sporty spice

One of the sports I was forced to participate in was swimming. I hated it. I loved to swim, don't get me wrong, and I adore being in water, but I hated doing it competitively. At some point when I was pretty young, it was discovered that the one stroke I was good at was breast stroke. I pretty much sucked at everything else in comparison. Joanna latched on to this. After this discovery, I was swimming year round, sometimes twice a day, before and after school. I did both summer and winter swim. After school I'd go to practice for baseball, or soccer and then on to swimming. I never had any time for homework, or to eat. Not that my mom ever helped with homework or bought groceries. The worst part of it was that my mom was a lazy piece of shit. By this I mean I would finish with swim practice in the evening and literally wait anywhere from one to three hours for her to show up to pick me up. She didn't have anything more important to do, she was just lazy about picking me up. And it was winter. In Maryland! I'd wait for her for so long inside the pool, that eventually it would close and they'd have to ask me to step outside. I knew they felt bad asking, and it was embarrassing being the only kid on the team with a neglectful parent. So I would wait outside in the freezing cold, a little kid, with long wet hair and clothes from swim practice. And then came high school.

I went to a private Catholic high school in DC with a diligent ROTC program. My mother made me join the ROTC program because it apparently would look good on a resume (not if you constantly failed the class and they said to leave the program or be kicked out) and because if there was ever a war and a draft was enacted I'd be a high ranking official. Seriously. Another one of her requirements that was that I joined the swim team, which I expected. St. John's didn't have a pool on campus, so we'd swim at the Montgomery College campus in Takoma Park. Takoma Park is an old, beautiful hippie type neighborhood with lots of big Victorian houses. Like so many neighborhoods in the greater DC area, you'd walk a block and be in the shitty part of Takoma Park, which included lots of crime and drug deals. So while the pool wasn't in a bad area, the walk to the metro was. Again, while all my friends got picked up from practice in the middle of winter, my mom, who had nothing else to do, told me to walk. I had no idea how to get to the metro, it was always dark and I'd often get lost. So I'd wander around Takoma Park (the bad part) in my flimsy Catholic school girl uniform (by this point I'd dropped ROTC and wore the regular super short plaid skirt and white polo), wet from practice searching for the metro. I was old enough to start taking my driving classes, but Joanna refused. One particularly cold night I remember, it took me about 3 hours to get home. I walked in the door, freezing cold, drained, tired and overall just emotionally exhausted. I had so much hate for my mother, I knew she was a piece of shit, and I had no way out. I always felt trapped. She was sitting on the couch reading or watching tv or something.
"I need to take that driving class. Seriously. It took me three hours to get home and I'm fucking freezing." I said this calmly. I only ever started to yell after she did, which was basically all of the time.
"I don't think you're mentally stable enough to have a car." When I was a child, hell, even until I was a teenager, I was never allowed to have a bike, literally because my mom would tell me it was a mode of transportation. And I had this dug addled crazy person telling me I was too unstable to drive a car? This makes me mad even writing it.
"What the fuck are you talking about? I have to wander around the bad part of Takoma and in the middle of winter soaking wet. I'll pay for the classes."

I don't remember the dialogue from there so I won't try to reenact it. I do remember that it turned into a screaming match, she could give me no valid explanation for not letting me go to driving school, she hit me, and I ended up outside on our deck hysterically crying. I called my friend Raph to pick me up. She took me to her house, fed me vegan desserts and ran me a bath. She dropped me off back at my house later that night, where I passed out in bed, thinking of how much I hated this aspect of my life, and fantasizing about its nonexistence.

baksetball

When Joanna had kids and we were old enough to walk and understand basic English, she basically made us her slaves. First it was with my older brother until he got too pissed off and hateful and then just refused, then it was me until I got too pissed off and hateful, and lastly my youngest brother (though it was constantly my grandmother, her own mother, who did every little thing for her because she was terrified of her own daughter, until she moved out). If she was sitting on the couch and her purse was literally five feet away from her, she would call on me, often while I was outside, or a completely different part of the house to hand her her purse, or get her a Xanax, or whatever she wanted. It was absolutely ridiculous, and it was constant. This happened non stop all day, and she'd be enraged if I didn't respond quickly enough.

When I was in middle school, I want to say sixth grade, she was driving me so basketball practice. She enrolled me in any and every sport, no matter how much I hated it or sucked at it (and I sucked at most) because she was afraid I would get fat. Also, she had decided this was the only way I could make something of myself and my profession would be that of a famous athlete. When I would miss a practice or do poorly in a game, as soon as we'd get in the car she would lose her mind about how I was throwing my life away...this started in about fourth grade.

On the way to basketball practice she was fumbling around in the center compartment of the car and then stated,
"There's no chapstick in here." I nodded my head in acknowledgement. I knew she was telling me to find her the chapstick but it infuriated me that she didn't even have the decency to ask. Again she said it,
"Did you hear me? There's no chapstick in here." Each syllable was pronounced harshly, she was pissed I didn't immediately start searching for some chapstick.
"Ok." I said quietly and calmly.
Then the backside of her closed fist connected with my face. She was a fan of the "backhand." She was always threatening them, but she refused to acknowledge that a closed backhand was a punch. She almost ran the car off the road, one hand on the wheel and the other hitting me as I tried to protect my face and my head, my head tucked to my knees while I began hysterically crying. I always wanted to be one of those strong silent types that could get through it all without crying, but I never was.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" She screamed, "How could you do this to me?"
Naturally, I had no idea what the fuck that crazy bitch was talking about. I would've tried to respond, to tell her that the only thing I did was not grab the chapstick, but it would've just made her more angry. And now looking back, I don't think it was about the chapstick, I think she knew that the act of not finding her fucking chapstick was my act of rebellion. Most kids pierce something or sneak out in the middle of the night.

She stopped hitting me and continued driving to my school, my little brother was there anyway and we had to pick him up. She screamed at me the whole way, calling me a fucking bitch and the like, though she did say I wasn't going to basketball practice, so I was thankful for that. When we got to my school she told me to wait in the car while she picked up my little brother.
"Don't even think about running away. Who do you think will want you? You have nothing and no one, no one wants you and no one in this world will help you."
She told me this regularly. I know now it was to alienate me, and to scare me. It worked. When social workers would come to school and ask me questions, I was always afraid to say yes, my mother does hit me and no, she does not feed me.