Survive to Thrive

My years at Foxcroft are by far some of my favorite memories. I struggled there at first. It was a huge departure from what I was used to.But then I blossomed there. Foxcroft was a huge turning point in my life .

I was raised in a middle class family environment until I was in the 6th grade. Mom was now a single parent as of 1965. We had moved back in with her mother, Geneva, my namesake. Our “new” home was full. 3 of my mom’s siblings still lived at home. Edna, the oldest daughter and my 2 unmarried uncles Fred and Leon. My 2 uncles occupied the 2 bedrooms on the 3rd floor of grandmother’s 4 bedroom house. Edna had a bedroom on the second floor. When we moved back in from Maryland I was 4 and mom was pregnant with my brother. My grandmother gave us her bedroom. Apparently, as I have just recently learned, my grandmother had put my grandfather out of the house because he was having an affair. I never wondered where he was. He showed up at all the major holidays so it never registered that he was not a constant. Fast forward to last year and thanks to 23andme I have found another auntie from that union... but that’s another story for another day.

My grandmother began sleeping on the livingroom sofa and gave us her bedroom so that we could have a place to stay. As I have previously mentioned my uncles had gone to Maryland to retrieve us form mother’s utter dispair. I have a distinct and terrifying memory of trying to awaken my mother after several hours. It had begun to get dark in our Silver Spring apartment. My dad was MIA, which happened a lot, and mom was still asleep. I remember turning on all of lights in our apartment and going to the neighbors to tell them that I couldnt wake up mommy. I remember the flashing blue and red lights as they took my mother away in an ambulance. I remember being so afraid and sad because I had to spend the night with the neighbors. They had a son named Timmy that I didnt like at all. He was mean, selfish and always smelled as if he had just peed his pants. I remember biting him often. I still stand by the fact that he deserved it. I remember my 3 uncles, Uncle Red came too, arriving to rescue us. I remember packing some things for our return to Pittsburgh. My uncle driving mom’s convertible mustang and me sandwiched between mom and the other uncles in a rental truck for our trip back to grandmother’s house. We lived there from the time that I was 4 until I was just around 11. I loved it there. My grandmother taught me so much. She taught me how to cook and to garden. She taught me how to do repairs and how to clean a house and do the laundry. She taught me how to grocery shop and make crafty things from little of nothing. My grandmother loved me and I knew it. I thirsted for her adoration. She called me Lady. That was her nickname for me. She was an amazing woman with an amazing background. A part of her lives on in me.

Dinner time was always lively as we all sat around the kitchen table for meals. My brother and I would share a tiny hand carved bench when he was old enough. He was born into that home and that is all that he knew. I still have that bench. It was carved and put toghther without nails or glue. It was made by an ancestor somewhere in South Carolina. I will pass it on to my granddaughters as it was passed on to me.

In my 6th grade year my mother decided to venture out on her own. She got a 3 bedroom apartment in Braddock Hills which was about 2 or 3 miles from where we had been living. There was a huge cemetery that separated North Braddock and Braddock Hills. I would walk to my grandmother’s house or to my friends’ houses just about everyday, often through that cemetery. I found the cemetery fascinating actually. It was not at all scary. I didnt change school districts so I walked the 3 miles to and from school as well. My mother didnt care what I was doing truth be told. Looking back I was more of a burden to her I believe. She didnt have the capacity to care for both me and my brother, so she chose my brother. That is often the story in African American households. Perhaps its ancestral. The male children receive the lionshare of motherly love. It became difficult for my mother to financially maintain that apartment so she took a 1 bedroom apartment in North Braddock on the 2nd floor in a triplex. It was cramped and tight. Now I was the one forced to sleep on the couch while my brother got to share the bedroom with mom. I would often escape into my books or drawings. I was accused of daydreaming a lot. Everyone made fun of me it seemed. I was often embarrassed and ashamed. I would sometimes go into the small closet in the living room and pretend it was my bedroom. I still somehow excelled at school. The school contacted my mother around that time that they wanted to send me into their gifted program, but mom refused. To this day I dont know why. Then along came A Better Chance and the SSATs and the essays. I was accepted to Foxcroft. I was salvaged. Mother didn’t stop me from going this time, thank goodness. Was it divine intervention or maybe that tiny apartment was becoming too cramped to her too.

I recall my first time returning home that Thanksgiving after months at Foxcroft. I had been homesick and was floundering at school. It was eye opening for me, this return to my hometown. In just those few short months I had changed exponentially. I was no longer the same person. I was desperate to return home to see my family those first months. My scholarship paid for my flights to and from Pittsburgh. I just wanted to go home. Although it was wonderful to see everyone I realized that now I no loner belonged there anymore. When I returned to school after my Thanksgiving break, I returned with purpose. I had no choice really. I was caught in between 2 very different worlds. I knew that I had to find a way to thrive. Up until that point I had survived but now I needed to find a way to make it. I studied harder than I ever did before. I joined groups and organizations and I made new friends. Some of whom I am still friends with to this day. I jumped into my life there wholeheartedly. With each passing month I grew a bit more. I was finding me. I was elected into a whip position for our dorm and went to mini term in Spain my junior year. I fell in love with Europe and travel and a TWA flight attendant. Spain was magical. My senior year I was a dorm monitor in the freshmen dorm where I served as a mentor to the new girls. I always performed well on standardized tests and won an academic award for the Northeast region. As I mentioned I was accepted into every college I applied to in my junior year. I befriended our art and art history teachers and began hanging out with them outside of class. I was into almost every art, music and theater group that they had at school. There were horses at Foxcroft too. My parents weren’t able to afford me riding lessons but I would hang out at the stables sometimes and took vaulting lessons there. I admired all of my classmates that rode so much. Foxcroft allowed me to forge friendships and to interact with a completely new socioeconomic class. The girls that became my friends never made me feel less than them. That’s an important part of this story. My classmates opened my eyes to a new world and never made me feel like that world could not be mine too.

My scholarship afforded me 3 field trips per trimester. I would sign up for everything. We went to NY and DC. We visited museums and concerts. It was an amazing time for me. I loved my high school years. Of course I suffered teen angst. That’s all a part of the deal of being a teenaged girl. Whenever I would feel blue, I would find an old black and white movie on the one television in our dorm and submerge myself into it. They always made me feel better. I continued to read voraciously. The summer reading list at Foxcroft was extensive. I would sometimes read a book a day.

My mother and brother remained in that small 1 bedroom apartment until my mother married again. I was disconnected at that point. I have been told by more than one person that I am aloof or indifferent or even cold. I am not. I am an empath. I was a child that felt so deeply that I couldn’t watch The Wizard of Oz or even Peter Pan when it was on television because it would affect me to my very core. I would cry for everyone else’s pain as well as my own. To be able to survive I learned to disconnect. I now have a tight circle that is allowed passed my walls. It takes time and proof to get inside. I know this about myself. To everyone else it looks as if I am not interested or uncaring. It’s not that at all. It’s because I cannot. That is how I cope. Disconnecting is a survival mechanism for me. Disconnecting has allowed me to thrive. I will always be an empath. I dont believe that part of you ever disappears. I do give freely and open heartedly, but quietly so. People that truly know me, know that about me. However, I am choosey about who gets to see that vulnerability. I am guarded and careful that is true. I am, however, thriving despite my unfortunate beginnings. After all, its never where you start that matters. It’s the path that you choose and where you finish. People that see me now think I am a child of privilege or that someone has provided for me along the way. I am not. They did not. I have worked extremely hard and fought tooth and nail for everything that I have now and my position in life as Lady Landrieux.

Just the other day my brother said to me “congratulations on raising yourself”. It’s not a secret. I am no longer embarrassed and ashamed of that little girl in hand-me-downs and cheap shoes. I survived so that now I am able thrive.