An invisible rope to safety

The year was 1997 and I was 13 living in Ottawa, Canada. It was my final year of elementary school and teenage hood was in full swing. Tigerbeat magazines were full of white boys and their 90’s heartthrob haircuts. I don’t remember any of my teachers from grade 8 or what I learned but I may have sung the theme song to Titanic at a school dance in a dark gymnasium. It was very pitchy. It was also the year that I started walking the tightrope.

Being a first generation immigrant fleeing war and forced into a new environment at the age of 4, the tightrope is an invisible line that you balance in this western society. You want to make your parents proud all while navigating safety in a society in which you don't want to become alienated from. At 13 most of my friends were neighbourhood kids which consisted of Somali/Djibouti kids(same background) and immigrant friends. The majority of the families that lived in my housing project were refugee families fleeing wars so we were a close knit community in which all our mothers knew each other or worked together so naturally we hung out.  It was the year of Girl Power so every girl in school , including myself, wanted to be Scary Spice. Mind you most of the immigrant girls wore hijab but we all danced and sang every word of Wannabe. 

During that time in my life, I was a group “hopper" never really fitting into one specific group so I was friends with everyone. I was friends with the girl that was into Wicca, I was friends with the anime kids and the sporty kids. I was friends with the black kids, white kids and asian kids. It didn’t matter to me who you were as long as you were a good person which is something I still believe in. Having these friendships also helped me hide sides of myself. No one could make me feel unsafe if no one truly knew me. 

Although Spice Girls ruled the hallways, 13 year old me had music tastes as diverse as my friendships. The music that helped me navigate the first year of my teens were Our Lady Peace, No Doubt, Bush and Silverchair. In Canada we had a TV channel called MuchMusic and in that year they had Silverchair and No Doubt come perform Tragic Kingdom at that station which air live. The streets were full in Toronto and I remember watching at home in awe of the set design and how amazing they sounded. My older brother would walk in on me listening to Freak by Silverchair and called me weird(whitewashed) so I only told kids I felt safe with that I loved these bands. I ended that year as it started navigating that tightrope in order to not be seen. 

Now that I am in my 40’s and with some years in therapy I recognize those patterns that placed me on that tightrope. The music I listened to alone were cries for wanting to be seen like any other teenager. I balanced on that tightrope for so long in order to avoid being ostracised from my surrounding community when in reality I needed to find a better one, something I didn’t know at that time. In this phase of my life I have been able to go to rock concerts, travel and enjoy things that I like even if it meant being on my own. Slowly the end of the tightrope is visible with the cliff on the other side.