Trapped In Between. Marilyn Elaine Lundberg Lundberg

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СКАЧАТЬ my cheeks, and then cover my face, ears, neck and hairline. The blush disgusted me. The times that I did quickly check my reflection, I used light from a faraway window or would crack open the door to catch light from the adjacent room. I chose to never illuminate my reflection at home, because in the dark you couldn’t see the red. In the school bathrooms I just looked down as I washed my hands. That shows you how serious the shyness and timidity had overtaken me.

      My saving grace was still the wonderful school playground and my Tiger kitty. Evenings and weekends my two friends and I would play anything with a ball. Softball, whiffle ball, kickball, dodgeball or fly our kites. I was a natural at sports because it all came easy for me. The playground was my heaven on earth. I had no stress on the grassy fields, I was jubilant and free as a bird in that park-like setting.

      My friend and her little sister never teased me; they were true friends and compassionate to me. If we were walking down the street together, and other kids were walking toward us they would say, “Try and close your lips so that they won’t tease you, or quick let’s walk the other way.” They were both kindhearted and gracious to me.

      I also adored gym class. If teams were picked, I was the first girl to be chosen. This was the only time at school where I could be myself, free of anxiety and fear. I could run like the wind, nimbly climb a rope or throw a ball as far as any of the other boys. Sports handed me the confidence that I lacked during time spent in Miss S’s classroom, but unfortunately gym class was only an hour a day.

      There was only one area of gym class that threw me for a loop. I was terrified to do summersaults. I had a bad experience once in which I pinched my neck and couldn’t breathe, and so now I had a fear of those nasty things. I always tried to wear a dress on summersault day so that I didn’t have to participate. I now had four big fears in my life, and those were being teased about my teeth, blushing, oral book reports and icky summersaults. My little mind worried about these four events continuously, always trying to figure out a way to escape them.

      One sunny afternoon after school, I was playing in the schoolyard with my one friend, and two older girls came toward us and started teasing me about my teeth. They dragged us both by our arms to a quiet alley adjacent to the school and began with verbal insults which progressed to beating us up. Towards the end of the encounter, one of them took my arms and swung me around and around. They let go and I was tossed face first on to the pavement. I got away running home as fast as I could with my face and hands bleeding.

      Through the blood and tears, I told my mom everything that happened to us and I showed her the damage that those mean bullies had done to me. I wanted mom to storm across the street into the alley, find those girls and punish them. She wiped away my tears, but she didn’t do anything at all. I was so frustrated at her; why didn’t she defend me?

      It couldn’t have been more than a couple weeks later, and Mom and I were on the bus heading downtown. Wouldn’t you know, one of the girls that beat me up came and sat down right across from our seat. At first the girl look scared. I whispered to my mom, “That’s the girl that beat me up in the schoolyard!” Again, my mom didn’t do or say anything. After a bit the girl smiled an ugly smile at me. She knew that she could smack me again anytime she wanted to. I thought to myself, the playground is no longer a safe haven for me.

      As the nasty girl continued looking at me and my mom, I was just sick and stared only at the floor. I longed for someone, anyone to protect me from all the pain in the world. The pain of getting beat up at school didn't hurt nearly as bad as the fact that mom didn’t defend me. Moms are always supposed to shield their children from harm. My mom didn’t do or say anything at all.

      That was actually the second time something like that happened. I had a memory of an older boy that had lured me into his house when I was less than five years old. This happened in the first house that I had lived in on Colfax Avenue. I remembered being too little to reach the latch to get myself out, and was trapped in that house for a long time with that boy. When he finally released me I ran home crying and told mom, but she didn’t say or do anything to that boy either. I thought to myself when I was five, that it wasn’t safe to go outside. Who knows who is going to get you next?

      Around the middle of the fifth grade I started to notice some changes in my mom, maybe they had always been there, but I had no memories of the past. As she would wash dishes she would start having a dialogue with herself in an extremely angry and loud voice. It was like she was having a big disagreement with someone in the kitchen, but there wasn’t anyone there with her. It frightened me when she would act this way. I would sit in the tan rocking chair and rock even harder when I would hear her fight. If my dad was in the living room with me, he would kind of wink at me as if to say, everything’s okay.

      My way of controlling her outlandish dialogue would be to call out to her saying, “Mom, did you say something to me?” She would say, “No, I am just singing.” At that point she would begin humming a tune and then in a short moment the angry voice would again emerge. This event happened in our kitchen or other parts of the house multiple times each day. This behavior greatly upset me, and I just couldn’t stand the heated battles that she had with the invisible people in the kitchen. It made my stomach sick. I was only eleven years old and I wasn’t equipped to help her, but I wanted to. I rather wished that she would talk to ME, but she was usually very busy with her full-time job, all the housework that she needed to attend to, and those private angry conversations.

      Mom was also educating me regarding facts that didn’t seem quite right to me. If I was on the phone, she would tell me to make my phone call short, because people were listening in on my phone conversations. There used to be a time when we had a party line, but those days were over so I wasn’t sure who she thought was listening. She also said that people were watching us through the heat ducts in the living room and from the television screen. She had extra locks installed on the two doors because she thought window peepers were watching her through our windows. I didn’t think that anyone was watching us, but there was no way for me to know for sure. She also told me to never trust anyone because it wasn’t safe, and not to share any of our personal business with others, it was all a secret.

      Confusion surrounded me regarding Mom. She had two very distinct personalities. She could be the sweetest most loving person ever at church or when we visited someone. Sometimes she was sweet to me too, but mostly she ignored me. Most of her time was concentrated on scolding the invisible people that lived with dad and me in our house. My dad and I were the only ones that ever saw her angry side. Mom always had it under control when we left the house. I loved the sweet mom, but was deathly afraid of her dark side.

      Closeness was what I longed for and craved from Mom, closeness with her sweet personality. My friend and her sister had chores to do at home in order to get allowance and I wanted to emulate them and spend quality time with mom. I asked my mom what I could do around the house to help her and earn money. I wanted to wash dishes but she told me that was her job. She did say that I could dust, so I dusted, and when the task was completed I asked if she wanted to look at the work that I had done. She would examine and then redust the tables, I didn’t like that. That job didn’t take long so I would ask her what chore I should do next. She didn’t really want me to do anything, I could tell that, but I wanted to be like the other kids and work. I asked if I could vacuum and she said all right, so I vacuumed the living room carpet. She would then vacuum again. That totally frustrated me, because I had covered every inch of the carpet carefully, and very slowly. I not only vacuumed north to south, but I also had gone east to west. There was no more dirt for her to find, I was sure of that!

      On a different day she was going to make chocolate chip cookies, and I asked if I could help and she said okay. I longed to be close to her and have good mother daughter time. She put the ingredients together and I told her that I would stir it. I mixed and mixed and mixed until everything was perfect, and I handed it to her. I said, “You don’t have to mix it, because it is already mixed!” She mixed it some more. I felt like I just СКАЧАТЬ