Epiphany

I went through my file, Wednesday.

Now, you might be asking, “What file?” to which I respond, “The file of my life.”

It is exactly what it sounds like. It is a file, the kind you find in a file cabinet, filled to bursting with records and rewards, documenting my life.

I was looking for my immunization records because the Evergreen State College requires them. While digging through my file in my search, I found many other things that tell an interesting story about me—more interesting than I’ve ever given myself credit for.

There’s something about seeing an accomplishment written on paper—by someone else—that finally made it click in my mind that maybe, just maybe, I actually had accomplished something in my life. Maybe—just fucking maybe—I wasn’t a complete piece of shit, after all.

Ever since my diagnosis from the VA of “major depressive disorder,” it’s been a far more real and difficult battle than I’ve previously encountered. Fresh out of the military—thrown into adult life as a civilian with absolutely nothing—in addition to a brand-new baby and post-partum depression, along with the feeling that waiting simply wasn’t an option…

I’ve felt like a fuck-up since the day I set foot into the operational Air Force, but that feeling was the feeling of success compared to the feeling of utter failure I’ve felt since the day I separated.

But, then, I went through my file and found certificates of achievement, one after another.

Bethel High School Cultural Fair, Most Informative Booth: GSA Booth, Aleashia DeLaVergne.

Bethel High School Cultural Fair, Best Visual Display: GSA Booth, Aleashia DeLaVergne

Bethel High School Cultural Fair…

I think I have 5 different awards for “best booth” in one form or another from my sophomore year in the GSA club. My booth was about equal rights for the LGBT community and it displayed the violence perpetrated against gay people, particularly gay men and even more particularly, Matthew Shepard, whose story was the most detailed one I could find.

Lenderman’s Academy of Martial Arts… awards Aleashia DeLaVergne… yellow belt… orange belt… purple belt… green belt… first blue belt… second blue belt… first red belt.

Each belt is an accomplishment. I completed the requirements as a white belt to earn my yellow belt. I completed the requirements as a yellow belt to earn my orange belt. I completed the requirements as an orange belt to earn my purple belt, and so on until I earned my first red belt.

All this time, I’ve focused on how I hurt myself because of how badly Sifu had pressured me. I’ve focused on how hurting myself caused me to quit martial arts before I could earn my second red belt. Before I could earn my first or second brown belt; before I could earn my black belt. I wanted my black belt… I still do.

Then, finally…

I saw my reviews from National History Day, written by the judges of my performance, which I had the opportunity to perform twice at the regional competition. They all say such positive things—“Well done.” “Voicing the American People was a brave choice.” “Smooth character transitions.” “Well done.” “Good voice.” “I learned a lot from your performance.”

All this time, I’ve focused so hard on how I didn’t make it to the state competition. I was so focused on getting all the way to State—hopefully even Nationals—that when I didn’t make it past Regionals, I broke down. I remember—and now, when I remember the event, I am filled with humiliation, but at the time, I couldn’t have been bothered with embarrassment—exactly how I practically hyperventilated, I was crying so hard and so insistently. I remember distinctly how concerned Joey was—my classmate; my friend.

All this time, I’ve had six—at least SIX—positive reviews from the judges at that competition. And I burned my fucking script because I threw a fit and destroyed everything I’d worked so hard to achieve. I burned the papers, deleted the files.

If I still had my script, I would take on those roles once more, to perform as my final project in my Acting & Movement class. As it is, I’ll have to settle with singing the German National Anthem, and simply remember the competition more fondly by looking at my reviews every so often.

I also came across an essay I wrote for my AP Junior English class, my grade for which was above A+. I also found my report card for 9^th grade geometry—a solid, resounding “A” grade. Both of these things were great accomplishments for me; I felt so proud of them that I wanted to save them in my file.

In the very back of my file, there were two folders. One had my grandmother’s name on it, but the one with my name on it included my medical files from the years 1999 and 2000. In this stapled stack of papers were my immunization records, somewhere near the back.

My medical records taught me some things about my child self, at ages 7 and 8—the ages during which I lived with my mother. I have always remembered those years as the worst of my life and my medical records did little to disperse such reverie.

It was written in my medical records that we had 5 paper routes beginning at 03:00—that’s 3:00am for those of you who don’t deal with a 24-hour clock. It was written that my teachers reported my having “lots of attitude” and being “bored in class.” It even said, “Smartest kid in class.” It said I was doing 4^th grade work in the 3^rd grade because I was bored with the 3^rd-grade work.

I remember this. I don’t remember being the smartest kid in class, though; because I remember the test I took to skip the 3^rd grade. That’s right—I took a test to skip the 3^rd grade and I could have passed it. But, I didn’t. It’s probably better that I didn’t; I was always the youngest in my class, anyway.

But now I see, my entire life, I’ve only focused on how I failed the test—not on how few other children were testing to skip grades. Not on how none of the kids I wanted to be friends with had the opportunity to skip a grade. Not on the fact that the very fact that I was taking the test meant that I was extremely intelligent. No. Instead, I focused on how I failed. Suddenly, failing that test meant that I wasn’t smart at all. In fact, it meant I was stupid. I didn’t know anything.

I feel as if my life has been completely turned around. Looking through my file, reading my certificates and accomplishments, has done a great deal to go to my ego and boost me. Looking through my file has made me think to myself, “I am smart and capable.” I don’t remember the last time I thought something like that.

Looking through my file made me realize just how self-deprecating I’ve been in my life, and for how long. I’m so glad I have this organized collection of significance in my life—my SAT and ASVAB scores; my AFJROTC awards; my birth certificates. Those things are my life. My file doesn’t have an ounce of failure in it, but it does demonstrate some ways my mother failed me. It also demonstrates that I have been sick for a very long time and nobody had been able to notice it because of how bright and highly functioning I was. Not even I was able to see how bad it was because I believed that it was all in my head; I believed that I was just “feeling sorry for myself” for no reason, every time I cried over the petty losses and the small setbacks—tears I shed because I believed that they were colossal failures in my life.

Molehills were mountains. Mountains were insurmountable. I didn’t encounter a mountain until I separated from the military.

The thing is, when you come to a mountain, you have three choices. You can try to walk around it and probably spend your entire life figuring out directions; you can climb over it; or you can stay on your side of the mountain, unmoving and helpless.

My depression wants to hold me back from climbing the mountain, because the gods know that I do not have the patience to walk around. After all, what I want is on the other side, and I will do everything in my power to take the most direct path to get it. The most direct path from point A to point B is a straight line; a straight line goes right over that fucking mountain. I’m a monkey; I’ll manage. My depression tells me I’m a failure, that I can’t climb the mountain because I didn’t skip 3^rd grade, I didn’t get my black belt, I didn’t make it to State, I didn’t complete my enlistment in the Air Force. My depression told me that I couldn’t take care of my daughter because I don’t have patience, I raise my voice when I’m upset, I’m not capable of handling my emotions. My depression tells me I’m stupid and helpless.

Helplessness has never set well with me. It’s time to climb the mountain.

Some Kind of Update?

I had micro-body contouring in June, this year. I spent nearly $10,000, which isn’t necessarily information that every person would share with the world, but it’s a big part of the story and probably a big part of what’s wrong with me, now. I thought that if I could have the fat sucked out of my body, I would feel better about myself and I would become more active and thus lose even more weight and finally have the body I’ve been wanting for the past few years. I was right, to an extent. Directly following the surgery, my soreness had me motivated to be more active. I was unaware of the results of the procedure, as yet, but I knew what I was supposed to do to maximize the positive results, and I did everything in my power to do them. Or, so I thought. Now, months later, the swelling is still going down in my lower abdomen. My doctor was more aggressive with my lower abdomen than with my upper abdomen, leaving me with a weird belly pouch that looks even worse than the rounded belly I had beforehand. My before and after pictures are like night and day, but when I looked at them, my eyes didn’t register the differences, at first. It occurs to me more and more, lately, that I don’t know what is and isn’t within my power or control. I don’t know what it takes for me to be giving 100%, or any other percentage. It occurs to me now that I might simply be putting relatively little effort into anything, anymore. It’s hard to exert effort when nothing is interesting, but when I feel well enough to be productive, I find myself completing nothing more than domestic chores. I feel lost, like a piece of me is missing, the way children sometimes go missing. I feel incomplete, like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing; but it’s not together enough to figure out which pieces have disappeared. Other people fill the hole inside of me because I don’t know how to do it myself. More and more, recently, I find that I am incapable of accomplishing anything without some sort of outside influence. I feel stifled, though I’ve never had more room to breathe. I feel trapped, though I’ve never been freer. I feel like I’m losing myself, though the opportunities for self-discovery have never been more abundant. Words are harder and harder for me to come by and I don't know why. It seems that when I sit down to write, I have to wrack my brain for the vocabulary with which to begin putting pen to paper. Not only that, but it seems as though my grammar is getting worse from lack of practice while my art gets worse from having the wrong kind of teacher. Where are my outlets? Where is my creativity? Where is the wonderful skill I once held so proudly, with which I could weave words together so as to create something so beautiful, I could potentially invoke tears?

A Shocking Revelation

                My friend and long-time acquaintance, Alex, was visiting and Randy was napping with Persephone. We were talking about the past, a good 10-13 years ago, reminiscing on some good times, some bad times, and whatever else came to mind. We were on the topic of friends.

                “I only had two friends at Roy. And one of them was a shitty friend and the other one moved to Illinois at the end of sixth grade.”

                “Who was that?”

                “Rose Stramaglia.”

                “I remember her! You know, I was actually just thinking of her the other day.”

                “What? No way! I think about her off and on. We wrote to each other for a while, but then we lost contact. I’ve tried finding her online and everything, to no avail.”

                We went on for a little while, talking about Rose and how I missed her and how he heard her talking to his friend Meechie and that’s when he stopped picking on her like all the other kids did. I was impressed that she’d talked to one of the guys we thought were real assholes; I was also surprised to hear that she’d been a fan of and played Final Fantasy. That brought us to the topic of video games and I mentioned how my aforementioned shitty friend, Kaydee, would make me watch her play video games relentlessly.

                “She was a terrible friend. I’d go over to her house and she would just…”

                “She would just do whatever she wanted?”

                “I mean—yeah, basically—you know, she just did her own thing, regardless of my presence. She would play her video games and wouldn’t let me play or join.”

                “Wow.”

                “Yeah. Like, I’m pretty sure she’s the main reason I never was a big gamer. Because she never let me play. That, and my fucking games would disappear. Like, I had a Sega Genesis once, and my Sonic the Hedgehog and Echo the Dolphin games just up and disappeared… so I gave the console back to my dad.”

                All of a sudden, Alex was looking at me a lot more meaningfully, which is saying something, as he tends to have a very meaningful expression nearly all the time on his face. He looked away and I couldn’t figure out why he looked guilty, until—

                “Yeah, about that…” Deep breath. “I think… I’m pretty sure… I mean, I broke your game.”

                What?! Wait. No. What? How—I don’t even—what? I don’t remember taking my game to school, even. How did he break it? He never visited me; he’d never even met my grandma until just the other day! How the hell did he even get my game, let alone steal it?!

                Complete mystification. Honestly, I was shocked.

                “How—what?”

                “Yeah, I just saw it, like, hanging out of the desk, and I just… I just wanted it, so I took it. I think I wanted it for like, a collection thing, at first… and then I broke it. I don’t even know why I did it, I am so sorry. I felt like shit as soon as I did it, like, I probably just destroyed something that really meant something to someone. I’m sorry.”

                “Wow… I just… Wow. It’s okay…”

                “No, it’s not. I’m sorry. I’m a dick.”

                “Well… yeah. Just. Wow, dude, you were a dick.”

                “Yeah…”

                He looked so guilty, I couldn’t even be mad at him, which caused a great deal of confusion within me. All of a sudden, this great mystery of my life was solved, and the person responsible for me giving up my Sega was sitting right next to me, feeling as guilty as they come and apologizing profusely. Honestly, I couldn’t hold it against him. I couldn’t even say what would ordinarily have been the first thing to come to mind. I couldn’t bring myself to be indignant or angry, so I just said it was okay and he said it wasn’t, then I explained that I appreciate the honesty and it was a long time ago, so I don’t hold a grudge. Still, the revelation had rendered me shocked, to say the least.

                We revisited the topic a few more times. He couldn’t express his regret enough, despite my assurances that all was well—after all, he has a plan in place to make it up to me and it’s more than acceptable. Mostly, I couldn’t believe that he, of all people, was the person responsible for my loss of Sonic the Hedgehog. I never would have suspected him unless someone had been hinting at it. All this time, I’d thought that Kaydee had probably run off with it some time when she visited; it seemed to me as though the game was in my drawer one day and mysteriously gone the next. If someone had told me that a person had broken my game, I would have initially assumed it was my “friend”, and then I would have run down the list of kids who picked on me, from worst to best, until I gave up (because, honestly, I never would have guessed it was Alex).

                Even now, days later, I find myself bemused and mildly stunned to think of it. I hold no grudge, mind you; it was a long time ago and Alex has by and large made amends already. At the time, though, I found myself stunned. I made an attempt to take care of my daughter and it didn’t work; Randy took her back and I simply went outside to smoke because I was overwhelmed with emotion. The feeling that I’m failing as a mother is bad enough by itself; this night, it was amplified by the feeling that my peers, in my childhood, really wanted to ruin my life. I had been awash with a strange kind of joy at the moment of the revelation; the fact that Alex had provided me closure on this video game was a moment of great relief, despite the fact of the matter. It actually took a few minutes for the realization to sink in that I was sitting beside someone I now considered a close friend and he was telling me that he was personally responsible for what may have been a major event in my life that contributed to the reasons why I was never a big gamer like many of the friends I have now always have been. Suddenly, I felt as if my world had been turned upside-down. The world really was out to get me and the proof was in the pudding, as they say. Suddenly, I felt as if losing my Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Sega Genesis was the reason I didn’t play all of the Elder Scrolls games, or why I haven’t finished a video game since beating Portal 2 in tech school because my boyfriend-of-the-time insisted I play the game and I got hooked immediately. Suddenly, it was as if Alex was personally responsible for my never really fitting in to any niche or clique in school.

                I recognized the toxicity of those feelings as well as the irrational thinking behind them. I knew that what I was feeling was inaccurate and unreasonable, not to mention unfair to Alex. It had been a stupid, impulsive action by a preteen boy, for which he felt immediately sorry and has been regretting ever since. Who was I to start pinning all of my childhood woes on him? He wasn’t even a primary tormentor! If anything, he had largely left me alone up to seventh grade, when he would regularly bait me into letting out a completely predictable (because I said literally the same exact thing every time) stream of curse words that was intended to make him leave me alone. Then, after seventh grade, until he suddenly apologized for an array of things in our sophomore year and subsequently afterwards, he left me alone. We became Facebook friends after our making amends in school but still didn’t talk until I returned from the military and sent him a message, one day. I had absolutely nothing to hold against Alex—why the hell would I suddenly grasp on to this one cruel act and hold it over his head as though he deserves all the extra blame and guilt? I smoked a bowl and came back inside, moped around a bit, and finally started to feel better.

                Randy came in and Alex and I told him what we’d been discussing. Alex told Randy he was going to get me the game the next day, to replace the one he’d broken. Randy’s immediate response was to point out that I no longer have a Sega Genesis, followed by an anecdote about the Genesis he found that comes with 12 games, all for like fifty dollars, that Alex could get for me instead, for my birthday. Alex actually agreed—rather eagerly, in fact—even though I still felt as though he’d made amends enough and could make amends more in other ways if he felt the need. But, hey, he’s saving me from having to buy the Genesis myself later on!

In seriousness, though, I admire the honesty of my friend and the courage it took for him to look me in the eye and tell me what he did. Any person who has the moral fiber to do that deserves to be forgiven and to put the past behind them, releasing it and accepting it as a part of their past and nothing more, nothing worse.

Getting My Baby to Sleep

                “Shhh… Shhh… Shhh…” The mantra is a regular, along with Hush Little Baby and the occasional Alouette as I rock my six-month-old daughter in an attempt to make her sleep. Her eyes are heavy; they drift close only to snap back open and stare blearily at me, drifting closed yet again. Watching her fight sleep would be entertaining if it weren’t such a regular habit.

                Just about any parent on the plant knows the struggle, and if they don’t, I want to know their secrets to having babies sleep at regular times that can be scheduled.  My husband and I have been bed-sharing with our daughter since shortly after her birth; she slept better between the two of us and we wanted to be able to sleep, too. Now, she’s six going on seven months old and I am doing my absolute best to get her to sleep in her own bed. We have a pack-n-play set up on my side of the bed and I feel this need to insert myself as her mother, fully and completely, by getting her on a sleeping schedule wherein she sleeps in her own bed and things go well. I’m probably imagining some kind of unreachable utopia of parenthood that never happens, but it’s a damned good fantasy, damn it!

                It’s only been a few days, but here’s the rundown:

                Day after day, night after night, I sit in my recliner and rock with my daughter as I try to get her to fall asleep so I can put her in her bed and get work done. So far, I have only succeeded twice, and her sleep was short-lived. I don’t mind the short life of the nap as much as the times I’ve failed getting her to stay asleep after putting her down in her bed. I set up the old Graco swing my grandparents bought for us from a garage sale and found out Persephone enjoyed it. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that it wanted to launch Persephone at the TV. I still put her in the swing, but I either push her manually or watch her like a hawk while it’s on so that I can turn it off should it get even slightly too fast. We need a newer swing, but what can you do when you’re broke? That’s why I’ve been trying to learn HTML and other computer skills in order to have more success with my blog and, soon, my webcomic. Between trying to get Persephone to sleep and trying to work on my computer skills and making money online, I’ve found myself pushing off the Wii and getting a workout with Just Dance 4.

                This evening, I became so angry that I was shaking. Persephone had woken up both times I’d put her down in her bed; both times, she’d looked around for a minute or two and then started crying. I can’t figure out why she won’t go back to sleep like she’s done twice for me previously. Am I putting her down too quickly? Maybe I should fake putting her down before actually putting her down so that she doesn’t think much of it. Maybe I should also move slower as I go.

Quitting vs. Making Sacrifices

My heart is heavy. How often do you hear a person say those words, these days? I have a fondness for antiquated phrases, including “tickled,” which is used to express delight, glee, and other giddy feelings that frankly make you feel like something is actually tickling your insides. Euphemisms don’t just come out of nowhere, you know. Ah, but I digress. My heart is heavy.

                The weight is displaced and redistributed with the weight of my cat in my lap or my baby in my arms. Still, though, there rests an anvil atop my heart, its weight pressing down but not quite crushing the organ that so diligently pumps blood throughout my body, supplying blood to every last piece of me from my lungs, so close to the heart itself, to the tips of my temperature-temperamental toes. An anvil made not of any kind of metal, but rather formed by the truth of reality and adulthood seems to weigh more than any Acme product and I find myself wondering if I’m truly being honest with myself. Do I feel this weight in my heart because I am realizing now that reality is nothing like what I had hoped I could make of it, or does this weight rest so persistently within my chest because I suffer from depression and I haven’t taken my anti-depressant medication in days, if not a week?

                Why can’t I have it all? Why is it that there is only a finite amount of time in a day, a week, and I am terribly bad at managing it efficiently? This probably sounds very much like I’m complaining, like I’m sitting here whining “Oh, woe is me,” “Poor me,” “Why me?” But the truth is, I wanted to have it all. I wanted to make my life something amazing, something epic, and I wanted to manage things in a way that kept me busy and happy and also making money while I took care of my family. I wanted to have my cake, eat it, and show off to the world how amazing it was. Then, I was slapped with a realization that was just as cold, wet, clammy, and generally unpleasant as a recently-dead fish smacking you across the face when your brother decides it’s a good idea to start a fish fight in the little sailboat your dad took the two of you out in to do some fishing to try bonding as a family.

                It was all an illusion. The idea that I could juggle three full-time jobs and maintain happiness and sanity as well as order and whatever else you can think of was as illusionary as seeing an oasis in the middle of the desert when you’re dying of thirst and haven’t had water any time in recent memory. Only, for me, that mirage was shattered suddenly by the appearance of a small, yellow envelope from the Olympia Municipal Court, fining me for parking too long in a roadside parking space whose meter would only allot me two hours at a time. According to the slip of paper inside this crucial yellow envelope, it was not only the meter, but the space itself, which held a two-hour limit, and I had surpassed that time. It wasn’t the first time, either. In my mind’s eye, this yellow envelope fell upon a pile of yellow envelopes, collected over the course of perhaps two months, at most, and used as an effigy of sorrow and misery at the fact that I could not catch a break with parking in the city!

                I was accepted into a 90-day trial period as a tattoo intern. I was going to learn all there is to know about tattooing, the industry, the art styles, famous artists who have paved the way and pivoted change in the history of tattooing. Then, during my internship, I was going to start college and go to school for a fine arts’ degree. During these two endeavors, I also planned to be able to take care of my growing baby often enough that my husband could get his homework done for his own college classes. With the appearance of this final parking ticket was sparked a discussion with my husband about how many parking tickets I’ve accrued and, ultimately, how I’m going to be able to juggle my time between an internship, being a full-time student, and still managing to be a wife and mother at home. I can’t do it. I won’t be able to do it.

                When this realization hit me, as a train without brakes might hit anything in its path should it suddenly be derailed, I knew that I had to give up on something and there was only one thing that sucked money out and gave nothing monetary in return. That was my internship.

                I was scheduled through the weekend and had all intentions of completing that time—before I ended up sick with chest and sinus congestion and felt too much like death to go in for my last two days. Being an intern to become a tattoo artist required me to drive 35 minutes nearly every day, pay for parking in a city that increasingly seemed to have it out for me, and help take care of a tattoo shop wherein I was not allowed to touch actual tattooing equipment (yet) and most of the time, it was dead, so I sat around doing my drawing assignments and wondering how the hell I was going to come up with another 2,500 words to add to my essay about Old School style tattooing. Yes, it was stressful, but there was more to it.

                The requirements were strict and sometimes seemed overwhelming, but I spent my days doing the one thing I have always, always loved to do: Drawing. I was allowed to go half an hour away from home to spend time in a friendly shop where the artists only do custom work, the walls are decorated with paintings for sale by local artists, the Internet connection was pretty reliable, and there wasn’t a whole lot I had to do aside from drawing and writing. It was perfect for me. I loved it.

                Almost immediately after giving up the apprenticeship (internship—fucking state pedantics), I felt a kind of relief. It was as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Suddenly, I had all the time in the world between now and when I start college and I could use it to get the house cleaned up the way I want (since I clearly couldn’t rely on my husband to do any of it right), take care of my baby and let Randy get his schoolwork done, get laundry done, and cook every so often. I didn’t have to worry about the gas I was using during my 35-minutes-each-way commute. I didn’t have to worry about whether or not the parking meter would expire or if I was parked too long in a space, anymore. I no longer needed to keep a shop clean in which I contributed almost nothing to the mess—even though cleaning the shop was never, not even once, a weighted point in the consideration of whether or not I could keep up the internship.

                People say that sacrifices have to be made in life. Have I made a sacrifice? Have I sacrificed my internship in order to give the other things in my life more meaning? Have I sacrificed the internship in order to be a better wife and mother and, soon, student? Or, have I quit on something that made me happy? Have I quit on something that would have made me a living no matter where I was?

                My heart is heavy. I miss the routine. I miss getting up for the day and choosing something nice and classy to wear to “work”. I miss being in the tattoo shop/art gallery. I miss having drawing assignments, because the gods know that unless someone gives me an idea these days, I can’t draw for shit.

                Indeed, my heart is heavy. But I think that most of the weight making up the anvil resting within my chest actually comes from the idea that the instant I said I couldn’t do it, I was replaced. I thought that my time in the shop mattered. I thought I was making meaningful relationships and I felt as though I mattered, at least a little bit. Then, while I was emailing the owner, she asked me to effectively show the ropes to the new intern. So, am I caught up over the semantics of whether I’ve quit or made a sacrifice, or does the weight in my heart come from a feeling of betrayal?