The Closet

Being one with the clean laundry, hanging up in the high ground of my closet, watching me with eyes of frost that froze my body in place to be rock solid, isn’t exactly something I wanted to keep up forever. I don’t want to have to throw on a wretched mask every single time I leave my own bedroom, and slam it on immediately after someone bang, bang, bangs on my door.
I hate the mask, it causes nothing but misery, keeping me locked in a stalemate where I can’t move a single piece since there’s a barrier on the chess board, but I keep it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. It is hot glued onto my own face, burning my face when it was first put on, but I got used to it after some time. It has replaced the face that I should have always had, and it was a horrid joke of a gift when I received it during fourth grade. It hurts, but I would rather the pain stay what it is than any change, either for the worst or the better. It has spikes on the inside, digging deep into my flesh, yet not causing visual scars, and a small smile on the outside with a message written in Comic Cans, since I’d be the punchline of a graphic novel, saying, “I am happy.” I want to exist, but I can’t exist if I live like this.
The mask is a reminder of what people want me to be, a fake, happy, talented young girl. They want me to be happy, to be smiling, and always be polite, but how can I do that when they want me to be perfect, when they want me to do everything that I can do to advance in education, expecting nothing but A+, when their priority is keeping me in the mask, forcing myself to be who they think I am. I can’t let it go, since it keeps everyone sane, except for me. They call me a brat when I don’t like living like this, and a push over when I suffer through it, slowly marching along the road to turning eighteen.
And of course if I didn’t want to carry this burden alone I would be selfish. This method of thinking has been proven time and time again to never be true, yet I keep staying in this cycle over and over again. They make it seem like I’m the one in the wrong whenever I don’t want to ask for help, even though I’ve heard the same things about how I shouldn’t waste my life on something that is most likely “Just another stupid phase.” I’m used to this process, and I’m honestly too scared to leave it. Whatever the reason it may be, this is what I’m used to, and it is one of the more conservative beliefs of mine, saying that nothing about the cycle repeating should change. I want help, but how can I get help if I’m too scared to reach out from  being conditioned to hate others since they see who I really am as disgusting, and one of my other friends, a sin. According to her book, I would be burnt down below after my death if I were to be happy within my own skin.
My first therapist was an old lady, one that was terrifying, and I wasn’t able to get most of my burdens out to her without lying. And even then, the only thing she could pull out of her ugly mouth was, “Get over it, others have it much worse.” I didn’t go back after that.
I didn’t really want to talk much after that, a new core memory to add behind the mask, but I did start going to a different office to speak out. My vitamin D deficiency, which I got after my blood was taken to see if that had anything to do with my depression, was why I had to start taking pills every day. At least they tasted kind of good, like a tangy citrus flavor with a bit of sweetness.
Life continued, and every day I would see the houses melt into each other on my commute, the roads would violently bump me awake, but I wasn’t alive until I got to school and went to my first period. I’m a robot, my only purpose being rinsing and repeating the same schedule for the first two hours of life on a daily basis. Life and joy was there, just dampened. I didn’t feel anymore.
Before December of last year, I was doing alright. Sure, I was digging out of my skin and trying my hardest to contain myself, I at least had hope. Hope that was very valuable to my patience, waiting day by day until I was allowed to be happy. I at least was able to feel fully, have the happiness, pain, anger, every emotion was in its height and entirety, but afterwards, nothing had anything to it anymore. My life had absolutely no purpose. The only thing that could make me feel was chewing mint gum, then chugging ice cold water, and listening to my comfort song, letting me get out the salted tears of repressed emotions.
In November, I was so happy. I had made it into the Region Orchestra, I would be playing alongside the best of the best in sixth grade, the cream of the crop, and I made my parents so proud, they smiled at me. I felt a sense of relief, since the stress was slowly but surely leaking out of places I didn’t want it to, and after the Google Classroom announcement, my head was up into space, my hands would not stop shaking, and my smile wouldn’t bend the other way, and I nearly screamed. Then, the dress code was released.
My spirit was crushed, obliterated into shards, and even though IT wasn’t required, I had a strong feeling of what to happen. I started feeling wet come down my face, and a cramp building up in my stomach, ready to explode and leave me on the floor of my bedroom. It would add to the mess of all the clothes that I couldn’t be bothered to clean up. I mean, your room is supposed to represent you, and I was a trainwreck.
“You’re going to look out of place!”
“It’s not going to be fair, you’re going to take the spotlight for being different!”
“Be a team player, no one else is going to skip out on it!”
“You’ll survive, it’s not the end of the world if you have to wear a dress.”
“Wear a dress... Wear a dress... Wear... A... Dress...” those were the only three words that had been echoing throughout the abyss deep in my brain for the past week. I couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head, no matter how simple that statement may have been.
It’s not the end of the world, huh? I still remember everything vividly as I write this. The cloth would rub against me in the most uncomfortable way, grinding on my skin like sandpaper. I was constantly burning under a mix of how heavy the material was, my sweat slowly coming down from under my neck, and holding back the tears I had built up. A knife was already thrown into me as I walked in and one of my classmates saw me. She was oblivious, of course. We didn’t really talk much, but we were on good enough terms. As I walked into the practice room, my hand putting the handle of my violin case through the same pressure I was in for the past weeks, my heart sank, and my blood boiled hot enough to the point where it must have become gas.
I wouldn’t have been the only one.
There were so many people, a good chunk of them wearing a suit instead of the dress “mandated” for “girls” yet they said I would stick out. My own orchestra teachers would have let me wear a suit if it weren’t for my parents telling me to suck it up. And to make it worse, the entire time there was someone who had gone through the same mask, and his was broken into pieces. Shattered like a vase that a child would break, and blame it on the family dog. Ouch.
That’s really all I had to say. This was a minor incident, and to be honest I’m sure I was overreacting at the time, but this was adding up into a massive mix, one that had been building up since the second grade, and I was furious. I could feel my heart thumping and my brows becoming more and more angular. My eyes started burning, and my blood came flowing down to my fists like I was about to punch something. I didn’t yell, I didn’t cry, I didn’t complain, I just played. I would have stomped to that fourth chair spot, and I would have screamed out into the audience that it wasn’t fair, but that was the only thing I could have controlled in the moment, so I didn’t. My reaction was the only thing that I could change. Everything else was just a whisper of fate, and the screams of people who shoved me in that same mask.
We went through the music, I focused intently as my eyes floated gently alongside each note, flinching everytime I felt the cloth go against my arms when I moved my bow. First piece, complete. I felt the audience cheer for us, and their clapping echoed throughout the theater, going straight through one of my ears and out the other. Applause didn’t feel the same anymore.
The two next pieces were about the same, but as soon as the final three measures of the last piece were playing, I flunked. I messed up the ending, and although it was covered by the nineteen other players inside of the Violin I group, it wrapped around and squished me until my guts were rearranged. The single thing I had worked so hard for, the thing that I was forced to be uncomfortable in my own body to participate in, and I MESSED IT UP! I stood up, bowed with the rest of the orchestra, and walked out. I was ready to run out of there. I’d been wearing that stupid dress for an hour and a half too long, it shouldn’t have even been on me in the first place, but of course we just HAD to take photos. Sure, a quick click and dash would have been okay, but we had to stay there for another thirty minutes to get everyone. I just wanted to fade out of existence right there.
Finally, I was back in the car, and soon enough I was in the bathroom, fully changed out back into the jeans and flannels I was used to, but the scars still lasted. It wasn’t just the dress, although that still stung, it was the experience with it. My parents told me I’d be the odd one out, and a fourth were doing the thing that would’ve “made me the awkward one in the middle.” Even after explaining that, they still said no one from my school had taken the other way out, and defended their previous claim. The failure I’d experienced at the end seemed to have failed two things; my pride and my soul. Then of course I had to stare at HIM, playing the bass, having a smile, his mask being broken off, and recovering. He was happy, and that’s one of the greatest things to experience at a young age for people like me and him, but in that singular moment I felt nothing but envy slicing into my skull, and telling me to hate those who had it better than me. I knew better than that, but it still burned into my chest.
That night, tears lulled me to sleep.
It’s been several months since that incident, and I still remember it all vividly. When I look back, years and years, I will always remember who I used to be, all the way back to second grade. I always had this pain, just very minute. I got bullied a lot for it, my teachers not noticing any of the names I was called, or how often people would avoid me. I only had a handful of friends, and we’d try to be rebellious, which was kind of stupid, but I thought it was cool back then. We would go to the very edge of the field, the blind spot of the teacher, behind the fences keeping baseballs from flying out into the traffic of the nearby loop. There, we would use nothing but our hands and the biggest rocks we could hold in our hands and dig. We had been planning to break out of the school and run home. I still laugh thinking about how one of the teachers walked at the scene of the crime, and I screamed, “Scatter!” at the top of my lungs, and everyone in the project went running.
Of course, all of this was interrupted by the pandemic, and I forgot about everything in the third grade. I really wanted to keep those memories away, since I really hated my teacher. She would yell at us for being cold when she didn’t let us wear hoodies unless it was below freezing, which it never was, we ARE in the heart of Texas after all. I forgot about everything.
Third grade was okay. No one bullied me because it wasn’t possible for me to be bullied since everyone was on a screen, but I couldn’t really have friends either. I just learned. I did my math, I did my reading, science, and faked the Pacer Test because I hate cardio with my entire heart, except for Taekwondo. It went from the start to the end in a blink of an eye, only stopping for the small walks me and my mother would go on everyday during the fifteen minute recess we got. After that year, I cried because I loved that teacher so much.
That was the summer I started to spiral.
I would lay in my bed and do absolutely nothing. I had no motivation for anything, and all I even had any pleasure in was sitting in my chair, playing Minecraft with one of the friends I still had, from 6 AM, to whenever I had Taekwondo practice or dinner, and then we would immediately hop back on the game afterwards.
It was a rinse and repeat life, and even though I did have some very good memories from that summer, and I still love that friend to this very day, I had the worst thing that could happen to me happen. I started puberty.
Now, puberty sucks for everyone, I know that for a fact. It’s when hormones start to rampage throughout everybody, and everyone is miserable, moody, and hates everything, but I was in fourth grade. Literally no one had started it yet, and I was alone in this. I hadn’t even known what would happen to me.
I started wearing hoodies in every weather. I was ashamed to look the way I did. I hated my pimples, I hated my sweat, I hated how small my arms were because I thought I would gain muscle. I hated my thighs because I thought they were too thick, and what I hated most of all was my torso. I couldn’t wear a t-shirt without wanting to throw up, and my pants always felt like they were too close, squishing my thighs, constantly rubbing against me as a reminder that they were still there.
Fourth grade was when my thoughts got heavy, and weight started collapsing my back, breaking it slowly and painfully, yet being hidden enough for no one to notice. I didn’t say anything, since I didn’t wish to be a burden.
I would look into the mirror, not recognizing who I am anymore. My grades started to feel like they were getting low, despite all of them being high A’s. I wasn’t good enough, and I don’t know if I would ever be. I joined UIL and didn’t even get into the tournament, and I was crushed. My mom said it was fine, but it really wasn’t. I joined the chess club and I was the worst member of it, and almost always lost. I didn’t improve since I always wanted to be with the same person, and keep that small sense of familiarity with me.
Most of all, SHE brought me down. She would make me hate people, even if I was a friend of theirs. She would lie that those who she didn’t like were bullies, and they always knocked down her water bottle. She would always use fake tears to convince me to hate people as well. She took my joy, getting mad at me for any accomplishments I could have made. A 99 in math? She got mad. A new belt rank? She got mad. Anything that she could’ve been jealous of she got mad at me for achieving. I dropped Atlee as a friend much later than I should have. If I could go back, I would have never been her friend in the first place, just so I could avoid what I went through. It hurt to cut her off, since I lost a part of my heart when I dropped her, but it was the right decision.
So, after fourth grade, I got rid of those memories. I tried nullifying, trying to terminate them, finding new friends online over the summer.
Then, I met Alex.
Alex was a kind soul, and we still talk every few months, but we used to hang out online every single day back when it was the summer between fourth and fifth grade. They were a year older than me, and introduced me to what I knew I was. That summer was the summer of discovery, and I was relieved after realizing that the thing I was going through wasn’t exclusive to me, but many others have gone through the exact same thing.
Fifth grade passed rather smoothly after figuring that whole ordeal out. Sure I still had that same misery, but at least I knew where it was coming from. I started playing the violin, did well in most of my classes, and didn’t really have any people that would bully me anymore. After this year, I was sure sixth grade would have been the same, right?
...Right?
Sixth grade, first day of middle school. God, I was such a fool to think this year was going to be great. I was such a fool...
Of course, there was already the dress incident that I had explained at the beginning of this memoir, but much more happened.
January 13, 2024, the day progressed horribly. I went home after school, and immediately felt a notch in my stomach. I don’t like recalling the parts of this day that happened. There are so many details, so much description. I could pull it all out and release it, but this is one of the memories that is really too painful to recount. All I can say is the next thing I knew was that me and my friends were all freaking out, and I was left there crying. One of my friends was the first to find out. I was able to take off the mask around him and him only. My parents did drag me downstairs at midnight on that same day. We had a talk.
My mother started crying, saying that I didn’t know the pain she went through. It was so late I didn’t feel anymore. I didn’t have emotions any more. They were all gone, after the one and a half months past the dress incident. I didn’t care. The next day she acted like nothing happened, like everything was normal.
But I remember. All the details. I remember...
I had two more of these conversations, my dad forcing me to speak during all of them. He apologized after one, and I said it was all alright, something I need to stop lying about all of the time, since it only adds to that facade. The second time there was nothing that happened, he never told me anything afterwards and the night went slow and agonizing after that. I broke down after both times. After sixth grade, I was done. I was tired, annoyed, angry, depressed, constantly crying myself to sleep. Seventh grade didn’t look too good when it was coming on the horizon. I had one week, and one week only to prepare.
June 7th, 2024. I told them. The mask fell off for that day, and the conversation that came was nerve racking. I told mom and dad who I was, and what I was. My parents said that they understood, and they supported me, yet the mask is still on, although cracked everytime I see them, it is still lying on my face. It hurts even more knowing that they know, but still have me keep it on.
A few weeks later, I got rid of the strands that caused nothing but misery. My hair was cut. No more getting in trouble at school for breaking the dress code for hiding it under beanies! Yes, that was really one of the things going through my head. I was finally me. I finally looked the way I wanted to look, although I did turn out looking a lot more like Zuko from Avatar than I expected. I was happy. I’m still happy from that day.
Nothing really has happened since that day, besides me removing the mask from the sight of all my friends, and of course my lovely creative writing and theatre teachers. I think they know- they may or may not at this point..
So, after everything is said and done, through and through, set in stone, there is only one thing left to do.
Hi, there. I’m not perfect, and I have scars running rampant through my brain. I'm still too scared to say what IT is, but I'm me.
And I like being me more than being a living lie.