Part Two:
In my previous post, I talked about how I ran paper routes for most of my childhood and left off at getting a new house in 2001 and quitting the routes. By then I was a little into my eigth grade year. I just started Algebra one, and struggled through that course. I also took my third year of band, where I became the second best clairnet player in the group (my teacher said so). I even had two close friends that I spent a lot of time with. Maybe I should tell about that one too. In my first year of band, I met a flute player, "M", she and I start just talking and we ended up becoming friends.
However, in my seventh grade year, talked to this other flute player, "L", and we also became friends. I couldn't have been happier. I used to consider my outcast back in those days so having two friends was a blessing to me. In my 7th grade days, I also wanted to get closer to the Lord. Though our youth minister at the time did nothing to make me feel welcome or special in the youth group, I still wanted a relationship with Christ. I talked this over with L and she told me about her salvation. I didn't become a Christian right then. I knew that I needed to pray about this more. Around that time, jealousy ensued. M didn't want me to hang out with L because she felt like I was giving more time to her. I didn't care either way and continued to divide my time. Then it all stopped.
Ah, I forgot to mention a very important happenening in our first year at our school. My mom became a part of the Parent Advisory Team, a group of parents who helped decide where money should be spent, classes, and other things. Though she wasn't qualified (because you had to have been at the school for a year), she got on anyway. That began another chapter in our crazy lives. Don't get me wrong, we liked being busy but sometimes you need a break. Also in my seventh grade, I started talking to another girl. She was new and I wanted her to feel welcome. I took a creative writing class with a really nice teacher. However, trouble ensued on the final project of the class, a video project. The boys had enough members to have one team while the girls split into two. I had a lot of people I knew on mine. However, things went wrong from the very start. We couldn't get our video equipment to work and couldn't borrow the school's because they only had one camera, used by the boys.
When the unveiling of our project came about, we had about two minutes of our work. That was it. We were humiliated and the boys make jabs at us. We left that class in tears. I told my mom, who told the principle. I dropped the class. However, the new girl that I was talking to was joining the next part of that class. I was talking to her about our schedules and was telling her how good the class was, even though I had a bad experience. The teacher thought I was bad mouthing him and got angry at me. He claimed that he never heard the comments from the boys and that I was a horrible person. That added more to my hurt. (Later he got fired for throwing objects at students.)
Now in the seventh grade, I was thirteen. I had already started to write my first story (which no one will ever read) called Saraki's Big Adventure. I was so proud of that work as well. Of course no one ever read a the few pages I had written because I didn't want them to know about it. So I continued writing and started another peace called Planet Ice-Cream (every bit as horrorfying as it sounds). I also had two songs written. One called "She Didn't Go There" and another "Where R U Going?". As I mentioned before, my songs were very much influenced by the first CDs my parents bought us (us being my older sister and I). The first three that we owned were "WOW Hits 2003", Steven Curtis Chapan's "Declaration", and Zoegirl's "Life". Those were our lifelines at the time and our first exposure to "Christian" music. All of what we played before was in band.
Seventh grade turned into eighth and I talked to more people. My mom quit her job as a warehouse manager and could actually be involved in our lives more. We were all excited at this. However, our cars broke down. We got a purple van to preplace our old one. We repaired our Ford and it got better gas mileage than before. At that time, my older sister skipped her Algebra assignments and ended up with a severe punishment for doing so. I was horrified and the lessons I skipped, I went right ahead and made them up. At that point, I didn't write as much as I would've liked. But that didn't matter. When I was in that grade, some demons started to attack me. This happened around the same time as my youth minister left our church for being involved in an affair with another member (both of them married). Even though I didn't know the minister that well, I was still impacted.
That began the tipping point in my life. I still knew about God and His existence, yes. However, I hated church. I never wanted to go but would. Sometimes I would feign illness to get out of going. Headaches for me became very common along with migraines. So I used those to get out of church. I admit that I shouldn't have, but I did. I'm ashamed of that part of my past. I also was teased about my weight. I wasn't heavy, in fact I looked anorexic. Even though I was super skinny, I ate like a pig. I could eat and eat and never gain an ounce. However, M, who was a little on the heavy side, delievered the most teasing. I hated myself. I hated causing pain to my friend because she wasn't as light as me. I cut my hip. I knew about cutting and that if you cut your wrists, people would notice. I had no way to disguise that so I cut a less obvious spot. Never once did the blade cut real deep. However, I still cut myself. I began to fall into a deep depression that no one knew. My life became a facade. No one could tell that I was unhappy.
End Part Two
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