Waking in the Ether

A fragile world existed inside of my toddler mind. A world which my mother never had the patience, nor the interest in understanding. Each violent tremor and panicked scream, resulting from my insidious night terrors brought only derision and a scolding from this paragon of warmth and motherly tenderness.

I learned to hide my fears behind a mask of what others looked like, watching the rest of my family for behavior cues and trying to remember them, so as not to ruffle the mother-hen's feathers. Scary show on our forty-eight inch television with the eight inch screen? Look around the room to see if anyone else is hiding behind their hands or crying, then I would carefully craft a look of bored aplomb to match the others.

Never truly allowed to be my authentic self in front of my family I stuffed all those feelings down until no one would ever recognize them. Away from the fold I was friendly, downright chatty and pleasant. Laughter from people around me brought up a warmth that I never felt at home. School was the only place I felt safe to be truly me.

Teachers loved my tiny, doll-like appearance and enjoyed my show and tell antics that I would never have dared to show and tell at home. In kindergarten my teacher was so amused by my furry pretend cat, which was my little winter hat that reminded me of a kitty. I invented my furry friend on the spot, pretending to walk it behind me and talking to it as if it could understand me. So enamored with my "unique imagination and acting abilities", she sent me to my older sister's classroom to re-create my kitty cat act.

I was horrified. My older sister was horrified. What was her bratty, little sister doing in her classroom, embarrassing her? I stumbled through my performance, immediately becoming sick to my stomach, as I knew how this was going to end up. All the rest of the day I feared the walk home with my sister and the resulting punishment my mother would dole out for my attention getting antics. We were allowed to be normal. Period. Bringing attention to ourselves was a sin punishable by belt and sitting in our rooms alone thinking about how we had embarrassed the family.

True to form, my older sister bullied me all the way home. This was normal. But my indiscretion brought out peculiarly brutal behavior in a sibling who thought brutality was a right of the eldest child. Suffering pinches, punches, kicks and shoves all the way up the half mile long hill to our house was nothing compared to what my mind did to me as I anticipated my mother's horror at my misbehavior.

Would she use the hairbrush this time? The wooden spoon? One of Daddy's belts? I agonized all through the death march up the hill with my warden, imagining red welts and split skin where I could never show another human being. My mother was smart about that. She was an emergency room nurse and knew what kind of injuries were 'just from accidents' and what kind were from abuse. Not that she considered beating me abuse. It was called discipline back in the day.

The first words out of my sister's mouth when we walked through the door were, "Mooom! You won't believe what she did this time. I can't go back to school. She just embarrassed me to death."

Arms folded menacingly across her chest, my mother asked, "What on earth kind of foolishness was she up to this time?" As she glared a hole through me, probably seeing a movie of my silly kitty cat act.

"Mrs. Rogers sent her to my class to do this stupid thing dragging her hat around on the dirty floor and pretending it was her cat. Everybody made fun of me all day and I'm going to kill her," my loving big sister roared out.

Turning her fury my way she said, "What have I told you about your foolishness? How many times do I have to tell you adults don't like show-offs and nonsense? Go to your room. I'll be in and we'll take care of business."

I wanted to be anywhere but my bedroom, waiting for my mother to decide which implement of torture to use on my bare behind and legs. If only for a moment I could be bigger and meaner than she was, I would show her what being her kid was like. I sat, frozen in fear on my bed waiting while I heard my mother trying to soothe my sister, as though I had punched, pinched and pushed her all the way home.

My imagination took me to a place where I was ten feet tall and built like Smokey the Bear. I would have big fangs and razor sharp claws. My forearms would be the size of my mother and I would pick her up by the neck and shake her, glaring into her wide, frightened blue eyes as I decided what to do with her.

After I rattled her senses I would set her on a tree branch so she couldn't escape and say, "You wait right there, Betty, until I decide what to do with you. It's too early for dinner, so maybe I'll just beat you with a log until it's time to eat, you foolish, little human."

Toying with her fear gave me great pleasure as the ten foot bear. I would never have to pretend to not have feelings anymore. I would never have to mimic the family's sour pusses when we were around other people. I could be myself- be happy and funny and never worry again about being beaten and scolded for being me. Then, I heard her furious footsteps echo down the hallway and stop at her bedroom door. Aha. The belt. I should have known. She loved the belt. She must have been using the wooden spoon for making dinner, which would be served promptly at six when Daddy came home from work. Everything in our lives ran on the clock, perfectly. We were the perfect family, if only I wasn't in it.

My last imaginary victory was shoving her off the branch with my pillow-sized claws, and listening to her bones snap all the way down. While she was writhing on the pine needle covered forest floor I looked down at her and said. "This wasn't abuse. This was an accident, Betty, and that's exactly what you're going to tell the nurse tomorrow at school, isn't it?"