Left to My Own Devices

The following story is part of my collection of personal essays called The Menial Stories of a 21-Year-Old. It portrays my own interpretation of how events have played out in my life— take it as you will. 

From when I was young, my mother had quickly figured out that she could leave me alone to my own devices. And honestly, I don’t blame her— the other two of her undiagnosed ADHD kids, my older sister Sasha and younger brother Zane, needed all the help they could get when it came to life management. Sasha had problems with writing overly detailed AP World History notes for several hours, while Zane couldn’t help but lose track of time playing computer video games (until it’s 2AM and he realizes that he didn’t even start his homework). They certainly needed most of our momager’s assistance. Meanwhile, the only times I actually felt seen by my father was when he served some time as my travel football team's assistant coach for a couple of years. We’d often shit talk about those teammates who dribbled a little too much or work out what more I could do to improve my defensive plays. Otherwise, for a lot of my childhood, my father had been too much of a passive stranger in our household to pay me much attention. He spent most of his time with screens at home, watching local Jamaican news and gory 123movies.com thrillers and online shopping for cars he’d never buy because they’re never good enough. Was it depression? A mid-life crisis? I never quite understood.

I was okay with my mother trusting my self-sustainability, though. She used to say to me, and still to this day, “Jena, you are so strong, and unlike your brother or sister I trust that you can stand on your own.” In other words, “Sorry, but you’re on your own, kid.” Fine by me. Luckily, I was born with a sort of ferocious ambition that had driven me to be the type of 5-year-old kid to finish my entire math workbook within the first few weeks of kindergarten. What a try-hard. For the most part, I liked figuring things out for myself.

For the most part, I liked figuring things out for myself.

Of course, though, as a youngster, there were obviously still things I needed assistance with because I clearly was not yet an organized, filing-the-taxes-and-doing-the-weekly-laundry adult. My mother did her best to help me in those an-adult-is-certainly-wanted situations— she scheduled my doctor and dentist appointments, stopped me from sucking my right thumb by putting red pepper on it before I went to bed, and supported me in standing up to an ugly blonde shaggy-headed boy who unapologetically bullied me at a summer art camp. That blonde kid can still go to hell, by the way. Sure, I was an independent little girl, but certainly with the comfort of her mommy sidekick hero.

However, the comforting feeling of having that mommy sidekick hero by my side quickly began to fade away with an incident that happened when I was eight years old. Maybe it’s because I had grown up to have a short-sighted all-or-nothing personality, but when my mother refused to help me during one of the few times I actually asked for it, I subconsciously started to internalize an intense “me versus the world” mindset.

SPCHLING! At 9PM on a Thursday night, I was a troubled barefooted eight-year-old standing over the pieces of a broken white ceramic bowl I had just splattered onto the kitchen floor. Oh God, my mom is gonna hate me. Before this time, I had clumsily dropped thousands of ceramic bowls of cereal and millions of glass cups filled with orange juice, and my mother would always begrudgingly help me to clean up the aftermath (right after complaining and disappointingly shaking her head, of course). “You need to be careful,” she’d say, with a sort of severe vexation that would always give me the goosebumps.

So, knowing that my mother had been quietly watching local T.V. news with my dad in the living room, the next room over to the kitchen, I naturally waited a few seconds until I’d hear a frustrated “Ughhh, again?” or a furious “Jesus Christ, child!” from the woman. But I heard…nothing? Weird. Did she hear what had just happened?

“Mommy!” I decided to yell from the kitchen. Unfortunately, it’s time to be an annoying child. I would clean this mess on my own if I could. “I dropped a bowl on the floor and it broke.” It seemed that I was talking at a wall, though... Mommy, are you there?

“Mommy!” I wailed again. No reply.

“Mommy!” Not even a defeated sigh from her.

I gave it one more try, but this time with the strength of my entire diaphragm. “MOMMY! I dropped a bowl on the floor, and there’s a mess. Can you help me?” There’s nooooo way she didn’t hear that.

The only words I heard from the living room were coming from the fast-talking news spokesman my parents were watching. Perhaps my father was sleeping, but never have I ever seen my mother knocked out on our leather living room couch. She has a certain level of pretentiousness that allows her to only fall asleep on squishy comfy beds with fluffy blankets. She’s clearly ignoring me, wanting nothing to do with her dear daughter Jena’s shenanigans. Fine, noted. I don’t need you.

So, in a tiny Chinese squat position, my determined 8-year-old self began to gather the larger white ceramic bowl pieces into a wrinkled grocery store plastic bag I had retrieved from under the kitchen sink. And the task was easy, at first. Because I started with the bigger, more visible bowl pieces, the clean-up process felt just as simple as collecting seashells from beach sand. Why’d I even call for her help? Anyone could do this. I was efficiently cleaning up this ceramic bowl mess by myself, without her.

But soon enough, it was time to start picking up the smaller ceramic bowl shards, and there were two very big problems with this second step of the clean-up process:

1. When I say that these ceramic bowl pieces were smaller, I mean literally miniscule. Tinier than the size of my pinky’s nail.

2. Although I was barely nine years old at the time, I had the vision of an 84-year-old grandmother who couldn’t read the fine print of a newspaper. My blind ass could not differentiate between the small ceramic bowl shards and the kitchen floor or see exactly where the shards had sharp ends.

Only milliseconds into the treacherous second part of this ceramic bowl clean-up task, I drew blood on my left index finger. Bad luck, maybe? I continued the task, but my unfortunate low-quality eyes were not helping at all… Ouch! Again, I drew blood, this time on my right hand. Whatever, it can’t get worse than this….it did. The more small shards I attempted to gather, the more cuts I suffered and the more blood I shed. My hands, now tinted red, had begun to hurt me. They were stinging in the many places that the shards had knifed into my young delicate skin. Screw this. I felt my face warm as I began to shed a frustrated tear or two. I really do need her help, don’t I?

“Mommy, please,” I whimpered, desperately. “I’m picking up the bowl pieces, and they’re hurting me.” But will she even come?

Almost surprisingly, I heard some slow footsteps travel from the living room to the kitchen. I saw my mother appear in the open door frame of the kitchen, looking at me from a distance with tired eyes. Finally.

Although she didn’t ask what had happened, I quickly re-explained to my mother what I had yelled to her several times from the kitchen. “Mommy, I dropped a bowl on the floor, and I tried to clean it up,” I repeated to her for the millionth time that night. Then, I showed her my bloody hands to demonstrate the disaster that had happened to her poor daughter when she refused to help me from my first call to the living room. Don’t you feel bad, woman? Without flinching at the sight of my cherry hands, my unfazed mother ordered, “Go wash up. I’ll take care of it.” She gestured that I go to the bathroom to clean my hands, while she reluctantly dragged her way towards the remnants of the ceramic bowl mess on the floor.

As I carefully tip-toed my way out of the hazardous kitchen, I couldn’t help but wonder why my own mother took so long to help me when I rarely even ask for much in comparison with my siblings. Why did she ignore me? My insides were boiling because I had been left alone to my own devices, and the result ended up being my red 8-year-old hands. Meanwhile, she could spend hours helping Sasha simplify her AP World History notes and staying in Zane’s bedroom for a lifetime just to make sure he stays focused on his school work and out of the video game world. But even the little independent girl needs some extra care, too. Why didn’t you help me, Mommy?

My insides were boiling because I had been left alone to my own devices, and the result ended up being my red 8-year-old hands.

Very quickly, I started internalizing that “me versus the world” mindset that I had mentioned earlier. I adopted a strong, tough girl act and carried it with me all up until my sophomore year of high school. And I’m not saying this happened because of this one sole incident, but rather because I had started to realize my role as the perfectly fine, non-ADHD middle child of the Manning family who can “stand on her own.”

Regardless, while this strong, tough girl act has enabled me to impressively recover quickly in football games and figure out how to cook impressive meals for myself, it has also sculpted me into a self-denying asshole. Many times, it has been difficult for me to be honest with my feelings and to admit to my wrongs. I’ve had serious problems with being cold and unwelcoming to my mother and not apologizing to my best friends about the stupidest mistakes. Once I went into a deep depression in my freshman year of high school, desperately wanting to put my life at a pause, but I had refused to go to therapy because I saw it as something that only soft people needed. I denied help because I believed that I didn’t need any of it. Or that the people that would help me don’t actually want to.

Many times, it has been difficult for me to be honest with my feelings and to admit my wrongs.

To be frank, I wouldn’t say there was a sudden lightbulb in my head that told me to be vulnerable and to let go of that 24/7 strong, tough girl act. It’s been a long process getting to the “me and the world” headspace I’m at now, really, and I think that my growth in that area had a lot to do with the new passionate, warmhearted friends I’ve made at the universities I’ve attended. TRIPLE-J GTROQ from University of Miami and Girlies from Rice University, I really am so grateful to have met you. They showed me how to trust and embrace the community around me and taught me that it’s okay to not be okay.

Now, I’m asking for help in a variety of matters— internship applications, boy advice, class concepts, “What should I wear today?” I ask for help so much that your first impression of me is probably some air-headed girl trying to find direction. And although I still like to figure things out on my own and sometimes get caught up in a “me versus the world” mindset, I know I can always fall into the arms of someone around me. And if they drop me, of course there’s always someone else. Mommy? Hehe.