There was a time where I found myself lying about my conditions to me.
Make-believe is not a bad thing if you are making become what you are believing.
I held an inner arrogance about myself to me by high school. Ignoring the bathroom walls and background, I would look at my reflection in the mirror and silently to myself, tell me I looked great, amazing and unstoppable.
Upon seeing this attitude with the young around to even my husband who will half-jokingly proclaim such words with me when he looks at himself in the mirror, I know the feeling.
I see this now. Such resilience is necessary for the fighter inside where the heart, mind, body, and spirit all await for that daily sustenance like food and water.
What I envisioned in my mind was not in actuality but pure belief it could be so that my heart felt loved, my spirit felt alive, and my body, strong and able to keep on keeping on.
From junior high on up, following my brother’s passing, I began to see the world even more within my mind, not my eyes.
Seeing Mama and Papa move on as if nothing happened kept me in silent turmoil. I didn’t know I was grieving from a loss. Most importantly, all around were too busy to take note as they worked out their own grieving.
I recall moving into a rental home, back to a school I had only attended for less than a year following yet another two schools I had attended in another town.
This time, it was a rental home. The center of the kitchen was not leveled, an obvious growing mound toward the center that no one verbally acknowledged.
That’s how strength continues- see something, say nothing at all.
Time moved and all moved with time.
The pattern of survival for the heart, mind, body, and spirit may not have ever looked the same outwardly, but the persevering flow within was similar.
It had only been about less than two months since we lowered my brother’s body down into the ground where I found myself in this newest rental.
Most likely not passing full inspection in today’s checkpoint rental criteria but the owner, owning a plumbing business across, seemed happy for us to have taken the home under our care.
Having just left a town after two years where we were the minority to now find ourselves back amongst sameness on the outside created back that comfort for the family of not having been looked at no longer as the outsider.
The interesting part about being with sameness on the outside is, while you may share exterior characteristics, human expression and behaviors have shown me that there is still the desire to be better than those around.
Many times where if one can see themselves the hammer and you the nail, you get the pounding even at unnecessary, unwarranted times.
Caring for our clothes so washing and drying them were at minimal at a laundromat while walking across to school to finish my last year in elementary was focus, day by day, week by week. Again.
Just a different home for the heart, mind, body, and spirit to find, if not, create, joy and rest.
My beloved brother had given me the brief gift of instructionon how to use a sewing machine. I knew no sort of event for school shopping as my life never had one growing up.
I wore what I was given, most, if not all, handed down by my brothers and sister.
A cousin of mine, mentioning new clothes for school placed me in silence of thought.
Having heard her report to me, I smiled at her blessings but already with a plan in mind to reach the same feels of excitement I saw in her eyes myself.
With scissors, I took apart for the very first time, a hand-me-down given to me by an older cousin several years back that had gotten too small to make myself a two-part outfit.
I was in sixth grade going into seventh.
I remember my focused and determined actions as if they had been yesterday.
The dress was white with thin blue lines. And, yes, and so, upon a finish, I walked into junior high with my new outfit.
I recall my older cousin, upon seeing me, half-jokingly ask me where I got the outfit.
From a bird’s eye recall, I remember happily telling her I had put it together myself.
I’ll never forget her saying, “It’s nice, Anne-Anne.”
Others joked about my rolled down knee-highs that year but I laughed with them.
Others joked about the soles of my shoes that flipped open when I walked but I laughed with them.
It was okay to laugh about my outside presence. Inside, I was great, amazing, and unstoppable.
I walked and talked my way out of junior high, even while having to attend two. My mind listened to my spirit and so, my heart and body followed me out and into high school, chin up and all.
Arrogance with an attitude helped me through. Every day. Each day. Any day.
My head stayed high.
The jokes may have been on me and my interesting choice of clothing, but I always made sure I laughed the hardest each time.
I won to a point of me not being funny anymore all the way through high school.
So, when I held a fashion show for my senior high project, inviting an auditorium full of where I watched on screen the very stage Kenny G played upon his private visit to the same high school he attednded from a screen broadcast, I heard no laugh.
With the help of my amazing cheer mates as my models, I heard only applause from the audience.
I recall my Humanities teacher commenting how surprised she was that the theater auditorium had filled up as she hadn’t known I actually had invited other classes.
Why wouldn’t I have? I was great, amazing, and unstoppable.
Thank you, brother John-John, for the quick sewing lesson.
It paid off.
I may be awkwardly different, but I kind of like that in me.
To this day, I enjoy holding the first and last laugh.
Still.
