Walking on Eggshells: Discovering Strength and Courage Amid Chaos (11 page)

In our family we have something we call “irrevocable acts.” These are serious things that once you do them, they cannot be undone. For example, driving while drunk is a bad thing, but calling the police on a family member who is driving drunk is an irrevocable act because it sets things in motion that can’t be stopped. For a Chapman, committing an irrevocable act is cause for scorn, derision, and mistrust, and I had just committed the mother of irrevocable acts.

★

T
he circumstances of my
upbringing, although often hard, taught me the value of a dollar. Today I realize that while it is sometimes nice to have a designer purse, or a famous label on my jeans, the quality of my worldly possessions does not make my character. It is important to me that I instill that concept into my daughters’ minds, for it is a valuable one.

One way I do that is to allow Abbie to earn her spending money by doing extra things around the house, rather than just giving the money to her. Abbie also understands that if she wants something expensive, that I first have to pay rent, buy food, put gas in the car, and take care of all the other obligations that are needed for survival. Then we discuss the cost versus the
benefit and oftentimes she decides that the “something” she had once wanted was not so important to her anymore.

Understanding that my self-worth is not tied to money was one of the most significant lessons that living in Alaska taught me. With the trial behind me, I settled into life in Alaska permanently. One thing I loved about living in Anderson was that once a month Nick, my mother, and I made the ninety-mile drive northeast to Fairbanks. With roughly thirty thousand people living there in 1999, Fairbanks was the second-largest city in the state. To me the difference between small-town Anderson and the big city of Fairbanks was like night and day.

The trip was usually the first Saturday or Sunday of the month, after our welfare check came in. The night before we went I’d make sure to get to bed early, as we all had to get up at five-thirty in the morning to make the trip. When we got to Fairbanks we always stopped at a McDonald’s. Fast food was one of the things I missed most about living in rural Alaska. After abstaining for a month, McDonald’s food tasted so good!

My mother also scheduled doctors’ appointments and other errands to fall during our monthly trip. If you have ever lived in a small town, you know how limited goods and services can be. Everything other than our basic weekly shopping had to be done on this one day in Fairbanks.

The last errand on our list every month was a stop at Fred Meyer. Fred Meyer is a supermarket super center similar to Walmart—a store that has everything. We’d spend several hours at Fred Meyer,
stocking up on everything we needed for the month, and then we’d make the long drive back to Anderson. It is amazing how much I came to appreciate and look forward to simple things such as shopping and fast food when they weren’t part of my daily life.

In June, my birthday rolled around once again. Unlike previous birthdays that were either nearly forgotten or imposed with a ton of family drama, this year I had no expectations about a celebration. We had no money for special gifts (much less a party), and I understood that because every penny was important to us my mother had to work at the bar that day.

That year June 10 fell on a Saturday, a day when my mother usually went into work in the morning to clean the grill and tidy up the bar. I got up late that morning, then wandered out into the kitchen. I was so pleased to find that my mother had left me a loving note and a beautiful pink rose from our garden on our kitchen table. The note read: T
HE FIRST ROSE OF THE SUMMER BLOOMED ON YOUR BIRTHDAY
. C
OME DOWN TO THE
D
EW
D
ROP AND
I
WILL MAKE YOU A MILK SHAKE AND CHEESEBURGER
. To this day that birthday stands out in my memory as my absolute best. That simple acknowledgment of my special day made me feel that my mother loved me and was glad I was born. Until then I hadn’t been sure that was the case.

Another thing I realized that day was that feeling loved, truly loved, was an unusual sensation for me. I knew my dad loved me and that my brothers and sisters did as well. But love was never acknowledged to me in such a tender manner.

When I was very small, Dad said “I love you” every night when he tucked me into bed. Later, when I was older, when he said the words it was usually before a punishment was handed down. “Because I love you so much I’m going to have to ground you” was heard a lot at our house when I lived with Dad. His way of expressing love and my mother’s were both heartfelt, but polar opposites. Since I have grown into adulthood I understand that this is a guy thing. Many men feel uncomfortable expressing their emotions as openly as women do. It doesn’t mean they love you less, they just show it differently than women. And besides, there is nothing quite as special as a mother’s love.

That’s why I felt that this simple, quiet note and the rose from my mother was a beautiful way to express a lovely sentiment. Once in a while life provides us with moments that are extraordinarily special, and that was one of those moments for me. I will never forget the gesture, or the thought behind it.

One final gift came to me that day through my mother: a clear and defined moment when I realized that material things were not important. Love, however, is everything. I carry that thought with me to this day. Even though I now have the financial means to live more extravagantly, I don’t, and my home is filled with simple furnishings. Instead of fancy restaurants or expensive clothes I prefer homemade organic dishes and down-to-earth clothing on sale. Instead of a night on the town, I prefer a day at the park with my daughters.

Someday I hope our society will realize what I learned on
my thirteenth birthday, that consumerism is an empty thrill—providing a meaningful moment for a loved one lasts a lifetime.

★

Although my mother worked long hours, money continued to be a trial for us, and that extended to my life at school. While my grades were good and I liked my classes, the other kids eventually noticed that I wore the exact same pair of jeans to school every day, and they weren’t always that clean. But that was all I had, one pair of jeans, and they were also the only pants I had. I had gotten them on one of our monthly trips to Fred Meyer and we paid $20 for them, so these jeans that were being mocked by my classmates were a huge extravagance for us.

My breasts were also beginning to develop more, and to my extreme embarrassment, I didn’t have a bra. That is something my mother probably noticed, but she came from a type of young women in the 1960s who didn’t wear bras. She preferred to go without, so I guess a bra for her daughter was not on her radar. Additionally, because my relationship with my mother was still new, I didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask her for one. I wasn’t sure how much a bra would cost, but whatever it was, I knew it would be more than we had. I went to school for months wearing my one pair of jeans and trying to cover my breasts with my books.

During this time I also asked my mother if she had a curling iron or a blow-dryer. Of course she didn’t. She was a free-flowing
hippie chick, and while that was fine for her, those two items would have gone a long way toward making me feel like I fit in. As any teen girl knows, going to school every day with the “wrong” hairstyle opens the door to ridicule and ostracism.

By this time a girls’ clique was starting to form in my school. These five or six girls were born in Anderson and had grown up together. There were only five or six major families in Anderson, so most of these girls were also related somehow. A small number of boys also grouped. I wasn’t part of any clique. Anderson was so small that new girls just didn’t move into the area like I had, so they were slow to accept me. It was bad enough when an individual person laughed and taunted me because I was poor, but when an entire clique did the same, it was too much. I think I went home every day that year in tears.

Today bullying is a hot topic, but not so much back then. I’m not sure if the teachers or other parents at the school noticed what was happening. If not, they should have. Children learn so much socially at that age, and thinking that bullying is an okay thing to do is definitely not okay. That kind of negative behavior and thinking can permeate everything a person does. Before long the bully is only out for himself or herself, and lacks any form of empathy to help or care for others.

I am so glad that this topic is finally getting the attention it deserves, because no one should have to suffer what my fellow students did to me—including my daughter. In Hawai’i, just as it was when I was in school here, my older daughter, Abbie, is one of
the only white children in her school. In a recent class discussion on Hawai’ian history, the textbook used the familiar but derogative term for people of Caucasian descent, “hā‘ole,” and indicated how mean “hā‘ole people” were for taking land away from the native Hawai’ian people. The eyes of every child in that class turned to Abbie, and later she was bullied about stealing people’s land.

Like me, my daughter had no part in stealing anyone’s land. She was nine years old. Fortunately, Abbie told me what was going on and both Beth and I called administrators at Abbie’s private school to tell them we found this unacceptable.

While my own mother didn’t know about the bullying that was going on with me, she and my therapist did notice that something was going on. Before I knew it my counseling sessions had doubled and I was prescribed more medication.

★

One thing I had learned by the time I was thirteen is that we all have impulsive, and often destructive, behaviors that we turn to in times of stress. For some it might be eating, for others it is alcohol or drugs. What I had seen so far from the women around me was that they defined themselves by the men in their life. From Tawny’s pursuit of Dad, to the nannies, to all the other women, the women I knew did not feel complete without a man in their life. This included my mother.

As soon as my mother realized that Mark was not coming back,
she began frequenting dating chat sites on the Internet. In Alaska every resident can apply for an annual disbursement of funds called the PFD (Permanent Fund Dividend). These funds range between $600 and $1,500 or thereabouts, depending on the year, and are used to stimulate the economy. A parent is responsible for the spending or saving of their child’s PFD, and what isn’t spent is supposed to go into an education fund for them.

I had really wanted a computer, and with part of my PFD that year my mother bought a Dell computer and set it up in the living room. While it was “my” computer, my mother was on it until all hours of the night. Dating chat rooms were relatively new at the time, but my mother jumped right into it. I remember hearing the click of computer keys every night as I fell asleep.

Before long, men began showing up at the house. It seemed to me that my mother slept with some of them. I don’t think any of them stayed around very long, certainly not long enough for me to remember their names.

One day my mother said we needed a web camera to go with the computer, and with a little more of my PFD we got one. I remember helping her install it, even though I wasn’t sure why we needed one. A few weeks later I was looking for a file on the computer and I stumbled across some photos of my mother. But these were not the typical smiling photos of a mom with her arms around her children. These were suggestive photos of my mother in all sorts of poses. In some she was wearing attire that I now know is used in bondage fantasies.

For whatever reason, my mother seemed to need the physical part of a relationship with a man more than the emotional—if you can call a one-night stand a relationship. Once again I was being given a distorted view of the role women play.

★

But all was not terrible during this time. Animal lover that I am, I was thrilled when my mother allowed me to get a beautiful black-and-white cat I named Cinderella. Well, that’s what I called the cat until we discovered Cinderella was a boy. After that he was Cinderfella. He had fluffy long hair and was very sweet and affectionate. I have had a lot of cats over the years, and like most of them, Cinderfella was loyal and slept with me every night.

School let out every day at three o’clock, and at three-fifteen basketball practice started. I loved basketball then—and still do. I was number 44 and eventually worked my way up to point guard. Sports were something I was really good at, and in most cases, even though I was tiny, I could hold my own with the boys. I also participated in cross-country and other track events, and I played the flute in the band. I loved when the band got to travel with the basketball team so we could play the national anthem before the games. During this time I was also a straight-A student. I am still amazed that I was able to keep up so well despite all the dysfunction at home.

When my after-school activities were over I came home, shook off any new insults I had received at school, and watched cartoons with Nick and Cinderfella. I especially loved the old
Looney Tunes
cartoons and
Angry Beavers
. Cartoons were a much more appropriate way to escape the stresses of real life, and with Nick and Cinderfella beside me, I could finally relax.

I also spent a lot of time outdoors. I loved four-wheeling and dirt-biking.

★

T
oday I wonder why
I was in such a hurry to grow up, and I am careful that my own daughters are allowed to enjoy a normal childhood as long as possible. To make that happen, I don’t have cable TV in my house. While we sometimes watch television, we more often pop in a movie or an educational DVD that we view together. I’d much rather go outside and play games such as tag or hide-and-seek with my daughters than plop them down in front of a television anyway.