The Epilogue of the Kid

At the sweetest age I found myself at an impasse that would inevitably curate my life’s permanent path.

Reckless abandon met with a crippling curiosity and a desire to feel level. To feel at ease. I couldn’t help myself; the looming illness and words like daggers from my father’s mouth: I was a bitch, a slut, and perhaps above all, I was dumb.

Dumb and looking for severance from the pain of constant turbulence. Severance from the unrelenting uncertainty of what awaited at home. I had accepted that this reality, this home life, was incurable, and so the only way to survive was to adapt. 

Lo and behold it found me; beautifully milky and pristine, and stamped with the logo of a famous laundry detergent. An image that would tease my mind for years. Perhaps when I am met with the holy magistrate, the one guarding his dripping arch of pearls, those little white tablets will be among them.

Memory keeping hold of that very first hit with a clenched fist. Keeping it safe.

I was, after all, meant to rise above my predecessors. Meant to be wise beyond my years just because. If I wanted to survive the day-to-day, I had to override the sensation of walking on eggshells which greeted me upon walking through that dreaded door. And when I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, hell hath no fury like a man who believes he’s been scorned. Hell hath no fury like the result of an opposition towards the other young one.

And so I went my own way, searching for an answer to the questions that nipped at my mind constantly. Any remedy to quell my inner aching that seemed to expand like the universe until I was wound and bound by it.

I have tried to come to terms with my reality – my past – to perhaps shape it into something else, but have fallen short with every attempt at romanticizing it in the present.

And so I identify with it. Treat it like an old familiar friend, one you’d like to keep at arm’s length for fear of getting trapped in their downward spiral once again. And it all began then, at the sweetest age. 

I examined that round little cure-all with a wonder I once reserved for the extraordinary. But to me, it was. And maybe I could be, too. Maybe together we could be great. 

I had always viewed myself as one of the boys. Or at least I wanted to view myself that way. I never considered what it meant to be an ally, a feminist, a “girl’s girl” until at least a decade later. I have a distinct memory of telling my mother that the term Girl Power disgusted me. It was lame, pitiful, and made me feel ashamed.

I wanted the respect so easily given to the boys; their innate strength, or so I thought, and none of the hurdles placed upon me at birth. I wanted freedom at a level I could not grasp, could not even imagine. I always wished that I’d been born a boy. Not enough to change myself on a physical level, not enough to actually become someone else, but enough to recognize the duality of existing in my skin. Enough to be bitter.

I settled for a group of friends that consisted mainly of teenage boys who wanted nothing to do with my meaningful friendship. I was a punchline, a wingman, and on the rare day I abandoned my wardrobe of jeans and a black graphic t-shirt, I was the token pretty girl of the group.

I took it in stride, took it on proudly, and felt that my inclusion was earned. I looked up to them starry-eyed, wanting nothing more than to receive their wholehearted approval. For their laughter to echo through the room in response to something I had said.

To become a truly valued member of their group, there would be nothing greater. Until that night. 

Lurking behind a funeral home which had only been erected a year prior, I had replaced my usual squad of miscreants with lawbreakers and incendiaries. Their antics made me feel alive, like I was part of an exclusive club whose members kept secrets I wanted in on.

In truth they were only slightly older than myself, still kids in every sense, but they existed on the fringe. A place where you didn’t have to fit in, in fact, you were encouraged not to. And what a relief it was to learn such a place existed, let alone that they might let me in. 

Bottoms up, down the hatch, and only twenty minutes to wait. It was a frigid autumn evening, and we walked to his friend’s house – or rather, his friend’s mother’s house – to occupy the time. I was promptly handed another substance to keep my mind straight.

It hit me like an earthquake: My vision blurred, and a fuzzy restlessness forced its way into my brain. It was too much for me to handle, too intense, but I refused to show my discomfort to these much older, much cooler boys who had taken me in. Keep your cool, remember to breathe, this too shall pass.

I found myself in a dimly lit room with couches on either side, and a haze in the air so thick I couldn’t be sure if I was breathing oxygen or some sort of evaporated solid mass. A nauseating combination of the smell and the secondary smell trying to mask it. 

Then, just as I’d almost forgotten why we were there, the clock struck twenty-after. And what I could only describe as a weightless ephemeral bliss took over.

It was like every individual cell in my body was dancing, alive, and renewed. The inner monologue that constantly tried to convince me I was acting strange, that I had said something weird, was silenced in a heartbeat. Replacing it was the self-assuredness of a God. The sharp and sure sensation that I was precisely where I was meant to be, doing exactly what I was meant to be doing, was palpable.

I was unstoppable, lovable, and most of all, capable. This was, as I knew it, the very best version of myself.  It had to be.

All I could do was laugh. A timid giggle at first, until I finally let myself unleash a bellowing belly-laughter into the room. I had never in my life known such joy as this. Not even a surprise trip to Disneyland as a child could compare to the sheer elation of those little white tablets.

I sat on that couch smiling like a fool; soaking in the comfort of existing in my skin, bathing in an all-encompassing pleasure of simply being alive. It was a feeling I didn’t know was possible. I listened to the boys talk like it was the greatest show on earth, and I knew for sure that every word I spoke in response was nothing short of genius.

A switch had been flipped on, and there was nothing anyone could do or say to make me want to turn it off again. This, and this alone, was all I needed to be happy. Really happy. 

Twenty dollars earned from my very first job granted me access to five of those pretty little pellets. A small price to pay for my overall well-being, I thought. One, or sometimes half, to get me through my day at school, then my other favourite antidote to help me sleep at night. It was the perfect, harmonious balance. 

I aced tests and applied myself in class like never before. Math, which had always been notoriously difficult for me to grasp, was suddenly interesting, and the equations fell together with ease. I got an A on a biology exam I was completely unprepared for and attributed it entirely to the self-assuredness of the tablets.

After all, what else could it have been? Certainly not some undiscovered intelligence I’d always possessed, no, no.

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And that was how it all began. The desire to feel good overriding the obligation to just work through it. I was not ready then, not strong enough yet, to look my demons in the eye and stop myself from running when what I saw terrified me.

I’d instead unknowingly given myself a taste of the grim reaper’s elixir. A poison I would crave, then resent, then crave again, for many years to come.

The cyclical nature of slapping a bandaid on a gushing open wound.

Now, over a decade past that fateful night behind the funeral home, I treat the injury with the tenderness of a loving mother. I tend to it carefully and allow it to bleed when it needs the release. I do not force it closed or cauterize it when the blood flows long; only when I can tell it’s looking for a new stitch, a caring touch, do I pierce the thread through delicately.

And this is how the kid and the scar she gave herself became one; a force to be reckoned with, a formidable yin and yang. This is how they decided together that the epilogue of the kid was more like the prologue of the woman, and so they chose to walk hand in hand toward the unknown in search of something greater. Together as a singular unit, finally unified in all that came before, with a gentle understanding that regret has no place in the next chapter’s garden. Together in strength and backed by the self-assuredness of each gracious battle scar.