1980, Chicago

By Elizabeth Sandoval

Twenty-something years after we traded stickers on the playground and revealed our secret crushes while running laps in P.E., we were an attorney, a teacher, an actor, a graphic designer, a mom. And now that we were all grown up with our grown-up set of life challenges, one lofty innovator (the attorney) launched a monthly “Challenge Meeting.”

We were to meet to discuss how we were chipping away at our year-long individual challenges. Some seemed more daunting than others. To an outsider, the challenge of “Step into your greatness” may have appeared to be more trying than “Lose some weight.” But, relative to the unique paths we’d chosen for our lives, they all bore the same weight (so to speak).

This particular year bore some heavy ones: “Where is there room in your life for forgiveness?” “Stop making excuses.” And the one that would subsequently blast open the doors of my mind that had been vaulted shut for 25 years: “What decision have you been avoiding making that could change the course of your life?”

She was a girl of about 7 years old. Loved to laugh and loved to be around those who were laughing. Loved her family. Loved hanging around with the neighborhood girls, who were more like sisters than pals. It was not just about lending someone a cup of sugar, but actually giving it to her. Not just knowing about the people next door or two doors down, but actually knowing them. Seasons came and went, and once-neighbors became great friends.

On this particular day, she wore a blue terry cloth spaghetti-strapped dress. There were white daisies with yellow centers dangling from the fringe along the top. It was a nice dress. And she wore it to her friend Tina’s house on this, oh, probably summer day. She frequented the house often. Her family and Tina’s family were like, well, family.

In subsequent years, they would spend every Easter together. Every Thanksgiving together. Every Christmas together. Throw in a random “Godmother” or “Bridesmaid” title and you begin to see how intertwined their lives were. Her family held Tina’s family on a pedestal. “Such nice people” (or something to that effect) was a usual utterance from the mouths of her mother or father.

So imagine her shock and dismay when, after a period of playing with Tina on this day, she somehow found herself in the bedroom of Tina’s parents. With Tina’s father, more specifically, who was taking it upon himself to push her to the ground and kiss her forcefully.

She doesn’t remember how she got to his room. But there he was in all his greatness, projecting his manly weight onto this girl in her terry cloth dress. To this day, the feeling of rough whiskers pressed against her mouth can make her shudder, and she’s yet to kiss a man with a bonafide moustache. But we’ll save those issues for later.

Imagine this girl’s confusion when this man who was present at her parents’ dinner table for the celebration of Christ’s birth or Resurrection was now making his presence known so violently. It lasted a matter of seconds. Maybe not quite a minute. There was a struggle to get away, of course. Or at least moving away from the coarseness of the facial hair, which up to that point had only been felt in the form of stubble from her loving dad planting a peck on her cheek.

And then Tina walked in, changing the course of this girl’s fate. For when his eyes beheld his own Tina at that moment, he relented in his pursuit of this girl. But the damage, as they say, had been done.

And so their lives continued to be intertwined. There were birthday celebrations and strawberry festivals and dance lessons and ice skating and whatever else entices a girl of about 7 and then suddenly 17 and then 27. For the years passed and the friendship continued. And interspersed in the myriad Judy Blume moments of her youth and then young adulthood and adult adulthood, there was an anxiousness that had grown to a fear and then to a panic and then to a paralysis.

She had made no connection between the terry cloth dress moment and the irrational fears that had taken up residence in her mind. No sleepovers at friends’ houses for this girl. No, no. What if something “bad” happened and she couldn’t get home? No sleeping by herself in her room, either. Too many scary noises. It’s best to be near someone in case someone tries to get you in the middle of the night. And if you’re gonna say “Good night,” make sure you say it 10 or 20 or, heck, 50 times, to make sure your parents really hear you.

It may seem weird in the morning, but in the thick of it, it’s gotta be done. Don’t let the anxiety back in. Do this and then do that and you’ll be fine. Rinse your mouth 25 times if you have to. Do what you gotta do to keep from freaking out, for then the whole world, or at least your family, will know that something is horribly wrong with you.

So emotions were shelved, fears temporarily thwarted, and by the grace of God, a life was lived. Half-lived, really. But she wouldn’t know that for years to come. This private hell in her mind was not enough to stomp out all of the life in her. Awards were won. For spelling or speech or writing or this or that. Accolades were bestowed. Memories emblazoned. She defied anyone to look into her vibrant hazel eyes and find disorder or pain. She laughed abundantly, not in an attempt to cover the tears. But because there were so many moments of tears that she welcomed laughter. The laughter was always real and not fake. It was treasured beyond words.

She had been born in Chicago and had yearned to one day go back. A plethora of Chicago postcards and posters covered her bedroom walls. And while she spent years being too imprisoned to actually venture physically to Chicago, she went many a time in her mind. Over time, some of the fears became dormant and she felt that she had been healed marginally – at least to the point of not being paralyzed. And so she returned to Chicago. And she explored and worked and took in all that the city had to offer.

Was there anything better than waking up to the sight of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline? Or walking along the Chicago River and taking in the smells and sounds of life all around her? Or being at an art museum one moment and listening to the symphony the next?

There was a real love in her heart for this city. And human love had not yet arrived at her doorstep. There were invitations to false intimacy — with a guy or a male — but not a “man” in the true sense of the word. She wanted something better for herself than a person who smoked this or that and drank this or that and partied insatiably and wanted sex. She didn’t want that.

And at the same time, she feared finding someone who would truly listen to her, who would find her sexy despite the extra 20 pounds on her frame, who would be excited about and not afraid of her goals and her likes and her dislikes and her needs — and
her fears. For if she ever found someone like that, why on earth would he want to be with someone like her? A heart full of gold, but a head full of coal. Heavy and dark. Too scary to let herself sort through — let alone let somebody else. A “Damaged Goods” label was permanently, albeit invisibly, placed on her forehead.

Sure, she would fret and whine with the best of them about not being able to find a “good man,” and why she was spending Valentine’s Day alone, and all of that good stuff. But the truth of the matter is that while she yearned to find him, she was terrified of finding him all the same.

For isn’t it enough to know for yourself that you’re crazy? Do you really need someone else getting close enough to find that out for himself? No, life had served up some wilted vegetables. And she would just have to make a salad out of them — and eat it all by herself.

Her life was a circus of thoughts. One day suicidal, the next full of hope. One day disillusioned by the elusiveness of wellness, the next optimistic about having a full recovery. Too fearful to ever seek professional help, but in desperate need of it. She had visited a psychiatrist once or twice in years past. The anticipation of knowing whether she was crazy or not led her to the office of one doctor who reassured her, “You’re not crazy.” What a relief. She could then re-shelve her emotions and move on with her “life.” Again.

Enter her childhood friends. All grown up now in the 21st century, with the challenge, “What decision have you been avoiding making that could change the course of your life?” And like a lightbulb going off in that dark mind of hers, she knew what decision she had been avoiding making. The decision to stop pondering the pain for isolated moments and then putting it back on a shelf.

It was terrifying and freeing all the same as she wrote her friends this oh-so-unordinary e-mail from Chicago. An e-mail detailing not what the weather was like in Chicago, or inquiring as to how the kids were doing, but what had truly lived in her mind for the past 25 years. Introducing them for the first time to this person they thought they already knew.

They embraced her from 2,000 miles away, and life has not been the same since. For once the darkness is brought into the light, the demons of your mind can no longer have their way with you. And people, like angels, rush to your side. They keep silent if you want them to. They hold your hand. And they lay witness as you unleash the burdens that have been holding their own monthly meeting in your soul for most of your life.

This girl has yet to tell her parents. So Tina’s dad remains on that pedestal. And the holiday gatherings continue. There’s a big one coming up at the end of this month, as you know. For the first time in her life, this girl will not attend. And she is contemplating finally telling her parents. All these years, she has feared hurting her mom profoundly. She has feared the repercussions amongst Tina’s family - what it would mean for her parents’ marriage, their family bonds, and even him. But as a friend told this girl recently, “HE deserves to carry that burden now. You have carried it alone for 25 years.” This girl has forgiven Tina’s dad. But she no longer feels contemptuous by agreeing that this pain is his responsibility now.

Tina and the girl have never spoken of this incident. In fact, for one reason or another, she does not communicate much with her anymore (though the family meetings continue). She’s come back from Chicago, and has managed to avoid contact with Tina’s entire family. She visited a counselor in Chicago, who reassured her that these behaviors and thoughts throughout the years were typical for someone who was abused as a child. “Order, as you knew it, was destroyed,” she said, “and so you attempt to restore that order. You create your own.”

And that looks different for everyone. Maybe you rinse your mouth 25 times. Maybe you say “Good night” 50 times. Yes, you need to be helped. “But you’re not crazy.”

I am not crazy.

Elizabeth Sandoval, a Chicago native, currently resides in Whittier, California. Her work has been published in The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, USA Today, The Los Angeles Daily News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, and on Chicago Public Radio.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Friday, November 10th, 2006 | Email This Post

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