The Little Girl

When I was a little girl, about eight or nine years old, I was at a family picnic. My brothers and sisters all had a cousin who was close in age to them there at the picnic, and everyone, it seemed, had someone to play with. The big kids were playing volleyball with the grown-ups in my uncle's giant backyard. My sisters were off doing girl things with my girl cousins who were close to them in age. My little brother was probably playing matchbox cars with my cousin Ronnie. I was at a loose end, and wandered about the fringe of all this activity looking for someone to play with.

I remember approaching my older sister Carol, who was playing or talking with my cousin Cheri on the front steps of the house.

"Can I play with you guys?" I asked.

"Go away," my sister said, in a really mean voice, "we don't want you here."

I remember it was a brilliant, hot summer day, and I was wearing a new short-set and probably something awful on my feet like tube socks and sneakers. I also remember recoiling from their rejection as if I had been hit. I felt foolish, embarrassed, and hurt.

I'd always been a shy and somewhat nervous little kid, afraid of my own shadow most days. I remember looking over at the grownups, who were laughing and clapping and rotating their volleyball lines. I remember retreating around the corner of the house to the garage entrance, where I sat on the concrete sill and tried really, really hard to breathe past the stone in my chest and unsuccessfully fought back tears. I let a few escape and roll down my face as I sat there with my feet in the gravel, breathing short shallow breaths through my mouth.

After awhile, I pulled my nine-year-old self together and shuffled back around to the volleyball game and the picnic tables and lawn chairs. My dad was sitting there, with a can of Iron City and his pack of Pall Malls on the table. He wasn't drunk, but probably would be, happily so, by the end of the day. At this point, he noticed me, and was very jolly.

"There's my baby girl. What're you doin', Ai?" (To this day, I miss hearing Marty's rich baritone saying, "What're you doin', Ai?") I was too big for laps at that point, but I crawled up onto Dad's anyway.

"Carol was mean to me. They wouldn't let me play with them." And I started to cry with big tears rolling down my face.

For some reason, I don't remember much else of what happened that day. Probably my sister got in trouble for being mean, and had to grudgingly let me tag along with her and Cheri, but if that happened, I don't remember.

All I remember is that little girl, standing there feeling stunned, who learned not to ask people if she could play games with them, who to this day never actively sets out to make a friend. I let them come to me, because I'll be goddamned if I let someone do that to me again, right?

So today at 3:30 I asked for a very specific thing, and I thought at 6:00 that I would get it, yay! I mean, the request seemed to be received with enthusiasm. Then another opportunity came up for the other party, and I asked again for the specific thing, in fact, explained that by turning down the other opportunity, the other party would be able to make the specific thing happen. I thought I was pretty clear in stating what I wanted.

Turns out the other party actually did want to do the other thing instead. Didn't tell me he wanted to do the other thing, just went and did it, leaving me feeling foolish, embarrassed and hurt.

Oh, well. Win some, lose some.

So I didn't get what I wanted, oh well, such is life. But I did spend a while sitting and trying to figure out what it was I felt. Was I mad? No, that wasn't it. It wasn't that I didn't get what I wanted. That would be the barest, thinnest surface layer. I asked myself, "Who's in there hurting?" And all of a sudden there was my funny-looking, chubby, nine-year-old self in my Uncle's garage, crying around the corner where no one could see her.

See, I asked if I could play, and the person I asked kinda told me, by actions if not words, nahhh, I don't want to play with you. I wanna do this other thing.

So my feelings got hurt, who the fuck cares, right? But I did do something, and that was to sit quietly and hold the little girl and tell her it's all right, that there is nothing wrong with her. I remembered that I don't have a mom and dad anymore to mop up my tears or tell me to toughen up because life ain't always fair, and most times it's not all that nice, either, and so I decided to be the mother and father to myself that I always wanted.

Because no matter how much time seems to go by, that little girl always seems to be right there with me, and I have such a responsibility to look after her, tenderly and with boundless compassion.

That's all for now.