A friend gave me the book, 642 Things To Write About Me, a few years ago and I've been working my way through it. Thought some would be good to expand on here. Today, I have chosen the writing prompt about half-way through the book entitled, "Name the five biggest "almosts" in your life." Almost went to Europe. My maternal grandmother felt that education and travel were of the utmost importance. The Sister had already been to Europe twice, once with her high school English class and the other with a university Theatre/English Lit program. My grandmother paid for both. When I was seventeen, my grandmother felt that I should do a tour of Europe as well. Since there was no school planned group, she would be taking me. It wasn't an ideal scenario as my grandmother was a bit crazy, but I knew how to keep her calm and avert and defuse potential anxiety panic situations (if my own mother weren't involved - keep reading). I handled our trip to Washington, D.C. when I was eleven with flying colours. I'd have rather gone with a school group or The Sister, but this was doable and I was completely excited. When we'd go up to visit her we'd sit around the kitchen table and discuss the itinerary ideas. But, then things went amiss. My mother had always wanted to go to Europe and never had. Perhaps my grandmother wasn't going to plan a trip for her, but then my mom did elope with my dad and that didn't go over too well, so perhaps my mom did it to herself? Who knows. But she was seethingly jealous that I'd be going to Europe. Why me and not The Sister? Because my mom fancied that I was just like her. She played my life out the way she'd have her life play out; any of the bad that really happened and the things she'd wanted but were denied; things, I'll add that I had absolutely no interest in. She'd wanted to be a cheerleader, so she forced me into the squad, though I'd wanted to be a majorette. She'd wanted to take singing lessons and be part of a choir, so she forced that onto me as well. She turned my bedroom, as best as she could, into her exact childhood bedroom; complete with the blue and white colour scheme, the furniture of her childhood, and a picture of a cat she'd once had who had long since died. Her mother felt she was too fat, so starved and policed her on food. I'm sure you can guess that the same was done to me. So, it was never anything I wanted that she allowed. Only things I didn't want that she would have wanted. If it was something she'd wanted, but was denied, and it was something I wanted as well, then she'd submarine it. Hence my trip to Europe. If I hadn't of wanted to go (or at least acted like I didn't), she wouldn't have sabotaged it. But it was something we both wanted, something she never had, so she'd make sure that I never went. She threw out all the tricks to agitate my grandmother into fits. A sort of conditioning. The fits would correlate to taking me to Europe and then my grandmother would nix the plan altogether, opting for the serenity of staying at home over how loopy this whole Europe thing was getting to be. I tried my best to diffuse it, but it's difficult to play the offensive in that game with my mother. She played her crazy mother like a fiddle; they'd constantly fight over Europe and then the day came when my grandmother angrily and slightly hysterically announced that she would never take me to Europe. My mother gloated and that was that. Almost earned a university degree. So again, mom worked her meddling magic to change my life to hers. She'd been force to attend a junior college before university and her mother had gone up there and changed her major to education and my mother couldn't change it back. There was also the bit that my grandfather had put plenty of money in a trust for both my mother and aunt as well as my brother and sister to accumulate interest and pay for the entirety of their higher education. Only at the insistence of my aunt, not my mother, did my grandmother put money in a trust for me; a far less amount with far less time to accumulate anything. I probably could have completed a two year associate degree on the funds, but never a four year university. So, my mom fixed it to where I'd graduate high school early and go straight to university, though I had wanted to finish out my senior year and start at a two year and work my way up. The university kept dicking me over. I'd register for classes, show up the first day and I was no longer registered. Would spend the entire first week being ping-ponged across campus by various offices until things were finally sorted out. They would also end up counting those five days as absences, though they weren't supposed to. For three semesters that's exactly what happened. Left a bitter taste in my mouth over university. Remember the money bit? So, I couldn't get any financial aid or grants or scholarships and I knew the money was going to run out before four years was up. Then my last semester, the cheque didn't clear. Went to the bank and my mother had withdrawn the last thousands of my money and it was in her bank account and she bought so much junk. Tried to confront her about it and I got various responses. "It's not your money, it's mine." "This is money from such and such" "This is money you owe for your upbringing." Almost won a poetry competition. I'm seeing a pattern here. Almost all of these things are because of my mothers interference. And while one wasn't her fault, she had a huge association with it, so it's marred the incident with her taint. So, a poetry competition. I'd submitted poetry when I was fourteen and it kept placing higher and higher in the brackets. My third and final submission was in an envelope ready to be mailed out. I asked my mother to mail it for me, because I didn't have stamps nor a way to get to the post office, nor money of my own to purchase a stamp once there. She said she would. Found it in my room a month later. The entire month I'd been anxiously awaiting a response on if I'd won or not. I had specifically handed the letter to my mother in our kitchen. I didn't say I'd give it to her or even hand it over in my bedroom. She figured it could easily get lost in the mess and perhaps I would think that it was all my own fault. I knew it wasn't. I confronted her about it. After hee-hawing around the subject, she finally said, "Oh you weren't going to win anyway!" Obviously I was livid and also crest-fallen. Perhaps I wouldn't have won, but we'll never know since she submarined me by not mailing that last poem in. I could have won. I might have won. She probably wouldn't have been proud even if I had. Almost won a history writing competition. This was in the sixth grade at the private Catholic school my mother forced me to attend. There was a writing competition open to all sixth grades in the area. I jumped at the chance to submit something. My mother took me every day to the library so I could research and pen the essay. It was about an incident during the Revolutionary War. Now, given her track record, it's quite plausible she had something to do with this. Perhaps she talked to the teacher? I don't know. It wasn't linked back to her though, so perhaps this was just the idea for her sabotage a few years later with the poetry. I handed the essay in myself to my teacher and anxiously await to hear if I'd won. Months went by with no letter, no word on if I'd won or not. Then at the end of summer, the principle called us to come in to her office. I was unsure why, since the school was only up to grade six and I was going back to my original public school that autumn. She'd received a letter from the organization responsible for the competition, The DAR or Daughters of the American Revolution. She'd known that my teacher hadn't bothered to submit my essay and it was a week late, but she sent it off then anyway explaining the situation. I was the only one in my class to submit anything and according to my teacher, she hadn't felt the need to send mine in. That teacher and I never got on well. The letter read that basically rules were rules and my essay was submitted too late for the competition, which was a shame, because I would have won. The DAR could have been lying, but probably not. They take that whole Revolutionary history pretty seriously. If they're saying I would have won, then I would have won. The principle was so furious with that teacher that instead of being an optional writing contest, the following year it was mandatory. My friend, who was in the grade below me, said the teacher praised me by name saying I would have won if there wasn't a kerfuffle with the mail and my entry hadn't of been late, so because I was the shining star of Sacred Heart, they were all going to write a historical essay. That teacher was a bitch, but I'm kind of glad to know that there was some sort of vindication for the slight. Almost took up the violin. I'd always wanted to play the violin. I loved the sound of it classically as well as mountainy. My mother hated the violin because that is what her sister had played. She, herself, had enjoyed the piano, so both my sister and I had been forced to play that. I won't knock it though, I adored my teacher and still keep in contact with her, even though I can't really play piano.
Anyways, my grandmother gave us all the old musical instruments she had lying around and one was my aunts violin. It needed some work, but nothing a barter of a piece of jewelry wouldn't cover. That's how my parents worked. Since my dad was a creator and seller of fine jewelry, that's what he had, when lots of times he didn't have actual money. It's how mom paid for our dance lessons, piano lessons, dental and orthodontic procedures. I also had a friend who was proficient in the violin and offered to teach me for free, I just needed the instrument. Mom refused. She refused to purchase one, rent one, or have that old one mended. No checking on cost, bartering or paying. Simply because I wanted to learn and it was something she'd never been interested in, my chance at learning the only instrument I'd ever been interested in vanished like smoke.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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