Monthly Archives: January 2017

Jan 04 2017
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One Day They'll See

Part Seven: It was Annika’s Fault

I have three younger siblings, but you’d never know it to read my journals. Kierstn is seven years younger, and Gunnar is 14 years younger than me. Kierstn and Gunnar rarely show up in my journals for the simple reason that I was never blackout raging mad at them.

Annika, on the other hand, features regularly. Every oppressed writer needs an oppressor. That was my parents. She also needs a sniveling turncoat antagonist to laugh at her misfortune and steal her birthright. That was Annika.

annika-and-bekah

Pesky little troll.

From ages 7-14 (3-10 for her), it would seem she camped out on my last nerve.

April 6, 1993-Why! Oh! Why! Did this happen to me. I can’t believe I promised Annika I’d be her slave.

Not sure how I managed to turn that into an innocent victim scenario…

April 8, 1993-Gosh. Now that Annika is five she’s been awful sassy. 5’s not so old.

I assume this was to be read in deep southern drawl and addressed to “Pa” or “Ma.”

Some oldest girl-children are instinctively maternal, doting and caring for dolls and younger children. I’m instinctively maternal as well, if you consider Lucille Bluth a mother-figure. Annika made the perfect whetstone on which to hone my budding life skills: sarcasm, passive aggression, and selfishness employed “for the good of others.”

March 23, 1995 – Today started out GREAT. I took a test. It was okay… But like yesterday, today ended in tragedy. ANNIKA. She treats me like a toothache. I help her with her homework. I play with her. And she spits in my face (not literally). But all everyone sees is how I refuse to accept her behavior. And she lies that I treat her awfully. I help her with her homework, instead of telling her the answers I make her use her brain she says I’m the worst sister she ever had. Then the other day we were looking at something and she (without asking me if it was okay with me) just stormed off with it. She comes back and I try to teach her something so I said, “Yes Annika I was through looking.”

Then she gets all adjetatated [sic] and starts to go get it. So I compassionately say, “That’s okay. I don’t need to look.” So we were happy until my dad said, “Now Bekah why did you bring it up again if you didn’t care?”

So tonight he comes in and tells me how bad it is and what the Bible says about being mean to your sister. So I’m going to let her be as cruel as she wants. I won’t react whatsoever. I’ll treat her like a queen instead of a sister.

annika-scrapbook

Scrapbooks, the original Instagram, offer a forgiving filter on our relationship.

I need to ask Annika to be sure, but I doubt I treated her like a queen at any point thereafter. Hence the lesson went unlearned.

My parents also continually refused to take my sage child-rearing advice, even when delivered in the vernacular of their tribe. (“Refuse to accept her behavior” is, I am pretty sure, a phrase right out of Dobson’s Parenting the Strong-Willed Child.)

The first piece of advice I tried to give them, and give them often, was that they were spoiling Annika. She didn’t have my moral constitution. I could absorb a lot more privilege without being ruined.

April 1, 1995 – I am so ticked at my “darling” sister and mother. First of all we took—wait a minute! That’s not where the little backstabbers began. Earlier, Annika walks in: “Bekah you know how we were supposed to go to the lease today and the mall Monday, well I wanted to go to the mall today and I forgot about the lease. So we’re taking vote because I can’t decide which one.”

Like the entire family revolves around her! I didn’t want to vote because I didn’t want to hurt Dad’s feelings. But I REALLY wanted to go to the mall. So we go to get Mom’s vote. She says she doesn’t want to hurt Dad’s feelings either. So she tells Annika that JUST her and Kate can go to the mall next week. Then mom took Grace to the vet and wouldn’t even let me go to Leeanna’s. You know what, for Annika’s birthday she’s having a family party at Pear Apple, cupcakes in her class, and she and Kate get to go to Fiesta Texas and the Mall. And its not even a landmark birthday at all. For my TENTH birthday all I did was take four friends to a restaurant, and they spent the night. Eleventh too. [It should be noted that the entries immediately following these birthday parties describe them as the best nights of my life. But that was beside the point in the argument I was making.] I didn’t even have a family party. I saw them at Matthew’s birthday. Next thing you know Mom will be taking Annika and Kate to Europe and send them to the awesome (my dream) Camp Edphy in QUEBEC! Oh gosh go to go get dressed for the deer lease. Whoopie!

I was constantly getting my heart set on things like overnight camp in Quebec. Who needs exaggeration when you are a walking, talking hyperbole?

Me. I need exaggeration. Although, please note the parenthetical counter-monologue that, for the good of my future readers, serves to balance out my more daring figures of speech. It occurs throughout the journals, and has followed me into adulthood.

April 13, 1995-I hate, I repeat HATE Annika. I hate Annika more than the scum between Jason’s toes. I hate her more than the lice in Chris’s hair. (Actually, Chris doesn’t have lice, it was just a form of comparison). I hate her looks, I hate her mind, I hate her soul, I even hate her ring finger on her right arm. I most of all though hate her attitude. She thinks she’s the most perfect, wonderful, adored person in the world! But she can’t be, because her own sister hates her. I just can’t help it. If I don’t let it out as it comes, it doesn’t come out as it comes therefore it boils up inside and then it explodes at the wrong time.

Perfect – X

Pretty – X

Smart – [check mark]

Good at all the sports she thinks and brags she is- X.

Evaluation= I HATE HER! 

x=no, [check mark]=yes

I included that key at the bottom so that my readers could interpret Annika’s eval. The layperson could have gotten lost in the jargon.

Of course we all know how this story ends. At some point in college Annika comes to visit and single handedly saves me from making a really stupid mistake with a really stupid guy. She’s one of my favorite people in the world, and every now and then I remind myself that I owe her about 1,000,000 acts of kindness to make up for bedeviling her childhood and just being the worst.

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Jan 03 2017
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One Day They'll See

Part Six: That I Deserved So Much More

Another of my chief childhood grievances is the household budget. Please take a moment to laugh at my irrational sense of entitlement and the random-ass things I choose to feel entitled too.

April 18, 1994 – I can’t believe it. My mom said no. I had this big ball planned out, but Mom spoiled it. It would have been so perfect.

Yes, that’s a ball, as in the kind of social function that ugly stepsisters and plucky heroines are invited to attend at the home of eligible bachelors. A ball. As in, where the awkward tomboy protagonist with limited means is transformed into a breathtaking swan and wins a suitor. A ball. As in, I wanted elbow length gloves and a dance card and a magical kiss at midnight.

I somehow envisioned that my 10-year-old self would have been able to plan and execute a full Victorian-era ball, and that the cost of such an event should be within my parents’ budget for “Bekah’s social upkeep.”

In this case, my mom’s refusal is not only rational, but kept me from a miserable reckoning of reality (gangly/chubby 4th graders in elbow-length gloves) and fantasy (something along the lines of Kate Middleton’s life). 

family-vacation

Clearly I was very deprived.

June 6, 1993-Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I guess I’ll just eat worms! My mother won’t get me anything. Not even the money to buy two trolls (one of which would help me in a major area). She probably won’t care if I die.

Yes. Treasure trolls. That is the invaluable worldly good on which I was staking my mother’s love. I’m not sure what “major area” would be helped by a Treasure Troll, but I’m assuming it had something to do with true love or millions of dollars as those were the two things that seemed to elude me throughout the 4th grade.

My monied aspirations continued to be thwarted into middle school. Looking back, it’s hard to tell if we were really living on the edge of poverty, or if my parents were just flagging under my relentless champagne badgering. 

Feb 3, 1994- Oh Dear! I think we’re getting poor. Mom is taking relating class [sic: Real estate licensing]. Which means she has to work. She talked about if she had to, selling the Suburban. “Dear Gracious heavenly Father, So much has already been taken from us. But why?!? I know poor people can be looked down on, but why Lord? Our family is dying and getting seriously sick. Lord, at a time when money is TIGHT, you make it go away faster. Do I have to give up on my dream of money being plentiful? LORD, IT’S NOT FAIR! I love you. WHY?!? Amen.”

The prayer portion of that entry is in quotes because it was taken directly from the Book of Common Prayer.

When I started playing sports, I was convinced that my parents’ thriftiness was a sign that they were not taking me seriously as an athlete. This particular episode has been abridged, as it went on for many, many pages.

Also, maybe the best thing about my first year playing soccer was my budding sports vocabulary. I channeled my love of metaphor and euphemism into trash talking and sports reporting. With the exception of my proto-erotic longings, these are by far my most embarrassing entries.

September 15, 1995 – Today we had a soccer game against the Terminators. We WON 4-0. We rubbed them into the field. I played left and right defense and goalie. I did pretty good (not to be conceited). Our top five players are probably Carol, Leslie, Brandy, Julie, and Leeanna. But all of us kick butt hard man…

…But there was one thing. They were checking our shoes and of course mine were BASEBALL shoes. I wanted to cry. See my parents got hand-me-downs from my cousin (who plays baseball). So my dad goes, “Well, I’ll fix ‘em. I’ll just cut the extra things off.” GOD they don’t know how it feels …I am sick and tired of wearing other people’s clothes.  Why can’t they just understand! From a sister or a girl cousin it’s okay but the cleats were from a boy cousin. I hate these shoes. I want to BURN them so they’ll HAVE to buy me new ones…She got ANNIKA new soccer shoes for her first year. My shin pads are hand-me-downs too. Not Annika. I guess it’s because they see more promise and potential in her. Well, I’m gonna have all of them licking the dirt off my new cleats if they’re lucky. If not, well uh, they won’t be the happiest people on earth let me leave it at that.

I’m not sure if I was trying to sound ominous, or if I was really too mad to think of something worse than licking the dirt off my new cleats.

soccer-star

This is some years after the baseball cleat incident. I did stick with soccer long enough to eventually merit actual soccer cleats.

This particular episode not only illustrates my weird money hangups, but another budding insecurity. Athleticism. Even after four years of soccer, three years of varsity cheerleading, and four years of varsity softball,  my identity as a sedentary butterball lived on.

I had just finished my first marathon at age 25, and over lunch my dad reflected on my accomplishment.

“Who would have thought that of all the kids, you’d be the adult athlete?” he said, beaming. (My dad won the Golden Gloves at age 30.)

Eleven-year-old Bekah would have guessed, Dad. Now start licking those soccer cleats. I still haven’t thought of another consequence.

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Jan 02 2017
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One Day They'll See

Part Five: They Took Me For Granted

All horrified baby boomer parents should take note that these rants happened exclusively on the pages of my journals. At least until full blown puberty freed me to do such effective things as slam doors and refer to my family as “you people.”

In preadolescence, as I frequently remind my imaginary readers, I’m a really just good kid with a lot of rage bottled up inside.

My messy room would feature more prominently than any other source of conflict between my mother and me.

paint-face

Slave labor. Clearly I am HATING it.

As I remember it, my clutter and crap drew unholy volumes of rage from my mother.  I was REALLY messy. Some of my messes live on in family lore. Like the time she found a body outline where I’d been lying, traced in wrappers, pencils, and scraps of paper. Or the time my homeroom teacher described me as a “mobile nest.”

Sometimes shit got real between us.

August 10, 1995- My mom just spanked me. I’m astounded. I’m HUMILIATED. I’m disturbed. I’m quite MAD! I am NOT a 2 year-old. Two shirt tags on the floor and she spanked me. Furthermore, so what about stupid shirt tags. She just won’t give me my SPACE. Gosh, I’m on an electric leash it feels like. She won’t let me stay up late. She won’t let me see PG13 movies.

Before alcohol would help me loudly fail to resolve my issues, I had an equally unhealthy coping routine. After smiling and saying “yes sir/ma’am” I would go to my room, scream into a pillow and find something I could tear to pieces. Once I had said all of the swear words I knew into the pillow and destroyed some piece of doll clothing or school art project, I would journal.

Or I would move out.

Feb 26, 1994-Ohh this is a terrible Saturday. First I had to clean out my closet. Ewww, you should have seen it. My mom got mad at me so I moved out. I took everything essential books, money, food, drink and blankets. So I lived in my own “house” for around two hours. But then I moved back after I realized I had no extra clothes, VCR, TV, RADIO, NES, ELECTRICITY or heater!

Lest we think that my mom was the only target of my indignant malice, let me assure you that my dad got his fair share.

Aug 9, 1992-I’ll give you one word to describe my Dad slave driver he makes us clean up the playroom while he sits on the couch.

That’s two words, eight-year-old Bekah. And now as a parent myself, I have to admit I feel an ironic sense of anticipation as I clean up the playroom messes I did not make, and dream of the day my toddler is old enough for me to say “clean up your mess in the playroom” and expect it to be done without assistance.

8th-grade-graduation

Here I am, sharing the spotlight with my decidedly less impressive siblings.

Another oft-cited grievance was the feeling that I was being taken for granted.

March 29, 1994 -Well today I got up at 3:30 am and went pig hunting. We came back and hung out until dinner time. Then while playing I hit my knee REALLY hard on a piece of wood. (I still can’t walk on it.) Then Andy jumped from the top and broke his arm. Tonight when we prayed, EVERYBODY prayed for him but no, no, not me! (Out of modesty I didn’t pray for my leg.)

This one is particularly cringeworthy, because not only did poor “Andy” break his arm, but he ruptured his spleen and would spend the next three days in the hospital recovering from a partial splenectomy. My huge crush on him was forgotten the instant he stole the spotlight by being more critically injured than I was.

It was one of my secret Anne-of-Green-Gables-inspired fantasies to be seriously ill or injured so that 1) whatever boy I liked would be compelled to my bedside to profess his love, and 2) my parents would be sorry for…well, just sorry.

Actually, in the end, I always came around. I knew my parents loved me, and for as strict as they were, I knew I could tell them anything. Though apparently, little did they know, they were being judged on the quality of their gifts, always springing for a treat just in the nick of time. Money can buy the love of a 6th grader. Or at least it can buy the world-weary acknowledgment that you’re not so bad after all.

June 23, 1995-Gotta make this short and sweet. We went to a little circus today. Looks can be deceiving. It was pretty good. My mom and dad are really great. My mom bought me cotton candy and my dad gave me a cool watch. Just today. Nobody asked them to. No reason. I don’t realize how truly unique and special they are until I see other kids’ parents. If I could have picked, I would have picked them. Despite the kinks and dings.

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Jan 01 2017
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One Day They'll See

Part 4: How they Mistreated Me

May 30, 1992- Here is an impression of my life: Bekah, are you going on a date? Beka (sic): Can I have some milk? Mom: it’s in the refrigerator! Gawley!

As an eight-year-old, writing complete sentences took a lot of energy and effort, and I could not be bothered to explain the connection between this milk imposition and questions about my social calendar.

This is the first time exasperation with my parents shows up in my journal. I’m eight years old, and being told to get my own milk.

8-yrs-old-4th-of-july

1992.Does this look like the face of an 8-year-old who gets her own milk?

I’ll give this much to my adolescent self: My parents were products of the James Dobson school of family management, and their methods have given me years of fodder for dinner party storytelling.  Absolute obedience was their thing, and they expected it with a smile. They didn’t quite demand that we say, “Please sir can I have another?” while we received our whoopin’s, but that would not have been out of character.

I, however, am not one to be outdone…ever.

Jan 11, 1995 – I’m so mad at mom I could SCREAM. Leeanna and I make plans. NO! Mom and Dad have to go to Bible Study so I’m stuck baby-sitting my brat sisters! I don’t even WANT to babysit them. They’re impossible! I’d like to go just one time without having to turn off MY LIFE so I can be unsocial so I have time to bend over backward to obey the #1 rule: DON’T ARGUE. I’d like to be on my way to the Dittlinger Memorial Library with my best friend. But NO! I only need one book. I have an hour and a half to burn. But NO! I finally find my long lost library card that mom wouldn’t spare one measly dollar to replace! But NO! I’ve got to memorize an at-least-20-line long poem by Jan 25. But NO! The day was going just fine and I was hoping to keep it that way. But NO! Leeanna and I have plans for two days. But NO! I’d like to say, or even scream this at her. But NO! Because I have to stand on my head, chew glass, spit dirt, juggle 20 balls, produce quarters, roses and broccoli out of my ears, hold an elephant on my toes a ladder on my nose, repair the O-Zone layer, bring back the dinosaurs, sit through Barney, find out the mystery of the Bermuda triangle, climb Big Ben, read and memorize Webster’s First Dictionary cover to cover and grow beans out of my nose if she says so to obey the number one rule: DON’T ARGUE!

The rage never lasted long, of course. It was usually tied to getting what I wanted, a problem easily solved.

Jan 12, 1995- I’m not mad at my mom any more. In fact, I’m very happy at her. I got to go to the library with Leeanna today. I got 5 books.

Of course, sometimes getting what I wanted wasn’t as simple. 

April 15, 1995- For once I’m not mad at any body. The one thing I really want in the world is to guest star—just once, maybe—on Home Improvement. If there’s one thing I could possibly have before I die, it’s that. More than getting married.

Somehow my dreams managed to be embarrassingly small-minded and yet entirely unrealistic. And I’m sure I had no ulterior motive of making JTT fall madly in love with me during my guest appearance, what with my fuzzy hair and snaggletooth smile. Though, according to my journal, I didn’t care if it ended in marriage, a distant secondary goal.

I don’t buy that for a minute.

The overwhelming theme of my journals is the longing for love. I sniffed out my own ulterior JTT motive by placing it in the context of entries like this one, written a mere four days later.

April 19, 1995 – Annika RUINED my Beckyanna Bousteé poster! [A magazine self-published by me and my best friend, Leeanna. The brand was a clever combination of our names, incase you were wondering about the exotic title.] I am majorly P.O’d at her. She thinks just because she has the chicken pox she can BOSS everybody around. Write more later.

Con’t

I’m not mad at Annika, but my emotions are aflutter. I want to die in the arms of the man I love most (not now), I want to feel his embrace around my tan shoulders. I want to kiss his wet, tender lips as they near my own. I yearn for the passion of my fantisophical life.

smug-face

1994. Don’t mess with this smug bitch.

Here, my ailing sister won the game of hormone roulette. The wind blew and apparently I went from enraged (and thus probably snarking and rude) to ambiguously horny (which means I was probably alone in my room, gazing out a window). You might think something dramatic had occurred during the “con’t” portion of the entry, but I probably just ate or took a nap.

Some observations on this:

1) who was the Harlequin romance novelist I paid to write this crap? “aflutter?” “Yearn?” How old am I?

2) Clearly I had yet to kiss a boy with wet lips, as I would later rank a wet-lipped ex-boyfriend as “the worst kisser ever” on that criteria alone.

3) How is it that the same kid who can correctly use words like “astounded” and “accommodations” thinks that the adjective form of “fantasy” is “fantisophical?”

My alternating anger and fantasy, along with my constant whining about how we don’t have enough money to bankroll my lifestyle (more on that to come), were fueled by books. I wanted a dramatic arch and the improbably stylized life of gal pals living in small towns or boarding schools with lots of costume parties and fancy banquets. 

As much as fiction fueled my discontent with reality, I’m thankful. Books enlarged my dreams. Like a baby deer stepping out in the big world, my first steps were pathetic and ridiculous, but they were steps.

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