Collateral Damage

I just realised that this statement can be slightly misleading:

I never really fit in, though as they were really into Mariah Carey and music like that while I was starting to get into the music of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and other bands akin that.

Since I’ve starting being kind of elitist about the music I listen to (I can admit it- I’m a music snob), I’ve always allowed myself a secret indulgence. I actually loved Mariah Carey circa 1996. I just meant that everyone was into Top 40 Hits and I liked the more grungy, alternative- type of music.

Anyways.

On to ages 12 to 15!

As I stated in my last post, my 7th grade year started in the fall of 1996. In the county I was living in, that meant the start of middle school/ junior high. This meant a locker, switching classrooms for classes, new friends and an end to the “popular kids” from elementary school. I was really stoked but unfortunately I ended up in that “private school” with the batshit crazy “pastor.” I remember him not having heat and instead having a wooden stove. If we finished our booklets of work for the day early, we got to go collect wood, clean the bathroom or sweep the hearth. That was my favourite thing to do because it was really warm. He would also insist on keeping the heat low and the windows open. No coats allowed at our desk. No talking out loud- we had little flags we’d raise if we had to talk to one of the grown ups there. If we were really special, we got to go with the pastor to collect molded bread he gave to the homeless. I got to attend one of these pick ups a grand total of 3 times.
I don’t remember anything good about going to this “school” aside from the fact that my 2 cousins RooneyRoo and Genius Cousin went there. Another friend of ours attended as well. We’d do horrible things like paint our nails green, wear purple eye shadow and write answers to tests on our hands (I almost got “expelled” for the last thing).

During the summer of 1997, my remember my mom getting a phone call and crying. Later she came to talk to me. Apparently my dad had died. I wouldn’t believe it. I thought it was a cruel joke. Turned out she wasn’t lying. A week or so later, we flew out to where he had lived in Austin, Texas and had a funeral and started going through all the crap in his apartment. At any age I can only assume it’s disturbing and traumatic to walk into a room of crying people and see a parent lying there. He looked like he was asleep. I cried for 3 hours. No one knew, though because of my huge and dark sunglasses.
That day I decided that if God existed, He didn’t care about what went on in lives of humans. I couldn’t fathom why He would take a father from a child. I couldn’t understand why he was gone and would never, ever come back. That week I decided not to place too much importance on God because, obviously, if He exists he doesn’t really care.

The next school year, I was able to convince my parents to let me attend public school. I was ecstatic. I ended up being invited quite often into the inner circle of the “popular crowd” much to my amazement (a girl I had befriended around the age of 8 was popular and invited me to hang out with them- pays to be nice to people!).
During this time, I was still going the same church I had been my entire life. A little about my church- though it was Episcopalian (they have since left the denomination because of their acceptance of homosexuals in high places) it was very charismatic. We said a lot of the prayers they said in Catholic churches though we didn’t have a Book of Common Prayer, didn’t pray to Mary or the saints. People would dance in the isles, shout out in the middle of the service, there was a “contemporary” band and there was a dance group (of which I participated in for about 3 years). I believe because I grew up in a church like this, I can’t take them seriously. But, that’s another topic for another day.

In the summer of 1998, Mm and I went on our first youth group retreat as “senior highers”. During the drive there, Mm and I were discussing how annoying it was that whenever we needed a tampon we didn’t have one and we always had a bunch if we didn’t need any. Some girl whom I’d vaguely known since I was a little kid came up to me randomly at this point and said, “OH MY GOD, I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN! Meet me in the bathroom in a few minutes, okay?” I just looked at her like she was insane and continued in my conversation. A bit later, I went into the bathroom and the accosted me saying, “OH MY GOD, I’VE BEEN WAITING FOREVER. Here, don’t tell anyone you got this from me.” and promptly dropped a cigarette in my hand and ran out of the bathroom. I went back to Mm who was really, really stoked about the cigarette. I had grown up hating them because my mom smoked and it would always smell really bad and irritate my throat and nose. I told Mm I would give it to her and then we went to ask for a light for it. The girl wasn’t allowed to even purchase matches because she wasn’t yet 18 (18 is the age most states observe- some are 19- as the age you can buy cigarettes). She threw a fit, cursing like a sailor at the attendant.
Once we got to the campground for the retreat, we found some girl to not only give us a light, but another cigarette as well. It took me 4 days to figure out how to smoke cigarettes but once the week was over, I felt like a pro.
I smoked all summer and somehow my parents found out. My mom said it was God who had told her (which made me think- “Ok, either my mom is lying or I need to hate God because that’s just uncool.”) My parents had another one of their “religious epiphanies.” They took everything of mine that wasn’t related to God or Christianity. They forced me to look up every single verse in the Bible related to something “bad” I did. For example, if I was disrespectful to my parents, they would break out the concordance (if you click that link, you’ll see a book that if I ever see again, I will burn it with glee) and make me look up and write down every single verse that pertained to disrespect (parentally- related or not) in the Bible. Eventually I got them to let me use the typewriter and the computer because I started getting exceedingly painful cramps in my hand.
When it was time to start high school they decided that cigarette smoking would lead to pot which would lead to heroin which led to death. I’m not sure why they thought this as I was very anti- drug up until I was nearly 20 years old. I didn’t want to end up wasting my life away with drugs. This was severely traumatic for me. I desperately wanted to attend high school. I was excited about my classes (which I had already enrolled for), new friends, old friends and just the fact that I was finally in high school.
I fell into a deep depression and quite a few self- destructive habits at this time. I felt myself hating God more and more for what was happening to me. I didn’t deserve this- so what if I had smoked a few cigarettes? Wasn’t my step dad already partying when he was my age? Hadn’t my mom been partying since she was 12? Compared to them, I was a perfect little angel. I didn’t understand why all this was happening to me. To make matters worse, I got very sick with Lyme Disease. But, more about all that next post.

AOL radio- 90s Indie station.