This article is published in partnership with Foster Advocates.
I never knew normalcy — the concept of two parents, my siblings and a house with a large yard full of tiger lilies and whistling grass. The concept knew of me; it knew that I spent years aching for it as I rejected my circumstances and situations. I always believed I was above those orphaned protagonists in children’s movies, or those with a single parent. But I wasn’t, not in the slightest. When I was in the second grade, my elementary school had an event called “Family Day” at the beginning of each academic year. The parents or grandparents of my peers would come in, and they’d do something like “Family Olympics” in the yard. It was a whole day’s event. Meanwhile, I sat on the sidelines in the grass, playing with grasshoppers and bugs because my grandparents couldn’t make it. Teachers would check in on me and ask if I was okay. I’d usually say, “I’m fine,” because I had my grasshoppers, but I always ignored that pang of hurt from the absence of my grandparents. Being in an inner-city public school didn’t help my image of being a poor, brown and dysfunctional child. Maybe I fit in perfectly amongst the others that struggled like me, but I always felt like my differences were a stark contrast that set me aside.
I’d wake up every morning and rummage for clothes while my grandmother yelled at my sister, my cousins and me to hurry up. She was our foster parent for the time being, and it was different because she was my grandmother. When she’d yell, it stung in a particular way that gnawed at me until I got on the school bus. This was the case most mornings. I was exhausted from either drunk yelling the night before or insomnia. Half the time, my clothes weren’t very clean, and my hair was often a mess. It became such an issue that occasionally teachers would ask me if I was okay. They would pull me aside and ask what was wrong. It was always horribly embarrassing to be pulled into the hallway, or called to the principal’s office.
And then there were the holidays, not just the major holidays but smaller ones too. In elementary school, they have kids make things for their mothers or fathers on those respective holidays. I typically just made things for my grandparents until I rejected it altogether during middle school. It was alienating to have such a profound and complicated relationship with my parents because sometimes they were nonexistent in my life. Teachers would think I was just being rebellious or oppositional until I had to explain that it was hard for me to make something for my mother because she was in prison or rehab. Halfway through middle school, my grades began to slip as I struggled with moving between family members for foster care placement and with my mother’s frequent revolving door presence in my life. Sometimes I think my father hurt me with his absence, and my mother hurt me with her occasional presence. Only having her sometimes made me want a mother all the time.
In high school, it didn’t get much better. At this point, I had accepted my status as “other.” I gained some consciousness of the fact that I could not be the only one in such complicated familial circumstances, even though all my friends had both parents. But regardless, I became wild and rebellious. I became what was expected of me. If they expected failing grades and truancy, I’d give them that. I left my grandparents, and I was homeless for over a year. I attended three days of my junior year. Even if I did want to fix my ways and right my wrongs, everyone told me that I had dug myself into a hole too deep to see out of. A small part of me wanted to be that good child, the obedient one that used to get good grades and scholarships. But that was the same child that wanted my family to reunite and heal. It all seemed like a dream that was intangible and impossible.
Things are better in college. I have a good GPA, speak to my father every day, and rake in those scholarships with my eyes closed. But I feel like I don’t fit in. I’m older than most freshmen. I didn’t just move out of my parents’ house with a fresh face and green gills. I’m rather independent, isolated and protective of myself. I’m afraid that my peers will realize that despite my charismatic demeanor, I’m a very scarred and occasionally fearful individual. I don’t talk about my foster experience with everyone anymore. Sometimes, when I’m asked about it, I try to shorthand 20 years of trauma like a synopsis. I’m still miles away from those 19-year-olds that savor their independence from their suffocating parents. And that’s because I wish I had been suffocated by my parents a little. Independence grows into monotony after some years. I don’t even care for my youth anymore. I just want to press forward into mature adulthood to put space between myself and my past. It helps that there’s a foster community here on campus called Augsburg Family Scholars. It helps me feel more supported. And so far, college at Augsburg University has been a good way to pass the time.
