Weeding My Garden

June 20th 2011

Hi 2019 Josie!

    Miss Posner said that this is for our 18 year old selfes. I really wish I was 18 now so I could do whatever I want and not have to listen to mom and dad all the time. I wish they would let me do more fun stuff, like watch more TV, play with my friends, and not make me do my homework all the time. 

    We have to do this because Miss Posner says that we’ll get these letters when we’re about to graduate high school and it will be fun to look back on our elimentary school selfes. I’m really excited for summer but I’ll really miss Miss Posner. This year was so fun. We learned how to multiply and divide decimels but I’m not very good at it yet. Mom and dad ask me random math questions every day so I can get better at it, but mom gets really frustrated when I get questions wrong. She doesn’t know why this is so hard for me and says that if I find this hard then it’s never going to get easier. I think she’s wrong. I still have 2 years of elimentary to work hard and get smarter.

How is high school? Do you have a lot of friends? I’m now friends with all the girls in my class. They’re all so nice so I hope that you’re still friends with them. We play during recess and after school all the time but Lily is starting to play with the boys. She has a crush on Adam and she’s trying to impress him by showing how tough she is. I don’t know why she likes him. He can be so mean to her sometimes. Lily was playing soccer with them and Adam kept shoving her whenever the ball went near her. People say he does it because he likes her back but I don’t think it’s true. Why would he be so mean if he liked her? I might write another letter if anything else happens.

 I’m proud of myself! At the parent teacher conference Miss Posner said that I’m really smart and that she’s so proud of the progress I’ve made. Especially in reading comprahension because I got 7/10 on our last quiz. That’s one of the highest grades I’ve gotten in LA! My parents agreed with her but when we got home they told me to try harder. Hopefuly your high school teachers are proud of you too and that you’re the smartest kid in the class so mom and dad can be proud too. 

Did mom have a boy or a girl? Mom and dad want to keep it a surprise which I think is stupid because what if they buy pink clothes but the baby is a boy and they can’t use any of them. I really hope it’s a girl so I can have a little sister to play with. Mom says I will have to be super careful with her because babies are really fragile. When I found out mom was pregnant I promised her that I will be the best big sister ever so even if it’s a boy you better have kept that promise to make mom happy. 

By the time I reach the end, my vision is blurry and wet, crinkled spots spread across the yellowed paper like chicken pox. The memory of this innocent hope weighs within my heart, threatening to unstitch old scars. I had so many hopes for the future and was blissfully ignorant of the problems of the past and present; everything I did was never given a second thought and I never regretted any of my actions unless they seriously hurt someone. My worries were so simple. As long as I had my friends and enough toys to replace countless hours of boredom I would be unaware of the stress I caused my parents. Often choosing the outdoors over my homework, my parents spent countless evenings tracking me down, hearts in their throats, thinking something had happened because I wasn’t home in time for supper. My disregard for learning outside of school hours heavily reflected in my grades; not terrible but nowhere near good enough to give my parents the idea they had a smart daughter. By grade eight, when I had finally cracked the code to good grades, the boat had already sailed and sunk. I would forever be the disappointment of the family.

I envy my ten year old self, still holding onto hope for the future. Too young for regrets. Young enough to find joy and satisfaction in the littlest things. 

The pregnancy was a welcome surprise for my parents. I remember their hushed tones as they gave voice to their wish for a better child: smarter, quieter, more obedient. It’s as if they were speaking it into existence. Their once regular arguments abandoned our home, not that I knew what they were about. I was too preoccupied playing with dolls, baking in the summer sun, jumping in puddles after rain. 

Their sorrow was palpable when mom had a miscarriage. 

Her depression kept her bedridden for a week and her eyes glassy for months. Dad’s workplace became his second home, coming back ridiculously late and leaving before dawn. I was left to my own devices during that first month, only seeing mom when she cooked or did her weekly chores. I tried to help as much as I could but I was only met with beratement; those were some of the few times she spoke to me. Perhaps I was taking away her only distraction, leaving her alone with her pain. 

If my parents were ever together, there were few spaces in the house completely free of their shouting—their marital problems culminating into a divorce. No one told me about it until I noticed dad had been gone for an entire month, much longer than any business trip he’d ever been on, and mom finally told me what had happened. He left for work and never came back. She didn’t need to look at me for me to feel the hatred in her voice. Although her words were pointed at him, I felt that I had done something wrong—that I caused this.

My mother’s depression evolved into snide remarks aimed at me: how surprised she was I hadn’t failed out of school, how weird I looked when I smiled, how she lost her pregnancy because of me. Supposedly, I stressed her out the minute I was born. Her and dad were young when they had me, twenty-one and twenty-three years old, but they were confident that they could take on this new challenge. Unfortunately, I proved to be a lot more difficult than they anticipated and my childhood stubbornness certainly didn’t help. The pregnancy was their chance for a fresh start, another opportunity to raise a child and finally do it right. But I, the stress of the family, ruined it. At twelve years old, I thought I was the worst person on the planet. How could I do this to my own parents? Every memory, good and bad, was stained by her accusation. Regret sprouted within me, it’s roots spreading like a parasite, strangling my mind and my heart and my lungs. It covered my eyes, blinding me to everything good about the world. My innocence was robbed from me and replaced by self-hatred.

    It angered me how helpless I felt—there’s no way I could atone for my mistakes. Any act of goodwill would be met by silence, lost into the world. I felt like I was suffocating.

School was the only thing able to distract me from these destructive thoughts. Studying kept me out of mom’s sight. Achieving good grades and getting congratulatory comments from teachers and peers were the only times I felt good about myself. Their words didn’t kill those implanted by my mother but they helped ignite a spark of hope; I could move out for college and never look back. I found my way out of her life. 

Little by little, I began looking forward to the future and ignoring the past. Each day brought something new to appreciate: the warm glow of sunrises, the soft patter of rain against my bedroom window, the fragile vegetation blossoming through cracks in the pavement. One by one, my regrets faded enough so I could once again enjoy life. The regret of not making my parents' lives a little easier still churns within me, but I cannot let anything hinder me. College is only a few months away and nothing can beat my determination to make this the best fresh start I could have asked for.

The world is an unweeded garden, but how hard can it be to prevent my miniscule share be overrun?