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 above all, 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, stamped with the logo of a famous laundry detergent. An image that will forever tease my mind. 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. 

Even now I couldn’t beg them to understand. I was, after all, meant to rise above my predecessors. Meant to be better and smarter than my teachers. Meant to be wise beyond my years just because.

I was to override the learned fear of anger and replace it with a feigned desire to be honest. To go against the intrinsic nature of innocence plagued by weariness. And when I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, hell hath no fury like a man scorned. Hell hath no fury like the result of an opposition towards the one he loved more. Loves more. 

And so I went my own way, searching for an answer to the questions that nipped at my mind, body, and soul. Any remedy to quell my inner aching that seemed to expand like the universe until I was wound and bound by it. A theme I would become all too familiar with, whose results would alter the course of my one life on this earth.

I have tried to come to terms with my reality, to perhaps shape it into something else, but have fallen short with every try.

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. 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 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 which consisted mainly of teenage boys who wanted nothing to do with my meaningful friendship; but instead fancied my body, my forced laughter, or using me as a punchline for the impressionable.

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

For me to be one of them, there would be nothing greater. Until that night. 

Lurking in the shadows behind a funeral home which had only been erected a year prior, I had replaced my usual squad of miscreants with the likes of 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 of the word, 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. Eventually.

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. 

To my delight, at around the twenty minute mark, I was greeted by a fluffy white cat who jumped promptly onto my lap and began purring. I’d like to think it could sense my discomfort and acted in solidarity, but it was probably just my version of Alice’s white rabbit.

Just as the clock struck that fateful hour, what I could only describe as a weightless ephemeral bliss took over.

It was as if 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, and that anything I desired was within my grasp.

I was unstoppable, lovable, clever, and witty. 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 simply existing in my body. A feeling I’d never known was possible. I listened to the boys talk like it was the greatest show on earth, and every word that came out of my mouth 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-assurance of the tablets. After all, what else could it have been? Certainly not some undiscovered intelligence I already possessed, no.

And that was how it all began, the ending of my innocence. The epilogue of the kid. The desire to feel good overriding the obligation to just work through it; to look it in the eye and not run away when what I see is horrifying , when what I see is the hideous disappointment of being let down. Of being failed.

In a way, the rest is history. 

But truthfully, it was all just beginning, and I’d unknowingly given myself a taste of the grim reaper’s hypnotic elixir. A poison I would crave, then resent, then crave again for years to come. The cyclical nature of slapping a bandaid on a gushing open wound.

Only now, I treat the injury with the tenderness of a mother to her coughing child. I tend to it carefully, fondly, 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. And together they decided that the epilogue of the kid was no epilogue after all, instead it was the prologue of the woman they were writing. And it was a beautiful story indeed; one yet to be fully written, with all the possibility and wonder she had dreamt of.