I used to go hide in the closet. I’d sit on the floor against the wall with my mother’s wedding portrait above my head. Close the door and embrace the enveloping darkness. I would cry the as-yet-unrelinquished tears until I was spent, or simply sit in the black unreality, until all the particles of me were taken up by the nothingness and there was no part of me left to come undone.
I need solitude, like all good introverts. I crave it; there will come a point in every social interaction where I will shut down, even if on the outside I am still talking, laughing, listening. It’s subtle. Sometimes, in a very intense conversation, I will literally start shaking. I feel the tremors, I feel the intensity overwhelm me. This has happened all my life. If there is anger in the intensity, there will also be tears, much to my dismay.
When I met Tony, he had an eight-year-old daughter. I thought this was really fun, until I figured out that she was going to be around all the time. This was a child that didn’t go home after her lesson. I was expected to entertain her, take care of her, feed her, love her. And I did. But it was rough at first, for sure. I had an immediately effective daughter, looking up to me and ecstatic to be riding horses. Wanting to be by my side at every turn, wanting to hang out with me and help me. I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want that kind of attention. I loved her, initially because I loved her dad, and later because of who she is. I wanted to please them both. I was very used to being alone, though, and I remember crying tears of frustration because all of a sudden, I was no longer completely in control of my own life. There was someone else to consider. Two someone else’s.
Tony loved both of us, was in love with me, but I was desperately afraid of this love he felt for someone else. Not jealous, because I knew it was completely different. But weirded out, in a sense, because I didn’t understand it. At thirty-five I had never experienced anything like it. I had always lived alone, except in college. I was selfish, and I knew it. At the same time, I felt an immediate mama bear protectiveness for her. There was no way someone was going to hurt her on my watch. Confusion, frustration and a deep desire to hold onto what I had finally found sent me into the closet more often than I care to admit in those early years. Just trying to give myself some space to figure things out, the closet was a space that nobody, and nothing, else could enter. A brief time-out, for a grown-ass woman that was unraveling fast.
Tony, being the extraordinary man that he is, was patient and loving. He never gave up on me, never even got mad at me. There were times I was sure he would. That he should. I intrinsically understood that his daughter was exactly like him, made in his mold. And that scared me even more. How could I compete with that? How would I ever fit into that dynamic? What if we had our own child one day – was there room in his heart to love another one? He was so attached and so committed to the one he already had, I was scared that he wouldn’t feel the same depth of love for another one. Of course, these are questions that someone asks when they don’t have a child, and don’t yet understand that the heart only grows bigger. It doesn’t have to make space for another child, the space simply becomes.
Of course, looking back, I should not have questioned anything. God knew what he was doing when he gave Tony a child more like himself, and then another girl, more like me. (Not entirely like me…. she doesn’t like to read, and where would she get THAT from, if not her Daddy?!) Tony himself took to his second daughter naturally, easily, whereas I fretted and fussed (probably a lot more than with the first, handed to me as an 8-year-old, child, if we’re being honest). Sissy was the first person I called, even before her Daddy (who was in Haiti at the time), to tell her she was going to have a Baby Sister. I was completely over the moon to give her what she so desperately wanted.
I considered it my mission to teach her to ride and to make her tough. I had a pony named Rocco who was a real little shit. Which of course made me completely devoted to him. I told her, if you want to ride you have to ride this one. She did. She was extremely committed to riding, and eventually to that pony. She loved her time with us and once told me as I picked her up after school on a Wednesday that even though she got in trouble that day and was supposed to stay after, that there was no way she was going to miss her Wednesday afternoon at her Dad’s. Oh shit, I thought. Now we’re really going to get into trouble! And then the time she didn’t want to go spend time with some family members and I said she could stay with me. The family members were not happy with me at all. But I was more concerned with the little girl crying in her bedroom and how I could fix it. I was intent on making her a horsewoman. She missed a cruise with her mom’s family once because she would rather go to a horse show with us. Of all the things we ever did, I loved horse showing with her the most. Even when it was disappointing or frustrating. I loved sharing those days with her, the same way I love sharing them with Baby Girl now. My favorite thing in the world is to watch Baby Girl’s face light up when her sister comes to watch her ride.
And now? She’s going to be twenty-five tomorrow. She and I have turned out to be good friends, as I always suspected we would be. I made a lot of mistakes as she was growing up, there are a lot of my own actions that I regret. Becoming a step-mom when you have no child of your own already is no easy feat. Especially for an introvert who guards her alone time fiercely and has no idea what to do with a blond haired moppet that follows her around. But we made it, and I am grateful for you, for your “big sisterness” to Baby Girl, for the way you make your dad and I laugh, for the grandson you gave us, and for never giving up on me. We’ve had a lot of fun moments, shared experiences, and the constant love and attention of the two people who love us without question.
I don’t hide in the closet anymore. Sometimes I stare at it longingly for a few minutes. Then I move on, to whatever and whomever needs me next. With age comes perspective, wisdom, contentment, or at least acceptance. There is strength in letting yourself sit in the blackness, the blankness, though. Letting go, shutting down, feeling nothing and everything all at once… do it. Recalibrate. Then get up, and come out, and handle shit like the rock star women (and men) you are. The strength comes from knowing it’s there if you need it, knowing that even in the deepest moments of doubt and despair, you may break down, but you will always get back up. I know it’s a subtle connection, but what I’m trying to say is…
Happy 25th birthday Sissy, don’t ever forget what a badass you are.