Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Twenty.

 I was outted in karate class when I was 19 by a 14 year old kid named Matthias. We were sparring with each other, and the conversation went a bit like this:

punch-block-punch: "So, T, there's a rumour going around that you're gay. Is it true are you a lesbian?"

kick-block-punch: "Yes. It's true. I am indeed a lesbian."

Despite my spontaneous admission, so bravely made to a teenager, I still went on to date (and later marry) a guy named Tim.

I began wrestling with my sexuality at 13, shortly after discovering what girls and boys were supposed to do together. My solution? Become an ultra-devout Catholic. Which is why my admission surprised both Matthias and me.

I was grateful for my exit from my teens. My mother was completely nuts (I am sure she had several undiagnosed psychological disorders) and I yearned for freedom. My mother dictated everything in my life: the clothes I wore, what I studied, which friends she never wanted me to see again, my curfew, which was set at a very ridiculous 9pm. I had hoped that twenty would mean my mother's grasp on me would loosen a little, but instead, it tightened to a choke hold.

By the time I reached 20, I had gone through Hepatitis A, German Measles, adrenal burnout, two bouts of clincal depression and I had broken both wrists (on two separate occasions, not all at once.) I was hopeful that things would still work out they way I wanted them too. I felt very grown up and I needed an adventure. Desperately.

I felt that the world was there, waiting for me, and I was trapped in a glass box, looking out at everyone being alive and I was stuck there, with no hope of ever being free.

I had no friends. I lost touch with some of them from High School and my mother forbade me from hanging out with one of my closest friends, Dori, because she believed she was a bad influence and a Satanic lesbian to boot. I didn't bother wasting time making friends at college. I was never going to be allowed to hang out with them. I was a very sad and lonely person. I read a lot of Stephen King, which my mother blamed for my depression a few years earlier, resulting in me having to give my entire collection away. I started reading David Eddings and other fantasy novels instead.

The only respite I had from my mother was at karate (my sister and I both attended all the classes - including the ones for kids - from 4pm to 8pm each Tuesday and Thursday) and church.

If there is anything I want to bring with me from twenty, it's that sense of adventure and the belief that something magical is waiting just around the corner. I seem to have lost that a bit.

6 comments:

  1. ha ha - "a bad influence and a Satanic lesbian to boot".
    No mention of the drugs though... #disappointed
    ;p

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    1. Crap. NO. She did in fact mention drugs. I forgot to put that in. Damn.

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    2. OH. The Satanic thing came from seeing you and Orly outside Wits theatre while they were protesting against The Last Temptation of Christ (good movie) and she thought that because you were going in to see it, it HAD TO MEAN you were Satanic. And because you were with Orly it HAD TO MEAN you were a lesbian. And because you went to WITS it HAD TO MEAN you were on drugs. (Though we won't mention all the drugs she took. Just because she got hers on prescription doesn't mean she wasn't a drug addict.)

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    3. Ok, I feel better, thanks :)

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  2. Books the cause of depression?! They are happiness made tactile.

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    1. If you knew my mother, Tracy, it would have made sense. Indeed. I've successfully read Stephen King since and the only books that depressed me was Rose Madder and Tommy Knockers because they were both pieces of kak.

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