Читать книгу Leaving the OCD Circus - Kirsten Pagacz - Страница 21

The summer I was twelve, I underwent a metamorphosis. I heard my brother and his friends talking about chicks being “foxy,” and I was certain that this was my new bull's-eye. Achieving foxy would bring me the peace I had been working to achieve with Sergeant for the past several years. If I could get foxy, I would be accepted and happy and would no longer feel like a walking bruise.

I started wearing tighter, more revealing clothes, lots of makeup, and big 1980s hair. I experimented with the frosty blue Maybelline eyeliner that I saw models in the magazines wearing.

I started hanging out with the young wolves in the alley. There would often be a gang of them slouching against garbage cans, staring at their dirty gray sneakers, kicking rocks, smoking cigarettes in their army jackets, or sitting on the broken pavement in front of a garage, not necessarily their own. Let's just say none of these kids had school spirit or were particularly popular, but I thought they were cool, living on the fringe and not caring much about anything.

We wolves (because now I was one of them) would smoke bowls of pot that looked like tiny branches, golden or red hairs, clumps of dirt, and seeds that would crackle and snap when they were lit. We would smoke a few puffs, cough violently, and keep passing the joint around, our eyes glassing over and turning pink. No one seemed to give a fuck, and to me this felt pretty good. Smoking pot gave me some relief and letup from Sergeant. Plus, I loved the sensation of floating and laughing at silly things. Sergeant was barking out orders more and more these days, and I wanted to silence him. The pot delivered.

We wolves had something else in common: we all had time on our hands. We didn't have places to be, like the dinner table, and we didn't have anyone looking for us. When I was high, even though I never felt totally right, I didn't feel as wrong either.

However, one time while stoned, my braces were bothering me so much that I couldn't stand them in my mouth a second longer. The hard wires in the back were poking inside my soft, fleshy cheek. I couldn't stop thinking about them, obsessing about them and the pain they caused. Sergeant helped me to come to this conclusion and presented a winning end goal: “comfort.” I decided that I had to take them off myself with a variety of tools I found at my friend's house. It's embarrassing to say this now, but one of the tools that worked especially well was a pair of toe-nail clippers. I hope I washed them before I gave myself dental surgery! I know, gross. However, they were the perfect tool for hunkering down and pulling out the wire. After I pulled out the wires the best that I could, I picked off the metal boxes glued to my teeth. My determination to get them off was greater than the pain I felt taking them off. In a driven panic, I almost got rid of every piece. The orthodontist was in shock the next time he saw me. I'm sure my mom didn't like the bill, either!

When eighth grade started, I had such a bad attitude that all seven of my teachers called a conference with my mother and said, “What happened to your daughter?!” It seemed as though nobody knew.

Not only had my personality done a 180, but we'd also moved closer to the high school I'd soon be attending because my mom had found a good deal on a condo. That well-traveled and well-known land of my old neighborhood had now evaporated into the distant past “when I was a kid.” I was becoming a teenager, and that meant no more kid stuff. No more climbing trees with Victoria and talking to caterpillars. No more days of walking out the front door without any makeup on.