Sam's Theory

by Sarah Mendivel

  I watched it hover in the air, noting how safe it looked. Her words made me want to curl back up on the library floor and fall asleep. I took a deep breath and decided to risk reaching my hand back toward her. I placed it into hers, instantly feeling better. She squeezed it. “Sam, you are no longer alone. You came here on your own, but you’re here with me now. If you have any hard feelings, I will be there to help you with them. If for whatever reason I don’t know what to do with them, then I will sit next to you while you have them so you don’t have to be by yourself with them. Either way, you don’t have to fight this by yourself anymore. Got it?”

  Theory’s voice was firm and strong. She felt powerful and protective. My whole system let go of everything that had built up by releasing it through tears.

  “Okay,” I said, giving into the sanctuary of her strength.

  “Okay,” she confirmed, as if we had just signed a contract to travel together on a very important journey that only she seemed to have the map to.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The invitations had been sent out and all the major players were coming: teddy, dolphin, a handful of action figures, and every other stuffed animal I could scrape off the floor of my closet. I had spent all morning setting up the table in the living room for the event of the century, a social hosted by my two favorite dolls.

  I could hear all of the animals chattering about what the venue must look like as I piled them into my arms. “I heard there would be juice and snacks!”

  “Oh, I heard there would be music and maybe even some dancing!”

  I smiled and kept my mouth shut as I carried them to the living room, not wanting to ruin any surprises that the dolls had worked so hard to put together. They spilled onto the floor as I sprinted down the hall, leaving a trail of zoo creatures behind me to have to come back and collect. I didn’t mind, though- it was all for a good cause. The dolls were announcing their engagement to one another at the end of the party!

  I shuffled to the edge of the living room coffee table and set everyone up with a seat close enough to eat from. “Okay everyone, now I know you’re excited, but you have to sit still until everybody is here, okay?” My five-year-old hands worked diligently to ensure that everyone was propped in an upright position before returning to the hall to get the other animals.

  Finally, after two separate trips down the hall, the party was ready to begin. I wedged myself between the bear and the dolphin, making sure that everyone was accounted for. I smiled, pleased with myself for having orchestrated such a magnificent crowd of friends.

  From beneath the table, I lifted the dolls into the air and announced their presence. “Welcome all of my friends to the party for our most favorite dolls! We have some good news, but first we will play some music and have some snacks. Please, everybody sit still while I give you snacks.”

  I set the dolls face down on the table and stood up, making extra sure that no one was being too rowdy as I set the table. Before I could reach for the juice though, the door to the backyard slammed open. “SAM?!”

  My entire body froze like a statue. I looked at the table of friends, wondering if I held still enough if I would look like one of them.

  “Sam, what the hell are you doing in here?!”

  WHAM! The door hit hard against the doorframe and He stomped toward me. I felt a grip around my arm and leaned back to look at the monster towering over me. “Do you not hear me talking to you? I asked what the hell you’re doing making a mess in the living room!”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. His grip tightened, making my bones feel like they were going to snap under the weight of His fingers. I shut my eyes to keep from crying.

  “Are you ignoring me?!” He yelled in my face, grabbing the collar of my shirt with His other hand. I don’t know how it happened because my eyes were still closed, but my back slammed against the top of the coffee table and I winced from the sting of a fork digging into the arch of my spine. The slam of the party plates spinning around me echoed in my head, but I kept my eyes closed because I didn’t want to see what would happen next.

  “I’ll show you what happens when you ignore me,” He growled. I heard the clasp of His belt snap open as a giant hand wrapped around my face and the whip of hot breath ripped across my forehead. “Open your eyes, you stupid excuse for a kid!”

  Terrified to disobey Him, I opened my eyes to see the shadow of His mustache in my face. I turned my head toward my animals, wondering why they weren’t coming to life to save me. I wanted to cry, but the pain was so overwhelming that it was easier to float away. Suddenly, the world around me went silent and I disappeared.

  I felt a warm, fury touch on my cheek and returned to my body just enough to see our German Shepherd kissing my face. She was whining, but didn’t bark. Even the dog knew to not speak up to Him.

  WHACK! He hit her across the face, furious for interrupting Him. He got off of me, deciding to change targets. Everything felt numb, but I could still see. See Him go after her. See Him hurt her. See Him make sure she would never ever try to protect me again.

  “Sam?” Theory interjected.

  “Yeah? Sorry,” I said, shaking off one of many memories that randomly haunted me.

  “Are you okay?”

  I looked at her sitting soundly in her chair, having no idea about the darkness that lived inside me at any given moment. We had taken a few days off from talking about serious things so we could enjoy the bit of sun that crept through the trees. We had gone on a couple of nature walks together and I let her teach me about different types of birds and plants. It felt nice focusing on casual things.

  But it was raining again today, inside and outside of my head. If the memories didn’t sneak into my sleep through nightmares, they usually derailed me while I was trying to read or get dressed. I had gotten so used to them that I had started to assume that everyone had them. Most of my teachers thought I had dyslexia or ADD. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I just didn’t have the power to shut off the shadows and voices in my head.

  “Sam,” Theory tried again. “how are you doing?”

  “Oh, I’m okay, thanks,” I said, brushing off the latest violation of my day. I wanted Theory to somehow take these memories away, but I knew I wasn’t ready to talk about any of them yet. Had I gotten used to living with a certain amount of misery? Do people just adjust to always feeling bad? Was it possible to feel bad for so long that you literally forget how to be happy?

  “You seemed to wander off somewhere as we were talking,” Theory suggested.

  I smiled at her to be polite. “No, I’m okay. We were talking about feelings, right?”

  “We were,” she said, pleased that I was still invested enough in our conversation to pick up the slack.

  I hummed a bit to try and reset my mind. “Mmm, yeah, so I guess my original question was, why do we have feelings? I mean, most of them suck to have and it seems like there are only one or two that do any good.”

  Theory chuckled. “Mm, not far from true, I guess. Although feelings are a pretty big deal because they decide quite a bit for us.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, depending on what the feeling is that we have at the time, it can influence us to say certain things out loud when we don’t mean to. Or, the opposite, not saying something when we want to. Feelings make us act out loud. They make us yell, or run, or ask someone out, or walk out of class, or follow the rules. They can dictate quite a bit about how we live.”

  “Hm, yeah I suppose so,” I said, trying to shake the image of Him coming after me again. I thought of the fear I felt when He yelled my name, or whenever He was at home in general. Fear was probably the biggest emotion I had grown up with.

  I looked at Theory, almost bashful about wanting to ask what fear’s job was. Instead, I started with something more neutral. “So, what are all the feelings’ jobs?”

  She smiled, excited that I had decided to take her lead into another 4:00 talk. “Well, l
et’s think of one to start out with.”

  “Ugh, I don’t know,” I said, hastily changing my mind and realizing this was a subject that would get uncomfortable quickly.

  “Haha okay, okay, I’ll start. How about excitement?”

  “Like, how ‘excited’ I am to be talking about feelings?”

  Theory laughed loudly. “Oh, good, I knew you’d be into this. C’mon, kiddo, give it a shot.”

  I sighed just as loud as Theory had laughed and tilted my head back. “Ummm, I guess when you’re excited it’s like something is telling you that cool stuff is going on around you.”

  “Precisely! Well done,” Theory said, fully jumping into character of the first feeling she had listed. “Excitement is a signal to our mind and body that something good is happening in our environment and that we should pay attention to what’s going on. Feelings are an alarm system to the world around us.”

  “Hm,” I said, catching myself starting to sound like Theory.

  “Give me another one,” she said, motioning her fingers to challenge me.

  I shook my head and smiled. Theory was being pretty cute right now. “All right, um, how about sadness?”

  “How about it?”

  I looked at her and held my hands up wondering what she wanted me to do. “What do you mean? Like, what its job is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Think about it a bit, kiddo. What happens when you get sad?” Theory asked, gently refocusing me.

  Blah, I hate when she started pushing me to work. It meant I had to start paying attention to whatever was going on inside of myself. I ran my fingers through my bangs and traced the lines of my flannel shirt, making sure to avoid eye contact in case I was wrong. “I don’t know. It feels like a pile of rocks are laying on top of you and you don’t care enough to move them. I guess, something changes and it sucks, so then you get sad.”

  Theory smiled. “Well done, kiddo. You’re right. Sadness is a signal that we have lost something. Loss can come in many forms; it doesn’t always have to mean someone has died. It can mean that a relationship has changed through a breakup or disappointing chain of events. Sadness can also occur when you have to give something up that once made you very comfortable or hopeful.”

  I mulled over the losses I had experienced, which happened to be too many to count. A twinge of frustration surfaced. “Hm, yeah I get that. That one sucks.”

  “How so?”

  “It just doesn’t feel good, ever.”

  “Go on,” Theory encouraged.

  “Well, it’s like when you get really sad, your heart turns blue and you just want to stay in bed and cry or whatever. You don’t want to do anything except feel sorry for yourself,” I admitted.

  “You’re absolutely right about that. You bring up an interesting point, Sam, in that different feelings effect our bodies in different ways.”

  “Like what?” I asked, now hooked into the conversation.

  “Well, let’s go back to excitement. Where do you feel excitement in your body when it visits?”

  I smiled, thinking of Dodger suddenly and trying to pinpoint where that feeling was exactly. “Oh, umm. I usually feel my heart race and I get antsy. Sometimes I wanna jump in place or move around a lot.”

  Theory smiled and nodded. “You got it, kiddo. And where does sad live in your body when it visits?”

  “Oh,” I thought of James and Anna, missing our long conversations in the back of the classroom after school had been let out. “I guess in my chest; it starts to feel heavy. And my eyes want to cry. But, it’s not like I do. Well, sometimes, but not all the time. I don’t actually cry a lot, or ever,” I said, fumbling over my words. A warm rush of embarrassment saturated my face and I looked down at the floor, hoping Theory didn’t notice.

  “Mm, I like what you said about sadness feeling heavy. You’re right, as it usually does put us out of commission when we have it hanging around inside of us. Great catch!”

  I looked up at her, feeling better about my response now. “Thanks.”

  Theory was always so kind and supportive. It was a major change from the yelling and names I had been called at home constantly. Everyone there was always so chaotic and angry.

  Hmm, anger. I thought for a minute about the endless arguments and aggression I had witnessed, then finally caved and let Theory in just a bit more. “So, how about anger? What does it do?”

  Theory leaned back into her chair. “Ah, anger! This is a tricky one because it’s actually a secondary feeling. For instance, we usually feel hurt or threatened first, then experience anger as a response to these initial feelings. Anger is also an action-oriented feeling, unlike sadness. For instance, tell me where anger resides in you when it shows up.”

  “Pssh, like you wanna punch something,” I said instantaneously. Apparently that had been the safest question to answer because my response seemed to spark up like a match.

  Theory chuckled. “Correct. Anger is very physical and causes us to act. If we were only sad or nervous all the time, we would never move from our spots. We would stand frozen in our own heads, unable to make progress. Anger allows us to take action and make decisions, even if they aren’t always the best ones.”

  I thought about His anger and how influential it had been in keeping me in place growing up. “So, what if someone is always angry?”

  Knowing automatically who I was referring to, Theory shifted into a deliberate tone. “That sounds like insecurity.”

  “Insecurity?” I had never dared to consider Him to be anything weaker than a monster. It certainly never occurred to me that someone with so much rage and ferocity would be “insecure.”

  “Sam, if I may, what kind of man picks on children to the extent of robbing them of their own identities simply because He doesn’t have one of his own? Rather, what kind of person needs to hit a five-year-old girl to make Himself feel better about being in control? That is a weak person, kiddo. That is a person who is so lost and terrified of the world that He works hard to make everyone else scared of it too.”

  “Like a bully,” I said, quickly gaining perspective on my abuser.

  Theory smiled and straightened her back. “Precisely. Bullies are terrified of people their own size, so they hunt for people smaller than them to take advantage of. Feeling powerless is uncomfortable, so they get angry. And,” Theory added, making sure I understood the connection. “stay angry all of the time.”

  “Wow,” I blurted, reframing Him in my mind. Suddenly, He seemed less intimidating and more…human.

  “How about anxiety?” Theory went on.

  “Like being nervous?”

  “Yes. Anxiety is similar to being nervous,” she verified.

  “I guess anxiety happens because something scary is around?”

  Theory removed her glasses and cleaned them with the corner of her scarf. “Very close. Anxiety and fear are difficult to parse apart sometimes. Fear’s responsibility is to let us know when something threatening is happening in our environment. It’s the feeling of hair standing up on the back of our necks, or being very alert of the noises and movements of our surroundings.”

  I knew that feeling well. The image of my animal party began to resurface as Theory continued. “Anxiety is more of anticipating something scary might happen. Like a worry for the future. For example, think of crossing a busy street. If you walk into the street and a car honks because it’s about to hit you, that is fear. And you better be scared, because you’re about to be hit!”

  I laughed as she continued. “And then, there is anxiety. Anxiety is being nervous about the ‘what ifs.’ It would be like us sitting in this room and you being so nervous about going outside because you think if you walk down the mountain there might be a road, and if there is a road then there will be cars; and if there are cars then they will be going impossibly fast, and if they are going super fast then you will get hit and never be able to walk again, and if you can’t walk again
then you will never be able to get to Lake Isabel!” Theory took a breath. “So, because all of those things have raced through your mind, you have decided you will never ever leave this room. Sound familiar?”

  I bashfully smiled, thinking of all the “what ifs” that seemed to constantly hang around me even closer than my shadow did. “Yeah.”

  Theory smiled warmly. “The rule of thumb I like to use is: if you can do something about a problem right then and there, then it is an actual fear. And, it is realistic to worry about it. If you can’t do anything about a problem and sit there stewing over it, then it is anxiety. Fear can be helpful. Anxiety? Not so much. Make sense?”

  I felt a sense of relief knowing the difference. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Good,” she said satisfied. “You are a quick study!”

  “Mm,” I mumbled, not being able to come up with a better response. I was doing my best to keep up with Theory, but my mind kept getting pulled into the ocean of the past. The sound of His belt snapping off made me wince again now, forgetting that I had company beside me.

  “Sam, what is it?” Theory asked, her tone changing.

  “Yeah, sorry, I’m listening,” I said, rubbing my forehead to try and refocus.

  “No, it’s okay. Tell me what came up for you.”

  I tried to look at Theory while the sounds, smells, and feelings of violence played behind my eyes, but I was too afraid she would see right through me and into my head so I turned away.

  “Kiddo, what is it?” she asked, standing up and walking just close enough to let me know she was there.

  “I…” my voice cracked and the fear we just spoke of began to spill into my stomach like a sinking ship. “I think I’m just having a hard time not thinking about other stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?” she asked gently.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head, too overwhelmed to tell her anything.

  With the grace and kindness of a summer’s breeze, she rested her hand on my shoulder. “Okay, Sam. Then how about this. What feeling is doing its job right now?”