The bedspread was scratchy and stained with years worth of cheap beer and the loss of virginity. The room, with its battered, chipped furniture, was littered with Natural Light cans, cups of discarded Boone’s Farm with cigarettes floating in them. There were teenage bodies, many still wearing their rented tuxes and heavy, sequin gowns, dotting the floor and furniture like a crime scene investigation.
The copious amounts of beer and over-the-counter speed, Mini-Thins, that I had blended together in an attempt to be the post-prom party queen were now just making me drunk, awake and incredibly sad. All I wanted to do was bolt from that seedy hotel room and crawl into bed with my mom. I wanted to breathe in her mixture of Tide detergent and Baby Soft perfume as she tickled my back and called me pumpkin.
However, that wasn’t possible. Not only could I not arrive home drunk when I was supposed to be spending the night at my best friend’s house, but my mom wasn’t there. She was in prison. Therefore, I blinked back my tears as I stared at the swirling design on the ceiling.
The night was winding down and the quiet that came with that terrified me, “Anyone wanna smoke up? I bet this ceiling would be so pretty if we were high.”
“I bet you would be too,” came the immediate and heart-stopping response from a boy that I considered a friend. I ignored him and berated myself for not only saying something that even my teenage brain knew was cringe worthy (I didn’t even like to smoke pot), but for making myself such an easy target for teenage cruelty. I settled my head onto the polyester covered pillow, closed my eyes and saw my dad’s face staring back at me. It was the manifestation of what I feared.
I looked just like the monster who I blamed for taking my mom away and ruining my life. As I stared my dad down, I accepted that none of the preppie, rich kids, whom I had wiggled myself a seat at their table thanks to my fake ID and high tolerance for crappy beer, actually liked me.
I was ugly and broken.
It was a feeling that I have fought most of my life. I’ve fought it by eating crappy food and having a wardrobe that was heavy on sweat pants and oversized hoodies that were roomy enough for me to have ample room to wallow in self-pity. I’ve fought it by dancing on tables while chugging Jack and Cokes with a false bravado about how hot I was. I’ve fought it by following strict diets, running miles a day and always wearing make-up.
I’ve even tried to disguise my wounded, misfit heart with bob hair cuts, pastel polos and khakis, both flat front and pleated.
Although my costumes were different, they all had the same theme. They were there to cover me up, not my skin or the blemishes on my face, but my shattered, disfigured soul.
It wasn’t until I was sitting across a table having coffee with my friend, Jaime, that I shut both that teenage boy with his flippant cruelty and my own vicious taskmaster up for good. Jaime has soft, reflective eyes. Eyes that are more gold than brown, kind eyes with little speckles of pepper that are strong enough to not look away. She held me in her steady gaze and said, “God, I love when you don’t wear make-up. I like to see YOU.”
I am sure that I made some self-effacing joke. It is what I do when I am trying not to sob in the middle of Whole Foods because someone was kind and complimentary and vulnerable with me. But, when I got in the car, I flipped down the visor mirror and just looked at myself for a solid minute. Despite my lack of foundation, mascara and lipstick, I didn’t see that snarling monster with puffy bags under its eyes that had haunted me all my life nor the loud, vain person in eyeliner and high heels who showed up when I was feeling particularly out of control.
What I saw staring back at me in that small rectangular mirror was a woman who was now surrounded by authentic, loving people. I knew I was no longer that devastated, lonely girl in her hand-me-down prom dress that had to out drink everyone to feel as if she belonged.
I knew that I was my own beautiful, unique creation — a strange mix of button downs and tattoos. I am a mousy bobbed brunette turned platinum blonde who smells of Burberry perfume. I can quote Toni Morrison and Missy Elliot in equal measure. I like Silver Oak Cabernet and Coors Light tall boys.
I am kind and loving and I can also be self-absorbed and vain. I love sad, quiet indie movies and outrageous blockbusters. I can sing along to George Jones and Wu-Tang. I once hung so much of who I was on the fact that I became an Assistant Vice President in two years, but I now know that I am so much raising my girl and writing stories.
I am mama, a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a writer and a once scared, struggling girl who left that seedy motel room and grew up to live a most wild, magical, stunningly gorgeous life.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Soshally Awkward
Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.
