A Letter to An Old Friend

Let me start with your husband. The man is a piece of white trash. I see the photos you post of him. I see him on his ass, his fat gut protruding from his unattractive body, his unattractive face stuck in some perpetual expression of apathetic lethargy. Sometimes, he contorts his hand for the camera; he’s showing off what I can only assume is some kind of gang sign. This, coming from a fat white guy, reminds me solely of my older brother, who once ran with a gang and continues to occasionally speak like he’s still part of that lifestyle. Not that I actually think he ever was. I’ve always thought he was all talk and no walk. But that’s another story.

            I loved you. I love you, still, in my memories. Do I love you now? I’m not sure anymore, if I’m completely honest, but honey, you will always have a special place in my heart and I will continue to look on your status updates with a fond eye, even if what I’m seeing is visually offensive in some way (see above about hand signs). I do not love what your body looks like, now. I do not love your double chin or your sagging breasts or the gut they barely cover. I do not love your poor spelling or poor grammar, nor do I love your choices in life. By the time this letter is finished, perhaps you will have concluded that I do not love you. For all I know, while I write this, I may convince myself of the same. All that remains for me now is to write it, and see.

            I admire your fortitude. I admire your dream job and I want to help you reach your dreams, but the life you want is now the life you have and I know I will never bring you away from it, no matter how much I so desire. You wanted marriage and kids and now you have a husband and a baby. Your primary hobby is also your dream job. It looks a lot to me like your life is moving in precisely the direction you always wanted. I’m glad things are going your way, sweetheart, I really am. Yet, I feel certain sadness when I look upon it; I recognize that now as disappointment in the fact that you are not living your life to a standard I have somehow set in my own mind. That isn’t fair to you, honey, and for that, I am sorry. Perhaps there is an imaginary scenario in my mind that I have clung to for far too long; now is the time to let it go and look on your life as your own, rather than some extension of mine.

            I want to see you get healthy. I want to see you be happy—truly, toothy-grin happy. I’ve never seen you upload a photo in which your teeth show when you smile. All of your smiles are close-lipped, barred, like there’s a wall within you that prevents you from letting go and letting the world see the light I know burns within you. I think that a large part of the sadness I feel for you is sadness in the knowledge that you have never had an orgasm. While you have not lived your life in any way like I thought you might, or like I’ve imagined perhaps that you should, you have not experienced the one thing that can bring a significant measure of peace and serenity to your life. For that, I pity you. I pity you greatly, because I experience an orgasm somewhat regularly and I believe every man and woman should. I want your life to be a fairy tale and I know it never will be because your husband looks like disappointment personified and your child has the pointed chin of Rumplestiltskin or Peter Pan.

            It should not have disappointed me when you asked about the crowd we used to mutually know, before you left. I should have felt happiness at the fact that you wanted to pick up right where we left off, as if all the years between had never even happened. That’s what good friends do, isn’t it? Best friends? We’re best friends, aren’t we? Yet, I felt disappointment because so many years had passed. I wanted to see a woman who had grown and learned, maybe even been educated, but ultimately who spoke like an adult. What I felt I was met with was a bloated teenager and that’s not fair to you because you are so much more than that. Maybe that’s the kind of thinking that leads to disappointment. So be it. So be it that I believe you are a woman who could do so much more than that to which you limit yourself.

            May you see this, my love, and know it is for you and you alone. May you know that I still love you, the way you were and even the way you are now. You are a woman who has achieved her dreams and continues to pursue them because some are still out there, waiting to be taken by the horns and forced into your repertoire of success, while I am a woman bereft of dreams because one of my greatest fears was realized instead of a greater desire and I suffer greatly from a depression that keeps me thinking, believing, even, that my dreams will do nothing but fail. You are a woman who lives a simpler life than I do and for that, perhaps I envy you.

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?