Many people think hell is a place. For me, it’s the feeling I get every time I am subjected to the opinions of my father.
My father was someone I wanted to copy. I adored him; admired him. I wanted to be a computer programmer and play baseball and be just like him when I grew up. I was a daddy’s girl.
Everyone goes through changes in life. Sometimes they morph into a strange and wondrous being, with candy-striped legs and red eyelashes and lacy skirts. I was going through this in seventh grade, searching for the music that colored my soul and defined my style. I was proud of the person emerging from the mud and muck of childhood. If only my father could have felt the same way.
Hell started when I was opening a birthday present on my 13th birthday. It was a video game called SingStar. I turned it on and a song called “Helena” by the band My Chemical Romance began playing. I remember my heart breaking in two and the tears building up in the corners of my eyes.Then my father told me that that kind of music was for “freaks” and “people that no one wants to be.”
I realized my dad hated me.
That was my hell, a torture by someone I looked up to, someone who was supposed to love me no matter what, and someone who was really supposed to pick me up from a hard day at school when I wasn’t accepted by the “popular girls.”
I began to learn to lie. I hid my “shining sprite” after coming home from school, quickly changing into dull, boring clothes before my father was home from work. I learned to lie to him, telling him that I was accepted and loved and good at all the things he wanted me to be good. In reality, I was horrible at sports, math, and Teen magazine cover-girl popularity. I hid my music and my clothes and told my mom that he’d never love me if I showed him the real me.
I was in agony. I remember thinking to myself, “It isn’t supposed to be this way. My family is supposed to help me.”
Then, one day I heard these lyrics by the band Green Day:
And there’s nothing wrong with me.
This is how I’m supposed to be,
In my land of make-believe
That don’t believe in me.
Those words changed my life. I was myself, and nothing was going to change that — not even my selfish and controlling father.
I decided to quit hiding the sparkly Christy.
The next morning, I dressed for school in a punk rock plaid skirt with bits of metal all over it, a red and black Green Day shirt, and black Converse sneakers. I walked downstairs with my music on. My father looked at me and lost control. He screamed, “What are you doing?! Why are you wearing that?”
I was raised to be a person he could love.
I fought my way through hell until the ridicule died down. I decided that if my father couldn’t love me for my true self, then he couldn’t love me at all.
I can’t pretend that it didn’t bother me for very long. I broke and often cried. Why did I have to be like this? That seventh-grade year was the worst of my life. I have never felt so low.
As ridiculous as this may sound, the band Green Day saved my life. They taught me that it’s OK to live the truth and that it’s good to stand out and head-bang with high-top Chuck Taylors.
If I could just be normal. Be someone that he could be proud of, then maybe he’d love me again.
But maybe that’s not to be. Not too long ago he sent me a clear, curt message cutting off all communication. Straight A’s weren’t good enough.
I tell myself that I’ll be OK. I made it through hell and nothing will send me back there.
So while some people at my school call me names and make fun of me for being different, I smile, think to myself, “I love my individuality,” and turn up my iPod.
Christy Marquette is a junior at Meeker High School.
