Just Keep Walking!

My Courage Through Life

In the beginning of everyone's life, everyone has what they wish to be the best of memories with their families and friends. My earliest memory seems to bring only one kind of feeling, sadness. Only because after my latest sibling was born my parents decided that they no longer had feelings for each other and it was time for them to move on. The problem being I was the oldest witnessing this process unfold before me in a way that was more than confusing for my 5 year old mind to process. My earliest memory of my family was my parents on the couch arguing, not 100% over what, just that they weren’t happy. All while I sat there and watched from the sidelines confused. So to put plainly my earliest memories weren’t of the best times, but of some of the hardest I've had with my family.

What happened next nobody ever expects to happen, it just does, especially after a divorce. My parents split apart, and my sibling and I were thrown for a loop. My brother, Jace, and my sister, Janae, were to stay with are mother permanently, while my sister Jade and I were to move back and forth between parents. Now most children probably wouldn’t have understood why this was the case with four children. I, on the other hand, had overheard my mother and father talking about why they had gotten a divorce and realized why we were being separated half of the time. When I confronted my mother and father over what I heard, I got the same response: “Stop eavesdropping Jamie.” Not that that ever stopped me from finding out what they were up to.

At my father's house it was just my sister Jade and myself. We made the best out of being with him, but he was very rough around the edges and it was very hard for me to relate with my father. Even at a young age, my father had a problem getting me engaged with some of his favorite activities. He was very engaged in some activities I just had no interest in, such as working on cars, hunting, or riding motorcycles. He eventually decided to give up on trying to do any activity with me. My father had a bit of a drinking problem as well which made life just that much more complicated for my sister and me. He would keep us up very late driving us around town going to bars, picking up women, and sometimes spending the night in jail. My sister and I would often spend many hours in the waiting room of the police department waiting for our mother to come get us. Our mother only came the first few times, and then our grandparents started to pick us up after that.

I started growing witness to some of the most outlandish things a child should ever have to grow witness to. All while Jade was by my side. I never really knew how my sister was feeling, and I never knew how to ask her at the time. She didn’t seem to care about how anything around her was actually going; she just wanted dad. Our father always had a better relationship with my sister and I think that partly has something to do with how I never took interest in his activities. Jade and I on the other hand found other ways to pass our time at our father’s house. We would paint rocks all the time and one of my fondest memories with my sister is of us painting rocks. One time, because the rocks were wet, I thought it would be a great idea to put some rocks in a microwave so that they would dry quicker. I can’t remember exactly what time I set it to, but I do remember our father yelling very loudly, and the house filled with smoke. That memory still brings a smile to my face.

Meanwhile, at our mother's house my sister and I weren’t the center of attention. Which was more than okay with me. Our mother was a very busy woman when we were younger. After she had gotten the divorce she moved into a four bedroom apartment. I had my own room because I was the oldest, and my brother Jace also had his own room because he was the baby. Our sister’s though had to share a room, which led to some fights. I would stay out of it because I don’t like fighting. My baby brother on the other hand was a bit of a crier and since our rooms were right next to each other I didn’t get much sleep throughout the night. Because I felt bad about how long it took our mother to attend my brother a lot of the time I would get up and see whatever it is he needed.

Life with my mother became a little more problematic. At the time I realized that if I said something wrong, my mother was often edgy and would say things that were hurtful. So my way to cope with that was to ask others advice on what they would do. For example I would often ask my grandmother and grandfather about what I should do in certain situations. My grandfather would usually dismiss my question with a question so I never found him to be much help. On the other hand my grandmother usually would have something sweet to say, but then grow silent on my original question. I think the only way I truly could cope with my parents and the depression they were facing was to just stay out of their way. No that doesn’t mean what I did as a child was appropriate but it was to get my parents attention.

I started by not speaking to my father especially when he was drunk and talking about things I knew I had no business knowing. I started to realize that if I had remained silent my parents told me stuff, that almost literally taught me right from wrong. I can’t quite explain how I was understanding what my parents were doing was right or wrong. Somehow though In my six year old mind I remember telling myself I had a superpower. I even asked myself If everyone had a superpower, not like on TV of course. I was sure my new superpower would one day even save my parents. I at a young age was struggling to sleep, so I thought with my powers I had luck on my side. I asked my mother if everyone had superpowers. She just said that superpowers where something called fiction, but everyone probably wishes to have superpowers at some point in their life. So every night for the longest time I would stay up late, watch out my window, and wait for a shooting star that would never come.

While I might have been told that superpowers aren’t real. I never believed that for a fact, I told myself that my superpower wasn’t fiction, it was fact just like my mother I was going to have to keep it a secret. So I called my superpower “observe”. After I learned about the definition of observation in school I thought it was the perfect name for my new superpower. I used it in any big situation life seemed to throw at me. I soon realized that my place with my father had diminished with time and as he started dating more women, my sister and I became less of a priority. He had met a woman, with children, and she moved in quite quickly with only three of her children first. Life for Jade and I had started taking another spiral as a new family enters the picture entirely.

Before Jade and I knew it we both had apparently acquired new siblings and a woman that wanted us to call her mom. We both were not comfortable with this situation, I definitely was against quite a few things. Like my sister not getting to keep her room and having to sleep in the living room instead of her original bedroom next to mine. I decided that I couldn’t keep these feelings to myself especially since my father was always up late hours and kept us up at night already. He just got violent and called me all the names in the book before telling me I was grounded for a week. Which was typical of him to ground me on something I thought was absurd. I then found out what kind of an impression I gave my apparent “step mother”. She decided it was her place to tell me, my father should be doing much more than just grounding me. She was just like my father, hateful towards me, not wanting to see me. Only difference is she wasn’t afraid to say it to my face.

This whole chapter of my life seemed like it was one big downward spiral, and both of my parents had reasons to not want to spend time with me. For whatever reason I felt that I was going to figure a way out with my superpower even if it meant my complete silence. So that's what I did. I was silent and stayed out of view of my parents unless I had to. Only spoke when spoken too, and thought of ways to make my parents love me again. When I think about that now that was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. My parents didn’t even notice, which often led to me crying late at night and the boys making fun of me late at night. My stepmother’s boys weren’t only mean, they were flat out cruel. Treating life as if it had little consequences for their actions.

Despite everything my sister and I had gone through at this time, I had hoped we would still be okay. When life really had me down I just kept looking for a bright light at the end of the tunnel. I found other ways to occupy myself from my parents by finding hobbies. I built with legos and drew, things that kept me away from anything troubling. I found spending time with my sister was an even better way to spend my time. I know that if I ever needed to talk she was the one to go to. My sister depended on me even more now than ever considering how many boys were around to bully her. We Had a strong relationship nobody could break.