"C'mon!" I barked jubilantly, throwing a hard right-hook at my opponent. "Make me sweat already!"
But she ducked, and I ended up plowing through thin air.
"That's the spirit!" Victoria urged. She's my kickboxing instructor.
"Now you C'mon! You hafta do better than that!" She side-stepped a thrusting knife-hand. "Think before you act! You need to plan your attack--find your opponent's weak points; take advantage of their mistakes; use their own strength against them!" She casually palm-blocked a reverse round-house I had hoped would catch her off guard. "Make the most of everything--even your own mistakes!"
I was breathing hard now. We'd just been sparing for half an hour, but I was exhausted! The truth was I did have an attack plan when I first stepped on the mat. Problem was, it didn't work on Vic. She saw everything, and before I'd launched the first piece of my own elaborate combo, she already knew what I was going to do and how to counter it.
And counter it she did. I love my instructor, but I have to confess I was more than just a tad pissed that day. But I guess I had it coming. At thirty-four, Victoria West was a good eighteen years older than me, and she'd been fighting competitively for longer than that. I was a top contender in the national championships; my instructor had been that, a seasoned competitor in the world championships, and a silver medallist in the last Olympic Games. She boasted a third dan in Okinawan Karate, second degree blackbelt in Tae kwon do, another third dan in Judo, the equivalent of first dan in traditional Crane-style Kungfu, and--of course--an intimidating fifth degree blackbelt in good 'ol Thai Kick-boxing. How she got around to learning so many styles always confounded me. As it was, I had a hard enough time just learning to master one! Yes, Vic could be tough on me, but never brutal. Off the mat, we were really great friends. In sum, she was just everything a martial arts student could want.
But right now, all I wanted to do was end this match so I could ask her why my fail-proof combos were failing so miserably!
"Put your fists up; keep dancing; watch your left; don't let your guard down; keep attacking; give that right-cross a lil'more juice; don't slow down; put your fists back up!" Victoria barked, pumping out instructions like a Marine drill sergeant. "C'mon, girl! Give me your best shot!!"
Now, when your opponent says that, you're not suppose to really give'em your best shot. But I was tired, sore, covered in perspiration, frustrated out of my mind, and I had to go to the bathroom! I just wanted to end this thing.
"Okay, * pant, pant * you want * pant * my best shot!? * wheeze * Well here it comes! Clear the runway!" With my last reserve of energy, I aerialed down the mat toward my instructor, spun around, and threw the widest scissor-kick I could pull without splitting myself in half.
Vic caught me in mid-air with her forearms, jamming my technique and dropping me flat on my butt. I swear I put a dent the size of my glute in the dojo floor that day!
I staggered to my knees, one hand still on the mat, the other trying to assess the damage I'd done to my rear end. Satisfied that I was still in one piece, I just rolled over on my back and stared at the ceiling. Sweat rolled down my face in torrents. My chest heaved up and down. I felt like a total wreck. It was time for some major R & R.
Crossing her arms, Vic just stood where she was, looking down on my pitiful state.
"Is that all you got?"
My head snapped up. "What!?"
Call me a glutton for punishment, but when anyone challenges the integrity of my physical endurance. . .
"My ass hurts! Yes that's all I've got!"
. . . Bah! I usually just give up.
Victoria shook her head.
"Get up, Clare."
I groaned audibly. This could only mean one thing--a lecture.
Hmmm.... guess I kinda just jumped into things here. Well, excuse my rudeness! I tend to be like that, you know. Doing things without thinking them through enough. Call it impulsive, hyperactive, ADD (I'm not diagnosed as such, but sometimes, I think I make people wonder), spirited, frisky--whatever you want. It's all the same. I'm like that and darn proud of it! If I can't beat you outright, I'll at least wear you out! You can ask the poor guys from the Free-Style Nationals. They'll tell you as much.
But that still doesn't tell you dick's worth about me, does it. Well, I apologize. I live in the present. If it's not here, now, or happening in the near future, it doesn't exist, buddy! Not to me anyway. I don't dwell on the past--or at least, I hardly ever do.
There was of course that one boyfriend I had back in junior high.... gosh, he was so cute! I can't believe I let him go like that. But anyway, that doesn't really help you any either.
Being impulsive tends to also leave me wide open for one of two things: distractions or committing myself to more things that I'm actually capable of fulfilling. Sometimes, that actually works out quite well. I got into kickboxing because one day I saw Vic giving a demo at school and I just thought, "hey, that's pretty darn cool! I think I'll do that!" And BOOM! Here I am now.
But most of the time, I will admit, my lack of restraint and foresight puts me in some pretty deep crap. Like that one time in second grade, when I got the hair-brained idea that maybe if I tied a blanket to my wrists, and jumped off something really high, I'd be able to fly.
Sometimes, my mom thinks I'm still suffering the repercussions of that injury (what the heck is she talking about?).
For the most part, however, I just go on with things. I don't believe in worrying about the future. What good will that do? Whatever happens, happens. Sure, we can affect that with our choices. So let's just be sure we make the best ones we possibly can. In other words, do something about it!
I hate it when people just sit around and argue about their problems. Jeez! Like we need that. We've a whole freakin' senate full of those guys (no offense, of course. I'm a true-blue American after all)! In all situations, it is always better to do something than nothing, even if doing something means you might do something wrong and screw things up even more than they are now.
Hey! At least you tried!
I was born on a balmy day somewhere near the California coastline (heck if I remember the exact location). My dad was a Captain in the US Navy. He and mom had only been married five or so months when I showed up. Apparently, they were a little impulsive, too.
But I love my parents to death, and I mean that, too. They never held me back. Ever. (Unless of course they thought I was going to get myself and half the city killed.) If anything, they propelled me forward. There were times, I admit, that I didn't wanna go, do, or achieve something that I really needed to. My parents wouldn't hear any of that. Dad especially. The only lecture he gave was "You can do it, baby! Go for it" (Forgive me small tear in his memory).
The only truly bad thing I ever did, in their eyes, was sulk or complain. And I tend to agree.
Somehow, they managed to keep me alive through the fifth grade. Everything was going just peachy. It was March, almost summer. I was about ten, and starting my second year of kickboxing. I looked forward to seeing Vic's neat dojo, with it's gold and red "Thai Kickboxing" sign on the front. I was about to finish my last year in elementary school. I was not particularly looking forward to the nightmare I had been told was junior high. My dad was planning to take us all with him to Hawaii or something for vacation. It was going to be the best summer of my life.
But fate has a way of screwing with things, especially your plans. I found that out in a particularly distasteful way.
It was a beautiful day, clear as crystal, with hardly a cloud in the deep blue sky. I was skipping back along the shoreline, headed home after another day of strenuous final exams. It was my last day to put up with all that ridiculous crap. For the next three months, I was free!
I remember it like it happened yesterday. I was running through typical fifth-grader thoughts, processing each one as it randomly popped into my head (and tossing it aside just as quickly): I hope I passed that darn math exam!, Does bobby really have a crush on me?, I wonder where I put my candy stash from last Halloween, Maybe Jennifer stole my diary last year!, Damn Phillip Morton!, I wonder what's for dinner, Was our graduation thingy this coming Saturday or next?, Hee, hee! I kicked Billy's ass in Vic's class today!. And on and on.
You get the idea.
Trotting along the California beach, I looked into the sky. My light jacket flapped lazily about my slim body as a gentle breeze drifted in from the sea, playing with my shoulder-length, blond hair, tickling my face before I pushed the wayward strands back into place. My mini skirt flapped against my bare, tanned legs.
Several Peliper darted past overhead, and then I saw it. Something that outshone the setting sun was falling through the sky, leaving a trail of blazing glory in its haunting wake. Through the glare, I could just barely make out the impression of the large meteorite, searing white flames streaming from it's falling form. For a moment, I was too stunned to move. My sapphire eyes fixed on the thing, I followed its flight as it plummeted toward the sea, about a hundred or so miles out from the shore.
And then I ran; ran hard, even though I knew it might be too late. I saw the brilliant flash of light, heard the ominous crack and got knocked head over heals by the shockwave that followed after the falling chunk of space debris hit the water way far away. But it wasn't far enough. Soon, I heard the roar of the tidal wave as it began to close with the coast and me. chugging along as fast as my skimpy little legs would carry me, I risked a brief glance over my shoulder. I immediately regretted it. The Pacific Ocean was reared back like a gigantic Arbok, roaring like a Gyarados, and charging like a line of rabid Taurus. I'd seen enough movies by then to know what would happen next. For once in my whole life, I was truly terrified.
Throwing my head back, I screamed.
Well, let's fast-forward just a bit, now. For all logical reasons, I should have died that day. At least ninety-eight percent of my beach's inhabitants did, including my dad. He was out tinkering with the race boat when the tidal wave hit our beachside home (blew the hell out of that beautiful white house, and took my dad with it, God rest his soul--gosh, I miss him!). My mom was visiting her sister in Kansas.
And where the heck was I? I have no idea. I blacked out at some point, I guess. When I woke up, I was on a stretcher, being wheeled from the scene of destruction. I broke two ribs and fractured my shin. That was it. Everything on that beach was blasted to a smoldering crisp. Everything. And I was still freakin' alive!
Only two people who'd lived on that stretch of coast survived the disaster. I was one. The other arrived about two days later, from Kansas, crying her eyes out. I swear, my mom and I have never been happier to see each other.
Despite my obviously miraculous rescue ("special delivery" my mother called it (how silly!)), I was in terrible shape. For the next two years, it became very clear something was horribly wrong with me. I didn't want to talk to anyone, go to lessons, classes at school--all I wanted to do was sit in my mother's and my little apartment, in my little room, in my little window in downtown LA and stare out at the fog laden sky. I barely made it through sixth and seventh grade. I made no new friends, and all the ones I had soon dispersed, puzzled and even hurt by my indifference. I was alive, had survived a disaster so horrific it was already in my sixth grade American History textbook, and all I wanted to do was fade away!
My mother tried what she could, but with dad gone, she'd been forced to take a couple of jobs in order to make ends meet. When we were together, it was almost impossible to talk. We were both devastated, our lives a complete wreck. She'd lost her home and her life partner. I felt I'd lost my soul. I was alive. How? I shouldn't be. I needed to die.
Maybe all that was just part of those crazy first years of adolescence?
Yeah, partially (imagine what a mess that was--literally!). But something in me had really broken down. My mother didn't know it, but I kept a kit of razors under my pillow and bottle of sleeping pills in a nook under my bed. Every night, I'd pull them both out, stare at them, and try to decide which I preferred--death from loss of blood or overdose? There was no question I would do either. The question was when. I finally set the date for a full three years after the event that had taken my father. Someone had to pay for his death, for everyone's and for everything. I had cheated the natural cycle of things. I would pay that debt.
I came home one day to find my mom sitting at the kitchen table. That was odd. She was suppose to be at work (she was always at work, I thought bitterly to myself). Compared to other days, I wasn't actually feeling too bad. It was March 30th and school was out for the season. It had been the last day. The day I'd kiss my sorry life good-bye. I almost smiled at that thought, then I stopped dead in my tracks.
My mother smiled sadly at me. On the table were my razors and pills.
How had she found them? I hovered on the verge of panic and rage--an odd combination, but then everything was a little askew where I was concerned. I began to fabricate my excuse as my mother offered me a chair across the table. Again, I'd watched the movies (that was about all I did outside my little world of self-pity), and I knew what was coming. I braced myself, fully expecting to be blasted by the fieriest lecture I'd ever received and then grounded for the rest of my life.
But my mother did something altogether different, something that has changed me--something I will never forget. She put a large, glass punch bowl on the table, and after gently unscrewing and removing the lid from the bottle of pills, she poured them in. She set the empty container aside. Then she opened the razor box and spread the blades on the kitchen table. Taking one, she passed it to me, and then she took the other. I watched with a tangled mix of first mild curiosity then stark horror as my mom unsheathed the blade and then held it to her own wrist. It paused there, the sharp tip pressing menacingly against my mom's smooth tanned flesh. A small shade of red began to register on the spot.
"Mom! NO!!" I heard myself fairly scream as I bolted up from my chair. Tears began to form at the corners of my eyes. Oh God! She's going to kill herself!
Our eyes met. In that moment, I understood.
"Honey," she breathed, "should we loose each other, too?"
We were up well past midnight as the weight of three full years of pent-up anger and guilt flooded in hot gushes from my baby-blue eyes. I cried hard and loud, mom right there with me as I learned to forgive myself for being saved. It was enough.
The next morning, I flushed the sleeping pills down the toilet and tossed the razors in the trash.
Clare Gibson was back. I could feel her flooding though my salvaged veins.
It was the first day out of school, I realize.
I grinned.
It was time to have some fun!
I took a little jog down the sidewalk outside our confining apartment. Already the familiar claustrophobia I'd had as a kid was coming back to me. It felt so good to hate closed spaces again! I wanted to scream with glee. I'm free!!
About half a block down, I noticed a new sign on one of the buildings in the crowded business complex across the street. It looked oddly familiar. Curious, I trotted across and pulled up to have a look. My heart jumped into my throat. In bold red and gold, it read "Thai Kickboxing". I dashed inside.
Several people looked at me funny as I swept past the front door and through the open double set of crimson curtains that separated the main lobby area from the training floor. I shied a bit when I saw a good number of other kids within, running through the motions of the moves they'd just learned. They tumbled in a haphazard fashion on the mats.
Some of them paused when they saw me leaning casually against the door frame. I smiled brightly at them. The others stopped, and finally the whole gym went still. I glanced nervously from one blank face to the other. They all stared back. Behind them, a girl in a black gi and a red-striped belt regarded me curiously. A senior student, I deduced correctly. I was a bit disappointed the dojo's instructor wasn't present.
The girl glanced past me and her eyes also fixed themselves.
I turned around.
A tall, slender woman in her early thirties stood about a foot away from me, her angular frame silhouetted against the afternoon glare pouring through the glass walls behind. Her sharp eyes regarded me critically, one eyebrow arched. Then she smiled.
"Well," Victoria West remarked casually, "you certainly took your time. You're late, you know." She almost chuckled. "Real late."
"I'm sorry," I grinned back, "I had some business to take care of."
"You ready to go?"
A broad, roguish grin spread across my tanned face. "Oh, heck yeah!"
Removing my jacket, we headed for the mats.
Okay, all that does sound a little farfetched--really, really farfetched.
So I'll be honest.
It wasn't nearly as easy as I just now made it all sound. I still had some serious repercussions, days where I felt like, "dude, it's just not worth going on with things." I hadn't been to kickboxing class, talked with friends, or done much of anything for three whole freakin' years, and needless to say, that put me seriously behind on everything.
I must do the situation justice. It's really hard to pull yourself out of a hole when you've spent the first few years leading into the beginning of your teenage existence digging it for yourself. And all the physiological crap my mind and body were going through didn't exactly help, either. Though it only took one night to re-inspire myself to live again, it took a while longer to convince myself that my decision was the best one I could've made.
When all is said and done, the fact is I still lost my dad, my home, my wonderful childhood and other invaluable things, all to a freak of nature over which none of us had any control, and because of which none of those things are ever coming back to me. On the whole, no small reality to cope with.
I still miss those things.
But I have to ask myself, does that give me the right to destroy everything I haven't lost? If I'm going to be so selfish, then I should just ask myself, what about me?
All unforeseen tragedy and rot aside, I'm still here--shouldn't be, but still am. Who am I to throw that away?
When I look at it that way, destroying myself just isn’t an option anymore.
Life can do whatever it likes to me.
I'm 16 and I'm not going down without a fight!