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About Jasmine

By Noémi BlomPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 10 min read
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I had taken a very strong sleeping pill the night before, so strong that my partner was afraid of letting me drive the 45-minute ride it would take me to get to Richmond. But I was determined (or just stubborn).

I got out of my car and felt lost. I was so out of it that I started walking up her neighbour’s steps. (I hate duplexes.) She witnessed everything from her front window.

I eventually found my way in, and we laughed at my mistake. I gave her a way-too-dry cinnamon bread as a thank you for letting me use her for an assignment and breathed in the setting as I took off my coat. Only a few elements had changed: the blue couch was now on the opposite wall; the TV got a TV stand upgrade; there were some photographs on the wall, but none of them were framed; the dog was still alive. The biggest difference? A baby, and a bazillion baby things.

Taking my seat beside her (and her son cozily placed on her lap), I started simply with: “So, how are you?”

“I'm good actually. I don't know if you know—probably not—but I am expecting number two.”

She told me how she’s now at eleven weeks. She explained how she had a little scare around week nine because she was having the same pains as with her first child. “I kind of freaked out.” With Olivier (pronounced O-LIV-E-A, the French way, I checked), she had a placental abruption at twenty-six weeks, which had her hospitalized and on strict bed rest. Now, with some symptoms having repeated themselves, cramping and blood among other things, she got checked. Everything was fine.

“The blood could have been your period or something,” I suggested.

“Yeah, or could have been irritation from, you know, sex!”

“Exactly!”

“But since then, I've been so scared. I'm like, yeah, no, don't touch me.”

She told me how she’s due in September, who of her friends and family knows, and how she’s planning on announcing it.

We then started comparing our families. For context, we are both the middle child of three girls, but she has additional younger brothers. My sisters and I were babysat by her mother for so many years, and we were all close in age. All this to say, we have fairly similar experiences.

We told each other about a bunch of recent events from our respective lives and, given that I was single at the time, the mention of my partner triggered us to think all the way back to the last time we saw each other, three years ago: I was teaching her some picture editing tricks, and she was debating between returning to school or having a child. This was pre-pandemic.

That’s when the conversation veered towards what I had originally come for, towards what I expected my “story” to be.

She told me how the pandemic has made her lose a lot of friends: "I'm at the part of my life where I don't want drama. I need friends that I know will be by my side through thick and thin. I literally have like two friends left because everybody else just—I realized that they’re just toxic. And it sucks because […] now I've got nobody to talk to.”

With little Olivier now dozing off in her arms, she continues: “A lot of people just know the top layer. She grew up a foster kid. She was bullied. She had a kid. But they don't know the underground. They just know the surface of why I am the way I am. They're like, okay, so you grew up a foster kid. Woohoo. Please. I'm like, yeah, but it’s not all that great. It really isn't—don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for my family—but being a foster kid fucking sucks because you have so much that you don't know about your own life.”

“How old were you when—”

“I was two and a half. So, [my biological mom] had me for two and a half years. But even then, I lived with my grandma with my mom because my mom couldn't afford living anywhere else.”

She told me how her biological mom wanted her, but couldn’t take care of her.

She told me about a family that almost adopted her.

She told me about her biological dad, and about how he physically abused her. “Imagine going to see your father to visit with him and he lays his hands on you. And then you’re five years old and you walk into your [foster] parents’ place and say: ‘I don't want to see my dad anymore.’”

She told me about how she maintained a relationship with her biological mother, cut her out for a couple of years, and only recently let her back in. “Even now at 24 years old, my biological mom still tries to tell me she raised me and I’m like honey, you didn't.”

She told me how she “feel[s] like a lot of people just walked out of [her] life without any explanation,” which caused trust, separation, and abandonment issues. “Every deep dark secret I have Max knows. […] I don't have anything left to unpack with him and if he can take everything I've been through, listen to it on the daily, and still put up with me, I don't think he's gonna go anywhere but, you know, it's still a fear of mine.”

And then she told me about her having been bullied and her suicide attempts, more than she had ever previously revealed to me.

“My family never knew. They didn't suspect depression and all that stuff because to them, it was like, oh, just a rough day, you know, she'll get over it. I tried to take my life twice. I was on ADHD meds, and I wanted to use those to overdose because you can overdose on Adderall very easily. But they never thought to ask me what was going on.”

“What were some of the things you were being bullied for?” I asked.

“For being a foster kid, saying I was not wanted by my family, that I’ll never be loved, that… and then I was bullied for being ugly. I heard that all my life, that I’m ugly. And I had the nickname blue waffle for a very long time. It means ‘infected vagina.’ Yes. And they were calling me that while I was still a virgin.”

Startled awake from our laughter, Olivier opened his eyes. She put him at our feet on the carpet with his toys and offered him the water bottle they shared. He sipped from it briefly, then began adventuring across the living room.

“But then growing up,” she continued, “I started using the ‘at least I was chosen, your parents are stuck with you’ bit. That freaking digs into people’s skin. A lot of people backed off after a while, when they realized that I got a backbone. Secondary three is when I used to stand up on chairs, to be taller than them. I did that to get to people's faces because I was done. I was at my last string, and when people would bully me in class, I would walk out of class. I'm like I'm not gonna sit here and listen to people talk shit about me and treat me like garbage…”

“…I see it as lessons learned in life. Honestly, it's not even negativity anymore. It's me being able to talk about my experience and teach other kids. Like, yes it may seem tough now, but trust me it gets so much better. It really does. Like look at me now: I'm thriving. I've got two kids. A boyfriend. A place to live. I've got my own money. I've got my own car. I know when things are too much and when to cut people out.”

That right there… it made my day.

“So, how are you dealing with your mental health today? Do you still take anti-depressants?”

She explained that she stopped taking medication when she was pregnant with her first child, and how it was only when she was hospitalized during the pregnancy that she struggled: “I hit like a very low point, right? I literally told them ‘I want him out of my stomach.’ I didn't care when, I just wanted him out.” She then adds: “So I ended up getting a therapist.” She said the therapist helped a lot, and that ever since she’s had Olivier, her mood has been up.

“I still suffer from anxiety, though. Every day. I obviously have ways of coping. I clean the house or do some card games or focus more on him or play with the dog. You know, anything that will cause me a distraction from my thoughts. I find that I suffer a lot at night when everything's calm and I have more time to think. […] I wish my brain would shut off when my body shuts off.”

At that point, I felt like I had everything I needed for my story. I heard about her struggles, her mental health, the bullying, her foster care experience, and her suicide attempts. I heard about the joy of motherhood, the successful photography gigs, the renovation plans. But even with all of this, I didn’t feel ready to leave. The conversation just kept going.

We talked about Love Is Blind and all the drama Shake caused.

We talked about her big sister going to Facebook jail for 24 hours, and about how freakin’ similar our sisters are.

We talked about how she one day wants to have her very own studio, and how she’s slowly getting there: “My boyfriend bought me my lights, my backdrop, my backdrop stand... everything that I've ever wished to have, he bought it for me. Yeah, it was a gift of encouragement. Yeah, I'm going to pay him back for it because it was a lot of freaking money.”

We talked about her darn struggles with math and how she went to adult ed and got an equivalent, but that an equivalent is still not good enough for post-secondary education.

We talked about other local photographers and about how math should not be needed to study photography.

We talked about wedding photography, lifestyle photography (a new project of hers), and boudoir photography (we exchanged notes). “I want to show them that no matter the stage of life you're in, your body is beautiful.”

We talked about her insecurities about her weight.

And about breastfeeding.

We talked about the C-section scar that is extremely close to her bikini line, and about shaving her legs and armpits and downstairs area.

We ate Chips Ahoy! cookies and talked about celiac disease, all while she put Oli in his highchair near us and gave him some soft crackers so that he doesn’t feel left out from snack time.

We talked about how both our partners’ names are Max.

She called me out on calling my partner my boyfriend: “Don’t you mean fiancé?!”

“Yes, my fiancé,” I confirmed, cheeks turning red.

We talked about dogs, hers and mine and my parents’.

And about how much I look like my mom.

We talked about her son. “He thinks it’s hilarious when the dog barks.”

And about how her baby is almost one year old.

“Being a mom has been the best thing for me because I constantly have something to look forward to. Don't get me wrong, there are days where it's really, really hard, but most of the days are ups.”

We talked about how she would have loved to go to college, and how nobody had saved up money for her studies the way my parents did for me.

And when we started to smell a funky odour—and immediately knew who the culprit was—I announced that it was time for me to go. She had a supper to get ready for, and I had planned to visit my grandmother while I was in town. I packed my bag, and we said our goodbyes, acknowledging how fun it was to see each other again. I walked out—after having dropped my keys, of course—and closed the door behind me.

Stepping down towards my car, I didn’t feel as tired as I did when I arrive. I didn’t feel like I was doing homework, which this technically was. The only thought crossing my mind was how good it felt to reconnect with her. I don’t know when I’ll see her again, but I know that whether it’s in three weeks or three years, we’ll get along just as well.

***

Want to read more of my work? Visit my Instagram (@n.m.blom), my Facebook page (Noémi Blom – Writer), or my Vocal profile!

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About the Creator

Noémi Blom

She/Her

Student @Sheridan College

Honours Bachelor in Creative Writing & Publishing 2023

I love reading, writing stories, giving feedback, and helping other writers with their creative work. Once I graduate, I want to teach, write and edit!

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