Young Writers Society

Chapter 1

That year, I was infinite, for age does not measure up when people are in love, in love with anything. And this story, this story is full of all the freedom a restless soul can dream up. This story, in my mind is running where the wild things are. It is made of all the essential fantastical feelings and substances that a person can only encounter after raising themselves up to the same height as God atop some mountaintop. Finally, you look him in the eye, and share the same breath of heaven and you are no longer mortal, but could live forever in contentment. It is full of moments stolen from some long forgotten child’s wonderment. That year was made up of the quivering breath of a bride and the untamed glow one encounters in the eye of a spirited horse. That is how it is, in my mind. Sure, it could have just been one crazy year, a coincidental series of events brought on merely by the combination of time and youth. Just a group of people living life as it was thrown at them, but I like to believe it was a slightly more than that. A sort of healing, a chaos brought about only by the miraculous combination of those things and some sort of celestial luck.

I guess to begin we must go back. It is funny how most things are like that. Back to my childhood. Because, as much as many hate to admit, as much as we all change as we grow, at the core is always that child. My core is rooted in a small town in the sunny state of California. My childhood was uneventful, perhaps that is why I yearned so much for some sort of release. A change that would complete me and make me feel like my life was no longer a never ending boring cycle. I longed to do something rebellious for once. From my relationships, to my clothing, all of it was dull, colorless, by the book. It was all the same, a good family, good friends, good this, good that. Not that I was ungrateful, but I saw that a customary leap into a career, an adult life, was not what I wanted or even, perhaps, destined for. I do not believe people are made for just falling in love, and going to work, and coming home, and having kids, or not having kids and going, and going and not knowing when they will change pace. Not knowing when they will run, or jump, skip, fly, or even fall off a cliff. Anything to stop, anything to change. I don’t know why people choose to live that way, it’s as if they never realized that it was within their capability to change direction, to aim for something, or even do something as simple as stop and smell the roses, although I never liked the smell of roses and although they are pretty they are too common to bring to my heart any affection when given as a gift. That has probably solidified the opinion that I am forever an absolutely strange girl. I do not mind, I have found that if everyone thinks the same there is never anything new to discover, but in my strange mind, there are new ways to see things, new ways to think, new dreams to dream. Always a new experience to imagine.

I was a quiet kid, the kind that if you don’t say hello first, I will not talk to you. Sometimes it was this quality that got me the reputation as being a stiff case, unsocial by choice because I disliked people. This was not the case; I was merely a shy person with the bad luck of having a relaxed face that looked mean or discontent. Maybe it was the desire to be more alive, more social that set me on my own literal and figurative road. But the story isn’t just mine. It belongs to those world weary souls, the street smarts, the kindred spirits, and the wild things that I met along the way. You can never tell just one person’s story. However much this is my story, it would not have been possible without every aspect added each passing second by those who had somehow managed to get entangled in my life.

I will start with the people who had no choice in becoming a part of my story, and those people are my infamous family. I am the youngest child of three kids. Typical family right there from the beginning, so, how did I end up like this? I say that in the most normal of terms for “like this” is just another description of who I am, although you may think it has a negative connotation, it doesn’t really. For weird is only a word based off of opinion and circumstance, there is no set of factors for normal, and if there is, I have yet to run across it. I am a mixture of my two older siblings. Growing up, I strived to be more like the only hero I know. My solder sister Serendipity is the picture and representation of all things feminine and social. She was the brown eyed goddess I looked up to, complete with long flowing brown hair and a beaming smile. The beginning between my sister and I is almost legend like. My gorgeous Latino looking sister ( who didn’t have a speck of Hispanic in her ) prayed to God when she was six for a little sister, and that is exactly how I came to be. The irony of it all was that I was not naturally like her at all. I was born with crystalline blue eyes and completely bald. Of course, later on I became a tarnished brass and blonde haired individual. I was also by nature shy, an introvert to the tees. Whereas my sister was born with the natural ability to be everyone’s good friend, to be bubbly and outgoing without being loud and obnoxious. My spirit was built for faded and worn out converse and flip-flops, but the shoes I thought I had to fill were sparkly stilettos. The majority of my life passed in this way, I followed behind my model sister and her friends like a shadow, except I was noticeable because my shadow was not made of the same shades or shapes as Serendipity’s. It was in this way that she learned one of life’s many keys to survival. Be careful what you wish for. As most little sisters do, I fell to the fate that is most crushing to a young girl. To be viewed as a pest by the only idol I had ever known in my life. That was when I was forced to find my own way a little, and I found that in all my solemnity, I was more like my brother, who not only looked like me but also had my own lack of the ability to make any kind of small talk. But the imprints one takes on as a small figure, leave their own shadows on your soul, to this day, I struggle to be kind, and social, and step beyond myself into those stilettos. Because as much as I love those worn sneakers, I know that to be truly free a person must venture into all kinds of shoes, and if I find the perfect fit by trying on hundreds of different stilettos that make my toes scrunch and my calves burn, then so be it, I would endure so much more to grasp the elusive joy, the floating persona that my sister always bares. And that is why I think I looked up to her so, not because she was my sister, but because she was so different from myself, and she possessed things that I did not. Isn't that the only draw that most anything has? A promise of things hoped for, but…never ..fully there, within us, within our own grasp, put there by providence or whatever mystical things that sum up your beliefs.

While I was busy struggling to find the figurative perfect fit, chaos was ensuing. You see, just as my family never really chose to be a part of my story, it was the same for me. I was born into a helter skelter world, where reality was twisted and the result was a sort of black mass that always hung low above my head from the time I can remember, always ready to suffocate me. This is where a crucial part of me, and the reason for my journey, comes in. To the outside world my family was the traditional American one. Completed officially by our golden retriever when I was 12. My dad was a benevolent soul in the least boring way possible. He was the ever corny stability in our lives, the ever sensible and soothing, to put it plainly I was a daddy’s girl, as was my sister. But our thread with our dad went further because he was, in a way, the only parent we had some days. I’m not saying my mom wasn't present, she was. She was an angel, perhaps a little too stressed about what others might think, but we still loved her. Oh, how much we loved her. Middle class family, living on minimum wage, three kids, complete with individual pets. Summed us up pretty well.

For a lot of people, that’s all they ever saw. And for the ones who cared enough to look deeper, they never fully understood what stood in between us and a normal life. My parents, to my recollection, never had any normal fights that couples have. Perhaps whatever divine creator who had put us into the whirlwind had realized that extra rain in our fragile glass house would not only shatter it, but cut us beyond repair. This whirlwind I describe is something nearly incurable, it’s scientific name: schizophrenia. My mom developed it late in life, and it never, ever went away. It made me strong, perhaps beyond what was good for myself, but that quiet strength, it is my best trait, I know that now. It hounded each and every one of us. People think that schizophrenia is something you deal with, you take meds, or you just grow accustomed to. I never grew accustomed to it. I never got used to the false accusations thrown at my father, who I viewed as a saint, or pushed at me or my siblings. Accusations I knew were not true, that were causing strife where it was not needed nor wanted. I never grew accustomed to late night sobbing, asking God WHY my mother had to live with this. Why she must be hunted by dark thoughts and fears, why she must endure such a twisting evil thing.

I still think about the little girl kneeling by her bedside. My heart breaks over again, not only for her, but for all the other little girls out there. My childlike faith knew nothing of science. I only knew that I was suffering, people I loved were suffering, and whatever God was out there could be the only answer, our only hope and solution and he must hear my prayers. He must. So I prayed, over and over, against the screams, over my tears, and I would pause, holding my breath for a miracle. Waiting for it with the hope that only a child can have. And in the background sobbing, muffled cries, went on and on. I was a lucky one though, if you could call me that. I had a “strong support group, which is vital” as the counselor I went to see said once. I never visited her again. Strong support groups don’t make it go away. Nothing does, and that, she would never understand. She would never comprehend the depth of pain that resonated in my soul, in my mind, in my heart, it seeped into all the quiet places of my life and made them bleed a deep red. Until sometimes I became convinced I would never be whole again; drowned in my own misery. And my support group, we all knew we were drowning together, but I guess we kept each other afloat, somehow.

That’s when I discovered my connection to music, because I would stare at the stars, and ask God Why over and over and little by little I lost that faith. So instead, on those late nights, filled with anguish for the ones I loved, and for myself, I would sing. It didn't really matter what, as long it kept my tears back, my cheeks dry, and it kept me moving forward. People think the disease is easy, that it can go away. It doesn't, it stays, no matter what. It comes and comes and comes. Even the best soldiers become weak when faced with an onslaught of fear and impending doom. When it pulled me under I sang, broken and terribly off key at times. But sometimes, the beauty of the music would shine through, and I could smile, and so I would make music, and paint myself a world where schizophrenia faded. Where voices that don’t exist are silenced once and for all, where everything fits into a sensible patterns with no hidden messages, a world with no suffocating anguish and nothing made me feel helpless, useless, lost and alone, ever again.

When I sang, I was no longer alone, I had my music, seeping in and washing away stains and scars. That was God’s miracle to that troubled and weary little girl such a long time ago. Three little notes, one to cure, one to comfort and one to brighten even the darkest night.

And suddenly I was free to do as I wished. I was no longer asked to fight the day to day battle with my blackest enemy. I was an adult, or legally I was. I didn't really know who I was without my enemy, without my parents. I felt the never ending urge to fill a gap that had been present for far too long. I had been on this earth for some time now, and I had never really gone out and seen beyond northern California. I believed I knew it all because in my world, it was key to survival to be grown up and mature about things, but I had never really had the chance to go out and live. I had been studying, and reasoning, and making educated choices, and living the schedule set out for me by others. I had no idea who I was, what I wanted, except that I knew I must get out. See all these great things and people that they describe in books. I had to feel some emotion beyond anguish and fleeting joy. I felt the need to do some sort of ceremonial wiping of the slate, or washing of the dirty laundry. Something new and clean and exciting was required to fill some sort of listlessness, so that I could finally feel as if I had lived and set the past behind me and was prepared for my future; all at once. And so, my journey began, and partly because I am a coward and loathed going alone, and partly because of fate, and partly because we all had something to search for, I ended up bringing some good friends along with me. And on that first day, when I met up with my companions, my musical joyfulness overcame me and I exclaimed joyfully, “We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of OZ!” Even though it was nothing like the wizard of Oz. Also, I am nothing like Dorothy; not to mention my companions had hearts and brains and valor to spare; and I don’t even like the Wizard of Oz.