PAPER (8) NINA

It's 4am and I can't sleep. I had all these plans today. Plans to work. To clean. Maybe go for a walk and run a few errands. I don't want to do any of it now. That's not my assignment today. My energy is messed up. It's blocked. And that's messing up my money and my money is short enough as it is.

I have a journal that I write in every morning. I write things that I'm thankful for. I write down goals. I write tasks to complete in the day. Stuff like that. Mostly I write letters to my ancestors, my guides, God. I ask them questions and I write down what they say. They speak to me all the time. Not immediately, but they speak. They listen too. They get me.

My energy is blocked. I told you that. Money is energy, did you know that? Money is a physical indicator of my energy flow. Everybody has their own. For some people it might be physical or mental health. For others it might be their relationships. For me it's money. I'm filled with so much rage and anger right now, my flow is stuck. Stuck. Stuck. Stuck. Like a wad of toilet paper in my pipes. Nothing can get through. When there's just a little bit clogging up the pipes you can use a plunger yourself and after maybe ten minutes of pumping you good again. Other times though, you gotta call in the professionals. My ancestors are the professionals. My ancestors led me to Dillon, my therapist. The writing I'm doing in my journal is healing but it was time for me to say the words out loud.

I'm stuck in my past. Ain't everybody who is in therapy though? I'm from a very polite family. We didn't fight or cuss each other out or anything like that. My friends envied that about my family. How well we got along. What they didn't know was that we didn't love each other enough to fight. We just weren't worth the effort to each other. I have a twin sister, Becca. We're two minutes apart. I'm the youngest. We're not close. We've never been. When we were little my mother used to dress us alike and I hated it. To this day I'm triggered by photos of us in the same outfits. My mother knew it too. It didn't matter to her. But my feelings never mattered to her. She thought it was funny that I would cry so much over a nothing thing as being dressed like my sister. In her world though, we were twins and we were supposed to dress alike. But my mother was all about her world. Never mine. I was supposed to just be grateful I had clothes to wear at all. I heard her say that once to my aunt. It was the 4th of July and we were about nine or ten years old and we were out in Bakersfield at my aunt and uncles house to see all the fireworks. My Uncle Arthur was taking pictures of all the kids but he always made a production out of our photos. He wanted Bec and me to stand on the porch, which I cooperated with. Then he wanted us to hold hands and that's when I lost it. I started crying like a baby. Becca just stood there rolling her eyes at me. I stepped off the porch and went to my mother hoping she would hold me and make me feel safe. I don't know why I thought she would. I don't. Aunt Karen asked what was wrong with me and before I could answer my mother said, "She's just ungrateful." I spent the rest of the day and the night playing with my doll. I didn't even go out to see the stupid fireworks. To this day I hate the 4th of July.

The ride to our house in Lakewood was horrible. My dad was quiet. Becca was doodling in her coloring book. I was staring out the window. My mom was in the front seat crying. She cried the whole way home. Three hours! She cried for three hours! Went on and on about how hard she tries and people don't appreciate what she does. People don't love her. People don't behave. People don't like her. People embarrass the family. People won't be there for her when she's old. People can't wait to turn eighteen and move away. People will never come to visit her. People will forget all about her. In case you haven't guessed, allow me to introduce myself. I'm people. My mother has been emotionally manipulating me my whole life. No one ever asked me why I was crying. Ever. I had the outburst and the ride home was about my mother's tears and how people don't love her.

You know, since I was a little girl I wanted to go to Paris. I don't know why Paris but I have always been fascinated with the city. In my middle school they offered three foreign language classes. Spanish, French and Japanese. I was so excited. Of course I was going to take French. I had my classes all picked out and my mother had to sign the card and I would be on my way. The next morning as I was getting dressed my mother handed me my card. Something about the way she handed it to me made my heart drop. She crossed out French and wrote Spanish. She was on her way out the door to go to work and I ran outside after her. She wasn't even going to talk to me. Just hand me the card and leave? She said I didn't need to learn how to speak French because there were no jobs around here where I was going to use the language. As she rolled her window up and backed out of the driveway I stood there screaming, "I'm not going to be around here!"

Fast forward now. It's a week after high school graduation. There's only my mom, Bec and me in the house. My dad left two years ago. I'm finally happy because I'm about to start living my life. My life. Becca is going to Spelman and I'm off to Howard. The house has been quiet for days. Too quiet. About 9 one night my mother started complaining about chest pains. Becca was at the movies with a friend so I drove my mom to Kaiser. They kept her overnight for observation and I stayed there with her. They let her go the next day and I drove her home. About noon we had a family meeting that began with my mother's tears. She said that she had been having chest pains because something was wrong with her heart. She didn't say what, just something. I wasn't in the room with her while she was in the hospital. She wanted me to stay in the waiting room or go rest in the car. So I did. During the family meeting she said that Becca had an academic scholarship so she should go on and go to Spelman. She was going to be the first lawyer in the family. She was afraid though, that she shouldn't be alone in the house in her condition because her father had died of a heart attack and maybe she would too. She needed somebody to take care of her and since I didn't have a scholarship and wasn't sure about what I wanted to major in that I should stay home and go to Long Beach City College. Then, before I could have one of my wild outbursts, right on cue, her chest started hurting again. She was Fred Sandford. The family meeting was over after my mother's spell. Becca helped her into her bed and I sat there at the kitchen table.

Some days I'm ok. Then other days the memories hit me so hard I can hardly move. That's where I've been all night. Where I am this morning. I didn't go to Howard. My mom and I never talked about that family meeting. Ever. Ever. It got swept under the rug along with all the other...stuff.