On Self Liberation

Some stranger on Tumblr posted another stranger’s quote: “I am a museum of memories I wish I could forget”

Obviously, that’s a tragic thought, but it made me think about my museum exhibits. Turning 30 has made me more existential than usual and I begin wandering the floors of my life.

***

I am 4.

My dad is working as a welder. Sometimes he works late. When he’s late at work, my mom and I have couch bed nights. She makes us brownies or cookies and we pull out the couch bed and talk and read. She is pregnant with my baby brother.

I am 5.

My best friend in kindergarten is a Russian boy named Gavin who leaves small gifts on my desk every morning. I get in trouble for kissing him on the cheek. He lives in a big house with stairs. My mom tells me they have money. I conceptualize wealth and poverty for the first time. His house has juice boxes. We play catch and tag and hide and seek. His mom has a thick accent and beautiful hair. He gives me a plastic ring from a quarter machine. I cry when he moves back to Russia at the end of the year.

I am 6.

My dad comes home with a kitten for me. I name her Kitty Kitty. She is all black and incredibly sweet and I carry her around with me everywhere I go. She likes oatmeal and playing fetch.

I am 7.

My dad is arrested again. My 10 month old sister is in the bath and my 3 year old brother is playing with hot wheels. My mom tells me to take care of them because she has to go get my dad. I wash and dry and diaper my sister. I put my brother to bed. I put sister in her crib with a bottle. I put myself to bed. Everyone is okay. The next day, my mom tells me I did a good job and that I am going to be a great mom someday.

I am 8.

My mom takes me to the doctor because I keep complaining of stomach pain. The doctor asks me when it’s worst. I say it’s always bad when I am on the bus ride home from school. I describe the sensation. He tells me I have anxiety.

I am 8 and a half

My dad shoots Kitty Kitty after she attacked a dog for getting too close to her newly born kittens. He still has her blood on his shirt when he comes to tell me about it.

I am 9.

It takes a long time to fall asleep because the music is so loud outside. My dad has a friend over. They’re doing drugs. “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger is the last song I hear before I drift off. I am shaken awake not long after. The house is on fire. I am told to get dressed. My mom gets my sister and runs her to the car. The house smells weird as I walk into the living room. I check my brother’s room. He’s still in bed. I wake him up: the house is on fire, get dressed. I take him to the car. We sit in the driveway. My mom is crying. I don’t know where my dad is. My mom’s bedroom window has a weird flickering light behind it. I have the thought that the lightbulbs are doing something weird but then realize it’s flames. My dad comes outside. He is frantic. He goes to the spigot and gets a hose. He breaks the bedroom window and tries to put the fire out from outside. It’s already too big for that. The police come and they turn the spigot off when they get out of their cars. My dad runs to turn it back on. They take him to the ground. They cuff his hands and shackle his feet and kick him again and again while he cries. I watch. The firefighters don’t come until the house is almost done burning. I do not recognize my dad’s face when he gets out of jail two days later because his eyes and mouth and cheeks are so swollen. He has cracked ribs. He says he’s sorry but he doesn’t say what for. We stay with neighbors and then a motel. I am looked at weird at school for wearing the same clothes so many days in a row but I only have the clothes I left home with. The newspaper says my dad killed my brother in the fire but my brother is alive. My mom takes a polygraph and the charges against my dad are dropped. I am told not talk to anyone about the fire. I don’t.

I am 10.

My grandma visits. I long for her visits because she makes my mom happy and my dad less volatile. She takes us to restaurants and always has a present for me in her suitcase when she gets here. She is warm and safe and funny and loving. She buys snacks at the grocery store. We never have snacks at home so it always feels like a luxury. I ask her if we can come live with her and she gets sad and says that for now I need to take care of my mom. I cry when we drop her off at the airport.

I am 11.

It’s my birthday. My dad is in jail. My mom leaves early that morning to bail him out. When they come home, he has a beautiful summer dress for me. It is deep blue with large yellow flowers. I wear it for my birthday. I invited my entire class. It’s my first time throwing a party. We are in a very small rental house while our old house is rebuilt. I carefully place snacks on platters and set out games and lemonade. I wait for people to come. Everyone is late. No one from class comes, but a friend in the neighborhood comes over. We have fun riding our bikes. I don’t understand where my classmates are because I am friendly with everyone in class. My mom sits me down outside of ear range of my dad and says that some people’s parents may not feel safe letting their kids come to our house. I think: if they are not comfortable letting their kids be there, why is everyone comfortable letting me and my brother and sister be there? I brush it off. It wasn’t a terrible day and I did really love my dress. We sing and eat cake.

I am 12.

I decide to steal a sledgehammer from my dad’s garage while he’s at work to keep under my bed in case I have to protect my mom from him. His garage is messy and filled with beer bottles and calendars of naked women and I don’t know which tool to take, but the hammer is heavy and easy to hold. I fantasize about killing him. I beg my mom to leave. I make straight A’s. I discover that I can sing and start doing theatre and choir. I try to never be home. Over the summer, my dad makes my mom get a babysitter. He isn’t working but he won’t take care of us and I am often gone doing summer theatre. He hires a girl named Ashley. They have sex and take drugs while my mom is at work. I hear them fucking all the time. My mom pays her weekly. My dad yells at me for not being nice enough to the babysitter.  I get the courage to tell my mom my dad is cheating on her. She tells me she already knows.

I am 13.

I am convinced that I will come home to find my mom dead. Sometimes my dad asks me to talk him out of killing her. I mentally prepare myself before I get off of the bus everyday. I recite a list of steps to take if I find her dead: call 911, prevent my siblings from seeing her, get the envelope that has our birth certificates and social security numbers, pack some bags. I know that I am capable of dealing with anything. I selfishly wonder if we can go live with my grandma if my parents die.

I am 14.

I join two choirs and spend almost all of my timing singing or performing. I make incredible friends. Weston drives us to the campus where we rehearse and take classes every day after school and we belt Rent and Spring Awakening and get sweet teas from McDonald’s. He makes me laugh until my stomach cramps. Hope helps me be less serious and encourages me to flirt and live authentically. I have a mentor and teacher in the theatre who is safe and cares for me and pushes me to succeed. Music and art remind me how much more there is to the world than what happens in my house.

I am 15.

I have my first real boyfriend. We meet when I am stage managing a show and he’s on the crew. He’s funny. He starts holding my hand in the hallways of the university where the theatre is and eventually asks me to go out with him. His family is kind to me and his house is safe. I decide it must be normal that he calls me stupid and a “doormat” and tells me what shorts I can and cannot wear. I become co-dependent on him. I rely on his house as a refuge. I don’t know how to have healthy relationships with boys. I let him degrade my body and intelligence for two more years and am absolutely devastated when he breaks up with me.

I am 15.5

I spend my weekends with Hope when I can. One weekend, we go to a tiny rental film place in Clarksville to find a movie to watch. We spend way too long picking something out and drive the employee crazy. We eventually pick Across the Universe. We make a pallet bed in her living room with blankets and pillows and close the blinds. We love the movie so much we had to go back and tell the lady at the store how great it was. We lay around talking about boys and our moms and our ambitions and how difficult it is to be girls. We believe in each other.

I am 16.

I move out from home to go to a residential high school for geeky kids with good grades. My dad says I can’t go. I wage a war with him to get myself out of the house. I feel guilty for abandoning my brother and sister. I am afraid for them and how bad things will be if I am not there to intervene and manage the crisis and anticipate my dad’s behaviors. I don’t know who will stand up for my mom. The sledgehammer is still under my bed but I don’t tell anyone about it. I choose to leave anyway. I think my brother hates me for it. I arrive at the school and try to feel free. My roommate is

delightful and we spend our nights staying up late giggling and being young. She teaches me that vulnerability is a strength.

I am 17.

I stay up late playing board games and watching romcoms with two of my best friends. We play Cranium and Boggle and they introduce me to When Harry Met Sally and 10 Things I Hate About You. I get good grades and am the president of a student organization that promotes advocacy and inclusion. I make top 5 in all state choir. I develop an eating disorder. I make friends that I consider to be my family today. Michael is steadfast and Kelsey understands me in an innate way that not everyone finds in a friend. We fantasize about where we will live someday and all of the places we will travel. I feel acutely suicidal for the first time. I sit on my bed in my room at school and stare at the wall fantasizing about no longer existing. My life at school is great so it’s hard to process why I feel so horrible. I begin to understand that trauma doesn’t end just by removing yourself from the situation, which disappoints me.

I am 18.

I am dating a 26 year old. He is kind but experiences intense mental illness and I become his only medication. I start college as a theatre major. I get pregnant soon after. I call Planned Parenthood while walking laps around the fountain in front of the student union. My boyfriend pays for the abortion. I struggle in school and can never pinpoint why, since I’ve previously only excelled academically. I drop out after the first semester. My mental health is in shambles but no one could ever tell. I start working as a preschool teacher. I am great at it. I meet Beth at the daycare. She is funny and honest and radically supportive and is still my very best friend.

I am 19.

I drive to New Jersey to visit my grandma and Jillian. I hug them and eat with them and we go to the shore and it is the time of my life. We sit together at my grandma’s kitchen table—which still has marks from my teeth when I chewed on the corners as a child—eating sandwiches and sharing memories and talking about the world.

I am 21.

I break up with my boyfriend. I struggle greatly with the decision. He convinced me that he would kill himself if I left and I let myself become responsible for him. I tell him that I need to discover who I am and that I need to be alone for that. I soften it by saying maybe we can try again in the future, but I know that we never will. He ends up in Springwoods. I should feel proud of myself for ending things but I just feel shame. I go back to school. I live in an adorable apartment by the library with Kelsey. We walk back from campus together in the pouring rain one day and laugh the entire way home. We DIY an adorable book shelf and host meals for friends. We throw what remains the best dance party I’ve ever thrown. My mattress sits on egg crates and is covered in a dozen blankets and curling up into it felt like being hugged by home. I meet Chas. I begin to recognize that I need help healing so I start therapy. I am perpetually externally high functioning so the extent of my unwellness is not known to others and I feel so incredibly alone.

I am 22.

I meet Dr. Maxwell and Dr. Parry and Dr. Dowe through my coursework. I discover a ferocious love for studying gender and race and class. Dr. Parry teaches us about Catharine MacKinnon’s ‘Toward a Feminist Theory of the State’ and I read her words, “man fucks woman. Subject verb object,” and am transformed.

I am 23.

I have my first 4.0 semester since high school. I stare at my name on the Chancellor’s list and know that I should be proud of myself but it still feels like I haven’t done enough. I run out of free therapy sessions at the university and don’t have insurance so I take a therapy break. I keep my grades up. I start to wonder about what comes next for me. I think about law school or teaching. I take every class I can from Dr. Parry and Dr. Maxwell. Other people’s intense emotions still make me panic, especially anger. I don’t know how to have conflict. I do everything in my power to never upset anyone. I set impossible standards for myself. The feeling I am most familiar with is shame.

I am 25.

I get into law school. I get a generous scholarship. I cry. I graduate from undergrad. My grandma comes for my graduation. I gather with my friends and family for brunch at my house afterward and am taken aback by the life I have managed to put together. There is so much love. I start law school and my grades are good but I feel out of place among my classmates. They speak a different language and my imposter syndrome is intense. I start therapy again. It helps.

I am 27.

COVID takes over everything. Isolation makes my mental health worse. I continue to do well in school.

I am 28.

I graduate law school with Latin honors. I win two peer/faculty nominated awards. Jillian gets cancer and the fear is consuming. I get married. I am hired to do what is dream work to me as a public defender. I have a knack for it because I’ve developed against my will a supreme skill of managing people’s emotions and explaining difficult things in easy to understand ways. And I don’t judge my clients because I grew up with them. I represent an incredibly kind deaf man in my first trial. He is acquitted. He wrote me a note thanking me for believing in him. I treasure it.

I am 30.

I am the sum of the people who have believed in me. I gather with my best friends—Jillian and Chloe and Beth and Michael and Chas and Tommy—in Chicago and cannot stop thinking about how lucky I am.

I am halls filled with ugly, violent exhibits and earth shatteringly beautiful depictions of love. I am luck and grit and will and friendship and I do not wish to forget a second of what made me.

Happy 30th, Lexi. You’re doing okay.