The Search for Khadijah

How far do I have to go?

Many times I’ve tried to commit suicide, but I was a coward not able to end the book called life. I wanted out sooner than later, with no excuses.

I created doors as a way to escape, fantasies that helped me deal with the sadness that continued to consume me as I stood with 100 keys and two doors to open.

And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn’t keep her?

The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That’s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.

My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.

My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

Pablo Neruda

Surrendering to fate is impossible.

Many times I tried to commit suicide, but I was a coward not able to end the book called life. I wanted out sooner than later, with no excuses. I created doors as a way to escape, fantasies that helped me deal with the sadness that continues to consume me as I stood with a 100 keys and two doors to open. How far do I have to go?

Oh my God, how many times have I tried to commit suicide? Let me count the ways, I try to silence the solace of my soul and body. The first time I cut my wrists, then I took my sleeping pills and then I lost count. However, who cares enough to know if I am alive or not?

I am still alive, with the same feelings of ending the voices, and the constant reminders of things I refuse to talk about. Often times my psychiatrist have tried to make me speak, or like she said to share my inner demons, failing each time. I would rather keep the secrets than be looked at like a freak or, and right here is where it ends.

The weight of secrets slows your journeys, to a screeching halt. So let us be free, “unsecret” yourself, you are getting better or closer to your final destination. The questions emerge repeatedly, am I really better or it is just the end, the result of those pesky pills I need to take? Could it be my imagination or my grandiose talking back at me? The fact is that I continue to walk straight into the abyss, a bottomless pit with no ladder, steps or stairs to help me regain a moment of sanity.

Then the depression sets in, sending my body into a frenzy, with a euphoric feeling. Everyone is out to get me, and I am the worst human being God has ever created. The tears come and go, laughter not so much, it is that horrible feeling of walking with a dark cloud that blinds every step taken to find the light at the end of the tunnel.

The assumption is that a few pills and monthly one hour conversations with a stranger, who is always blowing her nose, and pretending to understand your feelings, should be enough. She is good with the diagnosis, with the combination of pills, and maybe she is getting somewhere, until I miss four appointments and am back to square one, two and three.

I hate when people look at me and then they only see a strong woman, someone who has no problems, who is on top of everything and has the world figure it out. I don’t understand how self-worth determines who I am, to the next person standing by me.

I think failure is not an option, I would rather go hungry, be cold, and become tired, rather than accepting the judgment of the one sitting across the table every month, form me.

I touched my wet face "why am I crying, why am I drinking so much, why, why, why? I want to be weak, I want to cry, I will rather be sad and break whenever the fuck I want. Why do I need to be strong?"

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”

Eleanor Roosevelt

I look into the mirror, and I question everything I see, everything I hear, everything I smell, continuously. What would it take me to be normal, and stop questioning the most insignificant incidents that are built like a volcano ready to erupt? These questions continue to pile up, each one with no real answers, making an opportunity to heal almost impossible. It is like a band-aid that continues to be ripped from the same sore over and over without enough time to heal.

It was cold in Time Square, a week since I landed at Port Authority, and my last legal twenty was about to be spent on some food and coffee. I was able to sleep on the floor of some hotel room that I shared with five or six other teens for a week. As we started to run out of money, each of us had to figure out where to sleep and eat.

I was scared, and I had nowhere to go, unless I thought about going back to my stepfather’s family, a group of racists who wanted me to marry a Dominican guy and work in a factory as they did.

I dropped out of high school, ran away to New York and lived with my father for a while. I was accepted in the South Bronx Job Corp, into a hospitality program. I lived there during the week and went to my dads during the weekend. Located at Andrews Avenue right on the heart of the South Bronx. The building was an old mansion in the middle of the ghetto, housing about 200 students, residential advisors, and security guards.

There I learned that I did not work or play well with others. It was one confrontation after another. Class during the day, clean the dorms on Sundays, and hang out during Saturdays.

One evening as I was coming in, and the security guards decided to check everyone coming into the center. I decided that carrying some liquor and weed was not so big of a deal, only if I got caught. The line was long, but moving right along. It was no way to leave or throw away the junk I was carrying. Think, either I fess up or break the line and walk back into the street and be late for curfew. Out it was, what could happen, that I have to collect the night garbage or clean a bathroom, shit, that was easy.

As I started walking out I felt a hand over my shoulder, I look up and he smiles at me. I walked into the security guards office sitting at the first chair I saw. The door closed right as I sat, I am not sure what would happen that evening.

Life has a way of teaching lessons unexpectedly, we never know who would be the teacher of that next life long lesson. At times we need to look past what happened and get to the next chapter in the book call life. Lesson or not we learn from everyone that touches not only your soul but your face.

Professor C. Lambert taught a course on sociology upstate in New York. He was an intelligent man, his class reflected every aspect of the sociologist he was. Lambert was a great lecturer, honest about the government, science, life and himself. While taking his class, September 11 happened. We spoke about it, hate started settling in, and I became a Muslim. The semester was over and we all went away for the winter recess.

A new semester and all eyes were on me. I wore blue abaya and headscarf. Everyone was looking at me like I killed New York. I walked to the cafeteria and Lambert walked by, looked at me and asked me if I was well. I said yes. As I answered him he reached for my face and said to me,

“I hope that the man you marry honors you as his wife and loves you even more.”

I thought about those words every time my ex-husband, told me how stupid I was, how old I was, and I was crazy. I felt trapped and alone. Every time, I try to work harder to please the man who found fault on everything I did. Two times I was admitted to the “luny bin,” and that was just more ammunition to all the name calling and belittling me.

I left him, I came back, and then I finally left to never go back to such an abusive man. The worst part is that he never put a hand on me, but he made sure my self-esteem, outer appearance, and love for life were over. It took a very long time to learn to love myself again.

God taught me a lesson and Lambert made sure I remembered his words. He touches my face and my heart. His words will always stay with me because I realize how important it is to love self before anyone else.

The Rose

The treasure at the heart of the rose is your own heart's treasure.

Scatter it as the rose does,

your pain becomes hers to measure. Scatter it in a song, or in one great love's desire.

Do not resist the rose lest you burn in its fire.

Gabriela Mistral

Who are you?

I ran away from my father, after running away from my mother in Puerto Rico. I stole the money from my grandmother’s store, bought an airplane ticket, and off I went.

It was two weeks since I landed in Time Square, it was cold, I was hungry and tired. I was trying to keep warm by drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes. I think it was like a week since I had taken a shower, and about three or four days since I slept on a bed. I had a bag of clothing, and about twenty dollars left.

As I started to walk away from that particular corner, someone called out. I did not look back, I continue walking, now faster. Somebody signals me to look behind me. I did and I saw him gesturing to come over where he was standing.

“Who are you?”

As he offered a slice of pizza and something to drink. He asked me if I wanted to go with him to his place. Oh, boy I knew what that meant, I had to pay the piper after all. I would be able to shower and maybe sleep for a couple of hours. We took a very long train ride, first train #2 to the last stop and then we walked about five blocks and we reached this big house. I was surprised to see where he lived. I sat at the kitchen table, waiting for someone to tell me what was to come.

His name was Kenny. He was black, bold, about 25, and a bodybuilder. He had a pair of white jeans, a jersey, Adidas and a Kangol. He was always picking strays, he helped everyone who needs help.

He loved me for the next four years, it was not easy. Although we thought love was all, we were living with his uncle, no jobs, he ran the streets, and I was not even attempting to do anything, but the chick with the guy that everyone loved and admired and feared. He fought, stole, and loved the same way, hard.

He went to prison several times. I went back home pregnant, I was not sure if Kenny’ was the father of my unborn child.

Kenny became very ill in prison, and never quite recovered. He reached out several times before the birth of our son. In one of the conversations we had, he said;

“If the baby is born before or after February I am not the father.”

My son was born on February 10, 1987. After all, he had a son, he never met because he died November 28, 1987, and a piece of me died the day I received the news. The only man who loved me unconditionally was gone. I rocked myself to sleep, I waited by the phone. I wanted to see him again, one more time. I waited for years by the door and by the phone. I compared everyone who crossed my life. No one will ever compare to him.

I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there’s a pair of us-don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog!

Emily Dickinson

Who am I?

I am defined by the stereotypes that are written in the DSM. I am diagnosed as a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.

The combination of the manic and depressive episodes was the worst, irritability stages cannot compare to the long-lasting feelings of pain and shame that followed every episode.

At the time of Kenny’s death, I knew this period would be the darkest time in my life. My soul was torn; ripped apart and damaged beyond repair.

I cried and cried for days and weeks at a time. I will wake up in the morning, take care of my son and just sit on a rocking chair, swaying back and forth, just waiting for that phone call or a letter.

My family was indifferent to my pain.

“Get over it.”

“Get a job.”

“Stop crying.”