Invictus

One year, when I was a little girl, I went to a small private school about 20 minutes away from home. My mom, who was a teacher elsewhere, would drop me off at an apartment, one of the very few in the tiny ‘ville’ in which I lived. This apartment building housed one of the teachers at the small private school I attended. My parents paid her to drive me to the small private school I attended and in which she taught. Got it? I was 7 or 8 at the time, a small, scrawny snip of a thing.

I never went inside to wait for her. Nope. That wasn’t apparently part of the deal for some forgotten reason.

Every morning, waiting for her to appear, I would sit in her car, waiting, waiting, waiting, just so. After she was finished beautifying herself, she would finally exit the building and drive us both to our school.

Sometimes it seemed like forever until Ms Beautified Teacher would finally make her appearance. I was parked in that car under a tremendously huge old tree. I pondered the existence of it. I pondered how they created the apartment building around the tree. They didn’t chop it down. It remained smack dab in front of the building, and the cars had to park around it. As I sat under its branches, I pondered what was happening in the square apartment, the rare square apartment. How long could it possibly take to become beautiful? Did she forget about me? I would make up games to play with myself to make the time pass more quickly. I would count and decide she would have to come out before I got to 129 or 513 or 856 or whatever.

What kind of fun I could have climbing this tree. Maybe I could climb it and see what the heck was taking her so long in getting ready (to make it more enthralling, she lived on the second floor). Maybe I would see her fluffing her big hair. Maybe I would see her applying endless amounts of make up. Maybe I could throw rocks at the window to remind her that she had someone waiting for her.

What if I had to go to the bathroom? Where could I go? How long could I hold it? At the last minute, when I got the most desperate, she would finally come out and we would go to school. The next day it would start all over again.

One particular morning, my mother dropped me off per usual. It was in the middle of winter. The dress code for this small private school was “dresses only” for the girls, with no pants underneath, even when it was cold. This morning, it was freezing, literally. I sat in her car, getting colder by the minute. I tucked my legs under me and wrapped my arms tightly around me. I saw my breath. The windows were completely covered with snow and ice and I couldn’t see out. I felt incredibly lonely. The minutes dragged on, interminably. All the fun stories ran out, and the chill went through my skinny little self. This morning felt different, yet I didn’t know why or what to do. Those who know me, and know me well, know I don’t buck the system. I follow the rules. The rule was to stay in the car until she came out. She never came out, and it was too cold. I started to cry. I hated myself for crying. But I was abandoned.

As I remember it, sometime much, much later, I think my dad spied that the car was still there when he went to the local college where he taught. He found me in that car. The small private school had been closed, and we didn’t know it. I would have sat there all day and ended up a frozen little girl, quite dead, because I don’t ever buck the rules. I do what is expected of me. I sat there, patiently, doing my duty, going the distance, waiting in the car. Yep. Stupid. I know.

Sometimes I can still become that little girl quite easily - in that world, that ice cold, freezing lonely world of doing precisely what is expected of me and yet getting absolutely nowhere. It is a horrible feeling. It makes me feel small. Trapped. Utter helplessness washes over me. Despair leaks in. When will someone see? When will someone help?

Gone are the days where my daddy would drive by and think, “Hey, something is amiss” and rescue me. Right now there is no mighty mouse.

I have to do my own rescuing.

I know the following poem is “vogue” right now… there is a film about to hit theaters, but it is a poem that for the last few years, I have thought about a lot, being between a rock and a hard place.

Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
~William Ernest Henley


Sometimes I am that little girl. In fact, Wednesday and Thursday, I was that little girl. I crumbled, and for a time, let the despair once again wash over me.

Then I brushed myself off, and remembered, with my head unbowed, that I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

I am unconquered.