Well, Well, Look who's Inside again?

An Angel without Wings

I was a kid who grew up in his room.

The kid with the semi-strict parents who wouldn’t let them go out.

I was the one who planned the days they could ask their parents for permission, because if they were mad yesterday and this morning, I was guaranteed to be told no.

I was guaranteed rejection and demeaning words— scary, scarring words.

I was the kid who had to fight with my parents to be allowed to have fun.

I think that’s why I loved Rapunzel so much, I related to her.

I was this Naive Child who wanted to do wild things and go out, but we lived in an apartment. It felt like my Tower and I made the most of it, at least I wasn’t isolated. Yet.

But I had to stay home and be safe.

Now that I think about it,

This is very different from my Childhood in Belgium.

We lived in an intimate semi-suburban community, where the school and my friends were a few minutes away. So it was very safe for me to go out and randomly visit other kids and ask them to come play.

However, when we moved to Quebec, I didn’t know anyone outside of my Family network.

I was the oldest and mostly hung out with the adults, because my sister was still young and I would play too rough sometimes.

I had no friends like I did in Belgium— no one I grew up with anymore. But I eventually went to school and had to do French integration school because I had received an education in Flemish until then.

It wasn’t that necessary IMO, but that’s another set of commentary.

Still, I’m glad I got to go there first because all the other kids were immigrants, and that’s what more familiar to my family and not quite yet only white people.

That sounds funny because I grew up in Belgium, and it’s only white people there. However, in my mind then, the difference between kids from back home and Quebecois white people was the Language, but in some ways, the different nationality didn’t make them equally white.

The Flemish kids were Flemish, not Walloons. They were Belgian and not French. They were European and not Quebecois. Additionally, I was born in Belgium— Leuven, the Flemish side of Belgium, spoke Flemish and French at home.

Still, in Kindergarten, I was rejected by kids who told me I wasn’t Belgian. I was told I was African.

I went home in tears and told this to my parents,

who told me this years later, chuckling and laughing— and I joined them! Because it’s hilarious, while disheartening.

I did not understand why the kids said I wasn’t like them. To me, we were the same. Even when I celebrate the coming of Sinterklaas and his “Zwarte Piet”.

This Spring version of Santa, who looks like the Pope and comes from Spain on a boat and a white horse, with his little elves who are charcoal black and have big red lips. If you were bad, they would put you in a bag of charcoal, I believe.

Even when I’d be at the cafeteria, unbothered, with 5 kids around me touching my hair like a goat in a petting zoo.

I didn’t understand the big deal yet, but the trusted neighbor’s son, Rudy, held me back once and told me:

Don’t let them do that.

I knew I had to look up to him like an older Brotherly figure, so I listened.

In Quebec, I met people who spoke the same language I speak at home, which made it easier for me, because I had to translate less. Except for the occasional Quebecois expression, it also meant my parents could be more included, or so I thought.

Instead of being more included, we were still separated by cultural differences, despite being Francophone. We left Europe because of Racism but honestly, I still stuck out like a sore thumb. I was still not really on of them and I don’t think I ever could be. There was something about being Quebecois de souche, meaning you’re “native” but that’s delusional because they’re white settlers.

At least, through the French Integration school, I met other immigrant kids who also felt the same and that made us connect.

I gave up Flemish as I slowly stopped talking to my friends from Belgium.

This brings us back to me being a kid who grew up in their Room.

It took time for my parents to open up to other parents, to feel safe in the apartment building and for older siblings of friends to look after us. My parents themselves would sometimes come, but they were tired from work and from pursuing their studies all over again due to Diplomas not transferring in Canada.

It took time before I became one of those kids using the public transportation, but I was young and didn’t realize that. I fought to be considered grown, not knowing I’d be begging to be seen as the Child I was later on.

Eventually, I earned the permission to use public transportation in High School, as I didn’t have a bus in my district. I had unfortunate experiences: once, I took the wrong bus, missed the stop closest to school went far into the prairies. Luckily, the bus went back, but I peed my pants because I was holding it in since the beginning of the route.

That was the first time I took the Bus without my friend B.

Other times, like during the summer and when my parents had to work, they got me and my Sister summer passes to La Ronde, and we would take the metro from Longueuil to Parc Jean-Drapeau.

Sometimes we’d go to get free food because neither of us could make food or felt like heating the food in the fridge. We’d also do some attractions and games, and then go home.

During that time of public transport exploration, I would visit friends and go anywhere I could, and occasionally, my dad would pick me up.

I pushed the boundaries and discovered a new world.

I rarely had friends over, so I was mostly leaving the house, and dreamed of leaving that house because home was constant chaos— it was avoidance in my room or outside.

When I had fights with my friends, I would feel entirely alone in the world and become suicidal, because my escape was gone. Young me dreamed of running away, and making it on my own or being adopted by family friends.

When I made more and more Quebecois friends, which only happened when we left Longueil and moved to the Suburban Prairies, “the south shore”— it became worse at home, because I suddenly had more “Western” Ideals of Family Life.

I would tell my dad he wasn’t allowed to hit me for discipline because I was allowed to call child services, it was my given right as an immigrant citizen and a Child! He would laugh in my face and tell me to do it.

I would cry and insult him, but he was right. I didn’t want to be taken away by my parents.

So I went to my room and buried it down, cried it out, not too loud, and fell asleep despite my hiccups. I often cried by myself in my room.

Even when I was bullied and kids called me “Angry Gorilla” because of my hair, I cried by myself.

It left me, but it haunted me again and made appearances again in high school due to the same group following each other in Longueuil through different schools. So when this time I went to private school, I was starting up new. My parents were tired of the hood shit in Longueuil, and that decisions changed the course of my life forever.

So as I mentioned, I was now in the Prairies. At this new High School, I was almost the only Black Person.

Everyone assumed I was Haitian and or poked into my Blackness and my Background. Like it was what made me different, but I didn’t feel that different or not all the time until they made something of it.

And when they made something of it, it wasn’t a great experience most of the time. #BlackFace

Since we lived further down in the Prairies, it was much harder to use Public Transportation and it was a pain in the ass, because of money and because of accessibility (e.g. frequency, space, schedule).

I discovered that I was getting to an age where I could look for other means to feel freer, and the answer was money.

I started selling drawings, I would look for little jobs to do, babysit, and eventually work at a summer day camp. I started working early so I could earn my freedom.

Being a wage-earner at a young age, a worker so early, meant that I was often physically tired. I was already experiencing symptoms of EDS ADHD and Autism, without knowing that was what it was, but working on top of being a Student, and walking to take Public Transport and being part of the dance team, meant that I just felt exhausted— All. The. Time.

I think I dissociated so much due to the pain, that it caused me to lose a good chunk of my memories.

Additionally, the chaos at home and the trauma I carried meant my body was tight and sore even before the additional stressors.

This tied me to my bed. I was always in my room. Tired and wanting to rest, but never getting rest. Only escaping for my obligations, my duties.

I was constantly on high alert and tense, but still breaking down.

When 2020 happened, I thought:

everyone will be like me. I’ll be in my room and so will others, so we should be able to call each other and play video games together, and we’ll feel close even if we’re far.

It lasted for a bit, I made good memories, but I still felt lonely.

My mind would collapse under the different experiences of my life coming down to me in my room, with nothing but time to reflect on what happened to me and how I had ended up then.

I’ve tried to die 3 times in my room and failed 3 times.

2 times the police came,

and the last time was the worst.

I wanted to escape an eternal prison, which physically represented my mind.

Ironically, as my health worsened each year, I had no choice but to stay in that prison, and when the chaos worsened at home, I said enough was enough and moved out.

I had no savings but enough money to pay for a year up-front, and my work experience meant I could easily get any job that was on my way. I hoped that living in the city meant being closer to others and having more freedom, fun, and community.

Instead, I got worse and wasn’t able to go out. It was okay for a while because everyone enjoyed coming over, and I loved hosting. My roommates were delightful and supportive. I had friends who supported me as much as they could, but then winter came, or people got busy. My roommates left, and instead, I had a sublet that was incredibly rude and disrespectful. My one friend at home was my Roommate, who was still here, but he was drowning in school and escaped the stress outside.

I wished I could follow him, but I just felt so stuck at home.

I was hoping my fundraiser for a wheelchair would allow me to not be so stuck at home, but then I lost my job. Just like that, Unexpectedly, due to a lack of funds in the budget.

I freaked out, I didn’t know how to handle bills, how to be independent anymore, I didn’t qualify for aid, and my parents couldn’t support me endlessly. I couldn’t renew my lease, and this meant going back home.

I used the funds for the wheelchair as well as my parents’ support to pay off my rent and utilities, and simply kept being stuck inside, while trying to improve my condition and trying to heal.

Now, guess who’s inside again!

Yes, in the room I grew up in, revisiting the memories I repressed, re-questioning everything that has happened up to now and wondering where I’m headed next.

However, I know that I’ll be in my room for a while, resting— I can just hope it’ll be true and meaningful rest. Maybe soon, I’ll have a wheelchair but I can’t have too many expectations yet— to protect myself.

I’m almost going to be 23, on June 1st. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want out of life, because I am dead (no put intended) seriously afraid that I could Die just like that.

I feel so fragile, I feel breakable like a twig.

One harsh wind and my spine would give up on me.

I am terribly alone, I wish I had more friends who knew what I was going through. I wish I didn’t care so much about my social image— about the people who wonder: what the fuck happened to her?

Do people even care?

Younger me worked so hard to make my parents proud and it was never, ever, enough. I still continued, I made sure to be pretty and strong.

My parents were hustlers, survivors, and I am nothing but their legacy.

If life is a game, I simply wanted to be the best there ever was.

I played earnestly, I played humbly, and sometimes a little aggressive, I admit.

Now the board has fallen and I’m a lost pawn left under the couch.

Lost and Forgotten among the dust bunnies, in what was forever my room.

An underworld of dust and remnants.

My soul lingers as remanence, of what I used to be,

of what I might’ve been.