“Mommy!” I yelled frantically pointing at the TV, “I want to be like that girl! Please? Pretty please?” A beautiful figure skater swishes by the screen.

“No. I don’t have any money to put you in ice skating classes.” She replied, uninterested.

Months later I came back with a new proposal, “How about I become a ballerina instead? Maybe those classes are cheaper?”

“No. I don’t have any money.” Again, uninterested, “Now go to the store and buy me something.”

In the upcoming months I would jump around in the living room and twirl to an imaginary ballet piece. I never got the classes…

For a six year old, I was interested in becoming many things – a figure skater, a ballerina, a marine biologist, a pianist, the list goes on. However, no matter how hard I tried, the answer would always me no. “No, I don’t have money.” It was always about money, money, money.

How could I ever grow as a person if there was nothing I could do that required money? This is when I lost all interest in pursuing anything. This is when a small part of me – the part of me that wanted a happy, exciting life – died. As a last resort I took to drawing in my notebooks. Paper was cheap and I used the color pencils I used for class. Art became my “passion”, it became what I wanted to do because it was the only thing I could do; nothing else was acceptable because of money.

I couldn’t hate my mother though, if anything I loved her. I wanted her to be ok without me being a hassle. As a single mother of four, I was the one who caused her the least trouble. I would shut up when money was now concerned and I began to understand that good grades got you praises and that as you got older, the more responsible you were for yourself the better response you would get from mom. She was tired. I can’t blame her.

—

“If I could just walk out and leave you all here and never have to see any of you again, my life would be so much better!” Screams my mom as tears run down her face. My sisters have done something to anger her yet again, making her dislike us to the point of hatred.

Weeks go by and my mom is better. She doesn’t dislike us as much (at least I think; I can never know what she’s feeling or thinking inside). She’s in the room watching TV. I walk in feeling very shy but decide to show my affection towards her. I go up to her and give her a hug, “Mom, I love you!”

She pushes me away, “Ugh! Have you been eating peanut butter?! Your breath stinks, get away from me!”

The summer comes and I feel very sick. So sick that I can barely walk from room to room and get bedridden for a few days. My mom lays me down on a mattress on the floor. She says, “Don’t get up, rest.” She walks away. She doesn’t come back for hours. As I lay there feeling sick, I fall asleep. When I wake up, I realize it’s time for my medicine. I get up. I look around the house, no one is there. I hear people outside having fun. I grab my medicine and slowly proceed towards the sounds of laughter. I walk and walk. I’m outside now, looking for my mom. When I finally find her, she’s all the way towards the far side of the back yard. I walk towards her. She’s laughing, enjoying herself.

“Excuse me, mom.”

She looks up to find me standing in front of her, her eyebrows come together, “Didn’t I tell you to stay in bed, why are you up?”

“I just need my medicine.” I hand her the bottle.

“Oh.” She opens it and takes out a pill, “Give me the knife so I can cut it in half.”

“I didn’t bring one…” I say, confused.

“You didn’t bring something for me to cut your medicine? Really? Now how am I supposed to cut this? Just bite half of it and put the other half back.” She says angerly as she hands me the bottle and proceeds back to talking. I walk away.

Back in the room I take my medicine and lay back down. I stare at the ceiling as tears start welling up. I start singing. Tears streaming down my face as I sing and sing to try and make myself feel better.

The rejection I felt that day and other days have always carried themselves with me. I can no longer express my love to my mom because I felt like she did not care for me as a child. All she cared about was that I got good grades and wasn’t asking her for money. That I didn’t cause any trouble. To realize that she probably held a grudge against my sisters and I hurt. And to find out so young desensitized me to the concept of a caretaker. I now had no one. Two of my sisters were stuck at the hip, while the other one abused me physically and verbally. When we’d gather as a family they would talk over me as if I didn’t exist. Nothing about them felt like family to me; I had no one…

—

During this time of my life I began imagining a girl. A girl who I named Rosita. She was perfect, fun, happy. She was the most courageous person I knew. She was me, the part of me that kept dying with every rejection, with every no that I got from my mom. She’d keep me company, and in a sense, I lived through her. She had the best laugh, the best stories, the best personality; she was everything I wanted to be and for a few years I had the best time with her. But when I got a little older, around ten, my family started seeing it as something creepy. They hated the idea that I would openly talk to the air and that I had an imaginary friend at “this age”. One day when we were together they started making fun of me. And they kept going. And going. And going… So much so that I couldn’t take it. I turned around and said, “I don’t talk to her anymore, she’s dead.”

Shocked, they asked, “How did she die?”

“I killed her.”

“Where?”

“In the basement.”

They were silent for a second, and then changed the topic. Ever since that day, I lost the rest of me. I was no longer human, I was just an empty shell. In one day, in one interaction, I lost everything I knew. Who was I supposed to be now? Just the smart little girl who got good grades and didn’t ask for money, of course.