What Is Love?

By Andrea Watts

All my life I had been struggling to understand what it meant to love and be loved. I finally figured it out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrea Watts
• Release date: Feb 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215760130

Book preview

The Lonely child

I’m flying!

My arms are spread out wide, and I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe. I feel weightless and happy, confident that I won’t fall. The earliest memory that I can remember is of a vague feeling of picked up in someone’s arms and being held up in the air by them. I don’t know who it is, but they’re holding me high in the air and spinning me around. The day is bright, and the sun is shining in my eyes, the sky is full of its light. My arms are spread out wide and I’m telling the person holding me to turn me faster. The force of the spinning whips my hair around my face and the pure elation filling me up in that moment is piercing as I’m spun in one direction and then the next. There’s a warmth and love in that moment that I’ve never been able to forget. I know it’s a core memory because my long-term recollection has never been the best, but this beginning, this fragment of time, is something that I remember so clearly in my mind. Even now at thirty-two, I can still feel all of those emotions to this day.

With such a warm and happy moment as my starting point, or at least the first bit I can remember, my life should’ve gone pretty well from there. Like many beginnings, what came after didn’t go so well, but that’s why you picked up this book in the first place. But in order for you to understand where I went, I need you to understand where I began. Because while it wasn’t perfect, my time spent in childhood wasn’t as horrible as it could have been. And for most of us that’s true; there are moments where it all seemed so innocent, clean, and spotless. But at some point we all change, we grow, and we realize that what we thought life was, isn’t that at all. And for me, my most eye-opening experience in life has dealt with love. I don’t want to get ahead of myself though, so let’s get back to the start of everything...

GROWING UP I LIVED in a lot of places, but for kindergarten and all the way until the third grade, I lived in a small house in Pennsylvania. This dwelling was perfect to me as a six-year-old. I shared a room with my older sister, and we had our own large TV, our twin beds right next to each other’s. The backyard was big enough for us to run around in and I could walk to my elementary school. In between the school and our house was a park that we’d often stop to play in on our way home. There was one time where we stayed too late and got into huge trouble, but I never cared much in those days. Trouble came and went easily, things slipped in and out of my mind so fast that I could barely catch onto anything. I knew I was happy though and that was enough. I had two close friends at kindergarten, and I enjoyed going each day. Nap time was one of my favorite activities and I considered life to be basically perfect.

But as I grew older, I started noticing more things, becoming increasingly aware of myself and my surroundings. I noticed that my sister and I had a ton of chores to finish around the house, and that they had to be done to perfection or else. I noticed that we were responsible for cooking our own meals, and that our parents never ate with us. It became clearer day by day that even if we were right about something, we weren’t allowed to talk back. If I felt that my parents were being unfair in their rules or discipline and was dumb enough to say it out loud, we were spanked. If our chores weren’t done to their standards, we were given a spanking. If we did anything they deemed inappropriate we were spanked. Most kids in my generation would say the same, it was a common occurrence in the black community. But the severity of those spankings was the issue; the things we were beaten with included thick belts and heavy plastic cutting boards that left bruises all over and made it a struggle to walk or sit. It would’ve been considered child abuse by anyone’s standards back then or today, not that we would’ve ever told anyone what was happening.

And heaven forbid if we did something we shouldn’t have at school. On one such occasion, I playfully helped a classmate to get playdough stuck in her ear and she ended up going to the hospital. Her mother called that night and after that I received one of the heaviest beatings I’d ever gotten at the age of seven. For almost an hour I was yelled at and then hit repeatedly on my butt and legs until I simply lay crying on the floor, unable to stand. But it didn’t matter if we were old enough to understand the consequences of our actions, and it didn’t matter if we were too young to take on the responsibilities we had. I remember being told to stay away from that friend afterwards and being filled with the pain of a beating that still hadn’t left days after the incident. I was angry with my parents, and I didn’t know how to separate their hurting me with my relationship with her; for the rest of the year, I ignored her when she tried to approach. Anything that could cause me trouble I told myself to avoid. We had to obey and act with common sense or what came next was pain; I had learned my lesson well.

My life had always been this way; those of us who haven’t been exposed to violence at a young age at the hands of our parents may not understand. These days it’s more understood that physical violence can have a negative impact on a child. But back then I didn’t know to say anything, I assumed everyone’s parents were the same. I learned very early on to fear my parents when they were angry, and to stay out of their way when they weren’t. I learned that mistakes weren’t allowed, and this was often reinforced in my daily life.

My early life was guided by one basic principle; don’t get in trouble.  Getting in trouble could mean anything from an hour-long scolding, a beating or a missed meal. Every punishment was variable and sometimes they would come out of no where. I can still recall the tone of voice my parents used when calling my name when I was in about to be punished, and the sickening fear that would fill my belly in anticipation of what was to come. I hoped it would just be yelling, that I could handle. The long diatribes on how I never did anything right could be sat through too; even though I always felt like crying halfway through, I could avoid their eyes that held no warmth. But what I couldn’t stand was the beatings.

I lived relatively quietly, once I understood how to avoid their anger. I was afraid to have them notice me, but luckily my parents didn’t often speak to us. They stayed in their own corners of the house, and my sister and I were often in-between our bedroom and the living room. It was easy enough to be left alone, as long as we didn’t make too much noise or forget to do some of our chores. While watching TV, I could forget that terrifying situations could happen around any corner. None of it ever really felt fair, it always made me feel embarrassed and more than that, it hurt. Not being able to sit down for a few days was commonplace after a beating and the stinging bruises would take time to disappear. All of that was bad enough, but what hurt most was my heart.

I didn’t trust my parents to take care of me, I didn’t trust that they loved me. The only thing I knew was obedience and after that was staying out of the way to avoid suffering. Being quiet, blending into the background and generally trying to be unseen was how I always felt. I don’t know how I was before I truly understood what was going on in my daily life, but once I saw, I couldn’t shake how it made me feel. Like I wasn’t important, like I was in my house to exist and to work, like I had no greater purpose or connection to my family. I was rudderless and empty. Something always felt like it was missing.

When I was still young my stepdad’s son lived with us. I knew he wasn't my brother, but it never occurred to me why he wasn't or what that really meant. But what I did know was that he would play games with us, watch movies with us, make me laugh. I liked having a brother who seemed as tall as a tree and who was mostly happy to have me around. I didn’t feel afraid of him like I was of my parents.

When I was perhaps eight, this older brother came home from college and told my parents that he was gay. I didn't know what that word meant all the way, but I knew that it was bad based on my parents’ reactions. There was yelling and screaming, and it went on for a long time. I remember sitting on the stairs and watching what happened below, not understanding what was going on. And then I remember them telling my brother to get out that night and suddenly he was gone. The next day my parents simply said he wouldn't be staying with us anymore. And then I knew that whatever the reason, if I pushed my parents too far I would end up like my brother. Kicked out into the world and never coming back. No matter how wrong our family felt, I feared that final separation. I didn't know then how those moments would shape my own future.

AT SOME POINT DURING the first grade, my teachers felt that I was lagging behind the other students in reading. They put me in a special group that was made to help us read better, but what they didn’t know was that I didn’t have any trouble reading; I just enjoyed pretending not to be able to read so that the teacher made a fuss over me. At this point, having adult attention that was anchored in kindness was a rarity that I enjoyed. I was mostly uninterested in the books they gave us during class time, the large picture books unappealing to me due to their simplicity. The good thing about this reading program though, was that they’d give us candy each time we finished a book. Free candy to me at that time was the key to euphoria. My mom didn’t like us having sweets and insisted on healthy snacks; she’d even rationed our Halloween candy so that we’d only have one piece a day for months after the event.

Armed with the knowledge that I could get as much candy as I read (I double-checked with the teacher immediately), I set out to read as many books as I could. By the end of two weeks, I’d gotten at least twelve gummy watches and enough candy bars, and pixie sticks to keep me hopped up on sugar until bedtime for a long time. I was living the dream, but what that program really did was awaken in me a passion for reading. At the start I was only in it for the sweets and my teacher’s praise, but the more I read, the more I understood. And the more I understood the more I wanted; I wanted to know about different people, how each character lived their lives. I began to imagine and to dream of other worlds and other places far away from my family.

Soon enough my teacher took me out of the program after I’d made ‘amazing progress’, but I didn’t care, I was ravenous for