Monkey Bars
As I sit on a park bench, mustard-coloured leaves fall upon me while my youngest of five children, a determined five-year-old, screams, “MOM WATCH ME” as she swings across the monkey bars all by herself. She has always been a daredevil. My Google memories reminded me of a video of her at 12 months old, climbing onto the kitchen table. With four older siblings, being fearless is your only option.
Thirteen years ago, I visited this same park and had a ‘Trash The Dress’ photo session.
I absolutely trashed my wedding dress.
Foreshadowing? Perhaps.
That same year, in the same park, I sat in my husband's lap after he had set the tripod up and taken our family photo: just the two of us.
This park holds a lot of memories. While it has remained the same all these years, the child bride who sat in the same place thirteen years ago no longer exists.
She is dead.
As sweet bubbles of giggles burst from the joy of little children playing in front of me, I hold back tears of heartbreak and gratitude.
My childhood was stolen from me—stolen isn't the right word. You can't steal something that doesn’t exist. A childhood was not in the cards, as they say. I was parentified.
I'm thirty-two years old and responsible for five little humans. I became a mother when I was a child, and made my mother a grandma at the young age of 43. My Great Grandma was alive to see photos of my firstborn son, adding to her resume the title of Great Great Grandma for five months before she passed away. You don’t hear of that often now, do you? That’s the fucking way of life in a religious cult. Child brides = Child mothers. Hell, you’re labelled an ‘Old Spinster’ if you're twenty-one and unmarried, and if you are not “with child” before your first wedding anniversary, the rumours of a barren womb begin.
Yes, you read that right..
Twenty Fucking One.
One of the unspoken truths about leaving a religious cult with a spouse and child/ren is how you don’t fit in with your age group. Many of those my age don’t relate to me, and I don’t relate to them. Many friends have told me, “I don't know how you do it; I can barely take care of myself.”
When people talk to me, they often say, “You should write a book.” By no fault of their own, I am well aware of my life situation. I wake up and walk it daily…. and it is a-fucking-lot. It’s all I know, and I often gaslight myself into believing that it isn’t a lot, but I have not lived an alternative life of freedom and choice, so maybe it isn’t a lot, but if I say it is a lot, then I am complaining. Welcome to my mind. It’s fun here.
My pop culture knowledge is slim to none. I didn’t grow up crushing on boy bands of the 90s, with their posters on my walls for me to daydream about. Southern Gospel singers are not the ‘drop your panties’ type. I didn't have a Hollywood heartthrob; how could I without a television in the house? We eventually bought a monitor just for Anne of Green Gables, Laura Ingles, Bob, and Larry to treat us on the odd Friday night. “Ohhhhhhhhh where is my hairbrush!!” Iykyk. Alcohol didn't touch my lips until I was twenty-six. My eighteenth birthday….which should have been a party to remember, filled with short skirts, high heels, bar hopping and shots, ringing in adulthood…. didn’t happen. I didn’t celebrate 18. My parents had just been kicked out of the cult, and I was ten days away from moving out of my parents and in with the Assistant Pastor. I guess, if I want to be a grateful lady, you could say my eighteenth birthday gift was my childhood crush asking to court me from within the cult’s kitchen after a Wednesday night church service.
Happy 18th, Bre.
One year later, on my nineteenth birthday, I attended the funeral of the assistant pastor's brother-in-law. When it was over, I drove to a local ice rink and back to the photographers studio to have engagement photos taken. The only touching allowed was the holding of hands. Had we fucked up to that point? Yes, but there was a standard to uphold in good old cult status fashion. I was the “daughter” of the Assistant Pastor, a good girl only. 😉
Three months later, freshly nineteen, when I should have been running my hands along lockers, stuffing my bedside drawer with condoms and meeting my girl squad for life, I walked that burgundy floral carpet aisle and took the last name of a boy I barely knew.
I was only a child.
Now, my oldest child is 12. A few weeks ago, I walked him into his new junior high school. Many parents dropped their children off and left. Not Em; he asked me to be there with him as we went on a building tour. Walking at the back of the line, the youngest parent there, I, too, was a student. I soaked in the sights and smells. The excitement some might feel when they see the Coliseum in Rome is the same excitement I felt as I walked through the computer lab he would be sitting in for his options class. The sparks of childhood euphoria soared when Em placed his combination lock in my hands and asked me to help him use it. Never in my life had I used one before. A moment of youth I’ve pined over and will never live is that of having a locker to decorate and call my own. It may seem silly, but it truly is about the little things. I watched the YouTube video his teacher played on the screen at the front of the classroom, explaining how a combination lock worked. I soaked in the moment through the eyes of my child. Together, after many attempts, we learned & I proudly declare that we both can now open a combination lock. ❤️
The other day, I watched him stand tall in one of his favourite places on earth, the soccer field, specifically the net. Surrounded by sixteen other boys, he was beaming and sweating as they trained together. I don’t understand or know the feelings he experiences out there, but I do understand and feel the heartbreak and gratitude when it hit me that in a mere six years from now, if we remained in the cult, he would be a married child groom. My current ten-year-old would follow suit two years after him, followed by my daughters.
For the majority, these are ordinary moments. For my family and I, they are extraordinarily unorthodox.
My kids will be kids, and I will not be very demure, very mindful, or very cutesy about anyone who tries to make them otherwise.
Today, my daughter got to be a kid at the park, the same one wherein I didn't get to be.