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Shade
I heard her music for the first time when I was around 10 years old. Her dreamy voice sang from the speakers of my dad’s Mitsubishi. He had just returned from Brazil a few days earlier, and had suddenly taken a liking to her. His fresh and soulful new taste in music gave me the sense that he was in love… or lust rather. In fact, his entire purpose for traveling to Brazil was to meet his online girlfriend, Sia. Based on the pictures from her online profile, Sia resembled a model with her tall and slender frame, high cheek bones, and long brown hair. Quite frankly, she was way out of my dad’s league, and by the looks of it, she was only using him for a green card.
Not long after meeting her in person, my dad took a second trip to Brazil. I remember right before he left that he told us he would be in contact when he returned back to the states. A month went by with not a word from him. Prior to this trip, we had visitations with him every Sunday for 4 hours at a time.
It was April 12th 2002, my 11th birthday. That day my entire world came crashing down. Minutes felt like hours as I waited for his call. Every hour I ran down my long driveway, opened the mail box, desperately hoping to find a letter or a card from him, but there was nothing. By late afternoon there was still no call, no letter, and no email. With each trip to the mail box, I grew more and more anxious. Throughout the day, my sister attempted to call my dad several times, but his phone went straight to voicemail. To try and elevate my spirits, my mother suggested we go shopping at the local mall. Truly, I didn’t have the desire to go. With the intensity of my anxiety, I knew that being in a crowded mall would only magnify this feeling, but I didn’t want to disregard her efforts, so I agreed to go.
When we arrived to the mall, we entered the Gap clothing store. My mom grabbed a couple pairs of jeans from a rack and held them up in front of me. “Pick one” she said, but my mind couldn’t even process the question, nor did I care. All I could think was Why? Why hasn’t my dad called? Does he not love me anymore? I half consciously selected one of the jeans, pointing to it with a lifeless stare. “Just get me those” I responded. After purchasing the jeans, we began walking towards the food court to grab a bite to eat.
Moments later, what I witnessed completely shattered me…My dad was standing in the food court wearing a black suit, buying his presumable girlfriend ice-cream. One of his arms was wrapped around her shoulders and the other was holding an ice-cream cone. He looked at her with a loving stare and genuine smile. Shouldn’t that be me? Shouldn’t I be the one sharing an ice-cream with my father? I felt as though I was choking on my own breath as I watched the two of them show displays of affection. I pretended not to see, masking my pain behind a smile, as I continued to walk past him. My father made eye contact with me, yet did not say a word as if I was a complete stranger. I wondered if even his girlfriend knew who we were. “Taj, can you believe that?!” My sister said. “He didn’t even say hi or happy birthday to you.” Tears began streaming down her face. “I know, it’s okay…Just forget it.” I responded, “Just let it go. I just want to enjoy this day”. Inside I was screaming, and wanted an escape. I didn’t want to acknowledge what was happening in front of me. “No, I’m not going to just let it go. I’m going to confront him. Why would he just ignore us!?” She said stammering.
I watched as my sister then disappeared into a crowd of people, power walking in the direction that my father was going in. I went to look for a table as my mother ordered our food.
Not long after, my sister approached our table sobbing uncontrollably. “What happened?” I asked. “I asked if he knew what day it was an he looked at me blankly as if he had no clue. I said you know it’s April 12th. It’s Taj’s birthday. He told me to wish you a happy Birthday.” My sister recounted, “And then I was like well why don’t you do it yourself, and he said I think it’s best that we don’t have contact anymore, so I told him to go to hell!”
Inside I was falling apart, but I disguised my emotions with few word said, and an expressionless exterior. I couldn’t bear to see my sister crumble any more than she was. One of us had to be strong. Truly, I believe I was the weaker one, but I was just better at hiding it.
That night when I entered my room, I buried my head in my pillow and cried uncontrollably. No one saw my tears and I made sure that the pillow muffled my weeping. Imagine your dad dying, but not actually dying, because now the loving image I had of him was completely dead, and so began my grieving process. I couldn’t comprehend it. I mean, we had our loving moments. What about the times he caried me to bed and kissed me goodnight? What about movie nights? What about our joy rides? What about the joke of the day? What about the “I love yous”? Did it ever mean anything?
In that instant, everything I ever knew, was now a big void. I was confronted with this new perception that my dad didn’t love me, which completely transformed my entire paradigm on life and on my own purpose. I had shame. So much shame. Questions burned in my mind. Why doesn’t he love me? Is it because I don’t deserve love? Am I a burden? Am I not important? Following each of these questions in my mind was a precise yes. Yes, you’re not good enough. You’re not important. You don’t deserve to be loved. Little did I know that these affirmations would be imprinted on me for years to come.
Despite feeling this way, I tried to be a rock for my family. I pretended I was strong and unaffected, but really, I needed to be heard. I needed a shoulder to cry on.
After some time, I began resenting this misrepresentation of me. I resented myself for the masks I wore all to protect other people’s feelings, for trying to be selfless, while denying my own feelings. No one seemed to really know my heart or understand the turmoil I was in.
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Shades of Shade
Listening to Shade is a cross between a dream and a nightmare for me. Her milky smooth voice and dreamy melodies feel like pure heartbreak, all while reflecting the highest and most intrinsic love I have ever felt. Her songs are a reminder that I’ve felt love so intensely, so deeply, yet I’ve been so let down and wounded by love. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but have you ever had a knot in your throat, felt your heart sinking, and your soul completely drift into an abyss? Well, I have. I don’t know how else to describe this feeling. It feels like I’m dying and being reborn at the same time.
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Music and Love
Since I can remember, I’ve always been in love with the idea of love. My earliest account of this is when I was two years old and I watched “Casper, The Friendly Ghost” for the first time. It was then that I learned how to use the rewind function on the VCR remote. At the end of the movie there is a scene where Casper turns into a human and dances with Kat, the main character. As they are dancing, he reveals himself by whispering in her ear “Can I keep you?” This scene was my first introduction to romantic love in the movies. I used to rewind this scene over and over again, imagining that I was Kat, played by Christina Ricci, and that Casper, played by Devon Sawa, was my boyfriend.
I would also get that same warm fuzzy feeling whenever a Selena song came on the radio. I can remember hearing her angelic voice for the first time and asking my mom “Who is this?”. “That’s Selena honey.” “Selena…Selena is my favorite singer” I can remember saying at only 4 years of age. Her songs embodied the kind of romantic love I used to dream about. As a small child, I had hoped one day that I would get to experience that kind of deep love. In many ways I feel that being deprived of love from my father made the desire to be loved that much more relevant in my life. Throughout the years, music allowed me to escape into a fantasy where love met all of my expectations and became my most fluent love language.
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Before the Divorce
“Kids, I’d like to talk to you” My mother said as she patted her hand down beside her. My sister and I climbed up onto the bed and sat across from her. “How would you feel if me and your father weren’t together?” My mother whispered softly, then turned around and glanced at the door behind her with a look of fear. I could hear my father watching T.V. from our downstairs living room with the volume loud enough to cancel out any outside noise. The question caught me completely off guard.
Despite their constant fighting, it never occurred to me that their dynamic wasn’t “normal” or that they didn’t love each other. Up to this point, my parents were the only real-life example of what I thought to be romantic love. A pit began to form at the bottom of my stomach. “No! Please don’t. You don’t love daddy? Don’t say that!” My sister replied. Both my sister and I began sobbing uncontrollably. “I know. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry kids. That would never happen. Forget I said it.” My mother pressed her finger against her lips, “shh. Let’s not talk about this with daddy, okay?” My mother whispered, then held out her pinky.
There was no mention of a separation for months following this conversation, at least not among my sister and I. In fact, I didn’t allow this thought to hold a space in my mind as I never expected it to come to fruition.
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Fathers and Fast Cars
While living in Hudson, I can recall my father immersing himself in his passion for sports cars, even remodeling his car to have a wing in the back. I will never forget when he traded in his silver sedan for a Mitsubishi 3000 GT. It was bright red, had two doors, and a sunroof. When he bought the car, he took me with him. He bought me a pair of matching sunglasses that day, and we even went out for a long joy ride.
I can remember how smooth the car drove, and how fast it felt as my hair was taken back by the wind from the sunroof. I laughed in excitement as I watched his speedometer increase by the seconds. “See how fast we’re going Eyaz? You want me to go faster?” I nodded my head yes. I never forgot this moment, and maybe it’s because I know we were both genuinely happy.
Another thing we bonded over were movies. All of his favorite movies, grew to be mine. He loved Sci-Fi, and so did I. Every Wednesday, it was our weekly ritual to watch Tales from the Crypt. We could both watch the Terminator movies or any Jim Carey movie an endless number of times and never grow tired of them. He loved Pepperidge Farm Cookies and I loved Pepperidge Farm Cookies, especially the Milanos. He even taught me how to play chess. I loved it because of the strategy it involved, and I think that’s why he enjoyed it too.
Shamelessly, I think he favored me over my sister. Maybe that’s because I was genuinely curious to know who he was, and would immerse myself in all of his interests, which grew to be the things we had in common. Sometimes I wonder how that kind of a bond between a father and daughter could be discarded of so easily.
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Scar
I do believe that my sister inherited or picked up on a lot of my father’s anger-driven responses. As a child, she had quite a mean streak and was always both physically and verbally abusive towards me. In fact, when I was 3 years old, I visited an emergency room for the first time as a result of her playing too rough with me.
Earlier that evening, my mother was in our kitchen doing an oil painting with her canvas sitting on an easel beside our dining table as she often did. Meanwhile, my sister and I were in our living room watching a documentary about sharks. “Let’s play a game” my sister suggested. “I’ll be the shark and you be the fisherman”. Suddenly, she started chasing me around our coffee table, like a cheetah chasing its prey. I can remember being genuinely terrified knowing too well that if she caught up to me, I was going to get hurt. I was panic-laughing, while begging her to stop. “Darya, No!”
Before I knew it, she had a grip of my shirt in her hand, and swung me head first into our mahogany coffee table. I slowly picked myself up, and walked into our kitchen in search for my mom. My head was in pain, but I was too disoriented to let out a cry. I noticed a trail of red droplets on our tiled kitchen floor that followed behind me with every step I took. I remember thinking that it must have been my mother’s paint, so I didn’t panic.
Before I got to the kitchen, my mother had stepped out of the house briefly to take out the trash, and when she re-entered and saw me, she became hysterical. She grabbed a towel from the kitchen drawer and held it against my forehead. That’s when I realized that what I thought was paint, was actually my own blood. Suddenly there was a huge rush of panic and I was being carried into our car, then drove to the hospital. My younger cousin, Nazanin and sister were also in the car with me. Within minutes, we were in the Emergency Room.
I can remember a nurse directing us to a small dim room with a hospital bed in the middle. My aunt sat down on the bed and held me in her lap. My mother stepped out, and closed the door behind her so it was just us two. To my right, I noticed a large pair of scissors and some sharp tools on a counter. “Khaleh, what are those for?”. “PPPPPPBB” My aunt started making farting noises in an attempt to make me laugh. “PPPP! Oops I eh goozed” (gooze means fart in Farsi) She said with a thick Persian accent. I laughed nervously. I knew something was seriously wrong and her attempt to distract me was overlooked.
“Where is my mommy?” I asked. Apparently, my mother was so frantic that the nurse actually had to escort her out of the room. “She’ll be back soon” My aunt responded. A few minutes later, my mother reentered the room and carried me to a different room with bright fluorescent lights. She then sat me down on another hospital bed and I was greeted by a male doctor. I looked down at the doctor’s wrist, and saw that he was wearing a watch that had a Mickey Mouse dial. I gleamed in fascination “Is that a Mickey mouse watch?” I asked him. “Yes, it is.” He said as he turned his wrist to give me a closer look. At this time, it was unbeknown to me why I was even there. I recount being “as calm as a cucumber” while discussing the inner workings of the doctor’s “cool” Mickey Mouse watch.
A few moments later, things took a turn as I was being held down at my wrists and ankles by 2 nurses. I screamed and wailed at the top of my lungs as the same doctor hovered over me with a sharp needle. I was terrified as I watched this needle come centimeters close to my eye. I attempted to fight off the nurses with every bit of power my little body possessed, but I was helpless. I remember feeling sharp pokes right above my right eyebrow. After a 30-minute struggle, I was relieved to hear the doctor say “All done!”
As we left the hospital, one of the nurses handed me a red sticker that had a picture of a dalmatian on it. I guess the sticker was enough for me to deflect on what had happened, and give me bragging rights. When we got back to the car, I flaunted it proudly to my cousin and sister. “I got a cool sticker” I said as I peeled off the paper backing, and pressed it against my t-shirt. “Give me that!” My sister said as she yanked it off of my shirt.
The following day my mother told me that I had gotten stitches due to my injury, and that I was likely going to have a scar there for the rest of my life. I remember being disheartened by this, thinking I had some major deformity. My dad used to poke fun at this insecurity and call me “Scar”, like the evil villain in the Lion King Movies. As I got older, the scar faded, and became less visible. But unfortunately, it was only one of the many prominent scars inflicted on me by my sister over the years.
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A Loving Mother
Opposite of my father, my mother was very intentional about what she would expose us to, and tried to keep us sheltered. She was always more emotionally driven, kind, affectionate, and selfless, especially when it came to my sister and I. She was present for every major milestone in our lives, and loved being our mother more than anything in the world.
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Exposed to Sex
My parent’s personalities really couldn’t be more opposite. My dad was a Poindexter. He was cold, sarcastic, and a bit obsessive compulsive. He had a dry and sometimes perverse sense of humor. A lot of his jokes had a racist undertone and crossed the boundaries of what I believe to be appropriate dialogue between a father and daughter.
My father’s inappropriate joke-telling went beyond just words. On several occasions, my father played sexually graphic material in front of my sister and I. I can recall one time in particular when we were sitting on the daybed of our guest bedroom and he was flipping through a series of channels that had warped images with background static due to a poor satellite signal. He stopped at a channel where I was able to make out the figures of a man and a woman engaging in sexual intercourse and hearing the sounds of moaning which played intermittently between static fuzz. “Kids go downstairs and tell your mom to tune into channel 5” he said. “Samuel, that is disgusting! How could you do that in front of the kids?!” My mother exclaimed from downstairs, yet it didn’t take much time for incidents like this to get swept under the rug.
I don’t know if he did this just to get a rise out of my mom, or for his own self-gratification, or if he just didn’t think his actions were inappropriate, but the more this occurred, the more normal it became, and I believe that it piqued my curiosity about sex at a very young age.
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Parental Dynamics
Despite how beautiful my mother was, my father never seemed to appreciate her beauty unless he was sexualizing her. Whenever he was the cameraman for our home videos, he was always panning over to her chest like he was directing a porno. Even so, I truly can’t remember him ever paying her a genuine compliment. Even when he did say something nice, he always had kind of a sarcastic smirk on his face that made you question his sincerity.
Growing up, my parents were never very warm or loving towards each other, and when they were, my younger self could recognize the insincerity behind their romantic gestures, like when my father would surprise my mom with flowers and make an expressionless remark like “the postman left them here”.
Most of the time my parents argued over my father’s absence, or how he mis-managed their money. Often, he’d make jokes at the expense of my mother, body-shaming her, insulting her intelligence, or poking fun at her being an immigrant of Middle Eastern descent. I believe that witnessing this made it challenging to fully embrace my own identity earlier in life given that he was always insulting this aspect of who I was.
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My Mother
Unlike my father, my mother never laid a hand on us. She also made up for his lack of attention in many ways. She was always buying us props, and costumes, and loved to record us doing skits. Often times, she would take us into the city of Boston to visit Faneuil Hall where we’d watch street performers and help her buy produce from the Hay Market. “Lemons, get your lemons, only a dollar a pound!” could be heard from beneath white awnings.
Growing up, I can recall my mother getting lots of free produce from the pushcart salesmen who worked there. This is something we joked about every time we visited the city because of how often it occurred. No matter where we went, she was always getting lots of male attention, which was no surprise considering her stunning exotic features and curvy figure.
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My Father
As a child, I also loved to entertain, and be the center of attention. However, I received very little attention from my father who was always busy with his dental practice, and was often crashed out on the couch during his off hours, or investing his time in the stock market. He used to spend endless hours on the computer monitoring stocks. Most of the time, I just stayed out of his way to avoid getting his back hand or being yelled at. My sister on the other hand was a bit more devious and often did exactly what she was told not to do, like hiding the T.V. remote. This infuriated him. That’s when the more hostile punishment came. My dad would take off his belt, fold it in half, and pull it to make a loud snapping sound. This was our warning to run and hide. Thanks to my sister who would never give herself up, I sometimes took the brunt of her mischievous behavior, getting the impact of my father’s belt.
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Hollis
We rented our home in Hudson until I was about 4 years old, then we moved to Hollis, New Hampshire. Hollis is a small farm town with very little diversity, and a reputation for being one of the most affluent towns in New Hampshire. I grew up in a house on a steep hill surrounded by trees. Next door to us was a cribs-styled mansion owned by a computer engineer who invented some sort of microchip and novel video game in the 80s. On the opposite side of us lived a Boston radio personality, who hosted a popular morning show.
Our home was a beautiful white Victorian, with a pond in the front, and hydrangeas that went up the side of our driveway. In the back of our home was a swimming pool with built-in jacuzzi. It was surrounded by a small garden that contained mint, chives, sunflowers, roses, pink cosmos, and a large raspberry bush. Our home also had an in-law apartment attached to it which had a separate smaller yard that was divided by a white fence. In that yard was another smaller pond surrounded by jagged rocks. Beside it was a gold statue of a naked woman holding a pot that drained water into the pond. Every summer I loved to admire the lily-pads that floated above the water, as their flowers began to bloom.
All of the land that surrounded our Hollis home allowed for hours of exploration and discovering new wildlife. I spent most of my childhood playing outside, going on nature walks, and riding my barbie-pink bike up and down our long and windy driveway. Often times, I would surprise my mom by bringing home critters that I would discover on my adventures, such as snakes, salamanders, and frogs. One time I housed a family of frogs in my dresser, and created a mini habitat that featured a “Swimming pool” made from a Ziploc container. I can remember my mother screaming bloody murder as she made this discovery while putting away my clean clothes. “Eyaz, what is this? Why is my container in here?!”
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Different Types of Love
When I was around one year old, my family and I drove cross country to Hudson, NH, which was where my father grew up. My grandparents resided in my father’s childhood home in Hudson, and we moved about ten minutes away from them in a 2-bedroom home. At this time, they had a very strong presence in my life, given that we lived so close. Every trip to my Grandparent’s house was like Christmas day. They were the “all-American grandparents” who doted on us with gifts, and lots of sweet treats. Despite their overt gift giving, I don’t think I ever felt the same kind of warm and intrinsic love that I felt from the Iranian side of my family. Crazy how that side of my family could live miles away on the other side of the world, and yet, I can feel their love just by the simple thought of them.
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Who is Eyaz?
I was born on April 12, 1991, right outside the windy city of Chicago, Illinois at Great Lakes Naval hospital. I was born to my mother, Neda, who is of Iranian descent and my father Samuel, who is of Irish-French heritage. At the time, my father was a dentist in the Navy, and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. For the first year of my life, we lived in a middle-class apartment community in the outskirts of Chicago.
My earliest memory is of me picking through a toy chest that sat against a wall in our living room. My favorite toy was this plastic telephone and I can recall my mom picking it up and acting out mock phone calls to entertain me. “RING! RING! Hello? Who is this?”, I’d giggle as she’d hand the phone over to me.
As a child, she was always so beautiful to me with her full curly hair, floral dresses, flawless caramel complexion, high cheekbones, and bold red lips. Not only was she my best friend, my mother was my idol and my epitome of perfection.
I don’t remember much about my dad at this time, but I do remember him crawling with me on our brown carpeted floors, and having a well-groomed navy haircut and big bug-eyed glasses with thin rims. He usually had on a plaid button up shirt and bootcut jeans, just like all the middle-aged white dads you see in every classic 90s sitcom.
I also came into the world with an older sister named Darya. She was one and a half at the time and had a dark brown mushroom haircut and caramel complexion. Darya did not like when I reached into the toy chest. I can recall one time, pulling out one of her toys, and her smacking me upside the head. This is truly the earliest memory I have of her, and in many ways resembles our dynamic over the years.
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Forgiveness
A few weeks ago, I reconnected with an old coworker named Cherry who shared some similar experiences as me in a past relationship. Today Cherry is happily married and thriving in her career. Witnessing her transformation is inspiring, and her story gave me a sense of hope that things will get better in time.
I had asked her what helped her to move on and become the self-assured woman she is today. “Forgiveness” she said without a moment of hesitation. I’ve thought deeply about this since that day. The word forgiveness has come up a lot in various conversations and as I’ve swept through my social media feed. When I begin to see a message repeat itself, I know it’s God speaking to me. I can hear him loud and clear saying “You need to forgive those that hurt you”. I feel that the only way to gain forgiveness and mend some of the emotional wounds that have been holding me back, would be to answer the question “Who hurt me?” Well, brace yourself, because we are about to take an even deeper dive into the “crazy” mind of Eyaz...
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Triggers
Unfortunately, I don’t feel that I’ve made any progress with therapy. Some days I feel like I’m taking five steps forward, then ten steps backward. This is because I often get triggered by experiences that resemble my past traumas. The location of his office is a trigger in itself considering it is on the same street where HE and I used to live. As much as I’ve tried to forget certain memories, my subconscious mind will continue to nudge at me with reminders throughout the day. The trigger could seem insignificant to others but cause me an overwhelming amount of stress. For this reason, I find myself close to giving up many times as the shame from these memories can feel too overwhelming to bare.
For example, I get tremendous anxiety every time I see a woman with strawberry-blonde hair. Even just picturing it in my mind makes me want to clench my fist and throw a punch at the wall. Anyhow, I will revisit the topic of triggers later on and why this particular one is so significant…
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Trust Issues
Every Saturday, I meet with my therapist, Tom. He is an older white guy in his 80s. He’s kind of a hippy and always wears a topaz ring, khaki pants, and a collared T-shirt with some sort of outspoken tropical print. I’m convinced he gets stoned before our sessions since he always has this goofy gapped-tooth smile on his face and jolly demeaner that doesn’t match the seriousness of what he is saying.
Now he is one interesting character! Sometimes I wonder if his overt expression of empathy is even genuine. I could tell him I stubbed my toe on the edge of the bed and he will gasp and grab his chest like he’s having a heart attack. Eyaz, I am so sorry. That is just awful!” he’ll say. Sometimes I just want to hear him say “Shut the fuck up and stop feeling sorry for yourself!”, but then I guess that wouldn’t serve him much. Our last session he suggested that next time I go out, I drink one bottle of wine instead of two, and if I decide to dabble in coke, that’s also okay as long as I’m “responsible”.
After every one of our sessions, he gives me a chest-to-chest hug, then stares me intensely in the eyes with our noses practically touching. I don’t know what to make of this, but it makes me feel uneasy. I don’t trust anyone nor do I trust intimacy of this level.
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