The Lost Soul

My past is something that I don’t like talking about. It brings back emotions that I buried inside me long ago. Thinking about what to write and my past I realized that I haven’t dealt with it. I didn’t want to and I was never forced to, so I didn’t. I hid behind a blank face and blackened heart. I cut off all the emotions that I didn’t want to feel. Life became easier when you didn’t feel pain and disappointment. I think the biggest disappointment of my life was my childhood, well what little of it I remember. For 12 years my mom, sister and I lived with my aunt, my younger cousin and my uncle. Living with them was an uphill battle. There were good times and then there were bad ones. The biggest challenge/annoyance was my aunt’s attitude. She was always so rude and nasty about everything. She made it clear that everything was hers. The tv, the couch, the refrigerator and even the dust bunnies that often resided on the floor. It was tolerable, sometimes. I never got along with my younger cousin. Her being the only child made her selfish. She didn’t have to share her things and she could say and do basically anything she wanted. Most of the times I don’t even think it’s the fact that she’s an only child, but the fact that her parents allowed her to get away with her actions.  I remember one time Anaiya, my cousin, and I were arguing; which we often did. My mother was in the same room while my aunt was in the kitchen. I know as the oldest I should lead by example but at the same time I’m not just going to let her say what she wants to me. As we argued I apparently said something that was so tragic that my aunt had to yell from all the way in the kitchen to tell me and me only to stop and shut up. Of course I was threaten and I tried to explain that Anaiya started it and was saying things that were way worse than me but she didn’t want to hear it. I looked at my mom and she just shook her head and said leave it alone. So I did. It was always my cousin and I going back and forth and me being the only one in trouble. At the time I never understood why my mom just told me to leave it alone. I knew that I was right in the sense to stand up for myself but why wasn’t I able to do that when it came to my aunt?


During the time I was living with my aunt I use to visit my dad.  My dad was married and had a son, my younger brother. He also had two other kids by another woman, my older sisters. When I was younger I would visit my dad’s house over the weekends. I would see my family and occasionally spend time with them. I felt like an outsider. Everyone was always together and developed a bond while I only visited twice a month. I felt like I didn’t belong. I was never comfortable and just wanted to go back home with my family. When I was around them I didn’t feel like they accepted me. I never really had an opinion about my dad’s wife at the time, but she was someone that I grew to dislike. To me she was just simply his wife. I already had a mother and didn’t need another one. I didn’t look at her as a stepmother but I respected her as an adult because that’s how I was raised. I didn’t like spending time with them. I would have preferred if it was just my dad and I. I always wanted to go back home but I was too scared to say it. One day while I was over their house I was sitting on the end chair, where my dad usually sits. It was cold and that seat was the furthest from the air conditioner. Ms. Sandy, the wife, was in the kitchen and when she came back she looked at me like I stole something. She said “That’s your father’s seat. I don’t know why you think you could sit there.” I didn’t say anything because what would I even say to that? Coincidentally, my dad and brother were coming down the stairs at the same time she said that. I was thinking that he would have said I could sit there but he sided with her. He told me that was the “man’s” seat and kicked me out of the chair and sat down with my younger brother in his lap. In the corner of my eye I could remember seeing Ms. Sandy smirk. I sat on the couch and said nothing. I didn’t care it was just a seat to me, but the fact that I felt outcasted made me want to go home even more. There was always something little that Ms. Sandy would do and say that I never realized was wrong. When it came to me I always felt like I was treated differently. I  knew I wasn’t wanted at that home and I didn’t understand what was the purpose of having me there. I remember one day I didn’t want to stay and I said out loud that I wanted to go home. Ms. Sandy said “Well you can’t. You have to be here for the weekend.” As a kid I didn’t know what that meant. I thought it was the simple fact that my dad wanted to spend time with me not because he had to. Years later I learned that the court ordered me to spend every other weekend with my dad. At that point in my life I already became numb so I had no feelings about the situation. I didn’t and still don’t consider that man to be my father. It’s just something that I made myself believe.  


A challenge of me being a kid was my hair. It was so thick and very hard to do. It didn’t help that I was tender headed, meaning I felt a lot of pain when getting my hair done. My mom or aunts did my hair and they became use to doing it and so did I. They understood what to do to prevent the amounts of pain that I would feel. My dad wanted to go to the my grandmother’s house. Before we went Ms. Sandy decided to do my hair. It was strange because she’s never even attempted to do my hair before. She said that it “looked a mess” and that it needed to be fixed. I sat on the chair that was moved from the kitchen to the living room. My brother along with my step cousin were sitting on the couch waiting for me to get my hair finished. My dad was in the kitchen. As she was doing my hair it hurt really bad, more than usual; so I began to cry. She kept telling me to be quiet and began combing my hair even harder which made me cry harder. I subconsciously reached my hand up to touch my hair because it hurt. Then as I did I felt a throbbing pain on my hand. One. Two. Three. She hit me on my hand with the comb three times. I saw my dad watching and did nothing but go upstairs. I immediately stopped crying because shock took over. I stayed quiet. That was the day when I felt hatred for my dad. I hated him because he didn’t care, he let her do and say whatever she wanted to me. My own dad never hit me so why would it be alright for her to? I didn’t want to go to my grandmother’s house. I didn’t want to be around them or see any of them. From that day forward they were all dead to me. I didn’t tell my mom for years about what had been happening. I don’t know why. I think it was a mixture of being scared and the development of me not caring. I just felt like it wasn’t important. There were a lot of events that happened in my life and it would be impossible to explain in one simple essay. It’s harder to understand my life with so many missing pieces. That’s similar to how I am. I’m a puzzle with missing pieces. They’re lost but eventually they will come back and fit into their predetermined places. To this day I do not have a relationship with my dad and his family. I don’t acknowledge them and they don’t acknowledge me, I like it that way. I’m not mad or sad because that’s just a part of life. You have to move on and do what’s in the best interest of yourself. I can’t predict the future but I would like things to stay as they are now. I already have my family and incorporating people who have not fought or cared enough to fight for me are people who I do not want in my life. It’s easy for me to not care about and forget you. Just like a light switch, on and off.


Comments (1)

Sopheary Sok (Student 2018)
Sopheary Sok

Everything in this essay is new to me. I am glad to have been able to catch a glimpse of how you grew up. I liked the moments you chose to talk about and how descriptive they were. I could see Ms. Sandy's smirk and it provokes emotion.