I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to. I wanted to stand on my chair and scream as loud as I could and leave forever. But I couldn’t. So I silently sat in my seat and continued taking notes, because I was meant to be a good student and good students never speak in class without raising their hands.
I loved my older brother, just as any sibling would, but I did not like him. Sebastian had a charming smile and angry fists; he meant well, he really did, but he had destroyed my parents with late nights and dangerous drugs and screaming and throwing. He soon drove off for college, and I was left to pick up all the broken pieces that he had left shattered. I saw the exhaustion in my parents’ eyes; their smiles seemed tired, their voices sounded weak.
One day during my sophomore year, I received my History midyear grade.
“C+. See me tomorrow.”
I ran home in tears, ready to fall into my mother’s arms and cry. But when I walked
through the door, I heard her on the phone with my brother.
“Sebastian, you’re nineteen now… You’re being incredibly unfair to your father and me… How dare you speak to your mother like that… I said no. I said no. I SAID NO.”
I realized that my tears could wait; my parents already had to deal with my brother’s issues, even from 600 miles away. I had to be the perfect child, for them. I didn’t want them to worry about yet another teenager, so I stayed in on Friday nights instead of partying, and sat in my room, my only companions the homework that my teachers had assigned that day.
It was fine, it really was. I liked following instructions and I was fairly good at it. I never felt the desire to “go crazy” or rebel against my parents – I liked school and it liked me. But putting academics above all else for years had its flaws.
I have been surrounded by wonderful people my entire life. I have two loving parents and a younger sister and classmates with great senses of humor who always offer to drive. But I don’t talk to them. I chat with them and laugh with them, but I never really talk to them.
Nearly a year ago, my grandfather died on a Sunday afternoon. I don’t remember much, other than the cotton red sweater I was wearing when my mother broke the news. He lived overseas, smelled like old figs and spoke too much, but he was my Nonno and I was his stellina and now he was just gone. My friends and I went out to dinner for a birthday the next night, and I told them about my grandfather as we walked towards the train.
“Oh god, I’m so sorry.”
“My grandma passed away when I was younger. It sucks, sorry dude.”
“Damn, I hope you feel better.”
And then someone brought up a new movie, and we moved on. They apologized and hugged me and I appreciated it, I really did. But they didn’t talk to me – they never did. And after we stepped off the train, they dropped me off at home. I cried alone in my bedroom that night, curled on the floor and clinging to a stuffed animal cow my grandfather had bought me for my first birthday.
One can still be lonely, even with a million people around them. After school, I would go home and realize that I was surrounded by everyone and no one at the same time, which hurt more than being hit by ten thousand bricks. It was so difficult, so tiresome, to feel so alone. I looked around me and saw groups, groups of people who belonged somewhere and who felt needed. And I had never felt this before, to be completely honest. I was invited to dinners and offered rides home and sat with classmates in the library, but I was not really a part of anything bigger than myself.
One night I sat in my room, staring at the English assignment displayed on my computer screen.
DISCUSS WHAT COMMUNITY YOU BELONG TO, AND HOW THIS COMMUNITY HAS SHAPED YOU.
I never attended camp, I was not religious and I never participated in extracurricular activities. And then it hit me. I didn’t belong to any significant group; I belonged to me and only me, which may seem liberating but in reality is the most terrifying feeling in the entire world. I suddenly felt a million miles away from my friends, my family, my town. I was alone, floating nowhere in a bubble of nothing, belonging to no one. I want to tell you so badly how scary it can be, how much I despise being alone. But I can’t. I know that only the lonely will ever understand this pain, and while others can feel sorry for me and wrap me in blankets and tell me that they are here for me, they will never understand.
But I was still happy enough. And I was very good at putting on a smile when my parents got home as I told them that I did well on my History test or that I had learned a fascinating lesson in Biology. I don’t think they ever noticed how empty I felt, which was good because they had things to do and places to travel to and didn’t need to feel sorry or worried for their daughter. I was fine and they were fine – everything was fine.
One day when I was in the third grade, our class stood outside under the sweltering September sun playing four-square. My clothes were too loose and my shoes were never tied, but I had friends and I was happy. After fifteen minutes of playing, a tall blonde with sweet, sweet blue eyes suggested that we play trust fall. I had never played before and was quite anxious, but I agreed to join, too fearful that I would lose friends by sitting out on the game. So we began playing, and giggled energetically as we yelled “trust fall!” before slowly falling back into the arms of our classmates. And then, I wailed “TRUST FALL!” for the fourth time and began falling, falling, falling. No one caught me, and my back slashed against the black, scorching concrete. I lay, squinting at the sky, as my classmates stood silently over me, some attempting to hold in their laughter. The bell rang, and they scurried inside as I lay motionless for what felt like forever. Falling on black concrete hurts. And getting a tooth removed does too. As does burning one’s hand on a stove and falling off of a bicycle and seeing one’s parents cry. But out of all the agonizing, terrible pains of the world, I realized that being alone hurts most. As I lay on the concrete, I was alone; I was completely and utterly alone for the first time in my life.
I still think of this moment sometimes – the sound of silence, the gashes on my back, the embarrassment I felt when I limped back to my classroom two minutes late and had to ask to be excused to the nurse. I was only eight years old, yet I felt as if I was completely alone in the world. But I went home and instead of telling my parents, I sat in the kitchen doing homework and smiling, as if everything was completely fine.
But I thought loneliness was merely a small sacrifice one had to make when devoting oneself to school. And I liked being a good student, I really did. Studying ancient civilizations fascinated me, as did literature and biology and exploring Spanish cultures. I had learned to sit silently in class while other girls laughed and talked and passed notes to each other, and it was fine. It was all fine.
Until Tuesday, March 19th.
It was a cold, damp morning and I sat in English class. As I watched the downpour outside I thought to myself, “this is a good thing. Rain is a good thing.” Everyone despises rain for some reason – I never understood why. I find it to be the most refreshing thing in the world. Sometimes when I feel lost and without purpose I walk outside and let the drops of water wash over me. They touch me, they touch all of me, and suddenly I am not Katharine. I am a mass of flesh and hair – I belong to the rain. I stand outside and it envelops me and suddenly I feel clean and grounded and belonging to something out there. I guess that is why I love rain.
But this is not a story about rain. This is a story about the day that everything changed.
As I sat in English class, a faceless professor whose name I soon forgot scratched aggressively onto the chalkboard. He only ever used capital letters, so everything he wrote seemed to scream at the class from the faded, green board. And as I turned my head away from the window and back to the dreary classroom, I saw it.
“I SOUND MY BARBARIC YAWP OVER THE ROOFTOPS OF THE WORLD.” – W. WHITMAN.
The professor mumbled something about nineteenth century poetry, but I couldn’t hear him. Because written on an old chalkboard in a dimly lit classroom in a crumbling school in a dreadful town was the most beautiful sentence I had ever read.
I imagined myself standing on the edge of a skyscraper, alone and looking over Chicago. And standing on top of everything I imagined myself not yelling, not screaming, but sounding my barbaric yawp, the sound that had been stuck in my throat for years as I sat silently in my classes.
And at that moment, I felt a desire to stand up on my chair and yell. The feeling consumed me; my fingers scratched my notebook and my toes curled and my stomach twisted back and forth, back and forth.
I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to. I wanted to stand on my chair and scream as loud as I could and leave forever. But I couldn’t. So I silently sat in my seat and continued taking notes, because I was meant to be a good student and good students never speak in class without raising their hands.
But I couldn’t do it.
I had been that girl for years – the girl who sits quietly and remembers day after day that she has never truly lived before. And I was so exhausted of being her. Suddenly, I was disgusted with her. I was done.
So at 8:48 on a Tuesday morning in March, I did the unthinkable: I stood up from my seat.
“Ms. Katharine, may I help you?” The faceless professor stared at me dumbfounded, chalk stick in hand. I breathed, in and out, in and out, as twelve faces turned to me in unison.
One breath in. I placed my left foot on the chair. One breath out. I clung onto the back of the chair. One breath in. My right foot joined the left as I crouched on my seat. One breath out. I rose and stood on my chair. One breath in, one breath out. One breath in, one breath out.
One, final breath in.
I felt four years of buried words bubble in my throat, and for the first time in far too long, I opened my mouth and let them out. I sounded my yawp. And I let my scream fill the empty space in my classroom as I shut my eyes and pictured myself on top of that skyscraper. I screamed and screamed and screamed, until I had no more sound left in my body, and then I stopped.
I opened my eyes, and saw thirteen faces below me stare in shock, in horror.
“Ms. Katharine, what in heaven’s name do you think you are doing?”
The whole room went silent as rain tapped on the windowsills. And then, without thinking, I laughed. I laughed hysterically in my silent classroom as I stood alone on my chair; I had not laughed like this for years. And boy, did it feel good.
Reflections 