eng 319

Memoir 1st Draft

Dear Diary,

I haven’t spoken with you in a long time. I’ve been rereading my journals and am surprised by how many of them I have, how many entries I have written. I can’t really remember being so in love with writing to you, but I guess it makes sense. Many of the entries are filled of such sorrow and balled-up pain, unspoken to the world. I suppose in a way I needed you. I didn’t know what my entries would mean, I didn’t know what the content of the entries meant for me or why the experiences happened the way they did, but apparently I did know the healing that could come from putting my feelings into words. Perhaps I secretly thought that one day I would tell my story, share the pain and the joys I felt, and connect with young girls who felt like all was lost. I’m not sure any of what I’ve shared within your pages could do so, nor what little I can piece together about them now, but perhaps it would make a somewhat interesting read anyway. Even if my words will never be published, if my experiences will never help others, maybe I will find further healing and growth by recounting them. Here is what I wrote:

My face could be mistaken for a waterfall. She lashes out at him with the sword of her words, aiming for his heart. She wants not to kill him but to injure him so badly that he must leave the fight. She looks to me for support and my guilt is spilled on the ground as she pierces my skin, using her cheap and childish words, telling me that it is because of him that she does not get what she needs.

Every morning I can remember until the day I moved out of the house I would wake up to screaming upstairs, every night it would be my lullaby. All the one-on-one car ride conversations or those in the garage were centered around each other. My Mother trying to convince me that my Father was a terrible person, irresponsible, and emotionally abusive, my Father trying to convince me that my Mother was psychotic, inaccessible, and emotionally abusive. They gave me detailed descriptions of each other’s dark secrets, and forced me to choose between them, to mediate and speak the words they were unable or unwilling to say to each other.

I let the tears shed from my eyes and let my heart slow to a normal speed, wait for the pain to die down so I can hear the birds once again, but not even God’s beautiful gift of the outdoors can cure me. God created such beautiful things for my eyes gaze upon like the tiny pearls in the sky and the creatures hunting in the darkness, but my heart doesn’t feel it. I walk along the dark, deserted streets and imagine all the people safely in their beds dreaming of ridiculous things. When I come to my destination, though my heart’s destination is not yet met, I stare at the house, wondering if anybody cares that I’m gone.

Inside my home the walls are bright white and picture-less, with a single plant by the window. I was sure to keep it cluttered with stuff, but sometimes that didn’t do my lungs enough justice. I cannot count the times I found myself wandering dark streets. I still find myself retreating to the dark, especially the rain, when my heart is heavy. Just to breathe and cry in isolation, my sobs bounced off walls of the surrounding houses. I became a part of the nature, running before God and begging to be heard, to be seen, to be loved.

Of course there are good times as well. I cannot find it, but remember writing a poem while sitting on top of my roof and staring at the moon. It was cold and my fingers could barely bend to scribble the words onto the page, but the trees were still and the stars were quiet. Everyone I knew was asleep and I was left to dream of the people somewhere else in the world, staring at the same moon and dreaming of me, waiting to find and meet me and cherish me.

I’m not sure why I have seemed to return to nature and paper in the same instances and manner. I cannot really explain why two distinctly different places provide the same solace and refuge, but for both I am now grateful, because things were quite different for me when home.

Here I battle for my Sanity, and it seems as though I exist on the losing team. I cannot explain to you why it is so because I do not know the foundation of insanity, nor do I know the precise moment one becomes enslaved by such. All I know for sure is that my mind is slowly transforming into something scary, undesirable, and uncontrollable, something that allows no courage, compassion, no comfort, and most and worst of all, no reality. Holes are my boss, routine is my motive. Nothing matters or has purpose, no good reason explains my everyday attempts at life. “Strength,” as I used to call it, is powerless against the inevitable slipping away into madness and into nothing but my madness. Imperfect, impure, un-loved, undesirable, misunderstood, a mistake, denied, discredited, unsatisfied, unintelligent, intolerable, unwanted...all the essence of me.

It had happened again. My body was taken and my heart was left shattered. My world was spinning and I needed to hear an encouraging word. I would never tell my Daddy what happened nor ask him straight up, but my actions and words were intensely begging for him to hold me, to tell me how beautiful I was and how worthy of true love I was. But the words he spoke instead were “okay, Paula.” No matter how many times I attempted to reform, no matter how sane I attempted to act or how much I distanced myself from my mother, still I was “powerless against the inevitable slipping away.” Deemed insane and uncomforted by my father in these moments; undesirable and mistreated by the other men I so desperately sought. Insane and unworthy I made the vow to stay away from marriage. I think this must be around the time that I stopped writing. The moment I felt like I had no power and nothing to offer, the moment I gave up to the lie that emotion and feeling was evil unless you were a male. That a woman has to keep her tongue quiet and a smile plastered on her face in order to be sane.

My name is Kayla Horner, and I wear a mask. Many, in fact. They are beautiful with many colors. Each person sees me in a different color of the mask depending on how I want them to see me.

The year I went to middle school I had a choice to make. In my school there were 3 very distinct social groups and therefore, for me, 2 options to choose from. If you were not lucky enough to be a Mexican or a Mormon then you could choose to either be a punk or a loner. I dyed my hair blue, became a drummer, and joined the kids at the edge of school grounds. I cussed and pretended to like their music, I joined in the burning of people’s hair and ditched school because obviously hacky-sack held more importance in the scheme of my life than school.

One day after school I fought a girl that used to be my friend. It ended in my favor that day, but I ended up in the principles office the next sitting in front of a cop. Later he talked to my Dad on the phone and told him that when I walked through the door and he saw my blue hair he thought to himself, “we’ve got a hot one here.” (not hot as in attractive, but hot as in guilty). But by the time our meeting was over he found that I was the most respectful girl he talked to regarding that issue that day. After my first year, I decided that punk was not me and the rest of my middle school years were spent flitting about, pretending to be as much of a bad-ass as the Mexicans were, or as pure as the Mormons were, or as confident in myself as the loners to handle being friendless. I changed to a high school in a different part of town, made friends, and got good grades in school. I didn’t write to you much anymore, dear journal, and in fact I did not enjoy writing at all anymore.

I am writing to you now partly because I have to. I got into “Teacher Education” mostly out of necessity to figure something out and avoid doing nothing, certainly not because of my passion. But I guess my heart always knew and kept quiet about what I needed. I guess it always knew that I would return to you, return to the conversations we have had, and eventually my passion would return and healing would come. I’m hopeful.