Influenced by the Past

When I was eleven, Tina Turner’s voice rasped about what love had to do with it.  I wondered.  She never actually said, and I did expect her to blurt out the truth, if only for my benefit.  And Sheila E. taught me about the glamorous life and I didn’t figure out until much later when analyzing lyrics what problem “she” knew she had by the seventh week.  But I sang the words like I knew about that glamorous life and as if a glamorous life was literally being spelled out for me by my music idols.  Ignorant bliss, this was my joy.  And in this ignorance, I became a product of the eighties.  It would have happened anyway, but clinging to music made me begin to see who I was.  I was in a foster home, poor, skinny, scraggly, and awkward.  I thought I could invent myself by donning the styles of the time—anything I could get my hands on.  But I didn’t know what I was doing, and I never really knew how to put all the pieces of myself together. 

There is a picture that was taken of me while visiting my grandparents for a weekend wearing my best outfit—a thin yellow cotton dress replete with two layers of ruffle in the skirt and a thick sash tied in a bow around my waist.  I wore a neon pink lace bow in my hair—Madonna style, and I wore tan faux leather slip-on flats on my feet.  To top it all off, I had pinned a tiny fuzzy little bear to the spot above one of my non-existent breasts.  That bear was more stylish in his nakedness with only a little red bowtie at his neck than I could ever be with no money, no true fashion sense, and nobody to care either way.  To think I thought I looked stylish and cool!  I was seriously trying too hard and failing miserably in my skinny, white, pre-pubescent body.  What I needed was a fashion consultant, someone who was even remotely tuned in, someone to show me the appropriate risk to take in developing my own personal style while teaching me how to rein it all in a bit.  I wanted to be fashionable, put together, pretty.  What I had instead was a pseudo self, a patchwork quilt of odds and ends all thrown together in a wild attempt at… something.  I desperately wanted to fit in, and my attempts to improve the outside only revealed just how awkward and alone I was.  On the inside I was angry and sweet, fire and ice, precocious and smart.  But on the outside, I was dull, pale, and sad.  Why was it so hard to reconcile how I felt with how I looked? I was wasting away, vanishing behind a mask of freckles, unwashed hair, and a forced smile for the sake of the camera in my grandfather’s hands.

My husband and I have been talking about the dreaded budget.  The long story short is that I need to curb spending.  And what is it I spend my—I mean our—money on, you ask?  Clothes and shoes and fuzzy bear pins—or whatever the trendy accessory of the moment may be.  Sure, we have enough to eat and we take wonderfully dreamy vacations.  We have more than enough money to live and save for the future as well as a few rainy days here and there.  But because of me, we didn’t make our budget last year.  We had a major change in income, what with me quitting my teaching job, so I knew we—I—would have to make some changes in my habits.  I had to admit to my husband that I just really don’t pay that much attention when I buy things, and “we’re not bankrupt or anything!”

What I have to face is the truth about how the emptiness of my childhood helped create an emptiness inside of me that did not vanish when I finally grew breasts.  How easy everything would be if the sadnesses and losses we collected as children fell away from us like last season’s designer coat.  But the real truth is we wear these childhood injuries like scars deep inside of us, and they are far uglier than any ill-fitting dress or unfortunate trend.  This is precisely why I know I must look at these scars, stare them in the face, and accept them as part of me while at the same time refusing to let them define me. 

This discussion has become a trend in my mind, in my world.  For a trend to lose ground, the masses must reject its power.  I know what I need to do.  Acknowledging any role my past has played in the closet of my life is the first step.  Cleaning house is second.  I must rid my space of negative feelings associated with my childhood.  I don’t ever want to forget the ugliness of the past because it has made me who I am; however, I am no longer a sad little girl desperate for love and attention.  I have had more blessings and richness in this life than I ever could have dreamed. 

When I think back to my childhood, I want to welcome its struggles as a sign of my resiliency.  After all, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? Weren’t we all strong as kids to have made it to where we are now?  Therefore, can’t we derive empowerment from moderation and inner resolve? The two seem indelibly linked!  Even fashion icon Coco Chanel knew that luxury was not the opposite of poverty, and she revealed true wisdom when she said, “There are people who have money and people who are rich.” I do not need a revolving closet full of clothes and shoes to fill the void that poverty created.  I also do not wish to insult the many riches in my life by buying material possessions to take their place.