O's Little Guide to Starting Over by O The Oprah Magazine

Author:O, The Oprah Magazine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

Like Myself

Katie Arnold-Ratliff

Once, when I was eight, my mother took me to work with her for the day. She passed a hopeful note across her desk: Do you want to be like me when you grow up?

Some days she stayed in bed with a box fan trained on her face, the white noise a roar. Some days she baked for hours, the kitchen’s prisoner. Some days she asked me to lie with her in the waterbed she shared with my father, where she held my hand and said again and again, “You’re my best friend.” Her need was thick and humid, a weight on the atmosphere of my life.

A word could wound or please, enrage or disappoint. Once, when I was nine, she crumpled when I whined that she’d eaten the last waffle, believing I’d called her fat. Once, when I was six, singing in the back of our weary old minivan, she turned from the passenger seat and bellowed, “Enough,” her glare so murderous I couldn’t meet it. When I glanced back, her blue, relentless eyes were still fixed on me, laden with disgust.

I practiced invisibility. Once, I limped around with a broken ankle for an afternoon until someone noticed. I resolved to stop speaking. I vowed to do better, to be better. If I got an A, she was unmoved; had I done my best? If I did my best and got a B, she was unmoved; one must rise to every challenge. What I remember of my mother from those years is what she wanted from me, which was love and excellence; and what I could give her, which was too little of both.

The year I turned twelve, I broke. At night, every night, I’d lie in my bedroom overlooking our quiet street and sob for hours, watching headlights project tree limbs against the wall. The pain took the form of a voice. You’re poison. You deserve nothing good. People who say they love you are lying. I took it at its word. I didn’t tell my parents.

Before long, the voice plagued me day and night. You shouldn’t exist. Do what’s right. Rid the world of the burden of you. When I was seventeen, I started ditching class. My grades circled the drain. I’d go to punk shows to get kicked in the teeth. I’d go to work at a coffee shop before school, and after, to not be home. I told only my boyfriend that my mother was imploding. She went online for hours, chatting up phantoms; she barked at my little sister and brother, at my father, at me, if we got close to the screen; she wore headphones in the car to mute our bothersome voices. She no longer slept. She went to the gym daily, for hours. For months she didn’t know where I applied to college. It didn’t occur to me to tell her.

I was a thousand miles away, at a summer camp for young writers, when she e-mailed: You’re a great kid, I’ll miss you.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.