And the little girl stood in the distance with her face against the gate. On the other side of that gate, there were kids playing on the playground. She watched the kids smile as they played together going from the swings to the slide to the monkey bars. Instead of joining them, she decided to turn around and stare at the black cement. She admired the nice shoes her mother had bought her for her first day at kindergarten. The kept looking down, kicking a rock here and there. She kind of missed her Mom but she didn’t want to cry like she did in pre-school. So she just wandered endlessly around the playground that morning until the bell rang. When all the kids in her new class got in line as they talked and giggled together, she made it a point to be on the end of the line. She wanted to be friends with them, but felt like she probably wasn’t good enough. She just knew they wouldn’t like her. From that day on, she decided to stay alone. If the kids wanted to talk to her, then they would. If they didn’t, well then she really didn’t care, well not for now anyway.
The girl made it through kindergarten a success, well school-wise anyway. It was obvious to the teachers that she was very intelligent. They told her mother that something was wrong with her socially. Maybe she needed a child psychologist. She didn’t understand what that meant. She just knew that she had to go to talk to some lady in Montclair every week and answer stupid questions. The girl knew that she couldn’t mention the Father, because that would make him mad for sure. And making the father mad could be a very bad thing indeed. She just didn’t know why they were making her play with the other kids, it was clear they didn’t want her there. She tried to talk to them but it was if her voice was too low for them to hear. She sometimes felt invisible. So she tended to give up, and concentrate on her school work. By the time she was in third grade, she was reading way beyond her years. She started to take an interest in writing. Writing was her escape from reality, because in stories she can be whatever she wanted to be. It did bother her when the other kids had parties and she wasn’t invited. It did bother her in gym when she was the last one to be picked for a team. As she stood in the back, she always noticed the others around her, those like her, the outcasts. She decided one day that maybe she would talk to them, since they were in the same position as she was. She forced herself to be friends with people that she really didn’t feel were right for her. But that’s what everyone wanted to see, a little bit of socializing. Every night she would sit in the back of her closet and write about what her future would be like. She always had a 45 playing on the record player next to her. Music and lyrics intrigued her. They had meaning, and that is what she was searching for. She also likes to read books that were out of the norm for a child her age. One subject she was particularly interested in was Mythology. She also loved science-fiction. She didn’t like the typical cartoons that kids her age were watching. She was more interested in the sci-fi shows that older kids watched. Science fiction was incorporated in many of the stories she wrote. Teachers were so intrigued with her writing that they entered many of them into contests. Many of them actually won, and strangely enough a few of her art sketching won as well. However, she still continued to be a loner. As hard as her parents tried to force her into activities she always wound up quitting. She just never felt in. One day her Mother suggested singing lessons. Since she loved music so much, she decided to give it a chance. At first she was nervous to try out for the audition, but she belted out “The Sun Will Come out Tomorrow” with all she had. The tiny soft voice was no longer apparent as she sang to perfection. And to her delight, she was accepted into the program. She met others like her, and she was actually feeling like she fit in. She met especially one girl named Beth who gave her lots of hope and inspiration. Beth helped her realized that she was a talented person. Unfortunately, after a few years Beth moved out of state and was never heard from again. I guess that made her feel like she didn’t want to sing anymore. She did a couple of plays, but they were not the same. She did feel great while on the stage though. There was just not enough self-confidence or motivation for her to continue. So, she decided to dive back into writing again. Any kind of writing she can get involved in, she did. She wrote for school publications, newspapers, magazines and any contest she could find. Living in the world of writing was a happy world inside her sad world. The people in the writing were more real to her that the people in her real life. She felt like she was just a paper doll in the real world. The wind could come and blow her away and no one would notice.
What was going on behind the blue door is another completely different story. That was the darkness that scared her. She doesn’t really like to discuss what happened behind the blue door because it is very painful to remember. She just knew that being all alone outside that door was better than being with the people behind the door. Her goal was to run away from that door and never look back. There were some people that would say hi now and then, and there were friends that really were not friends. Then one day she met a sister of one of her not so nice classmates. It was really weird how she instantly became friends with this petite girl named Sue. Sue was a cute girl, very slim yet big chested. She had long blond curly hair and big brown eyes. There was just something about her that was so magnetic. The girl had finally found her first best friend. She wanted Sue to be her best friend forever. She trusted Sue with her life. Sue was more like a sister to her then her own sisters. She loved being with Sue, they laughed and cried together. They talked about everything, good and bad. They were honest with each other. For 2 years they were inseparable. The girl was happy when she was with Sue, she was the happiest she had ever been. But the way life goes, happiness can’t last forever. Sue met a young man named Charlie who wanted her full time. That meant there was no time for Sue to be with her friends. “I love Charlie, I want to marry him,” she told the girl. While she was happy that Sue found her true love, she knew she would be going back to being alone again. So she found jobs, and worked as much as she could. Other that working and school, she didn’t go anywhere or do anything. Then she met Joe. Probably not the best time to meet him, but it happened. Joe was from Newark, the bad side of time. He interested her, because she was not used to boys like Joe where she was from. Besides, he would give her something to do while Sue was with Charlie. Joe was a bit demanding, but he made her laugh. She did a lot for him, which included writing his college term papers, finding him a job, and driving him around because he didn’t have a car. She really wasn’t happy with him all the time, when it was good it was good, when it was bad it was bad. So most of the time they were on and off. One day she was sitting in front of Joe’s house waiting for him to come home from work, and a black camaro pulls up with a fat Italian girl in it. Hey, where is Joe? She shouted. “I am waiting for him to come home from work.” Hey, who are you? “I am his girlfriend…”WHAT, she shouted “I am his girlfriend.” She got out of the car shouting and the girl got so mad she swung her pocketbook at her and ran up the street.
To be continued...
