Trading Cards: Some Defining Moments

To begin our journey together, I thought I should properly introduce myself:

Hi! I'm Jordan -- a seventeen-year-old born and raised Texan with my grandma's messy curls, my mom's blue eyes, and a penchant for birthday cake ice cream (only sharing the essential facts of course). I love to read and sing and run. I have two fluffy, black dogs, Skylar and Mica, who are perpetually seen tearing up their toys in my room. Amid this black hole of dog hair, I also have disco balls hanging above my keyboard because I'm obsessed with the 70s like every other millennial. I have a "book cart" next to my bed because I am, too, a victim of BookTok and have fallen in love with Rhysand just like every other teen girl. You could classify me as a Chick-Lit or a Romantasty reader if you checked out my GoodReads and I have no shame for yawning whilst reading the classics. I live in my Ugg slippers because I believe in comfort over style, a huge debate between my family members (my sister who is subscribed to Vogue) and I'll never turn down a pair of sweatpants as a Christmas present. I fell in love with poetry during 7th grade--the year of Covid-19--while my parents were going through a nasty divorce. For me, poetry was an outlet to express myself when I felt lost in arguments and compromises and insults. Is that cliché? Perhaps, but I enjoy it none the less. Over these past few years, poetry has ebbed and flowed progressively in and out of my life--a crutch when I'm limping over the stage, a bucket that overflows with excitement or remains flat-out empty, or, simply, a mere wind that cools my face in the hot summer heat. And that is what poetry means to me. You should probably know I am a firm believer in: "a rhyme is no type of crime." So my word of advice if you stick around? Prepare yourself for some very nasty rhyming and cliché metaphors!

Well, now that that's over with, I thought I should share some defining events in my life that have fashioned and manufactured the person (behind the screen) that you see today.  If we are going to hang out and read together, we might as well get to know one another, right?

The first memory I ever have was walking into my family's old house. It was located at this end of a cul-de-sac, a hill cascading down so our drains would literally collect the whole neighborhood's debris. From what I remember, it was this tall, imposing house of red brick and wooden window panes. Giant oaks framed the house, casting shade across the front door, resembling ghosts that have long-haunted the residents. But at the time, I thought it was magic. Now I don't remember how old I was, yet my sister tells me four, but I remember walking through the front door and coming across this giant mutt sporadically running up and down the staircase. Now, I couldn't get a real look, but the dog had matted brown, black, grey, and white fur that stuck out in all the wrong places. For a better picture, growing up, my family called her the "rat dog" for how much she resembled the drowned rats of New York. However, my sister named her Misti because it was misty outside that day. And can I just say she made fun of me for calling my blanket Blankie, yet she was around 12 when she named Misti after the weather and only changed one letter. However, that little mutt wiggled her way into our lives somehow. Misti grew up with me and I with her. I would dress her up much to her chagrin, I painted her toenails much to her chagrin, and I took her down playground slides much to her chagrin. Thinking back now, perhaps is was more a one-way relationship than I originally thought. But whether Misti was my real playmate or an acquaintance who just tolerated me like high school girls on Instagram, Misti was always there.

This brings me to the second defining experience of my life: club soccer. I grew up playing soccer. Sometimes my dad jokes I was born onto a soccer field, my mom following my sister's futsal league debut with her emerging belly bump. So really, when I was born, my parents put me into soccer because it worked out for the first child. Better survival rates that way. Not that I didn't love it, because I did. Soccer is what I consider to be the first love of my life. My sister and I grew up playing for the same club, which was well above recreational leagues that my peers played. But for as much as I loved it, responsibilities were given to me at an early age. It was all: "Make sure to roll out after practice," "Follow healthy-eating before travel," Make sure you play well unless you want to lose your spot." And all of these commands were given to me around eight years-old. We started travelling to different cities for league games and took up extra skill practices for that small edge-up over other girls. And it all became too much way too soon. It wasn't until I was around fourteen or fifteen when I started to feel really trapped within the sport that I loved--trapped within the expectations people gave me because of it.

Hence my third defining experience: Maya Angelou. You could call the first time I read "Human Family" a creative awakening, a colossal, emotional magnetar, a cross-universe tear in the space time continuum of Jordan's Life. And while this may sound dramatic or crazy or psychotic, I finally finally felt less alone in the years I played such an isolating, demanding sport. Someone stood with me facing down the loneliness, heating me inside out with a warming hug that chased away the dark--a lantern if you will. After that first read of my favorite poet, I delved into the subject, writing and reading to my heart's content. I even started to submit some work to my English teacher at the time, asking for feedback and such. Poetry, really, was the first person to teach me voice and self-expression, my own always lost in midst family and life. And for that I will be forever grateful for it became very helpful later on.

And this later on I speak of is my family's divorce. Looking back now, it seems like I distant movie where I simply played my part in the dramatic events that unfolded. However, the curtain never closed and the screen never went black, yet, I slowly, ever slowly, faded into the sequel--never forgetting the plot foundation of the pilot episode. To say I was unsuspecting would have been a lie, but I also didn't suspect a thing. I saw my dad have business cards of local air bnbs around us but didn't think anything of it; I wrote a card to my dad because I knew he was unhappy with his long work hours but didn't think anything of it; and I told my dad to follow his heart no matter what but didn't think anything of it. Well, until that fateful trip to Smoothie King, my sister in the passenger seat and me in the middle-back. I was so excited because it was our first outing since Covid-19 shut everything down, drive-thrus slowly opening up late April. We were listening to Bob Marely, my dad's favorite artist growing up, blasting his music in the humid, post-rain heat. But before anything, my dad pulls over and just tells us he's moving out. Just like that. At first I didn't know what he meant, to busy slurping up my first taste of quarantine liberation. It was only when I noticed my sister crying, a girl who never never cries, that I really soaked in what my dad was saying. He's moving out. After that, with both my sister and I confused and grieving, we walked into an unsuspecting mom who just made us dinner. And my dad didn't say a thing. He didn't say anything for a while. For two-threes day I was crying and my mom didn't know why. And my dad just slipped out one day and left a crying mom behind.

But in the midst of Covid there was no room for any of us to breathe or take time apart, so grief circled the house and permeated the air--something my dad left behind and never took back like a man induced on the rush of jailbreak. But our relationship, despite it all, remained in tact with hard-earned duck tape (forgiveness and kinship). It wasn't until secrets about both parents and the divorce started to unravel the relationship that my dad and I weaved together. Fast forward four years to today. I still love my dad and he will always be someone I admire, but it has to be from afar now. His second-family needs his focus on the present--which something I cannot trust him with. At this point, it is something I may never be able to trust him with. We talk on the holidays and for major events like maybe my high school graduation, but not track meets or award ceremonies or high school dances. And I think that these past four years I've been grieving the man I knew, never accepting who stands in his place today. But I learned to stop wanting someone to be different and to recognize when they reveal their true priorities and character. And mine and my dad's simply do not match up in that regard. I've learned how to raise myself over the past four years, pulling myself up by my hard-worn boot straps so I look presentable the world and can keep going for myself.

This is where poetry and singing became my medicine, soothing the ache or dulling the pain--but never never taking it away. I, with sports, also had many injuries that took me away months at a time, poetry my ever-crutch standing by my side. And through friendship grievances and middle-school bullies, I've faced it all, writing lights me up insides and helps me stand oh so tall. The reason I'm sharing these experiences with you is because I want this blog to become a safe space where we shares stories, perspectives, experiences with one another. Perhaps, in this way, we can trade advice and comfort as we hurdle life's trials together. If you made it this far, thank you for hearing some defining experiences of mine and I can't wait to listen yours.