Chapter 1: Summer Vacations

Welcome to Michaela Mae's Audiobook Experience for The Barn off of Colfax Lane: an unfiltered memoir about sexual assault and the mixed feelings that come with it. 

In this book Michaela tells her story of the childhood sexual abuse she experienced when she was 12-years-old while taking horse back riding lessons from a horse trainer in Oregon.

BOOK SUMMARY:

I was 12 years old the first time my horse trainer grabbed my left boob and asked me if I had ever had sex. I'm not sure what caught me off guard the most: his question or the fact a 79-year-old man had his hand firmly cusped around my boob while asking me, a 12-year-old, if I had ever had sex. I've blocked out a lot of that season from my mind, but that first day sticks out clearer than the rest. Is it because of the shock? Is it because I hadn't fully remembered my pro-dissociation skills yet?

I have no f*cking clue, but I do remember the green-striped tank top and the dark navy blue jeans I had on that day. I remember watching his lips ooze as the words, "Have you ever had sex?" spilled out of them. I remember the blank stare in his eyes, the black specks of chew stuck in his teeth, and the way his cheeks met his chin like a pillow shoved under fitted sheets.

My eyes left my left boob, flung around the barn, and up to his face. The light coming in from the barn door behind him lit his back, but darkened his face so his face looked as dark as the blank stare in his eyes. My brain raced for answers that made sense. Hell, it searched for a question that made sense too. "No, of course not. Wait, why is this happening? How do I answer? Do I answer? Am I dreaming?" I couldn't speak, so I looked up at him blankly then he turned and walked away.

LINKS + CONTACT:

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For inquiries or to connect with Michaela directly, email michaela@michaelamae.com

© 2024 MP Media. All rights reserved.

Narrated by Author Michaela Mae.

Keywords: survivor memoir, childhood sexual abuse memoir, childhood sexual abuse, trauma memoir, healing memoir, horse trainer abuse, equestrian community, read by the author, audiobook, Oregon, Michaela Mae

Transcript

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Chapter one Summer Vacations twelve year old Michaela I cringe as the teacher in her question inched toward my seat. I haven't switched school since switching from preschool to elementary school, and sixth grade is the first year I've had to explain what I do during school vacation since kindergarten. My elementary school was small, so we never had to ask one another what we did over break because everyone already knew without asking. Jacob played sports over break, Keith studied over break, Jackie and Aaron had sleepovers every night over break. Tracy lied about what she did over break, and I the teacher and her question arrive at my desk. Michaela, Miss Stone starts. What did you do over spring break? I picked up rocks, I say while looking at my desk. What else did you do? She prods. Huh. Oh, so innocent. I look up at her. I picked up rocks. I say again. I thought since I looked her in the eye as I spoke, she wouldn't question my response, but by the look on her face, it appears she wants to ask again. The kid sitting to my right decides to ask for her. But what else did you do? There's no way you picked up rocks the entire week of spring break. I glare at him and resist the urge to shout Oh, there is a way, buddy, and I'm about to tell you all about it. I look back to Miss Stone to explain. The only thing that feels more embarrassing than picking up rocks all spring break is the class thinking I'm lying about picking up rocks the entire spring break. I take a deep breath and explain. My dad raises horse hay an hour and forty five minutes away from here in central Oregon. He decided to plant a new hay field this year, and before a field gets planted or replanted, the field gets tilled into dirt. Before the new seeds can get planted into the tilled dirt, the rocks must be removed so that when he cuts the grass to make hay, the rocks don't break the blades on the equipment and cause hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in damage to the machinery. We picked up rocks out of a seven acre field. So yes, it took all week from sun up until sundown to remove the rocks from the field, so yes again, all I did during spring break was pick up rocks out of a field. The last sentence leaves leaves my mouth and the teacher nods without making eye contact with me. She and her question then moved to the girl sitting to my left. I sigh and look back down at my desk. I miss elementary school. It felt like family there. A dysfunctional family, yes, but a family nonetheless. No one ever questioned why I looked tired after break because they already knew my sister and Josie and I worked with our dad in hayfields over break. And even if one kid didn't know, no one ever questioned the accuracy of my response when I answered any question in class. Explaining my breaks for the first time in a long time makes me compare myself to other students in a way I never have. I try not to get jealous of my classmates, but it's hard sometimes. Every time I'm in a hayfield, I wonder what the other kids in the class are out doing, and it makes me want to break out singing one by three dog night. I have my best friend Alice to thank for wanting to sing that song whenever I feel lonely. When we go water tubing at the Snake River, during the one week of summer that I actually have a summer vacation, we sing one when one of us falls off the tube and leaves the other one riding solo behind the boat. I'm not technically alone while moving pipes out in the field because my sister, my dad, and I always move pipes together. But even with their company, I usually feel lonely. I feel lonely because I'm the one who detests farming to the extreme. Whether my dad admits it or not, he enjoys the whole farming thing. I know my sister doesn't love it, but she has more energy and moves faster than I do, so farming and working with our dad seem to mesh better for her than they do for me. Dad also gets less annoyed with her because she moves faster than I do. She's only three years younger than me, but the differences between her and I have always fascinated me. I'm naturally slow, she's naturally fast. I'm naturally pudgy, she's naturally thin. I've been over five foot tall since I was ten, and she's a pipsqueak who has barely hit four foot eight. I could take a secret to the grave, and she can't keep one longer than twenty four hours. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that we come from the same parents, but then again, I can't believe I come from the parents I do either. I don't feel like I'm anything like my mom or my dad, although my mom says I have what she calls the Pollock stomp when I get angry, and she's not wrong. I didn't even know I did it until my mom said something one day, but every time I get angry, I clench my fists, tighten my shoulders, slightly angle my head and neck towards the ground, and slap my feet against the ground with each step I take. Mom insists I got it from my dad's side of the family, but I think I learned it from Donald Duck because I feel like my feet turn into webs as they slap against the ground. Whack, whack, whack. The other difference my sister between my sister and me is she doesn't seem to mind getting dirty like I do. Because that's another thing I hate about haze season. I hate being so tired that I must choose between sleep and showers. One time we worked so much and I got so tired that I went three weeks without a shower. I can only lose so much sleep and then I will choose stinky over tired any day of the week. Besides that, who's gonna smell me anyway? The flies out in the field? They stink too, and they probably appreciate the stench coming from every crevice of my body since they eat manure. It's just all so gross to me. Not sleeping, being stinky, because I would rather sleep than take a shower, the sprinklers hitting my dry skin at 6 AM, having itchy legs because hay gives me little red bumps, and touching slime from I don't even know what when I pick up the irrigation pipe. But the grossest feeling for me, out of all the feelings, is feeling rushed all the time. Get out of bed now, move the pipe faster. Don't walk back to the four-wheeler, run. I'm an I'll get there when I get there type of person. Stop and smell the roses. Whoever wrote that saying must have known someone like me or been someone like me. Everyone else in my family, and especially my dad, reminds me of the song I'm in a hurry by Alabama. Everyone is in a hurry and no one knows why. My speed level has granted me various nicknames over the years, Pokeh Honest, Turtle, and Slowpoke, to name a few, but nobody has ever bothered to ask me why I move slow. I just get made fun of for it. But I move slowly because moving fast makes me anxious. When I go too fast, I start to feel like I'm forgetting or missing something. Every morning before we leave the house, I just want to ask, can we take a moment to make sure we have everything we need for the day? But I don't say anything because it's not worth the trouble and I would get but I don't say anything because it's not worth the trouble I would get in for asking the question. So I keep it to myself and agonize over the extra running around we end up doing because we didn't take an extra five minutes to make sure we had all the tools we needed for the day before we left the house. Some days it adds an extra hour or two to our day, and each time we have to make an extra trip to go back and get something we forgot, I dream about the extra time I could have had in the shower. On top of that, each extra stop we make throughout the day opens up another opportunity for me to get yelled at from moving too slowly, which makes me feel even more anxious. Summers feel like a jack in the box of emotions, and I never know which ones will pop up first. The horses are the one thing that gives me peace, but even then we don't have much opportunity to ride because of how much we work. Supposedly, that will change this summer, but I'm skeptical. I can't see my dad letting me go take a riding lesson when there's farm work to complete. I wish I had some hope for my riding lessons this coming summer, but the truth is I don't have much hope left at all. I don't like change, and changing schools this year's has sucked, but on top of not liking the new change, I didn't realize how much I appreciated my last teacher until I had a sucky teacher. Then as I started to adjust to the new school, my dog died. But he was never just a dog, and he was always my best friend, who I had also never known life without. My mom brought me home from the hospital a month after Hootie had turned three, and he died two months after my twelfth birthday last fall. I still don't know how to do life without him, and trying to learn how to live without him has been a hell of its own. He slept with me every night and always waited for me in the same spot when I got home from school. Sometimes I think I can still see those soft yellow ears and big brown eyes waiting for me by the patio door, and I hate that I have to shake my head and remind myself it's just a vision, and he's really not here anymore. I try to hide my face when I feel the liquid emerge from my eyes. The bell rings, and I'm thankful I can quickly escape from my desk to the door before anyone can see the tears coming down my face. Needless to say, this year has sucked the life out of me, and starting horseback riding lessons last winter is the one thing that has brought me joy throughout all the changes and adjustments this year. So, with my last bit of hope, I hope I actually have time to take my riding lessons this summer. I guess we'll see.