The Booth
By: R. L. W., M.A.
Five years ago around this time of Lent, I sat in this exact same black slick pleatherbooth at Beck’s overlooking The Hill in Cedar Falls, Iowa. I sat adjacent to my gurgling eight-month old son in a wooden high chair at the end of the table and across from his muscularly built and stone cold brown eyed father Sean. I sat here crying,with my naturally golden blonde curls danglingover-and-around my appetizer. The red plastic oval basket lined with wax paper held one lone nibbled mozzarella stick amongst five others that remained untouched. Dark washed Gap jeans and a black Panther sweatshirt that were both too big for me covered my Post-Partum body because I was finally starting to lose those 12 pounds all my pregnancy bookssaid lied would come RIGHT OFF after giving birth, and the 20 pounds more they all said lied would drop away after three months of breast feeding. Ironically, I think the weight stayed on because I was depressed and it later started to come off because I was still depressed. No matter, I wished I could’ve celebrated by buying some new in between size clothes, but I knew I would just have to wait until I could fit into my pre-baby clothes once again, due to the fact that I was still a poor college student. Never mind that, even if I would’ve had the cash flow for a new wardrobe there would’ve been no one to watch Ultan in order to support my shopping efforts that would’ve resulted in me feeling good about myself. Nonetheless, that was not why I was crying. I was crying because Sean was playing on all my insecurities and being completely selfish, like always:
It was almost the end of spring semester and Sean and I needed to decide where our lives were going to branch off to. Sean wanted to move in with his parents, move to the same town as his parents, or move to some small town in Iowa for a job for him, which would result in me not student teaching. I didn’t want to follow through on any of those plans. We weren’t engaged anymore and I didn’t want to be with him. Plus, he made it clear that he didn’t want to be with me either. I realized through our church counseling that I didn’t like who he had been, who he was and who he saw himself becoming. It was in this cushy booth that I knew for sure that the fight was over. We weren’t going to work out. Ultan wasn’t going to have his mommy and daddy be together in love forever. Sadly, my biggest concern turned into a concrete reality (which had really already been being lived out since I found out I was pregnant).
Even though Sean and I reached a general consensus on us not being a fake couple any longer, there were still other unanswered questions that remained. Where was I going to go? Was Sean and his family going to take Ultan away because I had nowhere to live, now that I had given-up the fight? Could I even complete my student teaching? Should I go back to Mount Pleasant and put up with the abuse of my family and all the, I told you so’s, from the very people who wanted me to have an abortion? Should I live in Sean’s parents’ basement as their prisoner?
All of these options made me want to go back to our apartment and overdose on my antidepressants that my OBGYN’s nurse practitioner gave me a few months back. I had called the nice older blonde lady because it came to me that hitting the bottom was actually more like falling into a bottomless pit. After I had gotten the prescription filled, I had to muster-up the courage to take one because I had never taken this type of medicine before. What were the side-effects going to be? Was my brain going to triple its amounts of already suicidal thoughts? Was I going to be a walking dead person? Well, it turned out to feel like what I thought the equivalent of Speed would be like. Needless-to-say, that little pill scared me, so I decided not to make it a part of my morning routine. Instead, I kept the rest of the orange bottle with the child proof cap in my medicine cabinet for an emergency suicide attempt.
Hence, I sat in this black booth and wept because I knew that there were no more words, spoken softly or in a yell, to say, and/or actions that I could do or not do to get Sean to be the man I needed him to be. My future was bleak and my child’s in jeopardy due to my sadness, ugly living options, and being subjected to the emotional and verbal abuse of Sean’s family and mine (due to Sean keeping in constant contact with my biological relatives). I fought so hard against all these people to have my baby boy and I remained alone. Instead of someone being there for me because I was lonely and weak, I was attacked for it, especially since I was an easy target: pregnant and later- a new mom with no support system. Supposedly, being a new mother didn’t mean anything to anyone except their happiness at my expense. Yes, in this booth I allowed defeat and uncertainty to crash into my body. As this happened, Sean told me to quit crying because someone was going to think he hits me. Huh, as if taking a physical act of violence was worse than the cruelty he, his family and my family had been inflicting upon me since my pregnancy- my first pregnancy- my first time at being a new mommy. Yes, my first baby was nothing, but one big sad story and there was nothing that could be done to change it. Worst of all, no one was interested in trying to help me turn it into a better story before my son turned a year.
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Now, seated in this booth at Beck’s on The Hill in Cedar Falls, Iowa around the Lenten season my five-year old son is at his dad’s in Marion for his every other weekend visit. Surprisingly, I’m not crying, I’m eating and I’m wearing clothes that fit around my body that I can put into a two piece swimsuit with no shame, despite my sister’s warning of how foul I would look forever if I decided to continue with my pregnancy. Not only do I have my student teaching out-of-the-way, but I’m looking at my resume lying next to me that starts off as:
R. L. W. Resume
Education:
The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
Master of Arts: Curriculum and SupervisionJuly 2011
Cognate: Special EducationMajor GPA: 3.56/4.0
And I can’t help but see my tan glistening on my skin which I got from taking my son on a Disney cruise in the Eastern Caribbean for his spring break.
I look out on The Hill towards my left up the street and gaze upon the University of Northern Iowa’s (UNI) campus and memories flood my brain. I remember my father taking me to the book store around the corner on our campus tour, stumbling drunk out on The Hill with different friends, tanning across the street, making out with guys at Sharky’s, getting pizza at Mojo’s at 2:00am before going back to the dorms to pass out, having Friday After Class (FAC) at Sud’s, Sean buying my friends and I drinks, boxing a guy at Sean’s fraternity’s Fight Night at the bottom of The Hill, meeting my friend Lindy at a class at Price Laboratory School (PLS), eating at my favorite restaurants, going to sporting events at the Unidome and plays at the Gallagher Bluedorn, my sister Jayme attending my Teacher Induction to the College of Education, my 21st birthday bash at Coconuts, my 22nd birthday at Chucky Cheese, my first keg stand with my friend Jo, my classes, working out at the Wellness and Recreation Center (WRC), the time I drunk dialed my Evil Step Witch, and telling my sister I was at the library on a Friday afternoon when she called- she admired how studious I was being- but undisclosed to her I was the bar called, “The Library.” Yes, of course, I am reminiscent over finding out I was pregnant, walking Ultan in the stroller around the university’s grounds, and my long lost half-sister Monica finding me here when Tayt was three-months old.
These flashes from the past prove that I can’t give Sean too much credit because I guess he didn’t ruin my college experience. In fact, I feel my mother made the right decision to listen to my Chinese doctor who advised her to not cut-off my skin tag by my right ear. His logic behind his advice was that in China, skin tags are considered good luck, especially when found around the ears. Right now, I feel luckier than the average undergrad because not only did I earn a degree, but I received a lot of life lessons. In other words, life was making me wiser as college was making me smarter. For instance, I learned to let people go that were dead weight (e.g. a life lesson) at the same time I was learning how to design pre-k centers (e.g. elementary education degree goal).
Five years later, I sithere alone, but feeling complete with my writing, thoughts of fitness routines to teach for the next week, planning out my social events with new friends in my planner, being excited to pick my son up from school on Monday, brainstorming all of my future educational prospects like a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA), or a second masters in library science and/or an interdisciplinary doctoral degree with a dissertation on Island Education, conjuring up all my future travel plans like a group vacation with complete strangers around Europe, and/or combining my travel and higher education plans through new career options from teaching on military bases to tutoring family’s that work for the United Nations (UN). Indeed, I awoke from my dark coma of despair to compassion and humility- for the better. Best of all, I came out the other side of my tunnel of darkness with hope and faith for an uncertain future.
Speaking of what’s to come, although I am a table for one five years later, I can’t help but notice what my current state of alonenesshas left room for to happen within the next five years. This booth has space for not only my little boy (who already exist), but a new man, a toddler in a booster seatand a baby in a high chair, as well. In this image, that I hope manifest itself- is the place, in my near envisioned future, where I FINALLY get to experience celebration as a mother, my kids’ father and I smiling at each other with love from across the booth, and Ultan eventually ending-up getting to live in a loving two parent household after all.
*Ironically, my first therapist at UNI had me write where I’d be in five years and here I am five years later, writing about where I actually ended-up, without even doing so on purpose.