IT IS ALL TOO MUCH

                                   

The bus drove off after letting me off at the bus stop. My legs were heavy and my arms felt almost too weak to carry my books. I dragged my way home.

The following day was Career Day at Sandia High.  I started to say something to a friend and the words came out wrong.  A bright light began pulsating in my right eye and everything was blurry.  I walked to the nurse’s station. I tried to get the words out, but they didn't make sense.  She had me lay on a cot and  she called Mom.  When I got home I vomited and lay down with a terrible headache.  I never went to a doctor but we decided it was a migraine.

I definitely was not happy.  If I had felt insecure before Deryl left, now it was doubled.  I felt like I had not only lost Deryl but Mom also.  She just wasn’t there for Bronco and me.  She was into doing her own thing.  She had new friends and no time for us.

 I'm not sure if Dave knew what was going on in my life. I had the "Code of Silence" put on me. Mom said I was to never tell anything that was going on in our house. I never talked to Dave or any of my friends about what I was going through. I carried it alone.  

 ( In my senior year I finally told my friend Mary Lou…we talked late into the night.)

LIES

          My feet felt like lead as I crossed the playground.  I kept my eyes on the girls standing in front of the school building.  This was worse then the first day of school; but I might as well face them and let everyone know that I lied.  I thought back to the first lie I told.  The other girls were jumping rope at recess: there I stood the outsider.  I had been in school two weeks, and I still didn’t “belong.”

“Hey Janet,” I yelled to one of the girls as she waited her turn to jump.

Reluctantly, she came in my direction.

“Did you know Fess Parker is my uncle?” I asked boastfully.

“The Fess Parker who plays Davy Crockett in the movies?” she questioned as her eyes widened.

“That’s the one!”

“Hey girls, come over here,” Janet yelled.

The group quit jumping and gathered around us.

“Tell them what you told me,” Janet instructed.

I repeated my story and threw in some extra details: a trip to California, which included a visit in Fess Parker’s mansion in Beverly Hills. (I was sure he must live in Beverly Hills.)

They were impressed!  Encouraged that I had their attention.  I knew I had to do something to keep it.  The next day, I brought some sketches to school that one of my aunts had drawn and given to me.

“Did you see the sketches I drew, Janet?” I bragged as I help them up for her inspection.

“Wow, Gloria, did you draw these?” Janet exclaimed, obviously impressed.

The rest of the girls took their turns examining the pictures.  Pats face registered unbelief.

“I don’t believe you drew them,” she said assertively, “For every picture you draw and bring to school tomorrow, I’ll give you a nickel.”

That night, with pencil in hand and a pit in my stomach, I tried desperately to draw like the other sketches.  My drawings were amateurish, to say the least, compared to my aunt’s.  My head throbbed with each unsuccessful stroke of the pencil.

“What’s wrong, Gloria?” Mom asked.

“I don’t feel good,” I covered my mouth and ran to the bathroom where I threw up.  The vision in the corner of my eyes was blurry, and my head pounded incessantly.  For two days I suffered my first migraine headache.

Now, after being at home sick, I was returning to school without the drawings, and prepared to take the consequences.  I would admit I had lied.

Pat stood with the other girls as I approached.

“Hi Gloria,” Janet said, “I hear you’ve been sick.”

“Yes, I was,” I answered; bracing myself for the confrontation I was sure would follow.  I glanced at Pat and waited for her to ask for the sketches.  She never uttered a word!  Much to my relief and surprise no one ever mentioned them again.

I had been rescued from myself.