Day 47
I left the hostel at 9:00 pm to buy water for the morning. I’d arrived in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, twelve hours earlier. Barefoot, I had $6 in my pocket and no cell phone. A motorcycle whizzed by, mounted by two young guys. “Melaniiiii,” I heard my name shouted in a Mexican accent. In the middle of a town I had never been to before, someone recognized me. An instant later I recognized the two riders as a couple of the Bonfil Boys, a gang of surfers I met in Acapulco at Playa Bonfil. Excited to see familiar faces, I ran to them as they pulled over. After a bit of chat, one of them shot me a surprised look, exclaiming, “Oya, ya hablas Espanol! Chingon!” (Hey, you speak Spanish now! Right on!) Did I? Well, I had improved but was still struggling. They invited me to “party” with them. I had no idea what that meant but it sounded fun. So, at 9:00 pm, barefoot, no cell phone, with six dollars in my pocket, I jumped on a motorcycle with two guys I barely knew to go to a location in a city I had never been, to hang out with strange guys whose language I hardly spoke and to do who-knows-what. Solid. I knew I was likely to be the only girl. I knew I would enjoy constant attention. I knew it would feel good. For better or for worse, I allowed desire to have its way with me as we sped away.
T Minus 18 years
Women have to be nice, quiet, supportive. Most of all, women have to be not needy. I discovered this imperative at a very young age. At the checkout lane with my mother, I tucked a candy bar under my shirt, not because I was afraid if I asked her to buy it she would say no, but because I was afraid she would say yes. I would thus be the cause of a financial burden to my family. I learned that as a good Christian girl you must not ask for anything, neither should you speak what you mean, because you might not sound “nice”. Instead, you must read between the lines, speak around the subject and glean the real truth only from tacit communication. You must never, ever inconvenience someone by wanting something for yourself. Nor should you ever offend someone or inconvenience someone by saying what you mean.
Women were not allowed to be in positions of leadership in my church. The Bible told us, I was taught, that women were to submit to their husbands, that women were created to be the helpers of men. Girls were to remain in the home, under the protection of their fathers until they were married. Once married, women were to live under the protection of their husbands. Women stood behind men, women supported men, women were number two.
Even at a young age, everything within me hated these ideas. My drive to be number one in life seemed doomed from the start by my two X chromosomes. As a result, I hated my femininity and rebelled against it at every turn. I arm-wrestled boys in Sunday school and played tackle football with them after church. I followed my older brother and his friends over snowboard jumps in the winter and around the skate park in the summer. I learned that if I didn’t want the older boys to leave me behind I had to keep up with them. My athletic abilities improved, and any interest in little-girl things never took root.
One Sunday morning, at age 11, I battled my mother as we readied ourselves for church. I was trying desperately to get away with wearing jeans. I hated wearing dresses. I felt silly and ugly. I felt like I was wearing a Halloween costume in May. It was awkward and embarrassing. I might as well have been wearing a big red ribbon that said “2nd Place”.
“Melanie Laine, you will not wear pants to church!” howls my Mom as I reach halfway down the stairs.
“But I don’t have anything else to wear,” I whine back.
“Go upstairs and put on the dress you sewed for the 4-H sewing club.”
A homemade dress was the only thing that could possibly be more embarrassing than a regular dress.
“MOM!” I feel sick to my stomach and I try to hide my tears. Tears are girly. I hate that I cry so much.
“Melanie,” she intones, exhausted, “God made you a girl for a reason!”
My mom thinks I think I am a boy. I wish I was a boy. Then I could join the football team and quit sewing lessons.
I never wanted to be male, but I definitely never wanted to be what I thought a female was either. Females were weak. Females were dependent. Females were second-class humans. And so, I set out to be strong and independent. As a kid, I took this to mean rejecting all things feminine. All things, except attention from boys.
Since I was horribly ugly, I assumed the best way to get boys to like me was to act like them. I observed how boys jockeyed for position among their peers. I noticed that the popular boys were the ones who excelled in physical endeavours, mostly sports. I got really good at football and snowboarding. But I definitely didn’t get any boyfriends for it.
I was starving for male attention by the end of middle school. And I was willing to take whatever I could get. I set my targets low.
Bad Boys have always been my drug. At 13, I met Brad. We were in a junior high youth group. He wore ripped-up jeans, had a green mohawk and smelled like cigarette smoke. He’d been coming to Sunday school for a few weeks on his own. He found his way to church from the trailer park next door. Brad was my first crush. I made a point to sit next to him every week. One Sunday, after he’d gotten himself kicked out of class for interrupting and using profanity, I found him in the church yard sneaking a smoke. I asked him why he felt he needed to be the center of attention and why he didn’t just listen and learn. I explained to him the Good News, that Jesus had died on the cross for his sins and that Brad could have a place in heaven one day. He said he wanted that. We prayed together for Jesus to come into his heart. By the time we finished talking, I knew my Mom must have finished her post-church socializing and that I was holding up Sunday dinner. I searched the parking lot for my Mom. When I found her, she was furious with me for delaying the whole family. She had seen me walk off with Brad and had made her own assumptions about what was going on. “But Mom,” I burst into tears, “I was leading a boy to the Lord.” Her tone softened, and she asked me to share the whole story with the family at lunch. Co-dependence clicked satisfyingly within me. He needed me, and I was recognized for saving him. It felt good.
Then, there was Steve, who had his ears pierced. I met Steve through a home school event when I was 16. One night, when my parents were out of town, he drove an hour to visit me. He picked me up in his Dad’s Lexus at 11:00 pm. I crawled out a window to avoid the watchful eye of my older sister, slipping quietly into his car. He grabbed me and gave me my first kiss. Then he told me to get in the back seat. Guilt overwhelmed me. I freaked out. I said no, and Steve drove an hour back home. Steve stopped calling me after that.
Sex was never mentioned in my family. Even the word sex, in reference to gender, was not used. Infamous among my siblings is one VHS home video from a family vacation to a lake when I was 5. My Dad mans the hefty camera on his shoulder and zooms in on my Mom, tanning in her bathing suit on the dock. “Oh, look at that MOM!’ says his voice, off-camera. We snickered every time we watched it. My Mom wanted him to tape over that section.
As a family, we didn’t watch much TV and were only allowed movies rated G or PG, even as teenagers. If a kissing scene did happen to appear, the channel was instantly changed. You know what kissing leads to! I wasn’t allowed to go on a date or ride in a car alone with a boy until I was 18. Skirts had to be knee length and shirts had to be crew neck because we didn’t want to “cause a brother to stumble,” as the Bible warns us, now did we?
The only thing I knew about sex is that is was wrong, dirty, evil, and the worst thing you could do except murder. Sex was from Satan, to be entirely avoided in all forms. These forbidden forms included touching a boy in any way more intimate than a brief side hug. Until you get married, that is. At that point, a magical switch would be flipped and all was permitted, as long as you didn’t ever talk about it. As long as you never acted publicly in a way which might imply you liked to take off your clothing, behind closed doors with your husband.
Jackson was my first real boyfriend, an event that marked my eighteenth year. None of my friends liked him. My parents hated him. I’m not sure even I liked him. But he liked me. And I had never experienced a boy pursuing me. Jackson drank heavily, smoked cigarettes and dropped out of high school his senior year. But he also led worship at a church and was the son of a pastor. Seeing him on a stage, playing guitar and singing praise songs to Jesus, got me all sorts of worked up. At the time, I was just beginning to explore my femininity. Jackson found me attractive when many others did not, and that attention was addictive.
We met when he was guest worship leader at my parents’ church, where I played bass guitar every other Sunday morning. We went on to lead worship together at churches all over the city. One night after rehearsal, when the rest of the praise team had gone, we climbed into the back seat of his car and started steaming up the windows. Things got hotter and steamier, and through my jeans something crazy happened. Something inside me felt like an explosion, and shook my body in the best kind of way. I had no idea what was happening to me. Then, as soon as it started it stopped, and the euphoria was instantly replaced with a sickening guilt in the pit of my stomach – so deep it would haunt me for years.
Jackson kept trying to do more and more with me each time we steamed up the car. I was never taught how to say no when someone wanted something from me, Christians don’t do a lot of no-saying. So, although I told Jackson no, I said it through laughter, terrified he might not like me anymore if I really held my ground. Of course, he kept ignoring my weak-throated no’s and proceeded to take what he wanted. Afterward, I would insist it could never happen again. But again and again it would happen, each time a little more. Each time, the guilt would make me physically ill. My stomach would tighten into knots, acid churning, burning my innards. Only starchy foods seemed to help neutralize the acid. Jackson would drop me off for my 11:00pm curfew, and I would go straight to the kitchen, nauseous and starving. I’d wake up in the morning with that same sickening feeling. Nearly every hour, a wave of guilt would grip my innards and I’d go looking for a snack. This guilt-driven appetite would persist for the next ten years.
One day, I came home to a quiet house after class at community college. I phoned my Mom to inquire where everyone was. She informed me she was in the hospital with my 15 year old brother. He was in the ICU with bacterial meningitis. He was in critical condition. It was serious. My Mom sounded shaken up. My Mom doesn’t get shaken up. I called Jackson for some emotional support and he rushed to my parents’ house. Terrified for my brother, I cried in his arms.
“You know what will make you feel better?” he said, “If we get naked.” I told him that is not what I wanted. That, indeed, it would not make me feel better but worse. He pushed and he pushed. Overwhelmed by what was going on, just trying not to upset him, I found it easier to stop arguing and just get it over with. That day I lost both my virginity and my freedom. Guilt became my prison.
One freezing winter night, we got into another fight about who-knows-what. Sitting in the car with the heater running, he launched into another of his his head games.
“If you really were committed to me then you would marry me.”
“I will marry you, but what’s the rush?” I was 18, he was 17.
“Then we can get a place together and we won’t have to deal with your insane parents and sneaking around. Marry me. Marry me tomorrow. Marry me tomorrow or leave me tonight, up to you.”
He was a minor and would need the signature of his parents. So, at 11:00pm, we drove to his house, got his parents out of bed, announced we were getting married in the morning, and requested a permission slip. Jackson’s Dad agreed on one condition: we had to tell my parents as well.
My mom tightened her robe. My Dad folded his arms across his big chest. They sat across from us at the dining room table, completely annoyed at being awakened at midnight on a Tuesday. What happened next is a bit of a blur. I remember Jackson telling my Dad that he was marrying me in the morning. My dad told him that was absolutely not going to happen. An argument followed and we stood up to go. My Mom lunged at me as we made our way to the door. She tackled me, and we wound up in a heap on the floor. I didn’t fight back. I was bigger than my Mom and I didn’t want to hurt her, nor did I really want to win the fight. The last time my Mom held me in her arms, I was a toddler. In that moment, I was fine right there in her grip on the dining room floor. My Dad, at 6 foot 2 and 215 pounds, picked up Jackson like the little shit he was and flung him out the front door. But Jackson wasn’t giving up. He drew back his fist and reminded my Dad that he was minor and that my Dad better not hurt him. He then proceeded to clock my Dad in the eye. Somehow, Jackson and I ended up out the door, driving a short distance to safety, where he parked the car. I cried until I hyperventilated and passed out.
We did not end up getting married that morning. A year later, I was still trying to break it off with Jackson. My perfect, oldest sister was pregnant with her first child. She had married her high school sweetheart, having saved herself for her husband, even after ten years of dating. They bought a house, and everyone was eagerly anticipating the family’s first grandbaby. On the day the baby was to be born, my parents went to the hospital for the birth. I went to find Jackson, who hadn’t returned my phone calls of the night before. I found his apartment strewn with liquor bottles and women’s clothing. I walked into his bedroom. He lay on a bare mattress on the floor, passed out with a naked girl next to him. “Wow,” is all I said. Just like that, it was over.
In the face of what I had just seen, news of my sister’s labor was too much for my teenage soul to bear. I was ruined. I had been justifying my premarital sex to myself by saying that we were married in God’s eyes; soon enough we would be married in the eyes of the state as well. The Bible teaches that if a woman gets a divorce, she should remain single. To do otherwise is adultery. So that was that. I was no longer going to be with Jackson and I could never be with another man. I was never going to get married. I would never, like my perfect sister was doing, give my parents a grandchild. I had committed an unforgivable sin. My life was over. Why bother living another day?
I found a big container of over-the-counter pills in my parents’ medicine cabinet. I knew the Bible said that “If we confess our sins…He will cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” But how could I confess to what I had done? Confessing to God was one thing, but somehow I felt the only way to be forgiven was to confess to my mother. I would rather die.
Every five minutes, I swallowed another pill. I was putting my life in the hands of time: either my Mom would come home and find me and I would confess…or I would die before she returned.
I knew about what time she would be home. I made sure I didn’t have enough time to do any real damage. I was about 8 or 9 pills in when I heard the garage door open. I made a display of my remorse with the open bottle of pills and the half empty glass of water.
I wept and she held me. She felt warm.
I said I hated myself and I wanted to die. She said she loved me.
“I had sex, Mom.”
“I know,” she said, and she held me tighter.
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*some names have been changed to protect privacy
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