Emptiness has never been attractive. Deep despondency seemed to pound itself into the mush I was told should be called a brain at the earliest stage of happiness. This early happiness was exhibited in three ways: the raising of the lips, the warmth of the heart, and the spark of light in the mind. However, despair and happiness infiltrate this pile of mush in my skull almost simultaneously.
Peppermint popcorn is a staple in my home at Christmas time. Our counter is never absent a bowl of popped starch which has been covered in mouth numbingly minty shards of glassy sugar and soulless cocoa beans turned into a solid piece of bark that melts to paste upon entering your mouth. The dessert is not as scrumptious to me as someone else would think upon tasting this white heap of sugar with red glass that could thoroughly shred your lips to bits, rendering you unable to speak sprinkled throughout. The reason for this is simple: the remembrance of trauma is induced by the use of one’s senses and, in this case, taste is the culprit.
I will never be short on colorless memories to reiterate. Rainbows are symbols of happiness, and none of this symbolic happiness exists within my past. Marked by black and white monochromatic videos I watch from the outside any time I become filled with post-traumatic nostalgia, childhood has become something I would rather not look back on. Regardless, it is something I see every single day.
The process by which peppermint popcorn is made is simple, but also one I have never quite been able to manage. The matriarch of my family mastered the tradition before trying to teach it to me, and one Christmas Eve, the Christmas Eve of my eleventh year on this earth, the Christmas Eve of a shift in the realities of my mother’s brain, I simply could not manage to create the seamless ties between popcorn, white chocolate, and peppermint my mother wished I could. She was so severely displeased with my inability to keep hold of unexplained ratios that soon after I had messed everything up, a handprint was burned upon my cheek. Only one moment later, my sister and I were led to an open spot of carpet between the couch and our Christmas tree to take a picture of this memory which would remain upbeat, positive, and vibrant in my mother’s eyes, but forever dull, colorless, and painful in my mind.
“Smile big,” my mother commanded as her brain made that ever so apparent, enigmatic switch back to a reality none of us existed in.
I smiled.
Despite the large tears that had welled up in my eyes, and the mark of my mother’s hand visible to all but my mother’s eyes. Despite the fact that, in the five seconds between a slap and the photography session, my mind had not fully recovered from the sense of shame, guilt, and hopelessness my mind held then, and would forever consist of. Despite the fact that I was unhappy. Despite the fact that my mother was slowly receding into a reality that wasn’t so realistic. Despite my fear of disappearing with her (or the terror that she might just disappear without me.)
I smiled.
Lying was not a skill people should try to obtain, but it is one I worked aimlessly and determinedly at for years because the one thing more unattractive than the quality of being dishonest was the quality of being discontent. Hiding a frown and some sobbing was not something I was unaccustomed to. In my house, saving someone else from pain was more important than saving yourself from an obvious mental break. In my home, sincerity of a smile did not matter as much as the presence of upturned frowning lips. In this way, I learned that even though I was incapable of happiness, I could convince other people that it was what I was feeling at any point in time. And, more importantly, I could ensure that others felt the opposite of what I was filled with.
I smiled.
Left with no way to tell right from wrong after bursting through a barrier of the world I couldn’t see before, I turned inward. Anguish ate away at my acuity until nothing was left of it but a heap of hazardous waste. At the young age of eleven, I no longer saw the world or anything in it as black or white. The change was made so slowly and easily that I hardly noticed it was taking place at all.
I smiled.
A picture may speak a thousand words, but those words aren’t always truthful. Glancing at this four year old image of my sister, my dog, and myself with Santa Claus hats on and glowing smiles provides my heart with a strengthening sadness. I can recognize how deep into the mess of fake smiles and depression I was. Even in this stage of naivety my mind searched for any kind of emotional stimulation. If only I had paid more attention to the happy stepping stones in my life before the ground crumbled beneath my feet. Maybe if this precaution had been ascertained before, a life filled with complete emptiness, excessive uneasiness, panic, and apprehension could have been avoided.
My family, my future children, and my friends, will all look at this snapshot with the assumption that the face they see is portraying the inside of a young Madison’s heart. What they will never know of is my ability to smile largely and falsely on the spot. What they could never understand is the persistent need to hide beneath a disguise to please other people, even if the cost for that particular lie is the destruction of my soul.
I will live forever in debt.