protect their families because they don’t have that nest egg of savings that those who have more had. I live in a world where people are being evicted from their homes for not paying rent they couldn’t meet because they weren’t ‘essential workers.’

Find me hope and I think I would write a million stories in a day, but I have none. Not when the man who is my president is drawing crowds of unmasked people together and those people then go and infect other people. Meanwhile people who are trying to stay safe are treated like they are making a political statement.

Be a hero, wear a mask.

I’m living in a world where I am afraid to let people into my home for fear they might have Covid. A world where I’m afraid to go out with my sister-in-law to the grocery store... and after the one trip I took with her I panicked for days. Where going out with my husband makes me terrified because someone coughed near me and wasn’t wearing a mask. Where walking into a bookstore means a handful of hand-sanitizer to protect the elderly couple who work there and I still have to listen to people treat them rudely, then force their way past me out the door and ignore the fact that using a walker means it’s more difficult for me.

I want to live in Sailor Moon’s world, where an entire community would come together to tell the military to leave them alone. Where Sailor Moon can take the hand of her enemy and remind them how to be human. I want to live there, where magic could fix a pandemic, and there is always someone there to take your hand when you’re afraid and you wouldn’t be afraid to reach back.

Bring me some hope and I’ll show you my dreams for a world like Sailor Moon’s. But until then my pen is down. My torch is out. My muse is huddled in a corner unable to come out because she’s me, and she is afraid to die like this. Bring me some hope, please. Tell me everything is going to be okay, because right now, I don’t think it will be. Even after this disease goes away, there is still so much hate and so little empathy. I don’t think we will get through this. Bring me some hope.

Be a hero, wear a mask.

[whatthehelltimespell]

Only Time Will Tell Chapter Three

Title: Only Time Will Tell Chapter 3/? Rated Teen-ish By they way I actually did research into different traits for development of a four year old and Cody was spot on!!!  So I tried to stick with that with the emotions and things like that.  I did research into older kids as well, because I plan on helping the character mature mentally and emotionally over the course of a few months.  Not sure about romance yet, but I’m already against anything really sexual considering his mental age.  (I found Michael to either be asexual or definitely demi-sexual, one or the other.  Like he could use sexuality to bend others to his will, but he himself didn’t feel it, if that makes any sense.)  Plus, isn’t his ending mental age - before the episode from hell - like between 7 and 9 or something, so at the most he may be curious in my story, but . . . yeah, no.

The night Michael spent at Elizabeth's was uneventful. They played a card game and then they both went to bed. She had a guest room and that was where she put him. She waited until he was good and asleep before going to sleep herself. She'd locked her door, just in case, but nothing happened. Michael was still in bed when she woke up the next morning.

It gave her plenty of time to get breakfast started. Since she had a guest, she made bacon, eggs, and biscuits instead of just enjoying a bowl of cereal. A sleepy-eyed Michael with bedhead came into the kitchen as the smell of frying bacon filled the house. He stood in the doorway for a few seconds before deciding he was too tired to stand and ended up plopping down on one of the chairs at the table.

She held back a grin. The only thing he was missing was a blanket trailing behind him to complete the picture of a rumpled kid rejecting the idea of being awake and out of bed. Some anti-Christ, she thought as she rolled her eyes. Mallory and Constance really had it wrong.

"Good morning."

"Mm," he harrumphed.

"I feel ya. I hate mornings too."

That got a smile from him at least.

"I actually usually like mornings," he admitted. "I still don't feel great."

He was probably still drained. She'd never met anyone as highly sensitive as he was – then again . . . four-year olds did get their feelings hurt very easily. She still couldn't believe she was even considering the idea that he'd grown up overnight, but she could see it, she really could. It was impossible, but . . . Michael did have childlike ways about him.

She guessed she would learn more later when they had their meeting with Constance. ---------- Once Elizabeth was done cooking, she piled everything into containers and set it on the table. She got out two plates and all the silverware needed and then sat down across from Michael. She gave one plate to Michael before putting the utensils where they needed to be.

"Help yourself," she said.

She learned that Michael loved food and loved eating, but she didn't know if it was because he actually liked it or if his body was trying to keep up with itself. Even if he was stuck with four-year old traits, his body very much was not. He would need as much nutrition as an actual teenage boy did. He seemed to really like the biscuits, which were just the ones that came in a can that you popped in the oven for about twenty minutes.

"So . . . when do you want to go see your grandma?"

Michael paused as he was beginning to scoop up some egg and then put his fork on his plate. He shrugged. He shut himself off almost immediately and Elizabeth realized again how much it had hurt him to be kicked out of his house. The woman he'd spent his life with had abandoned him.

"I'll be there with you, Michael. Maybe we can figure something out. Okay?"

He nodded, but she could tell he wasn't certain there was anything to figure out.

"Anyway, eat your food. We don't have to worry about your grandma until we go see her." ---------- Elizabeth and Michael went to see Constance right after breakfast. Mallory was there also and Elizabeth had a few things she wanted to say to both of the women before allowing Michael into the conversation. They left Michael in the living room while they went into the kitchen to talk, much like they had the day before.

"Is the . . . body gone?"

"Yes," Constance said.

"Okay, good. I have two requests for our conversation today."

Both women seemed a little suspicious of what Elizabeth would say. She didn't know why. If anything, she should be suspicious of them.

"I didn't tell Michael about what you guys planned to do to him, so don't mention it. Right now, he only thinks I saved him from getting run over and nothing else. Not who did it and not that you meant to."

Mallory didn't seem to even have to think before agreeing to that. Elizabeth was just happy she wouldn't have to argue her point.

"Second thing is . . . don't mention the anti-Christ thing. Okay? You tell him that and he might not let us help him. He might not even care if he does bad things anymore because . . . well . . . anti-Christ. In fact, I don't want to hear anything negative about him because there are only so many times you can hear how much of a monster you are before you just become one. From all I know of what you told me . . . he needs positive reinforcement in his life."

Constance and Mallory both seemed to be thinking it over and then Constance asked, "Miss Garnet, how old are you?"

"Twenty."

"How is it you can afford to live on your own here? It's not cheap. Where is your money coming from?"

She shrugged. Her home life was nothing to brag about but she wasn't against talking about it either.

"My father is a lawyer and my mother is a doctor. I found the house and they helped me with a down payment; I've had a job since I was seventeen, which helped. I'm just getting settled now. I make money delivering groceries. I plan on finding something else in the near future and then starting school next year. Psychology will be my major."

"Is that why you think you can help him?" Mallory asked, skepticism very apparent in her voice.

"I don't know if I can help him at all," Elizabeth said, "But I will at least try to lead him the right way." ---------- Michael stayed in the living room for what had to be a good fifteen minutes until he was invited into the kitchen. He stood in the doorway until Gramma gestured to a chair at the table. Elizabeth and his Gramma sat down, but the other girl, Mallory, remained standing. He noticed she kept her eyes on him and he didn't like it, really. It was like she expected him to snap and do something horrible.

"Michael, it's okay," Elizabeth said.

The way she spoke made him think that it really was, that she wouldn't let anything hurt him, especially not the other girl in the room. He chose to sit beside her. Gramma might not want him to sit by her, and he didn't really know Mallory. He'd only met her that day when they'd arrived; he didn't even know why she was there.

"Michael," his gramma said, gaining his attention. She wasn't as upset as she had been yesterday, which had to be a good sign. "You know why I made you leave yesterday."

He did and he didn't, but he wasn't going to argue.

"You said you knew you were doing bad things and that you didn't know why you kept doing them."

"I don't know why."

"I think I do," Elizabeth said. "Your grandma told me about how you grew up overnight. That you are basically a four-year old in a sixteen-year old body."

Michael was hesitant to let her know that was true. How much weirdness could she take before she would want him gone like Gramma?

"As a four-year old, you will lash out when you're angry or scared. Like I said last night . . . you were defending yourself against that priest. You could have done it a different way, but . . . you were defending yourself."

"Yes!" Michael agreed. "That's what I said yesterday before –"

"She shouldn't have kicked you out," Elizabeth said, looking at Gramma. "I told you yesterday that Michael needs guidance. At that level of development – I'm speaking mentally, here – he has to have an adult lead him when he gets out of control. From what you said, you never did. Children need rules and boundaries. Some doctors even think they like them; it can make them feel safe because they know their parents, or whoever, care enough to set them."

Had Gramma ever given him rules or boundaries? He couldn't think of a time when she had. He didn't know if he wanted them.

"Mallory and your grandmother came up with a plan to help you, Michael."

Elizabeth gave him an encouraging smile and then gestured for Gramma to speak.

"It was Elizabeth who suggested it, actually," Gramma said. "She thinks she can help you if you stay with her for a while."

"Because you don't want me anymore."

"You'll still be able to see Constance," Elizabeth assured him. "Remember I live right down the street. You'll be able to come and go as you please."

"But your home will be my home?"

"Well, yes. That's why we're here, really. So you can bring some of your stuff with you."

"I – okay."

He really didn't mind. He couldn't. Elizabeth's house was the only one available to him at the moment, since Gramma didn't seem willing to let him come back permanently.

"Okay, so here are the rules."

Michael's shoulders tensed. He didn't like rules, not so much because they were rules but because he was sure he would end up breaking them. He always messed up, so it was sort of inevitable really.

"Relax, I only have two right now. That may change later, but right now I just want you to focus on not hurting or killing anyone or anything. Those are the most important things for me right now."

Oh. Michael was able to relax as Elizabeth had asked him to. Those weren't horrible rules at all and they were things he could remember because he never wanted to hurt anyone, it just sort of happened that way.

"I don't mean to."

"I think I believe you," Elizabeth said. "Still, it's something we're going to figure out, okay?"

"Okay. And . . . that's it?"

"For now."

"That doesn't seem too hard," Michael said and couldn't help but feel the warmth when Elizabeth smiled at him.

"I don't have anything a young boy would like at my house aside from a TV, so you need to pack up some of your stuff to take with us. Clothes, toys, games, whatever you might want."

He nodded but sat there until Elizabeth gave him leave to go. She wanted to talk to Gramma and Mallory again. ---------- Elizabeth watched Michael go up the stairs toward his room before turning to the other two women.

"How is he the anti-Christ? He's been nothing but nice and polite to me."

"You have yet to make him angry," Constance said.

"No. Mostly he's just been scared of being abandoned by me, which is understandable considering what happened yesterday."

"What happened once you took him home with you?" Mallory asked.

"There was a lot of crying. We ate pizza and watched TV. He fell asleep on the couch, and then I came over here. He was very upset when I got back because he woke up alone. He'd looked all over the house for me and when he couldn't find me, he went down into the basement and just . . . cried. That's where I found him."

Elizabeth shrugged. "I don't know who that man was in that thing you showed me, but it's not him. Or at least not yet. He hopefully won't ever be if I have anything to do with it. Psychologically, I think we can help him in as much as he'll allow us to."

"And if he doesn't allow us to?" Mallory asked.

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean, what if he gets to a point where he no longer wants to be good? Or no longer questions why he isn't?"

She didn't know what to say. She couldn't imagine Michael any other way than he was right then.

"You've already grown attached, haven't you? It's not just because he's a boy; it's because he's Michael."

"Who is a child," Elizabeth claimed. "He's . . . there's something about him. I've always sensed it, the youngness of him, even before finding out his true age. And I feel he deserves a chance. He knows my rules. If he breaks them, then it will have been his choice and . . . I will let him go." ---------- It didn't take long for Michael to pack the things he wanted – mostly his video games and everything that went with it, and clothes because Miss Elizabeth had mentioned them – and he went back downstairs to find the three women in the living room instead of the kitchen.

Was Miss Elizabeth ready to go? He stood there, taking his cues from her. She didn't sit down, so he didn't either.

"We can leave whenever you're ready, Michael."

"Well, I'm – I was just waiting for you."

She gestured to the front door then and he went ahead of her. He stopped at the door and turned back to face his gramma.

"Goodbye, Gramma," he said. "I hope I can become what you want, so I can come back one day."

She didn't say anything, but Michael noticed that her eyes filled with water. That had to be a good sign.

He didn't know Mallory so he didn't speak to her, and he began to move again once Miss Elizabeth put a hand on his jacket-covered arm. It was her cue to let him know she was ready to go.

Once outside Michael didn't look back, not as he had the day before. He had somewhere to go now and he could visit with Gramma when he wanted. This wasn't a permanent thing; he would get control of himself. Gramma would let him back in.

"We're going to drop your stuff off at the house and then I have to go to the store. I wasn't expecting a house guest," Miss Elizabeth said. Her tone didn't lead him to believe that he was a burden in anyway. In fact, she sounded almost playful.

"Can I go with you? I've never really been to a store before."

He still wasn't too keen on being alone, being without an adult. And he really hadn't been a lot of places most people had. He'd been a baby when Gramma had first taken him from his parents – his mother had died and his father had never claimed him, so it wasn't like she'd kidnapped him or anything, really – and she'd kept him for the years it had taken him to get to the point he was now. He'd been kept in the house mostly, and he hadn't been able to go out much at all since he'd gotten bigger. How would he or Gramma explain who he was and how fast he'd grown?

"All the time you were with Constance, she never let you go to the store with her?"

Michael shrugged before swinging the bag he was holding up over his shoulder.

"Gramma never really went to the store either. There were others before you. Men mostly."

"Hm. Okay, then. And . . . how do you feel about going with me? Around people you don't know."

Michael stopped walking as he thought about it. He wasn't feeling great about it, really, but he wasn't staying by himself in that house that wasn't really his.

"I'll be with you, right?"

"Yes."

"Then I should be fine. Just don't leave me." ---------- Elizabeth owned a small Ford Focus that Michael's head almost reached the ceiling of when he was seated in it. She laughed when she realized. She should have known; he was almost a whole head taller than she was.

"Think about some stuff you like to eat on the way."

She assumed he did because he wasn't talkative at all on the way to the store. She had the music on low but she didn't think either one of them was actually listening. It was mostly just background noise for her, anyway.

She couldn't believe what she'd agreed to do. The whole anti-Christ thing aside – if that was even true; she still wasn't sure about it – she was taking in someone who was basically a child. She was agreeing to help teach him wrong from right. She had impulsively made that decision because she felt sorry for the boy sitting across from her in the passenger seat. She still kind of felt sorry for him – his grandmother had given him up easily and willingly, so of course she felt sorry for him. Everyone deserved someone that would stand by their side and fight for them. So that was what she would strive to be as long as he didn't resort to murder again.

Once at the store Elizabeth noticed just how anxious it made Michael feel to be in place where he didn't know everyone. He stuck to her side much like an actual child would its mother when around strangers. She was surprised he didn't just grab onto her arm and hide behind her. She didn't know if it was from being shy or afraid, but it was one of the two. He had social anxiety, though, that was for sure.

"Are you sure you're okay to be here?"

"I'm fine," he answered quickly.

"Mm-hm."

She grabbed a cart then began making her way further into the store. She was planning on getting only a few things, things that Michael wanted, because she had enough stuff for her already at her house.

"Do you like cereal?"

"The sweet kind," Michael answered.

"So the unhealthy kind then," she teased.

He looked down as if she had berated him and she realized just how unused to casual affection and positive reinforcement he must be if he didn't understand that she was just messing with him.

"Hey, it's okay. I don't really like cereal that isn't sweet either." She touched his arm briefly. "I'm even letting you pick it out."

He basically beamed a smile at her and she could practically feel the enthusiasm bouncing off of him at the prospect of him getting to pick out the cereal. If that was indicative to how easily it would be to make him happy and keep him that way, then she figured having him as a housemate wouldn't be hard at all.

As they walked up and down the aisles, she had Michael point out things that he liked. They couldn't get everything that day, but at least she would know in the future. She noticed that he was really into things that had a lot of sugar in it. She didn't know if that was because he was four years old or if that was just him, but she got a few things to snack on – Oreos, chocolate chip cookies, and ice cream – that was specifically for him.

She went through the check out line with more things than she had originally planned, and she was surprised when Michael helped take the bags to the car. He was actually pretty strong, which shouldn't have surprised her. He was about fifteen or sixteen physically, so the bags weren't a problem.

Once at home Elizabeth went about showing Michael where everything went in the kitchen. If he was going to be staying there, he would at least need to know where the dishes and silverware were. She would not be waiting on him hand and foot.

"Earlier you said that you didn't mean to hurt people," Elizabeth said. "What did you mean by that?"

Michael stopped what he was doing – putting the cookies on top of the fridge – and turned to her. He looked at the floor and shrugged as if he didn't know what to say.

"Is it maybe that you lash out? You get angry . . . or scared?"

Again, he shrugged, and after a few seconds he shook his head.

"It's like I go away and when I come back . . . people are dead."

"Like something else takes over?"

"Yeah."

That would explain the priest in his room, and it confirmed her exorcism theory.

"And when you come back . . . do you ever remember how you got there?"

"I don't know. I mean . . . a few nights ago I remember going to Gramma's room. I wanted to know if I could have a glass of water. I remember that, and then I went away and when I came back, I was on top of her with my hands around her neck. She was scared and I got scared and I didn't know anything else. I don't remember getting on the bed and I definitely don't remember putting my hands around her neck, but . . . that's what happened."

Constance had failed to mention that particular incident.

"Were you angry at her at all before that?"

"I mean, I was a little upset because she kept telling me what to do, but she always told me what to do."

"Like what did she tell you to do?"

"The way I speak. She doesn't like it sometimes. I sometimes say 'Can I have a glass of water?' instead of "May I?" and she corrects me every time."

Elizabeth couldn't help herself; she laughed. Constance had a kid who would kill animals and had worked his way up to people, and she was correcting his grammar? Maybe the whole family was nuts.

"That would get annoying. Not enough to choke somebody," she clarified, "but it would get annoying. And you speak very well, so . . ."

"Thank you."

"Mm-hm. Go ahead and put the cookies up. And just so you know . . . you never have to ask for a glass of water here. Or food. If you're thirsty, get something to drink. If you're hungry, get something to eat."

"Okay."

From what Elizabeth had found out that day, Constance seemed to have kept Michael very sheltered and had been very strict in some ways, but not in the ways that mattered. Michael was very polite and almost sweet, in a way, and even though she now believed he had killed at least one person, she found him at least a little innocent because of the reason he'd killed them.

Add in the fact that he didn't seem to know he was doing it when he was, in fact, doing it, she wanted to help him more than ever.

She just hoped she could.

[whitneyrmcguireblog]

Looks

Making time to reevaluate childhood trauma as an adult before its too late. Sometimes I feel like i’m a passenger on a speeding jet, ascending into the air, my life, the landscape beyond my window. Everything feels like a blur. As I am working through upending fears to create joy, I have decided to write through this process as best I can. Feel free to leave feedback. Or not. Today’s fear: Looks. Read more below.

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I always took pride in being different. Standing out amongst the crowd whether it was because of my height, foot size, or sharp wit. I never stood out for the things I really wanted to, like looks. I remember once agonizing over the fact that I didn’t have lighter skin like my mother. We were leaving a grocery store parking lot when she stopped the car abruptly, “your are beautiful! Don’t ever discount your beauty,” she said with the same tone of command she used to shift the Buddhist gods into protection during her prayers. There is this theory that the Buddhist gods offer protection to those who inspire them to act through prayer. My mother had a way of activating these gods. Though deeper study of this religion, has revealed to me that these gods are actually just synonymous with the unspoken spiritual energy of human beings. Her commanding voice when it came to protecting her child made me feel simultaneously comforted and insecure. I learned early that the world offered little protection to those who looked like me (regardless of age) and that my mother would have to pray extra hard to make sure I didn’t fall victim to an accident or an act at the hands of someone who didn’t quite see the value of my life. I also learned at an early age that she, nor her prayers would be able to prevent either one of those things from happening to me.  

The first time I was asked why I didn’t wash my hair everyday I was three weeks into boarding school. I intentionally showered at night to avoid the morning rush of blonde haired, blue eyed girls in the shared bathroom. I also showered at night because it was my only bit of welcomed solitude amongst a flurry of freshman welcome events. There were 40 of us admitted to St. George’s that year — Twenty girls and twenty boys. I was the only dark-skinned black girl in my class. And apparently the only one who had never gone to sleep away camp. The boys had more company, counting four amongst themselves with deeper hued epidermis and tightly coiled hair that I ended up knowing intimately due to the absence of adequate barber services for black boys in the traditional seaport town of Newport, R.I. I doubt the Vanderbilts contemplated the need for such services when they erected one of their many mansions in the popular seaside town decades prior to our arrival. Regardless, I honed my hair braiding skills (for a ten dollar fee) over the next four years and my retort to the inquiry of less frequent washing. But the first time I had to answer this question, I paused. Quite frankly, I had never really thought of washing my hair everyday. I just knew I didn’t have the time, nor the tools to tackle my chemically processed strands the way my hair dresser did back in Dayton, Ohio. “It takes me a long time to straighten it after I wash it. I have to go to someone special to do it.” A look of confusing and eventual acceptance swept across her face and that was that. This was the first time I understood that I would have a lot more explaining to do these next few years, and the last time I would make the mistake of showering in the morning that semester.

My inquirer’s name was Madeline. She was a 5’4” thin girl with large green eyes. Her hair was wavy and the blondest I had ever seen on a person outside of an albino person. She was strikingly beautiful with facial features of a baby leopard. She hailed from somewhere in the south and also somewhere from the north as the result of divorced parents. I related to being pulled in opposite directions and the sweet reprieve of being away from the rigors of delicate emotional labor to prove to both parents they were loved equally. We became friends quickly and she invited me into spaces i otherwise may not have gained entry into. Like Whip-It sessions after “lights out” in the dorm. Despite her invitations, the acceptance of others who felt comfortable with her was not afforded to me. Maybe it was because I never did drugs with them.

I lived with a Latina from East New York. We quickly realized we were made to share a room that year because we were the only two racial minorities in the class of boarding students that year. We hated each other. I often came back to my dorm room with pants, underwear, and pens stolen only to find them in her dirty clothes hamper once my theory that she might be the culprit surfaced within the first three weeks of our arrival. Our school was on a hill top, surrounded by three beaches. Even amidst this picturesque setting, the details of my experience were littered with conundrums often stemming from the fact that I apparently had a lot more to lose than my classmates. Walking a tight rope of assimilation, which so far, wasn’t boding so well, and the intrinsic reflex to “knock a bitch out,” became a daily exercise. The last time I heard her speaking to my boyfriend in a flirtatious way while I laid above her in our bunk beds, I snapped. “What the fuck are you really doing?” I asked harkening back to my days in Dayton when I had to have both bark and bite to fit in with my classmates whose vocabulary’s were less evolved and enunciation was not as refined. “You talk white,” became a mantra for them before I stopped speaking and lunged at the main culprit of the group in fifth grade resulting in detention for weeks. This was also the first time I realized, I circumvent logic when catalyzed by anger. And the last time someone in that school told me I talk White.

I jumped down from my bunk bed and began a series of expletive ridden diatribes, somewhat still trying to insert a bit of stern compassion, or evoke some from her. We were, after all, the only minority girls in our class. She laughed. I got louder. Soon my dorm parents, and a few of the girls on our floor were crowded outside our dorm room. She remained silent and as I finished that good ol’ cussout, I became uncomfortably aware of the fact that I now had an audience and they weren’t coming to defend me. Tina, my roommate had more palatable features. She was light skinned with thick dark eyebrows, a chiseled nose and full lips. In fact, all of the black guys in the school complimented her on her looks whenever I was around and I’m sure more often when I was not. My boyfriend at the time was a tall brown-skinned junior from Pine Bluff, Arkansas and he spoke so slowly and with such a deep southern drawl, I often questioned his intelligence and whether he was worthy to have been afforded entry into our school. He too gained admittance, as many of us did, via a financial scholarship. I dumped him on Valentine’s day, just three days after this altercation. It also happened to be his birthday. My dorm parent, a Chinese man from Taiwan had just moved his family to Newport two months prior. His name was Mr. Wong and I often participated in singing a song employed by one of the more rebellious blondes on my floor whenever she protested his authority, which was often. All I remember from the song is the melody and instead of saying “the wrong way,” we substituted his name: “the Wong Way.” He laughed with us until it wasn’t funny anymore. Unfortunately for me, it had stopped being funny just before Tina incited this debacle. “Uh Miss Megwere,” I am giving you a green card. I could hear gasps from the growing crowd outside of my door. Green cards were one’s ticket to entry into boarding school’s version of detention— Early Morning Proctored Study Hall. And despite the cajoling of my rebellious blonde friend, Abagale, I in fact was the first to receive an infraction for my behavior in the dorm. “But, SHE IS TALKING TO MY BOYFRIEND ON THE PHONE AND FLIRTING WITH HIM!!” I pleaded for logic to infiltrate his heart and that he would renege on the offer to admonish me into early morning study hall, but the insignificance of teenage girl drama deafened his ears. “No no no, I am giving your a green card. Everyone back to your rooms and lights out!” The door closed and Tina wished me an ironic “good night.”

[inspirationallyinsane]

January 7, 2017

I just got off the phone with my mother and I am very upset. I left Chapman University to go to the cheapest school I could just to appease my parents and it's still a fucking issue. I can only take three classes this semester because those are the only classes open that would give me proper credits and that don't have a prereq that I needed to take in the fall. I literally can't take any other classes. But my mother is still mad at me because I'm only taking three classes and "we don't pay per unit, we just pay for the semester" so I should be taking 18 credits which I actually can't do until my third semester at this disgusting school which I told my mother but she doesn't seem to be able to process information properly and continues to insist I take more classes despite the fact that I CAN'T TAKE MORE EVEN IF I WANTED TO. NOTHING IS OPEN. I CAN'T. She is mad at me for not FIXING the school. A school that I hate. A school that I don't want to go to. In a location that I have despised my entire goddamn life. I am doing this for them. I could have transferred to another school in LA if I didn't love Chapman. I could have gone to a school that was just as expensive. I could have chosen LMU or fucking Pepperdine but I didn't. I didn't do it because my parents couldn't pay for those schools (even though apparently they can pay for 850 dollar dinners and spa trips and shopping sprees. Even though they can afford to buy all new glasses for parties and new blenders. I'm shopping at the goddamn dollar store for food, buying cranberry juice which has a warning saying it can make me infertile to try to save money and they aren't doing fucking shit to save money). Cutting organic foods out of your life, not spending 300 dollars two times a week at the grocery store, that is not saving money. That is living like a normal fucking person. They must think I'm fucking stupid that I wouldn't notice that they're spending all this money on all this unnecessary shit. They put me in this 750 dollar a month apartment in Ashland, like if we were actually trying to save money, if my life was a burden to them financially, I could have gotten an apartment in phoenix or talent for 300 dollars a month or less. It is insanity. My mother is pissed off that I am going to spend more time and money in school than what is absolutely necessary but guess what??? She spent 5 and a half years in college?? She switched her major after she finished a different one!!!! How is that any better or different??? She's talking to me like "Oh I went to college I did 18 credits" Yea well guess the fuck what??? We are different people in different situations?? You had your classes handed to you because you were on the basketball team going to a goddamn community college. I don't have priority classes. I don't get to sign up first and since I had to transfer schools so you wouldn't have to stress out about paying for my school, I was the very last person to register. There is nothing available for me. Nothing. I COULDN'T TAKE THE CLASSES IF I WANTED TO. WHICH I DID. I emailed my academic advisor four times to try to get into the advanced German class I tested into but I can't get into the class. The system is 'broken'. And now according to my mom that is somehow my fault. It is my fault I had to transfer schools. How is this my fault?? After that whole debacle in May that whole conversation we had this is my fucking fault. I desperately wish I just didn’t give a shit but I do. I want my parents to be proud of me. I came back home, even though I can’t live in my home, just so they’d be better off. This is all for them and they can’t give me one ounce of sympathy or understanding. I am trying my best. I don’t even have a bed to sleep on. I can’t even afford a mattress at this point. I have nowhere to put my clothes, I got my furniture from habitat for humanity. My lifestyle has changed so dramatically over the last few months and theirs has hardly changed at all. I go grocery shopping with my father and it isn’t about the prices for him. He doesn’t even look at the prices. But I have to go to the dollar store. The pasta at the dollar store doesn’t get soft. You can boil the shit out of it, put butter in it, put sauces on it, it never gets soft. It’s all chemicals. It makes me feel sick but that’s what I am eating because I am trying to save money to buy a mattress. And my mom is pissed off because I don’t play basketball and I don’t have a job and I’m only taking three classes (which no matter how much I explain that I can’t take more, she does not listen to me). I’ve been here for two weeks. Two fucking weeks. I am working on getting school settled, trying to find loopholes to sign up for more classes just to make her happy. I tested into the most advanced German class because I actually made an effort to study beforehand because I knew I couldn’t take a fourth class unless I tested into it. Apparently I can’t take the class anyway. I am planning on getting a job. I have to. I have to buy a mattress and that money has to come from me. I can’t keep buying my food from the dollar store and that money has to come from me. And I wouldn’t be mad if my family actually couldn’t afford to support me. I would do anything for them. I would switch schools and move back to a place I hate for them. To help them afford me. But when they’re out spending money on clothes and spas and vacations and 850 dollar dinners for four people, I get upset. Do you know how long 850 dollars would last me?? 850 dollars in extra funds. It would mean the goddamn world and to throw that away on one dinner which included my brother’s girlfriend of three months?? Fucking ridiculous. My parents can say they can’t afford to give me anything else all they want and maybe they can’t when they’re spending so much on themselves but I see that money and I see them spending it on themselves and I can’t imagine what else they are buying, the things I can’t see. The new clothes I don’t see, the grocery trips I’m not there for. It hurts my heart. I feel like they don’t care. They care more about getting themselves nice things and fun experiences than their daughter eating properly and having a fucking bed to sleep in. But I’m somehow the financial problem. I’m the burden because I am not taking 18 credits. 18 credits I would take if I were allowed to because I would let myself get walked over and force myself into classes I hate just so they would say that I am doing something right. It’s shit. I’m tired of it. I’m tired. I listen to all their shit about each other constantly, since I was fucking 12 years old, both of them shitting on each other to me, I took that for six years. I still do. It’s fucked up. And they can’t even support me financially when they have the funds to do so. I’m not asking for anything excessive. I just don’t want to be shit all over for taking the classes the school signed me up for, the only classes available to me, the classes that were given to me by my academic advisor which I made the effort to go and see and email multiple times just to make sure I was doing all I could. And I would like enough money to shop at Albertsons and buy things that are on sale. I don’t even want the nice things. I buy soy and almond milk because it is almost always on sale and usually two dollars cheaper than regular milk. Do you know that soy milk is a bit chunky? It is not smooth like normal milk, it has the consistency of milk that has gone bad for a few days. I try to make the best of it saying that it tastes better or whatever but last week the love of my life gave me 20 dollars to treat myself to a nice dinner and so I bought regular milk for the first time in months and it is amazing. I am so happy. I bought real pasta that gets soft when you boil it and I bought a bag of salad and I bought cheese that melts (dollar store cheese doesn’t melt. It tastes like plastic. I think it might actually be plastic). It was a like a dream. I am drowning worrying about my financial situation and trying to spend as little as I can so my parents don’t have to give me more money but the longer I do this for the more they seem to be spending and the less I seem to be getting. I’m exhausted. I’m tired of worrying about them and myself when they clearly don’t need to be worried about. I know that eating ramen noodles every night is part of the college experience but guess what?? I can’t even afford to do that!!!!! Those are one dollar per cup. I can’t afford that shit. I have to buy bulk noodles for a dollar. Everyone knows what cup noodles taste like. Now imagine a cheaper version of that. It is hard to believe it even exists. I cut myself the other day because I have to open bags with a knife that I stole. I can’t afford scissors and I don’t steal things anymore so I have to use the old shit I used to take. I really can’t even buy bandaids and neosporin for it. I’ve been wrapping my cut in tissues and using wet wipes to clean it. Although I’m sure I’ll run out of those soon too and I’ll have to start using clorox to clean it which I know is terrible for me. Did you guys know that dollar store soap doesn’t get soapy? Like it doesn’t make the bubbles that normal soap makes. It just kind of slides around and then disappears. I’m banking on the fact that it actually does wash my hands but honestly I don’t really know. I don’t mean to complain so much but everything feels like shit right now. I need help and I need support. I just want someone to take care of me. I know this is what it is to be an adult but I feel like I was thrust into it too fast. It is such a dramatic lifestyle change for me and I am not handling it well at all. I am trying my best for everyone else and everyone is still mad at me. I want to try my best for me. I want to take creative writing classes or film classes and not have to worry about my parents going into crippling debt because I’m an artsy type of person. I’m willing to go into something I lowkey hate for them. I’m taking these math and science classes for them. None of it’s for me and they still want me to do more for them. None of this is for me. I could be living in a two bedroom apartment in medford or talent with my boyfriend but I am stuck here in this shithole because my mother insisted this is what I wanted. Is this for me? Is this what it means to be living my life the way I want to? I am making these decisions, they are my decisions, but they are not for me. They are for people who would rather spend thousands of dollars on their own parties and dinners and experiences than give their daughter money for proper food. I don’t know how I feel anymore. I want to be ok. I don’t even need to be happy. That would be asking too much. Everything is so different now. I’m tired. I’m so tired. I just want a little help.