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That which doesn't kill you defines you.--S. Catalano

Tonight I received a letter. An actual handwritten note inside a greeting card with a newspaper clipping. Most of us still remember snail mail, greeting cards and newspaper clippings. In the olden days, that was how we communicated. We kept track of and commemorated happenings, and marked events with a tangible reminder. It was how we remembered things.

The handwritten note was from my 94-year-old auntie. She reminded me how sad she is that I moved almost one thousand miles away from her. In her note rehashing the dramatic scene that unfolded when I had to leave after a visit, she still goes back to that day from two years ago and feels again the angst of my leaving. The words she wrote dripped with guilt-trip innuendo. Resentment, sorrow, angry that she is alone. I guess when most of your life is behind you; it is hard to look to the future, so you continue to think backwards. Thinking backwards is just remembering.

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Along with the note from Auntie, was an article clipped from the page in our local newspaper. Creased from being folded and yellow from age, the slip of newspaper was from 1980. The article shows a headshot picture of eight young ladies from the Ashoka County area. Chosen to represent their high schools as Sweethearts of their chapter of Future Farmers of America in a contest at the Ashoka County Fair, these senior girls were competing for college scholarships. Included with the pictures of the young women in the article was a picture of me.

Seeing this clipping sent me reeling. In conjuring up the memories of a very painful time in my life, I had forgotten until now who I was back then. At eighteen, I was ill-equipped for the experience depicted in the article. I was not beauty contest material, not based on looks but personality. Socially awkward at every turn is an understatement when describing my high school experience. This opportunity to compete for school money wasn’t my choice. My anxiety was off the charts, but an overenthusiastic FFA advisor wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The pageantry began with an interview and photo shoot at the fairgrounds. By myself, I took the thirty-five minute drive from my hometown of Neela Creek, where we only had one stoplight, into the larger city of Prisma to meet the contest officials and organizers and the other competitors. Somehow I survived the questions and answers portion and gave the interviewers just enough material to write two sentences in the ‘about me’ section of the article. My section was the smallest of all the girls’. The photo portion of the event was next.

With his camera in hand, the photographer invited us girls one at a time to pose in front of a fountain. Sitting pretty in their special white Sweetheart FFA jackets, the other girls seemed comfortable. When it was my turn, I took my spot where the others sat. In my white zippered hoodie instead of a jacket, I gave a small smile towards the adults. They whispered to each other, then one staff member asked me to put on my white Sweet heart jacket. Upon seeing them whispering, my insecurities bubbled up. I tried to cool my jets, but the question about my jacket was like rocket fuel to an afterburner.

I didn’t have a white Sweetheart jacket of my own. I wasn’t the sweetheart of my school’s chapter of Future Farmers of America. Our chapter hadn’t voted for a sweetheart the year before because the outgoing advisor was not very good at his job. He never held the contest for all senior chapter members to compete in to be named FFA Sweetheart.

If they had held a contest, they would have awarded the winner a special white jacket with her name embroidered on the front. The new advisor didn’t want his first year on the job to be tainted by his chapter’s absence in the county fair’s Sweetheart contest. Yes, it was an opportunity for me. An opportunity I hadn’t asked for, nor one I wanted. I was an impostor taking a title I hadn’t earned.

For picture-taking purposes for the FFA sweetheart contest at the county fair, I borrowed a fellow competitor’s jacket. Embarrassed and with no support personnel of my own, I wallowed on the inside at my misfortune. Nothing but stranger’s faces stared at me as the photographer lined me up. Legs this way, body turned that way, tilt your head, he instructed. He was trying to mold a reluctant hunk of clay, and neither of us was enjoying it.

I felt mortified when a staff member pinched and crimped the white corduroy fabric to hide the name of the actual owner of the jacket from the camera view. I breathed a sigh of relief after they took the individual photos. Things only got worse, though, when I gave back the jacket and all seven of the properly dressed girls lined up for the group shot. I put on my navy blue jacket, the kind all the regular members wore, and stood at the end of the back row looking like the thing that doesn’t belong. Had we had Photoshop back then, they could have erased me from the picture altogether.

When the article came out in the paper, I wasn’t proud. Seeing my picture, my face with no makeup, my hair hanging down like it did every day, was cringe-worthy. To me, it wasn’t an honor. For a teenage girl with severe social anxiety, it was a reminder of an awkward and embarrassing situation. Another experience that left a negative mark on my immature and impressionable mind.

I was certain my friends somehow knew I had made a fool of myself. When they saw the other girls with made-up faces and salon-styled hairdos, they would see I was a fraud. While battling low-self esteem that manifested in anorexia, I wasn’t right in the head enough to handle this, too. On the plus side though, at least we didn’t have social media yet, or I’d have been the subject of technological bullying. But this cruel world victimized me just the same.

A few days after the article came out in the newspaper, I received a phone call. A male voice introduced himself; let’s call him Rick as I don’t recall his name. Rick had seen the article in the newspaper; my face in that dreadful picture, and somehow he’d gotten my phone number. There was no Google, but the phone book was an excellent resource. We were the only Trinkenschuh family listed in Ashoka County, maybe in all the state, so it wasn’t a hard task to track me down. Having such an uncommon last name was never a source of delight for me. Nobody could pronounce it, and it was difficult to spell.

Seeing this scrap of newspaper identifying me by my maiden name pulled me into another repressed memory. It was from the year before the FFA Sweetheart incident. Not the first time my last name brought shame. It was during Spanish class. Foreign language was my favorite subject. I had mad skills in foreign languages. My family spoke German at home.

I was an outstanding student in all my classes, but also very quiet. I flew under the radar. Other than the small group of three friends, not even the nerds knew me, let alone the popular crowd. My lack of social skills kept me from expanding my friendship circle.

So this one day in class, the teacher was lecturing us all on speaking up during class. Here, we were supposed to have conversations. En español. It was part of our grade. Foreign language class is oral, after all. To encourage us to speak, the teacher kept a tally, giving a point to each student who raised their hand to answer the questions she posed. The teacher read from her sheet the names of the high-point earning students.

“Third on the list is Beckett.” The teacher read the last name. I glanced over to see my classmate, Todd, looking very proud of himself.

“Second is Peters,” the teacher continued. “And the highest point earner is Trinkenschuh.”

I thought I heard a gasp when my name was called. For a moment I was proud, but that evaporated when Todd Beckett blurted out, “What’s a Trinkenschuh?”

The other students giggled in unison. Having Todd ask ‘what’ instead of ‘who’ was degrading enough. But what burned my psyche was that Todd, who had been my classmate since seventh grade, still did not know who I was.

Instead of congratulating me for my accomplishment, the teacher pointed to me and said, “That’s a Trinkenschuh.”

The screwed-up expression Todd shot my way proved that identifying me cleared up nothing in his head.

“It means drink-shoe.” I said, not sure what possessed me to speak up.

“You?” Todd’s face turned to disbelief. The room busted out in rakus laughter. I shrank down into my seat, wondering why I had felt obligated to explain my last name. And also, why I couldn’t be a Smith or Roberts? Anything last name but Trinkenschuh. My self-esteem took another hit.

So here I was a few years after that time in Spanish class, still socially maladjusted, but taking part in a beauty contest of sorts. Because of the sweetheart contest, I was talking on the phone with a stranger I am calling Rick, who is asking me out on a date. Despite the rarity of my family name, he must have been able to spell it because he tracked me down.

I had never gone on a date; nobody had ever asked me out. I had barely ever spoken to boys. Too naïve to be anything but flattered, I said yes. Rick told me he was from the next town over, and he’d pick me up at my house and take me to the rodeo at the county fair. I was eighteen and figured I didn’t need to ask permission from my folks, but I told them.

“Are you sure about this?” my dad asked. “Do you know this boy?”

I lied. “Of course, Dad. He’s from town.” I left out the part about how Rick found me after seeing me in the paper. My parents had never experienced their daughter dating anyone. They didn’t know how to read the situation.

“Your mother and I need to meet him before you go.” My father found a thread of parental thought.

When Rick arrived at our house, my parents came out. There before us stood this homely, awkward man in his early twenties. His pock marked-face carried a permanent frown that his weak smile couldn’t balance. Greasy black strands of hair fell across his eyes. I felt Rick’s awkwardness and empathized. He must be sensitive, like me.

Introductions went round, but my parents didn’t ask him questions like “How old are you? Where do you live? Do you have a job? Are you an ax murderer?” I suspect their lack of inquisitiveness was more likely because their inexperience with the entire situation.

Walking around Rick’s beat-up compact sedan to the passenger side, my father followed me and asked again, “Are you sure about this?” He looked concerned. His instincts had kicked in and forced his mouth into action.

Rick opened my door and explained that one could only open the door from the outside. The handle broke on the inside. Trapped in the jalopy now, I sat and stared at my dad through the imperfections in the glass window. Something inside me thought, this door thing was bad. This might be a bad idea. But the thought went away when I saw my father’s expression.

I had never seen him afraid, so I didn’t know how to interpret it. If my father had ordered me out of the car immediately, I would have felt surprised. But he didn’t, and all I felt was the need to reassure him, so I waved and said, “It will be fine.” I had no way of knowing that to be true. My instincts had yet to kick in.

On the ride to the fairgrounds, I talked a lot. It was something about me I hadn’t yet discovered, but when I am nervous, I release the energy by babbling. My mouth was spewing at an alarming rate, but my thought process had slowed way down. Looking at Rick, I thought, this guy is not very good looking. And his car was a wreck. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks. And his posture is stiff. Though I was feeling less comfortable, I dismissed the warning signs.

Ignoring my inner voice, I realized Rick didn’t make eye contact because he was driving. He had to keep his eyes on the road as I talked. He was nervous too, which could explain his posture. And maybe he wasn’t attractive, but judging him made me a shallow person.

I settled back to have a pleasant time, but there was something shifty and calculating happening behind Rick’s eyes that gave me the jitters. His energy held a negative charge I was picking up on, but I was too inexperienced to react.

When we arrived at the fairgrounds, I found myself a long way from home with a stranger, amidst a sea of unfamiliar faces. I wave of vulnerability swept through me. We walked past the vendors and food booths towards the rodeo grounds. I didn’t want to be there with this strange man. I wanted to be back at home. My instincts rose to the surface. I went from suppressing my anxiety to overflowing.

Rick must have sensed my mood swing. “Let me buy you this hat.”

Rick pulled me by the arm towards a rack of costume cowboy hats for sale outside one of the sales booths. His grip sent an electric pulse up to my brain. The current threw from my head all other thoughts, and the only thing left was survival instinct.

“Do you want to take our seats in the grandstand?” Rick asked. I shook my head.

“Can I get you a beer?” Rick offered. I shook my head again.

Silence fell in the momentary space before Rick tried a new tactic. He was getting nowhere with yes or no questions. “Which is your favorite rodeo event?”

“Barrels.” I answered, realizing I had to pretend to be having a good time. Needing time to figure out how I was going to get out of this situation, I didn’t want to get Rick pissed off yet.

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit down?” Rick asked again.

The rodeo events began, and we watched from the side, standing on the bottom rung of the railing. I wasn’t seeing the goings-on, though I was looking in the right direction. I was acutely aware of Rick and felt like everyone around us was staring.

Should I yell for the police? And say what, that I am getting a strange vibe? No, I had to be smart about this. If cell phones had been invented, I could have texted my parents, and they would have been there before the rough stock portion of the rodeo even started.

When the timed events finished, I announced, “I have to get home.”

“What?” Rick’s eyes showed through his straggly hair for the first time. “What time is your curfew?”

“It’s a long drive. We need to leave now.” I turned away from the railing. We hadn’t even discussed how the evening was to progress.

“The rodeo isn’t over.” Rick called to my turned back.

I kept walking away.

“Okay, okay,” Rick caught up with me. “Can we at least stop on the way for a drink?”

“No.” I shook my head.

Trapped again in the car with Rick at the wheel, we headed out of town. I hadn’t thought about how defenseless I was with no means of escape from the vehicle until that moment. Speeding along the two-lane highway past farms, vineyards and orchards, there was little traffic in either direction. I was never more aware of how dark it is after the sun goes down. Rick’s silence revealed his displeasure at our leaving the rodeo early.

“Is there somewhere we can pull over and park?” Rick broke his silence. “I have some beer in the trunk.”

“I don’t drink.” I murmured. Silence resumed.

“Let’s stop right here,” Rick said after a few minutes.

“NO!” I shouted.

Surprised by my outburst, Rick looked at me. The space between us shrank, and I leaned harder against the passenger door. I must have looked like a scared rabbit facing off with a coyote.

“You can’t pull off the road here.” I thought of a reason. “The ground is too soft, and your wheels will sink.”

The car kept rolling, but I felt no relief. Scared beyond my wits, I kept enough control of the brain to get myself out of trouble. Perhaps Rick decided I wasn’t worth the effort. Maybe he was just a decent guy trying to have a date. He might have been shy and awkward with nothing but good intentions. At the time I didn’t know and didn’t care.

Somehow, I made it home. I don’t remember any parting words from Rick. To this day, I could almost question whether the event took place at all. I never spoke about Rick or that date to my parents, and they never asked. As much as I would like to chalk it up to a bad dream or a manifestation of my vivid imagination, I got proof a week later that it had been real.

While tending to my duties at the fair as an FFA sweetheart contender for the scholarship contest, I overheard the other girls talking. One of them mentioned how they had gotten a phone call from a guy who had seen them in the newspaper. The other girls nodded, and one said, “Me too. He sounded so creepy on the phone.”

Another girl reported her father wouldn’t even let her talk to the guy and threatened to call the police if the guy called again.

I stayed out of the conversation. Luckily for me, this wasn’t unusual. I was quiet much of the time anyway. But listening to their recounting of their encounters with Rick felt like being stuck with a thousand pinpricks, one at a time.

Rick had been a predator. The revelation gave me a prick from a pin. He had called us all trying to get a date. Yikes. Pinprick. Who had he called first? I wondered where I fell in the lineup. Ouch. Social pressure. Pinprick. I wondered if I was the only one who had actually met the guy. More social angst and another pinprick. If I hadn’t already suffered from low self-worth, I might have been less likely to have agreed to go out with the guy.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.— Eleanor Roosevelt

Embarrassed by my actions, ashamed of my immaturity, resentful of my position among my peers, my teenage years went on like one long nightmare. Having never talked with anyone about my experiences growing up, I remain victimized by them. Carrying this energy with me into adulthood, and throughout the rest of my life, I have attracted those who seem to exploit my weaknesses.

Refolding the course newsprint, I slid it back into the envelope with the note from my auntie. I’d like to slide the repressed memories back in with the clipping, but the added infliction made the wound new again. I don’t know Auntie’s motive for sending me the article written in 1980. Maybe it was her own walk down memory lane she’d been taking when she came across the clipping. She remembered her past and had no way of knowing it was from a time I only wanted to forget.

Maybe I’ll be like her when I am in my nineties with nothing left to look forward to. There were reasons I had such low self-esteem, reasons I suffered from mental disorders like anorexia nervosa and imposter syndrome. The childhood traumas left unaddressed still haunt me this late in life.

Knowing others is intelligence; Knowing yourself is true wisdom.— Lao Tzu

I still have mental issues instilled from negative and confusing incidents. In my many years as an adult, I have added on more. Strong antisocial tendencies, paranoia and trust issues. If I were to address these issues now, before I get much older, I could work through all the damage.

Had I come from a family whose nature it was to express our feelings, I might have worked through these issues as they arose. I might have had a chance at healthy relationships with my husbands and my children. I mightn’t have developed eating disorders. Maybe I’d have learned how to worry less and have had more fun.

Self-discovery has no timeline. If I can break the control my subconscious mind has had over me, I could change the negative patterns that have plagued me since childhood. At this stage of my life, maybe it’s not too late. I still have time to exorcise the demons of past traumas and realize my inner strengths, but maybe I don’t want to. There should have been an inner power guiding me towards better decisions and meaningful relationships all along, but what’s the point now?

If all I have to look forward to is reliving my life’s traumas, that would be a hard pass. I don’t want to have lived a long life only to end up thinking backwards when it’s all over. I am tired of trying. Tired of learning about myself so I can fix things when nothing changes.

I wish I could now confess to some profound epiphany. The character arc in this story should lead to resolution, redemption. Some conclusion. But it does not. Not yet anyway. Not all of my stories have happy endings.