To think that you think that…

Cynni, the storyteller… continues!

If you liked my first chapter, please read this blog. It contains chapter number:

TWO

She always was a loner. For twenty-five years she’d always had so manage on her own. Her mum did the best she could, but she has died when her daughter was just five years old. The father tried to take care of his daughter, but in his own way. He was too bummed after his wife died to to anything besides getting drunk. He lost his wife and he felt like he lost his life instead. That he still had a daughter did not mean that much to him. After almost a year of drinking heavily he found out that life had to go on. But his way of going on, was checking himself out. He bought a shotgun and ended his life in a brutal way.

His daughter had been beaten a lot, every time he felt like it, and she did her best to cover up all the bruises. At age six, she was almost independent. She tried to take care of her dad the best she could, the best any five going on six year old could do. She never really had the time to grieve for her mother and she did not know how to do so. There were no other relatives that she could turn to. And at school the teachers knew that her dad was a drunk, but because she still got good grades, no one ever did anything to help her with her home situation. Until they got a call, informing the head principal that her dad has taken his own life, with her present in the room.

Sandra was taken in by a not too distant relative who cared enough for the troubled child to take her in. It was a great surprise to her, since she could not remember ever meeting this woman. She told Sandra that she was the widow of her dad’s brother. Maybe that was the reason why she felt just a little connection between her and the young girl. They both had lost someone they loved and cared about. Sandra would always call her auntie, never mum. Her aunt did not mind it and did her best to give Sandra some love and a lot of care. But due to all the distress that Sandra had experienced throughout her short time on earth, it was hard to connect with the little girl. She tried, they even followed some therapy sessions. These sessions helped a bit, but Sandra would never be truly able to trust anyone.

At the age of nineteen, Sandra also lost her aunt. She was driving home after work and got hit by a drunk truck driver. She died on the way to the hospital. Sandra was quite pleased when she heard that the truck driver would spend some years in jail, but it would and could not soften the grieve she was experiencing. Nineteen years young and already three people she had known and loved died in gruesome ways.

Sandra quit university, she could not concentrate anymore and at the time, it wasn’t interesting to her anymore as well. She found a job, got better at it and she rented an apartment. She was finally getting her life back, or her new life was finally shaping up. Anyway you wanted to see it, things were improving. She built up some trust in some of her co-workers and she got better at what she did. At the age of twenty-three she got a good promotion and was able to buy the apartment she was still living in.
She still did not have many friends, just one or two she thought she could trust enough to call it a friend. But they weren’t close enough for Sandra to talk with them about what she had seen. Or thought she had seen.

Romantic relationships were also very unknown to her. She thought that she did have a crush on someone, maybe she would even call it more if she dared herself to do so, but she could not really place the feelings she had. She loved to be around her, to hear her talk, to see her walk, just to be close to her. But she wasn’t really sure if it was love or a craving for a close friendship. And she also was very unsure about having feelings for a woman. Was she really gay or maybe bi-sexual? There have been one or two men that she thought she had feelings for in the past. But since her feelings were never answered and she never dared to take any risk by making contact with that person herself, she would never know what the feelings meant exactly.

Though all in all, Sandra wasn’t ugly. She had, what most people call, a nice figure and a lovely smile. She had, also what most people call, an average height and weight, so really she wasn’t bad on the eye. But because she wasn’t able to trust people, she was also very shy and withholding. One day, she promised herself, she would find out what having a relationship, friendly or even romantic, meant. But at the age of twenty-five, many days had passed since she made that promise.

At work there was that girl, or young woman rather, that she liked a whole lot. Even though the liking was only based on a daily hello and goodbye. That was all Sandra managed to say without going into a shy stutter or her face turning into a tomato colored feature. Maybe, after all that had happened the previous evening and night, she would step up to Lilly, that was her co-workers name, after the weekend. Seeing it now was Friday going on Saturday, she had a whole weekend to figure out what her next step might be. Maybe it would work out. But what was the definition of those works “work out”? So many questions that needed solid answers. So many things to make a young woman so insecure about herself.

All things considered, Sandra never had an easy life. Dealing with her mother’s death at a young age was already hard enough for her. She never really knew what had happened to cause her mother to die. This was also a question that she had asked both her father and her aunt but never got an honest answer to. She wanted to find out so badly, but also grew weary just thinking of what the answer might be, if she ever found it.
And then the abuse, neglect and seeing her father pop the gun against his head. She was in that room and saw it all. It was still haunting her during the nights. As said before, she did not believe in nightmares. But to others, they would really call those dreams freaking bad nightmares for sure. She never understood why her father saw no other way to live on and only the ugly way out. That was also a reason why it was so hard to find out what the reason could be of her mother’s death. For some years she truly believed her dad had something to do with it. Why else would her aunt, teachers and counselor never honestly answer that one simple question: “What caused my mother’s death?'”
Even though she loved her aunt a lot and really was grateful that she took her in after her father committed that “unnecessary” suicide, she had always missed her real mother and of course her father. Her aunt did show that she loved Sandra and also cared about her. But she could not help but feel that there was a great distance between the two of them. Sandra had known that this was partially her own fault, closing herself off to the rest of the world. Not being able to put trust in their relationship for such a long time. And again, she lost someone she cared about in a gruesome way.
No, Sandra never had it easy when you know all this.

But then, Sandra never told many people about her background. She felt ashamed to tell people that she was an orphan and that the closest thing she had to a parent had also died. Why she felt like this, I guess no one could understand. When you come to think about it, knowing this about Sandra makes it a lot easier to understand her. To appreciate her and to see who she really is. But no, Sandra wanted nothing like that. She felt like people only wanted to be friendly to her because they felt sorry for her. No, if people wanted to be friendly, it had to be because they cared for her and not her situation.

Sandra was a complicated young lady. But she had potential to grow. If only she dared to believe in herself.

TO BE CONTINUED…

This was the second chapter of "To think that you think that...". Please don't hesitate to point me to any errors you find. Suggestions and ideas are also welcome. Just place a comment if you like and be sure that I will read it!

TTFN, Cynni xx