Breaking Out Into Me
Same Walk, Different Shoes
“Same Walk, Different Shoes” is a community writing project that Ben Wakeman organized as a practical exercise in empathy. The premise is simple. A group of writers anonymously contribute a personal story of an experience that changed their life. Each participating writer is randomly assigned one of these story prompts to turn into a short story. The story you are about to read is one from this collection. You can find all the stories from the participating writers at Catch & Release. Enjoy the walk with us.
The old memories welled up along with the tears as I read the third hateful email from Mum. The THIRD! and not noon yet. I had not yet responded to the 2nd. Mum got angry if I did not respond within a timeframe known only to her. And so -
“Lisa how I rue the day I let that cow of a man plant you inside me. You ungrateful little bitch, oh the star I was born under! You left me alone in Manchester after Piggy left me for the slut, and you knew it, that’s why you left isn’t it…
This was the progression - her first email a bit soft, clingy, with veiled recrimination. I would reply defensively. The second one always pathetic pleading. In some ways they were the worst, they held out a fool’s gold hope of repaired love. But I had been burned by that tactic too many times. And now the third…
I looked out the window of my study. The rural countryside of Allihies in Cork was sun soaked for early spring. I took a breath and returned to the email.
“Why you weren’t a boy I’ll never understand. Why was I cursed with you? You never cared, only thought of yourself…
I stared at the screen not finishing. I knew the progression. It was just past 11 am. She was already drunk, and Mum is a mean drunk. I sat and remembered all the things.
I have no idea how old, I was sitting in the front room playing with a dolly when I heard footsteps. I looked up at Mummy and held up my dolly with a smile. She slapped it from my hand, pulled me up by my hair, angry and stinking of gin, and shook me and belched this rhyme,
Tell tale, tit!
Your tongue shall be slit,
And all the dogs in the town
Shall have a little bit.
I started crying, and she looked appalled then started laughing. “That’s rich!” she said and dropped me and stumbled off. I lay on my side crying, until I stopped.
To this day I don’t know what happened, why she chose that ugly rhyme, why she hated me. But, I deserved it, I did something wrong. I must have, else why the anger and the meanness.
And so the pattern was set.
Because life goes on, and for no other reason, I grew up. I was pretty enough, I suppose. Boys tried to chat me up. And I had two close friends, Helen and Claire. We met in Primary. They were nice to me, and I never understood why.
They asked to come to my house, and one day I got the courage to ask Daddy. He looked up from his paperback and through the cigar smoke, smiled and said, “Sure, why not?”
We all walked to my house from school the next day, talking and laughing, and when we came in Daddy was still at work.
Mum was sitting at the kitchen table working a crossword puzzle and muttering. Cigarette butts in her cereal bowl, one burning on the edge of the table (several burn marks were on that table) and a glass of gin. She looked up, “Who are they?”
“Friends from school Mum, Helen and Claire. Daddy said I could.”
“Daddy said I could,” she sneered. “Well, Daddy’s not home now is he you little twit. What am I supposed to do now, get up and make nice? Act like I’m glad you barged in with your little trollops? You unthinking ungrateful thing, you. Never thinking of your poor Mum left all alone all day and then expected to entertain…”
Helen, tapped my arm and motioned toward the door. She and Claire were leaving. “Mum,” I said, “they’re just going now. Just popped in, but I’ll walk them out.”
She just glared at us and lit another cigarette.
Eyes stinging as I walked them out, my face hot, I could not look them in the eye. I mumbled some sort of apology and Claire hugged me and they left. I ran to my room and fell on the bed and cried till I stopped.
I avoided my friends for a week. Finally, Helen and Claire followed me into the loo. “Lisa,” Helen started,
“What!” I barked back and the shocked look on her face brought me up. I looked from one to the other, my self-esteem welling in my eyes and sliding down my cheeks. Breaking eye contact I stared at the floor watching my self-worth fall and splat on the tile below.
“Lisa,” Helen said again, “don’t cry. Please don’t.” She sounded concerned but why would she care? To fool me, raising false hope, only to hurt me later. Like Mum. “Why are you avoiding us?” “Yes,” chimed Claire, “don’t be embarrassed, we’re friends.”
I could not respond. For 7 or 8 years now, my Mum had made it clear that I was an ugly horrible person. If my own mother couldn’t love me, how could anyone else. I was left silent, not able to believe what they were saying. Claire looked sad, but after a bit Helen looked irritated and said, “Well, I’m off. You know where I am. Only in every class with you. Talk to us when you’re ready.” She left, and Claire looked at me for a while as I stood awkwardly. “Just go,” I managed, and she turned and left. I went into a stall and cried until I stopped. Eventually the crying always stops.
On the outside.
I went on to University, and Claire and Helen stayed in contact though we were at different schools. Over the next couple of years, they never hurt me, never turned. I could not understand it and did not trust it. Mum got meaner as I got older. She never struck me, though I wanted her to beat me. Needed her to beat me. She never did. Physical hurt I could have dealt with. The body heals. The mind?
Dad? Dad left long before he physically left. I was alone except when he took me to the library. “I’m going to buy cigars,” he’d say with a wave and I would be left among my books for hours.
I don’t remember him ever coming back with cigars.
I started cutting about then. I would watch the crimson well like tears, then wipe like tears, then dry like tears. I rested in the sense of control. The autonomy. Oh the freedom of that carmine siren song.
I did not date. I had sex. Some. Short brief feverish. Never twice. Never any intimacy. I don’t remember names. Just smells and yearning and frustration. No one could possibly love me. I knew that. Eventually that just stopped. I just stopped.
After sex stopped, cutting took over in earnest. I had to get creative. My skin did not heal fast enough in all the hidden areas. I would have “accidents” and cover them with visible bandages. But Helen and Claire would ask, “What, again? Is your Mum hurting you?” The lies became easy because they stopped being lies. Because I believed what I was saying.
Claire and Helen confused me. Why did they keep calling? I would go out with them. They would smile and laugh and tell stories. I would relax, talk. Once I told them about dad and the library.
“He was having an affair,” said Claire. “I know,” I replied. Helen just shook her head and looked at me with an expression I had seen once before.
We had a dog for a while. Mum pretty much killed it when it was still a puppy. It had pooped in the hallway, and she stepped in it. Threw a frying pan at the little thing. I was crying, I was always crying, and it made Mum meaner. I picked up the little mutt; I had named him Charlie. Dad and I drove to the vet. Charlie panting slower and slower. Looking at me, eyes watery. We rushed in and the vet took us back immediately. He whispered something to dad and shook his head. Dad looked at Charlie and said, “I’m so sorry boy.” I remember his face, though. Pity, sadness, a blend of soft anger and disgust rippling back and forth and in and out.
Anyway, that was the look on Helen’s face.
I met a boy at Manchester University. It was weird. We had some classes together and would end up in the library. He was quiet, short and stocky, brown hair and eyes, a soft voice and large vocabulary. In the stacks we were looking for the same book, and he suggested we study together.
My heart pounding and the blood rushing in my ears, I said yes. My face was hot again, but not like usual. I felt warm and healthy. It scared me. We began studying, and he was kind. He was complimentary. Real genuine compliments, not the things guys would say to get between my legs. Things like, “good sentence structure.” “I like what you did there.” “I never thought about that… not sure I agree, I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
I would proof-read his papers, make small suggestions. He always thought I made his papers better. He was smarter than me, so I couldn’t truly accept that I helped. Then he’d smile and say, “Thanks!”
It was magical.
I kept waiting for him to find a girlfriend. But he just seemed interested in his studies. He suggested once that we get something to eat. I couldn’t speak, and finally just said, “No, I have to go.” and strained to not run in terror from the library table. I didn’t believe it. What does he want? Why eat dinner with me? What is wrong with him. Doesn’t he see what’s wrong with me?
Magic requires suspension of disbelief.
I still lived at home as I was close to school. Dad had left physically by then, and we had moved into a council flat. Mum was a horrid mess. She stumbled around the house, bathing once in a while, falling asleep in the chair, vomiting and then falling asleep on the couch, or at the table, or on the floor. And mean. Ugly mean. I absorbed vile insults like a control rod preventing her from going nuclear. Our interactions were short and bitter and intense. I had grown to hate her and hate the flat, the dirty stinking flat. On my from way home from school, my pace always slowed as I turned down the street towards home.
Each day, nearing the door, the sky would brown out, as if viewed through a dirty window screen. At the door, the anticipated smell of gin and puke and the sense of oppressive dread would hold me frozen for long moments before I would scurry in hoping to get to my room unnoticed.
One day I stood at the door for minutes, imagining the puke-gin-cigarette miasma that would assault me when I opened the door. I let go of the handle, made a vulgar gesture, turned, and went back to school and applied for housing.
I didn’t tell Mum and did not hear from her for a full 10 days. One day after class I entered my room and she was sitting on the bed, a cigarette burning a hole in my bedsheet, the stink of gin plastered itself in my nose like dried blood. She started in, and I just ran as hard as I could. The smell…
I ended up in the library. Paul was there. Seeing my face, he came up, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “What is it Lisa?” I collapsed into sobs. He said nothing, just held me. Again, I cried until I stopped. On the outside. He gently led me to one of the couches and we sat. He just sat next to me.
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” I blurted. I needed to know exactly what the hell was up with him and I erupted in anger. “What the hell is up with you?” I echoed my thoughts. He didn’t look surprised or offended. “I do have a girlfriend.” “Who? What’s her name?” “Lisa.”
I got tunnel vision, and my vision browned. There was a fluttering in my chest. “Stop it. Just stop it, I can’t take it.” He sat silently. I composed myself and got up and went walking. I walked a long while. When I got back to my dorm I slowly opened the door. Mum was gone, but not the stench. But, she left a letter and that is when the pattern began, letters and later the emails and voicemails.
Mum should have written drama and horror. I picked up the letter from the bed and read. I staggered into the bathroom and vomited. Hard. Blood vessel in the eye bursting hard.
The things in those letters left me shattered. I exercised control the only way that worked.
Claire found me on the floor. I had gotten carried away and lost control. I woke up in the hospital, all IVs and bandages. Claire and Helen on either side. “How…” I started.
“I saw your Mum,” Claire said. “I was in town and came to visit. She said you moved to school and then she started in like she does. I left and came here…”
“And a good thing! My God Lisa, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?” Helen was tears in her eyes sad mad.
“Shh shh, Helen,” said Claire. “Time enough for that later.” She looked at me with soft brown eyes and said, “Talk to us Lisa.”
I don’t know. Was it the hospital, the drugs, something else? Real friendship? The dam burst. I pleaded with them to just leave if they weren’t really friends and I begged them not to go. I thanked them profusely for small kindnesses that were like neon in the desert night of my life and asked why. They told me about the little things, about the big things, how I had helped them, what kind of friend I was, and I let myself believe. I talked about the cutting. I talked about Paul, the wild madness of this man that liked me. We all cried and stopped and cried and stopped. But this time, when I stopped on the outside, I stopped crying on the inside. And then I slept.
When I woke up Paul was there.
The courtship was long and slow and sweet and he had a horrible time. I could not believe he was real, could not believe this would not end, could not believe I could be loved.
I think there are at least two people inside of us. Whoever we are and whoever we think we are. Usually whoever we think we are is ascendant. I think. Now and then the real you wins, and we got married.
The first few years were hard and I don’t know why he stayed. I stopped cutting after the hospital. I guess the real me didn’t want to die. The me I thought I was found other ways. Paul endured accusations, ugliness, and meanness. I still don’t know how, but he managed for several years and three kids. His real and imagined self must have been in sync.
I had started fighting back with Mum, by phone, email, voicemail. Soaring cage match fights with emotional chairs to the head, body slams, kicks to the chest, strangle holds, great roundhouse punches to the face. I would go red, and the kids and Paul would leave. I would finish, revel in the victory or wallow in the defeat, then start to feel like the awful shit that I was. Paul and the kids would come home, and we would pretend.
However, one day he broke down and with a great apology told me his pride had led him to think he could fix me if he just loved me enough. But he realized that he could not fix me, he did not have the skills or know how. He gave me an ultimatum - Get therapy. Get competent help. He didn’t say, “Or else.” It was a simple demand. And he didn’t apologize for it. And I love him for that.
I don’t know who was more afraid at that moment.
I rang Helen. “Duh,” she said. “Do it. I’m going to hang up, call me when you find a therapist.”
I called Claire, she tearfully shouted for joy. “Yes, finally, oh my God, yes.” We talked for an hour, and she gave me the name of a therapist that she had used. That floored me. “You have a therapist?” “Yeah, and I have a doctor for when I have an ear infection and a mechanic when I need an oil change or a flat fixed.” “Oh,” was all I managed.
I called Helen back, “I have a therapist.” “Claire’s?” “Uhm, yeah…” “Good, call me after your first session.” “But…” “Call me,” and she hung up.
Good friends are a treasure beyond measure.
It has been seven years since I got that last email. That day I started the dance, the ultimate cage match once again, but I stopped. It does take two to tango. Claire’s therapist, Dr. Miriam, is a Jewish woman trained in the US. Her specialty is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). One day she gave me a book. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I said, “You want me to read the diary of some old dead white guy?” “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
God bless Marcus Aurelius. I learned I had choices and decisions that were mine. All mine.
Behavior. That morning seven years ago, I looked at what I had wrote, deleted it, then blocked my Mum on my email and my phone. I have not responded to her since. That cycle of anger and guilt was in my power to stop. I stopped.
I still don’t know what happened to my poor Mum, why she was the way she was. Something bad must have happened. But that something was not me. Leaving her behind was hard. Still is. Still is. I think about her a lot.
Maybe I broke a cycle. I don’t know. God, I hope so.
I do know that conditional love is not love at all, it’s manipulative abuse. The only right thing to do is what the stewardesses say on the airplanes. “Put your mask on first, then help the people next to you.” I must take care of myself. It’s not selfish, it is my duty and my right.
And I love my husband and my kids unconditionally. They know they are loved. They know my friends. Aunt Claire and Aunt Helen to them. Their kids are like cousins to mine. Sometimes, when we meet for tea in the afternoon, I just look at them. They talk and laugh, and I just watch them. All warm and cozy inside. I haven’t cried in a long time.
I hope they see the love and feel the deep and abiding gratitude. They helped me break out into me. Along with my husband, and Dr. Miriam, they helped me to know who I am. A person worth loving who can love well in return.
The pictures were generated by Image Creator from Microsoft, their AI image creation tool. The rhyme was from a Google search of British schoolyard rhymes in the 70s.
Thank you. It was a stretch for me to write first person as this woman. But I have 4 sisters so that helped.
"Magic requires suspension of disbelief." Doesn't it just.