Possessor of Power

I  vividly remember one blazing hot summer evening where the all consuming sky turned into an intense shade of purple as the beaming sun slowly decided to set. I was staring over at the stunning trophy which was twinkling with the final rays of the glowing sun. It was so mesmerizing that it caused me to be enchanted like I was enraptured by some kind of potion due to the realization of what I had just achieved. At first I had to pinch myself so that I was certain I wasn’t in some sort of thrilling dream. With the egotism I had back then, I could only think of positivity ahead of me full of joyfulness and a trouble free life I would have at last.

Following the success, our team decided to go to the local bar to celebrate on that joyous calm evening where the moon was beaming down across the peaceful town. When I went to order drinks a switch suddenly flicked in me and I froze being paralyzed and unable to move. I could swear I was staring directly into the face of my father and all self confidence I had swiftly seeped through every pore in my body until I was completely terrified. Eventually the blood I desperately needed flowed to my legs and I was capable of doing the only action which would make me feel safe, to run! I ran as fast as a cheetah until I could no more. My hand was still trembling with great anxiety and my heart was racing. It felt as if it was beating with such force that it was actually going to propel itself out of my body.

All the memories which I had tried to evacuate from my head for so long were all rushing back to me, all coming from different directions. I remembered especially that one bitter miserable night where I was drenched to the skin from the depressing rain and the wind was powering itself against the buildings with a battering force. I stepped into the house attempting to evade the avalanche of water coming down from the heavens. The sight I saw next shocked me to my soul and still traumatized me to this day. My mother had overdosed on heroin with a needle still sticking into her toes and her face was as gray as the granite rock outside. My father was still there drunk eating his takeaway as if there was nothing abnormal at all. As I started screaming out in a plea for help suddenly there was a dramatic shift in his vile character as his eyes became red with vast amounts of fury and the anger flashing across his head. The next morning I gradually woke up and I was still in the same room as the night before with a deep ache headache and I glanced down at my arms which had dark purple bruises all over which were the same tone as blueberries. This is when the whole night before bolted back to me. I understood that my mother was no longer there and my father had taken his wrathful anger out on me just like he always liked to do. Growing up I grew accustomed to this and I understood that he liked to do this because it made him feel as if he had more authority and greater self importance. 

I continued on with my life acting as if my outburst at the bar never occurred and tried to keep my swagger and pomposity in order to keep my respect and self importance within the club. However, all I could hear was my fathers vulgar voice around me all the time and it would never go away. I would continuously see my fathers sickening face everywhere I would step foot. The more I tried to zone away from it all and attempt to block it out, the more regularly it would occur. It felt as if my father was still swallowing me up, digesting me and then taking over my whole life. It was as if I was not able to command my body to complete basic tasks without giving up on me or standing statically like a car without any fuel.

As a team we were playing in one of the biggest matches of my career. I felt as if the whole world was on my shoulders relying on me. This pressure was building up throughout the match and the weight on my shoulders was increasing at a rapid rate. The force was becoming so great that I was incapable of playing properly due to the colossal overwhelming feeling I was striving to tolerate but was failing so miserably to control. The match was becoming even more intense and every microscopic decision I made could have been the difference between victory and defeat. It was the final minute of a grueling match where every player felt physically, mentally and emotionally drained by this whole occasion. The score was level and as a team we had a penalty in the box and if I were to score this penalty the contest would have been ours. 

The whole stadium had become alive like a wild animal. The cheering and shouting could have been heard for miles around. However,  the only thoughts that were in my head at that moment were the agonizing memories that I had of me as a child. I could only hear my fathers voice yelling “you are worth nothing to me”. My whole body was immobilized and as I was given the time warning to go for the penalty, I ran like an out of control goat up to the ball and thumped the ball well over the bar. All of a sudden all the energy had been zapped out of the stadium and there was a miserable sound of silence and it was as quiet as a library. 

After the game nobody would speak to me or even give me any comfort. I felt as if my father maybe was right the whole time that I was useless and a failure. That evening I felt incapacitated as I saw all the media talking about how I had fallen from grace. I could not cope with the vast amounts of attention I was receiving. I felt as if I could never properly escape my past life and had the sense I was imprisoned under my fathers control and authority no matter what I tried or how much I attempted to escape I knew that I was always going to be trapped in power. This realization that I would never be able to escape the painful past that I had endured no matter how much effort or success I had achieved made me feel as if I was cursed and I shouldn’t be alive. The phrase that I keep on repeating in my head is “this is my life” and it makes me contemplate what is the point in living in this cycle of confinement.

To this day the one thing I still can not help but think about is that when people think of their families and fathers they think of people who will support them, nurture them and comfort them. However, my father is the person who has caused the greatest amount of harm and damage to me and has prevented me from living a happy life where I could have achieved my full potential.