Communing with the Moon

Perhaps the short conversation with her triggered a question that long disturbed me. Was I different enough to considered crazy, a lunatic, a girl with so-called imbalances, who nobody every fully understood no matter how hard he/she tried?

When I was about 12 years old, the age when all girls can talk about were Barbie dolls, Beverly Hills 90210, the latest trends and Ferragamo headbands, I was telling some of them I had Cancer; a tumor in my brain curable only through my trip out of town. It was nearly summer vacation and I was, indeed, scheduled to leave for a month to Zamboanga (then, it was a peaceful city), but not for any kind of treatment. There never was an operation to begin with.

It had always been like that. HOlidays had become my parents' excuse to get me and my constant "imbalances" out of the house and far away, shooing me to where my grandmother then settled, in a big house only she inhabited, but which I occasionally visited, spoiled, for days, weeks, even months.

It was the perfect opportunity to commit the crime. Growing up, I looked back at what I did guiltily. But I always though it was funny; a grand prank utterly horrendous for a child brought up with the Ignatian spirituality. Nevertheless, it bore buckets of tears and mountains of concern from fellow 12-year-olds.

I always spoke of my biggest lie in great fondness. Possibly, to mask whatever shame I caused my parents, who were so concerned with saving face, when my classmates discovered no tumor ever existed and that the only thing wrong with me was my sanity. At 12, people had already thought I was crazy.

My mother wept for days while my dad consoled her, occasionally throwing me around from room to room and hitting me with whatever object was nearest him. On lucky days, I would get the slipper, the hand, the fly swatter, the belt. On some, I took the drinking glass, the plastic chair, the entire table. After which, I would again be sent someplace far where I would be unseen and, temporarily, forgotten. I must have been a real curse to them.

Besides my friends, my own parents though I was insane. My mother threatened to bring me to a psychiatrist, but hesitated. What more could have brought the family more pain that having beloved society see and find out that their eldest daughter, at 12, was seeing a shrink? Though I needed it, they wouldn't dare consider it. I was fated to settle with my own ghosts, in my own way, in my solitary world. Later, much to their glee, I grew up into a child so perfect every parent wanted me to be his. But it wasn't who I am.

In an environment drenched with too many fake smiles and cocktail hypocrisy, I managed to emerge minus the usual adornments. Despite the infamy, I extracted myself from the monotony of elementary innocence and joined the ranks of common felons. I am sure nobody has forgotten that incident. But, perhaps, for the sake of themselves, for the sake of not admitting that at one point in their lives they were friends with the local nutter, they chose not to remember.

It was funny. But nobody was laughing.

My family continued to disapprove of my obstreperous and crass behavior, but the flights out came less often. Perhaps they thought it best to just leave me alone. Or maybe thye had just given up making me see light and focused their energies on their other two daughters, instead. Carefully molding them to grow up into persons far from what I have allegedly become.

But what have I really turned into? What was so wrong about it?

At 22, I have ceased to tell lies. Again, it struck fear because, this time, I was speaking too much of truth it was also shaming them. But I went on. I called it rebellion, anger, angst, but never associated it with the lunacy they named it. My writings were a reflection of who I am, and they could not take it.

For the first time, I learned to see me for myself. Not the child constantly under the shadow of her perfectionist parents, of society spun by routine and of friends who thought and acted the same way. I will not change for them. This is who I am and they will have to accept that.

They call me weird, problematic, a closet lunatic but I don't care. Some of them still do. I will not argue.

Because, maybe, if I compare myself with the sheep roaming this planet, I am.