What have you and your family accomplished together?

Mikella Vermaire

            I have three families. Most people only have two: their mom’s side and their dad’s side, or maybe they split it into immediate family and extended family. I have three: my extended family, my immediate Illinois family, and my Oklahoma family. My extended family is normal. I have cousins, great-grandparents, and aunts and uncles. My Oklahoma family is also mostly typical: a mom, brothers, a grandma, the god-parents, and all the aunts, uncles, and cousins. I also have “aunts” and “uncles” and “cousins” that I’m not actually related to. Due to my mother’s irrationality and irresponsibility, I don’t have a “dad’s side”. Also due to my mother’s irrationality and irresponsibility, I have an immediate Illinois family, which consists of me, my grandma, and my grandpa.

            The story of my immediate Illinois family is long and dramatic, but I’ll make it short. My mom and father-figure went to prison because they liked to sell drugs, so I had to be placed with a family member or DCFS. My biological father wasn’t an option because my mother won’t tell anyone who he is, but I do have family in Illinois, so that’s where they sent me. When the transition was beginning, no one was expecting it to go on this long. We were expecting a year or two. It’s been eleven. The first two years were some of the hardest. I had art therapy and was forced to “talk about my feelings” and I cried at least twice a week. My grandparents purposefully tried to not get too attached, because they didn’t want to be hurt when I left. In the beginning, I wasn’t attached to them because I wanted my mother. Eventually I became exhausted and just wanted the situation to be fixed. I wanted my mom to call, like she promised she would, but she only called a few times a year. It put a strain on my relationship with my grandparents. My relationship with them was carefree on the surface, while very dysfunctional at the core.

            As I got older, that dysfunction was displayed more prominently. Both I and my grandparents were tired of pretending that my mother was going to pull her life together and bring me back. We were tired of pretending we were a perfectly happy family, so things started to change. I was getting older and held on to a lot of anger at the whole situation. It frustrated me that my mother continued making bad decisions and that I was forced to explain to  people why I didn’t live with my mom and why I had a different last name than the people that I lived with. For about three years, these problems tore my grandparents and I apart. They didn’t want me to hate my mother, but I wanted to cut her off and put them into the role of “mom” and “dad”. It was painful. I started to think they didn’t want me anymore, and that affected how I treated them. I distanced myself from them so that I wouldn’t be as hurt when they gave me back to my mother because they couldn’t handle things anymore. They started to think that I didn’t like them and didn’t think of them as parents, causing the whole situation to tumble in on itself. The effects were devastating. I cried all the time, didn’t enjoy things I used to love, and started doing things I never thought I would have done.

            Flash forward two years to current day. We still fight, we still hurt each other’s feelings, and we still have issues. My grandparents still sometimes think that I don’t care about them or am embarrassed if them, and I still sometimes think they want to send me back to Oklahoma. It’s rough, and sometimes our conversations leave very deep scars, but there’s an understanding we’ve reached. My grandparent’s know things about me now that they didn’t know two years ago, and I know things about myself that sometimes make situations easier to comprehend. We both know that there’s love on both ends. Sometimes we take three steps forward and two steps back, but we are still progressing forward. It hurts, but we’re moving, and I think that’s amazing. Especially considering the fact that two years ago I would have been crying on a weekly basis, I’m content for now with that one step forward. 

What objects tell the story of your life?

Mikella Vermaire

            I’ve been alive for seventeen years, one month, and 8 days. That’s quite a bit of time. I think I’ve understood the idea of memories for about nine years, which is a lot of time for me to accumulate and save some of the stuff that I think I’ll want to look back on when I’m old and forgetful. Some of the most significant objects include cards from various family members, a collection of family and school photographs, a stuffed Dora that was continuously in my hands until I turned eight, and tickets to various museums, amusement parks, and movies. I think those are the objects that I immediately think of when I think of objects that are important to me.

Those are the objects that I think will help me remember a lot of fun memories, but I think there are a few specific ones that tell the story of my life. One of the objects that will, tells the story of one of my favorite experiences: going to Indiana Beach with my grandparents when I was nine, where we took a photo at the top of the Ferris Wheel. That picture is still one of my absolute favorites despite the fact that I look kind of gross because I had an allergic reaction to something (we still aren’t sure what) and got a rash that covered my chin.

Pictures like that aren’t the only thing that will be part of the aforementioned collection. I was in Central Illinois Children’s Chorus my second grade year through my freshman year of high school. I remember how nervous I was to try out, and how relieved I was when all I had to do was sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and sing notes after the piano played them for me. After I got in, I remember spending a majority of my Monday evenings there. The songs were fun and pretty, and I made one of the best and most entertaining friends while I was there (we’re still friends to this day). When we did our later, more formal concerts, we had to wear long, pretty black dresses, but my favorite item from CICC was the ugly, red, collared shirt. It had the logo on it, and looks absolutely horrendous on me, but it represents the early years. CICC was a huge part of life for a significant amount of time.

Not all of the significant objects are from before high school. I also have a ticket floating around in my room from the first football game I went to. I remember looking around and seeing people I was friends with in elementary and middle school, and the excitement of seeing all those people. I remember how scared I was to talk to the people I didn’t know and how awestruck I was at how easily everyone was talking to everyone else. I felt happy in a way that I didn’t usually feel at school events. I remember the amazing feeling I had when leaving the game, and how sad I was the next day that I wasn’t able to go to school the next Monday and talk about how fun the game was. I’m still nostalgic when I see that ticket.

I think feelings, like nostalgia, have been really significant in my life. Especially because I think of my life as seasons of high and seasons of low, I think it’s important that I include things that, when looking back on them allow me to feel happy as well as things that possibly make me more somber. The picture of my family is a happy memory, and most of the situation surrounding it was happy as well, other than the allergic reaction part. The t-shirt has a multitude of emotions attached to it: nostalgia, happiness, pride, and gratefulness. As well, the ticket has so many emotions attached to it: nostalgia, happiness, sadness, and exhilaration. I’m made up of the feelings that I associate with each of these objects, and they are associated with stories that are significant in my life, and I think that together they tell the general story of my life’s progression.