part 111, or "daddy's little girl"

I tried to kill my dad once. I was fifteen.

We were out on the island in Lake Wedowee, Alabama. It was before he got a lake house out there, and it was this little piece of land in the middle of the lake we'd camped on and hung out at over the years. It was "the island."

(oh yeah, TRIGGER WARNING)

This particular trip to the island was a lot of different things: it was the last time my father raped me; it was the time I got pregnant as a result of him raping me; it was the time he tied me naked to the pine tree for hours, and poured gasoline in a circle around me and threatened to set me on fire by throwing a lit cigarette down; it was the time so many other things happened that I can't handle yet.

Some of the exceptionally horrendous and abominable things that happened at that island still remain pictures, or flashes, in my mind. I haven't been able to assign enough words to them to make a complete sentence, or even a coherent descriptive phrase.

But I can describe trying to kill my dad.

I had this gun. My dad had given it to me years before. We were the only people who knew about it, and for a time, we kept it buried under the screened in porch at our house - that was the hiding spot for it at home. I was in charge of burying it and retrieving it.

There was only about two and a half to three feet between the bottom of the porch and the ground, and the closer it got to the side where the driveway is, it narrowed down even more, maybe to about eighteen inches. I'm pretty sure that space under the porch is largely unchanged, and the last I knew of, it was a storage area for old pieces of wood and stuff like that.

When I first started remembering things, I became very obsessed with the ground under that porch, and under the cement steps that led from the porch down into the yard, but I didn't know why. I went and dug up the ground under the steps, but I couldn't quite fit as easily under the porch, being now grown-up size and all.

I got a metal detector to try to locate what was buried there, to at least narrow it down. In my mind, there was a knife in there somewhere. I'm actually pretty sure there is a knife still buried there, but at this point the floor of the porch would probably have to be taken up to get to anything like that, and I did not ever bother to ask my mom if she would be willing to disassemble part of her home so I  could scratch an obsessive itch.

When I started using the metal detector around the porch and the yard, it went off almost constantly. At first, I would dig up these spots, but usually only found old siding and other waste from when the house was built. The practice back then was to bury all the extra crap from building the house in the back yard and plant some grass on top of it.

Realizing this put a gigantic damper on my enthusiasm for searching for whatever it was I was searching for.

It was so crazy, and I was very aware of that at the time it was happening, but then I would remember there was something very dark and dangerous in the ground at this house, and I would start looking again. It wasn't that I was looking for a way to keep other people safe, or to gather evidence that would put my dad in prison (this being a few years before he died); it was simply that I wanted answers. I wanted to know what the fuck was going on in my head.

What happened to me? Why? Am I broken, and if so, in what way? What did he DO to me? What is right there in front of me that I can't for the life of me see?

Over and over and over. It was maddening. This frame of mind, I am estimating, took up the first two or three years after I started remembering things. And I kept remembering things, more and more and more and more, and it's just like, "what the ever-loving fuck? Can't someone just come take me away in a strait jacket and let me live in a padded room, watching old Tom and Jerry cartoons, and continuously being administered valium?"

I started writing this blog when all of that was still roiling in my brain. The past year, though, in particular, has been the first time I've been able to actually be aware of the healing that's taken place as a result of quitting drinking, going to a mental hospital, therapy and therapy and more therapy, and meds and check-ups and check-ins, and all of the other shit I had been managing to pull off in a state of poverty, mentally and literally.

BEGIN SIDENOTE:

Throughout this whole nightmare of recovering, I got taken care of in every way I needed to be taken care of. I got the meds I needed when I needed them, and I got the therapy I needed when I needed it, and I somehow got the money I needed every time I needed it. In return, all I had to do was be awake without hurting myself or anyone else. This would not have been possible if no beautiful and good people lived on this earth - I may have questioned that many times in the past, but once I was able to actually learn how to trust one person at a time (I'm up to about three people I trust now), all I had to do was ask, and these beautiful and good people were there for me. I have in absolutely no way been pampered - I have never been surrounded by bubble baths or spas or fine linens, but I have gotten everything I needed when I needed it because I've been learning to trust other people - and MYSELF - a little bit at a time.

A couple of days ago, someone posted this quote by Goethe on facebook: "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live."

I don't know who Goethe is, or even how I would ever successfully say that name out loud, but that quote took my breath away. Because it's true. It has been really painful to learn, but it is definitely true.

END SIDE NOTE.

Back to trying to kill my dad.

We were on this island and I had that gun, and I put the barrel in my mouth and waited for him to turn around and see me, but after a just a sideways glance, he smirked and turned his back to me and walked away. I took the gun out of my mouth, and with every fiber of my being completely in line to shoot the motherfucker in the head, I aimed and pulled the trigger.

Except that at the very last millisecond, I turned my hand a little to the left and hit a tree instead. The pain and torture and torment and madness both precipitating the moment and following it were more than enough to convince anyone that shooting my dad in the head was a good thing to do.

I was talking yesterday about this to the most beautiful and good person in my life, and I was sickened that my dad had so much of a hold over me, that I could be so finitely certain of taking any action at all - put everything I had of my mind and body and spirit into taking any action and at all - and he was so much in my head that I was completely powerless to do what it was I was so committed to do.

It's only now occurred to me that maybe it wasn't my dad controlling my mind and body and spirit that made me turn my hand a little to the left and shoot a tree instead of his skull. Maybe it was the part of me that he was not ever able to touch.

part 110, or "seriously - go to hell."

I really love being able to say things that I really want to say - things I used to be too scared to say. They are still scary things to say, but not too scary.

I've been writing a lot about my mom and my brother and sister, and every time I go to post another blog that says something negative about any of them, I stop and think "what are you doing? Are you crazy?" I'm thinking of how my mom and sibs might react to what I am saying and putting out there. I wonder about the harm it may do to them, or to me, or to all of us.

What if my mom's clients read this, and know who I am, and stop using her services? I mean, she LOVES making money, and what if I am getting in the way of that? How mad is she going to be with me?

My mom almost died once. She got really, really sick and when she went to the doctor, he gave her antibiotics that she wasn't even able to swallow. That doctor was a real prick - literally standing with one foot out the door.

So I took her to the hospital. She was in ICU for a couple of days, and then had to stay in bed for a while after that to get her strength back up before she could go back to work. It was very scary - I really thought she was going to die.

She wouldn't talk about it, though. She brushed off her brush with death, and kept on going along about how much money she was losing by not working.

Just before I "broke up" with my mom, she was talking about this big trip to Greece she was taking with her husband to celebrate my dad's death. Okay, I actually do not know if that is accurate or not, but they did use the money from my dad's life insurance policy to fund it.

When she talked about it, she didn't talk about being excited to go, or how nice it would be to be away, or what her vacation wardrobe was going to be, or how it was amazing to have the means to make the trip in the first place.

She lamented on how much work she was going to miss, and how much money she was going to lose.

I don't remember if I ever wrote about this before, but when I first started having the flashbacks about the sexual abuse and my therapist said I needed to go to the mental hospital, I kind of panicked, because I certainly could not afford such a luxury. But speaking with my therapist about it got me to the realization that my mom was going to pay for it, and if she didn't, I was going to go to everyone in her family and ask them for help paying for it.

My mom has means. Her idea of "broke" is having thousands of dollars in investments, and a six-figure retirement savings account, and full ownership of a $300,000 house, and access to plenty of money, but making all of these things more of a priority in her spending than having fun, or anything irresponsible like that. She's the martyr.

Granted, she had a rough time growing up, and living with a sadistic sociopath for thirty years was probably a bit testy at times. Not even to mention having to raise me - the belligerent, drugged out, slutty daughter that I was. She already owns the American Dream, though. Must she really consider herself in dire financial straits because she doesn't have a condo in Florida or an airplane to fly down there, and the next door neighbor does?

She really must. She has quite a talent of balancing victimization with triumph, real or imagined. She can think about all the horrible things she's been through, and how hard she's had to work, and all she wants is a measly trip to Greece (or a new coat, or a car, or a refrigerator, etc.), so she's going to spend the money on herself, dammit, and not feel guilty about it.

I mean, wouldn't it just be easier to go buy a coat? Or go on a trip? Or replace the 30 year old refrigerator? She will spend hundreds of dollars on something, then bring it home and say, "I saved this much money on this thing because I got it on sale, so I had to buy it," and she will feel proud because she didn't just spend hundreds of dollars on herself, she actually really got money back because of the sale price.

I wonder if she was this way about money with my brother and sister. I don't know.

Anyway, after that talk with my therapist about going to the mental hospital, I went to my mom's house and told her that my dad sexually abused me, and that I wanted to go to a mental hospital, and I wanted her to pay for it, and I didn't ever want to pay her back.

She said, "I don't know what you think I'm made of," referring to the large expense I was asking her to acquire and implying that she was not "made" of money. So I told her my backup plan of going to her brothers and telling them what happened to me growing up, and asking them to help me pay for my hospitalization.

She changed her mind about paying for it pretty quickly. She said, "alright, I'll figure it out."

And she did - she was really great, and I only saw how she was there for me in such a substantial way when I really needed it. I chose not to acknowledge the part where I had to pretty much blackmail her to get her to do it, and I chose to ignore the $10,000 receipts she kept giving me "for my records."

I chose to look past the part where she actually had to make herself cry when I told her what my dad did to me.

I chose to look past the part where she said over and over, "I'll do anything you need," and then didn't.

I chose to ignore the part where she didn't do anything -ANYTHING- when I told her what the neighbors had done to me.

I chose to look past the part where I felt the anger and betrayal and knew she did something to me, and I knew where she did it, but couldn't quite remember what it was, and she got really pissed and defensive when I asked her about it.

This list could go on and on and on. It really could - I keep thinking of new ways she dicked me over before I even finish writing down the last.

And I still ask myself, "what are you doing? Are you crazy?" before I publicize anything she might be offended by.

Why do I do that?

Then I think of what she did to me to "prove" her "loyalty" to my dad, of how she hurt me in order to get points in a relationship that was nothing more than a giant mind game, and it doesn't matter why I do that or not.

If I hesitate to say something that might offend my brother, I think of him telling me that he is a human lie-detector so my mom couldn't possibly be lying, which meant that I was fabricating all of my accusations against her because I am "just like him," (referring to, of course, our monster of a father).

If I hesitate to say something that might offend my sister, I think of her trying to convince me that what I was saying couldn't possibly be true, and then trying to convince me that I'd had a "psychotic break," and that no, what I told her our mother did to me did not make her concerned for the welfare of her own daughters, my nieces.

And I think of all that pain I felt toward them, and remember that no, I don't give a shit if anything I write may cause my mom to lose her income, and no, I don't give a shit if anything I write might make my brother wonder if its actually him that's like our dad, and no I don't give a shit if anything I write might make my sister look bad in the eyes of the world.  

And then I wonder about the legal ramifications they could have against me, and remember that we live in the United States of America, where fathers rape and sell their daughters, and mothers sacrifice their children to save themselves, and where siblings are hurt, too, but choose not to see it, and so side with their abusers, AND where I am free to write all I want about it and publish it any way I want, because it is ALL TRUE.

I'm getting a little patriotic now. It must be getting close to the 4th of July.

part 109, or "friends are the family you get to choose"

I'm feeling stronger about my past, about the things that have happened to me, or that I have experienced. My past is starting to feel more powerful and less incapacitating. It feels like I'm standing on a really ugly, but really enduring and formidable, chunk of metal.

Being away and out of touch with my mom and sister and brother has been very good for me. It has been really quite heartbreaking as well, but definitely very good. They were the last external reminders I had that I am crazy, or manipulative, or evil, or spiteful, or vengeful, or a liar.

I very much understand that I will not ever be able to say with certainty that I am NOT crazy, or manipulative, or evil, or spiteful, or vengeful, or a liar; these are all characteristic of human imperfection, and I'm an imperfect human. I am also learning, though, that I can define who I am. I don't have to take the words of mean and horrible people and accept them as who I am.

Mean and horrible people are mean and horrible. Does it suck that my mom and siblings happen to be some of those mean and horrible people? Of course it does. But they are still mean and horrible.

My mom is one of six children who are now all married adults. I have ten aunts and uncles who have known me since I was a baby, and who have known who my mom is better than anyone. Not one of them has even tried to contact me since I came out with the shit my mom did to me.

I also have eight cousins on my mom's side. I don't feel like I ever got to know them very well - we did not spend much time together growing up since we lived so far away from all of them. I don't know how well any of them ever got to know my mom, either, but for christ's sake - does every one of them actually believe that I am the monster my mom says I am?

Every one of my aunts and uncles and cousins has met my dad, and not one of them liked him - at anytime, ever. They all know my mom; my aunts and uncles know my mom, and they know what kind of kid she was. I mean, people don't just start being as fucked up and twisted as my mom once they reach adulthood.

My mom's siblings know exactly what kind of childhood she had, they know what it was like growing up in that house - they all know what it's like to not feel safe in their own home, or to not trust those closest to them will not hurt them.

I don't know exactly what it was like to grow up in my mom's childhood home, but I do know there is a lot - A LOT - of alcohol rolling around in our blood. I know there was violence and devastation before me or my dad ever came into the picture. I know there was terror. I always thought that I knew there was love, too, but now I am not so sure.

My mom has been on a bitch fest for the past thirty years about how we always had to travel to see her side of the family, and they never came to see us or stay in our house, or how her sisters hang out a lot more with each other than they do with her, and blah blah blah. As much as she wants to know intrinsically that she is an important part of that family, she seems to have a hard time believing that is true.

Why is that?

Why can't my mom ever really be happy for anyone, even for herself?

Why can't my mom be happy at all?

I have my theories, but I will never know my mom like her brothers and sisters do. I will never have the experience of being in the same time and place that my mom was shaped and molded into a person.

Maybe that's why I am very angry and hurt that none of that side of the family has even tried to email me, or show any other kind of support - they fucking know her. They know what kind of person she is. Is she really so intimidating and scary that not one of them will look past her and let me know that they don't think I'm crazy or a liar?

I've never asked anyone to believe what I have said about the abuse I've experienced. I know evil people can't hide the dark side of them for long. They don't know how to be happy, beneficent, empathetic people; they can fake it, but not to everyone all the time, because it is not real.

I've felt confident - and still do - that I don't have to convince anyone of anything. I can tell my story, share the truth, reveal things about bad people, and not have to worry about who believes me or not because I know it's the truth. They know it's the truth. They fundamentally know what they did to me, and what kind of people they are, and that happiness has not been taken from them - they've traded it in for some sort of twisted human pleasure at some time in their lives.

They know they are not victims, and anyone who spends any significant amount of time with them and who does not insist on having their heads shoved so far up their asses they can see the back of their teeth, also knows that people like my mom are not victims. Maybe they were at one time, but they aren't now.

My aunts and my uncles, and maybe my cousins, all know what kind of person my mom is. I've never asked anyone to stand against her, and I know they are her family, but they are MY FAMILY too.

Another thing that I know is that people who have been hurt like I've been hurt don't say out loud what happened to them because they know (or at least fear) that they will be ostracized from their family. Being ostracized by your own flesh and blood HURTS, and maybe some people don't think it is worth that pain to expose the truth.

But jesus fucking christ - there is a point in all of this that simply comes down to what is wrong and what is right.

I used to think of my mom's side of the family as the good side. I didn't really get to know anyone on my dad's side of the family - I haven't even met all of my cousins - but I knew my dad, and with nothing to show otherwise, I assumed his family was like him. But I was wrong. And I'm very grateful that I was wrong, because even if those people are virtual strangers to me, they are my family, and they have been so, so supportive of me. My DAD's side of the family - they are who reached out to me, even though they never really had an opportunity to know what kind of person I am.

My DAD's side - the side of me I thought was poison running through my veins, the side I hated to be part of so much that I couldn't stand the sound of my maiden name, even as a small child - my DAD's name. I've always wanted to feel more like I came from my mom's side of the family - they were the people I actually knew, and compared to my dad, they were normal.

But they are also gutless cowards, and if there is one thing I know I am not, it is a gutless coward. I could not have inherited my tenacity and determination and desperation for justice from my mom's side of the family - they have made it clear that their priorities revolve around what makes their lives the easiest.

And yeah, I am very hurt and disappointed about that. Very, VERY hurt.

part 108, or "Sawyer is super dreamy"

I was watching Lost (we have the whole series on DVD) last night, and I was at the part where Locke has the dream about Boone being all covered in blood and chanting about Theresa and some stairs. The scene started without defining the context as a dream, so it seemed real, and then there are flashes of Boone covered in blood and not covered in blood, and Locke's mother is off in distance telling him something, and then Locke is in a wheelchair, and then it's all like, "arghhhhhahhh!" and he wakes up.

The flashes when Boone was covered in blood and not covered in blood triggered something for me, but I'm not exactly sure what, except that it was very similar to how I remember some things, especially when there is blood. Here is the thing about me and blood: I've seen A LOT of it. It involves that one thing that I am not comfortable sharing in my blog yet, but there has definitely been a lot of blood involved.

My dad has hurt other people while I was present, and even encouraged me to participate in the hurting, as though I was his protégé sadist.

I've been exposed to these specific instances of violence at least four times between the age of 4 and 15 (I'm pretty sure). I say "at least" because even though I thought I was done remembering, I wasn't, and I'm not ever going to be sure what else is out there. And most of the shit I'm remembering now is absolutely beyond comprehension. So I don't really like to talk about it.

However, I do think a lot about it, and all the other shit, and what it means to me in a philosophical way (I don't ever really decide to be philosophical, it just happens). Its kind of like I'm becoming aware of the information like I'm being dealt a hand of exceptionally horrifying cards. Each time I get a new card, I am very much affected physically, I guess like a shock, and the separateness (dissociation - whatever) comes down on me like a blanket.

I am still able to interact with the world, although my functioning get quite spotty at these times, and my mind is not pulled all the way into the memory to stew in something the feels like sticky mud. What I can do is, turn the card over so I can't see the image, and add it to the cards I've already been dealt.

Every now and then I will turn over one of the cards and see things that I had not known were there - normal things that are stuck in the middle of brutal chaos, like getting dusty red clay on my white shoes when I was five. I am able to just kind of meander back to the actual experience, and it eventually gets played over and over again, enough times to where I remember something new about each of the cards each time I go back there.

I need to interject something very quickly - I don't have any trauma-related memories of dusty red clay getting on my white shoes when I was five (not yet, anyway - fuck; maybe that's what's coming next. Sigh) I just used the dusty red clay thing for an example because I can't think of an actual memory that would not have to be explained in some detail to put into context.

Also, as I was just writing that, I realized that I don't really remember being five. I remember turning five, and I remember kindergarten - actually it seems that all of my memories of being five are associated only with kindergarten, and Letter People, and the milk cart. Huh.

Interjections aside, being able to look at the events of my past in this way gives me a lot more objectivity - it is a lot easier for me to see exactly how fucked up it was. It also gives me an opportunity to feel pain, a little bit at a time.

The whole thing has a very sobering effect, and I find myself not laughing when other people do, and I don't find myself feeling disbelief at news of atrocities like other people do.

I am, though, really, really, really sensitive about situations in which harm can come to people. I don't like weapons - I mean, I know what they can do to a human being, and shit like that happening is not something I want to be aware of in the context of a film or book or tv show or whatever, because it is already such a big part of my real life. It may have been twenty or thirty years ago that those things became a part of my life, but that shit just doesn't fade like other things do.

It seems to me that most people (that I know, at least) are affected a lot differently than I am when it comes to violence. Its strange, because I don't get shocked at the brutality people unleash on each other, but I get really shocked when I hear that a seven year old got a rifle for Christmas, and when people say mean things to their children, and how powerless kids are over their own safety and mental health, and when I hear about parents who didn't realize there was a problem until after their kid has killed him/herself.

I get shocked at how many things most people are not shocked by, but I accept the occurrence of real-life brutality as something that is real and that happens to people every day.

It seems like people can't get enough of manufactured violence, but try to put the news about any war at all on the television at a sports bar and the tv may as well be turned off.

I don't know - Lost has a lot of stuff in it that I am extra horrified by (I mean, almost all of those characters' parents were such cruel assholes). The real news does, too - every fucking day.

I don't really understand things like the hour-by-hour status updates of a white, blonde graduate student who has a flesh-eating disease on all the front pages for days and days, but a mother chasing down and shooting four of her children to death, and then committing suicide is an event to tsk tsk about for thirty seconds, and then put out of your mind.

I would really like to say that my is point here is merely to illustrate the difference in my comprehension alongside of other peoples' comprehension, and has nothing to do with getting all high and mighty and looking down on people and judging them for seeing only what they want to see, but that pretty much is what I'm doing.

I don't think people should feel compelled to shower concern on all of those suffering and less fortunate, but I do really think people might think twice before smacking the shit out of their kids or telling them to shut the hell up. I mean, those are the things that are doing the real damage, the things that breed evil and hate a tiny little drop at a time.

part 107, or "i can see the silver lining around the clouds better today"

I'm feeling a bit better these days. My birthday/Mother's Day has passed and I am much less anxious and nauseous. On that day I was really sick - just incredibly nauseous - and I didn't really get out of bed much at all. I just slept a lot and got waited on hand and foot, which helped to make up for feeling so bad.

I figured out that I definitely have a honey issue. I've really amped up the honey use since I found out I was allergic to pretty much everything, and it turns out I have an allergy (and/or intolerance) to honey, too. It feels kind of the same way eating anything with eggs or wheat - it kind of sucks out my energy, and I get nauseous for awhile. It also eventually gave me heartburn, which I hardly ever have at all anymore, and it made me think about how I used to eat antacids all day long, every day, and how much physical pain I was in every day and did not really find it unusual. I didn't realize how shitty I felt until I didn't feel that way anymore.

I don't know if I felt so sick on my birthday because of the honey, or the anniversary of an exceptionally heinous experience; I think maybe both. My stomach HURT! But the pain and all the sleeping and being waited on helped me to hardly think about what happened on my 8th birthday, which was the exceptionally heinous experience.

My dad is such a fucking asshole. I find myself being a bit wistful that he's already dead, because I still want to kill him sometimes. Doing all the shit he did to me and let other people do to me and made me watch him doing to other people is, I feel, sufficient to melt my brain and make me afraid of everything and not know what was real. Why did he have to actually plan the exceptionally heinous experience on my fucking birthday? And tell me it was my birthday present? And that he went through a lot of trouble to set it all up for me?

I hate that I actually felt bad for not appreciating his "gift," but that was the power he had over me until I was in my twenties. It is one of the reasons I want to kill him.

Another big reason I want to kill him is how he incorporated me into the awful, twisted things he did to other people. He enjoyed doing that - hurting people; I guess he thought it was part of his divinity or something. He wanted me to enjoy it, too. I don't know why - so I could be his protégé? So I would always feel like a horrific person? So I would feel responsible for it all, giving him fantastic leverage against me telling anyone what happened? For shits and giggles?

Probably all of those things.

But I mean, all of that ON MY BIRTHDAY? Its just another of those really shitty ways he poured salt in my wounds, which he also loved doing. He loved to injure me and then mutilate the hell out of the wound - I really think he liked the mutilating a lot more than the initial injuring.

There are so many of those shitty things, things that just tip the scales from wretched pain to pure, white, searing soul-crushing. He loved crushing souls.

Anyway, I used to love my birthday. It was a celebration of my birth - of ME. I always felt good about myself on my birthday without feeling ashamed about it. That's what that day was for me - just the one day, and I loved that day.

Now I get so sick and anxious on my birthday I can't even remain conscious, let alone get out of bed and be happy about it. What a fucking DICK.

I am much more comfortable talking about wanting to kill him now than I was before he was already dead. I have thought about that a lot, like "what's the process there? Was I too afraid of him to actually believe I would go through with it? Was I still, deep down, the eternally-devoted daughter? Did I just fundamentally not want to hurt him?"

It didn't take me long to figure out the answers to those questions: no. The reason I was uncomfortable talking about wanting to kill him before he was dead was because I didn't want to get sent to the mental hospital again. The reason I didn't kill him is because I didn't want to go to prison. That's it. It is really that simple.

I've often fantasized about shooting him in the middle of his forehead. For some reason, it makes me feel very calm, even to the point where I have considered how steady my hand would be holding the gun despite being a shaky person the rest of the time. Sometimes I start to react to that thought like a regular person, and begin to feel sick and scared about wanting to kill someone - truly, sincerely wanting to kill someone.

But then I remember again what he did to me and to those other people, and what he let other people do to me. I remember that I don't want to kill a person, I want to kill my dad, and then I feel calm again. It had not even crossed my mind that I would find a reason to want him to be alive still - before he died, it was incomprehensible to me that I would want anything other than him being dead, even if I killed him myself.

Now I long for him to be alive again so I can kill him.

I don't regret not killing him. I logically know that killing him would have caused so much more pain than just waiting for him to die (which fortunately happened sooner than later). Hurting people has consequences - it chews at your soul whether the person deserved it or not. I'm tired of getting my soul chewed, and so I do not regret not killing him.

But my birthday was pretty difficult this year, especially since it was on Mother's Day, and when I turned 8, that was also on Mother's Day.

Two things made me feel soooo much better, though. These two things made it bearable:

The first one is that Jonny took me to a reading and book-signing by Augusten Burroughs. I got to meet him and give him a hug and he signed my copy of his new book with "Happy Birthday!" I also signed a copy of my own book (the one that I wrote) and gave it to him. It was exciting, I guess because he is famous. But the reason I feel the need to be exposed to him - by reading his books or physically meeting him or whatever - is because there are not so many people in the world who know that kind of pain and are still coherent enough to talk about it.

During the Q&A, he said "sometimes the pain is just so big…" I don't remember what the question was, or whether or not he said anything before or after that phrase, but it seemed like everyone just zeroed in and everything got quiet and he said that about the pain that is just so big. There is no way to describe pain that big. Most people will never know pain that big. It is pain that is just so purely PAINFUL, that there aren't really any words that could follow that statement. Because it is a statement. It started out sounding like an explanation, "sometimes the pain is just so big…because such and such and whatnot."

But it's really just a statement: "Sometimes the pain is just so big."

It meant a lot to me to be able to be there.

The second thing that made my birthday more bearable was that I started that blog I spoke about in my last post (or the post before that, I don't remember), the one about having a shitty mom. It's called "I have a shitty mom," and you can read it at ihaveashittymom.blogspot.com. I sent out an evite on facebook telling everyone about my new blog that I was launching, and I did it on Mother's Day, in honor of my shitty mom.

The shitty mom blog is really more gossip and judging people who make spectacles of themselves, and not so much about pain, so it has been really fun to work on. And I LOVED announcing the publication on Mother's Day. Which was also my birthday.

It meant a lot to me to publically and definitively state just how shitty my mom is.

Now that my birthday has passed (and I am one year farther away from being 15), I really am feeling better.

part 106, or "googling counts as extensive research, right?"

I have a shitty mom.

I heard a story once about some program where prison inmates could send their moms a Mother's Day card for free. The program was so successful, they did it again on Father's Day, but nobody wanted to send a card to their dad.

I'm kind of encountering the same type of issue right now: I googled "I have a shitty mom" and it came up with 15 matches, all consisting of personal narratives on a forum or blog or online journal. When I googled "I have a shitty dad," it came up with about 1660 matches (one of which was this fantastic quote on tumbler:  I really get the character of Loki because I have a shitty dad and awful siblings too).

The shitty dad matches were also primarily from blogs or forums or online journals, but there were so many of them - I mean, I have an exceptionally shitty (dead) dad, too, but are all moms really not as shitty as mine?

I think I will start a blog about shitty moms, maybe even a facebook page or something. It could have a special launch on Mother's Day. I'm really pretty sure I am actually going to do that, so look out for it on my blog list if you are interested.

One thing that is really difficult about having such a shitty mom is that I cannot identify with people who think their moms are wonderful - the large majority of the population thinks their moms are wonderful. My own kids think their mother is wonderful (*heart*), but I can't relate to that. I'm actually shocked on a regular basis with the sweet things those boys do for me.

I take being a mom very seriously. I know exactly how much a mom can hurt a kid before the relationship is completely demolished. It's a lot - kids put up with and look past A LOT of really horrible things about their moms. For me, it's not so much about knowing my kids love me even if I've been shitty to them, but being aware of what it is to be a shitty mom, and knowing from first-hand experience how little it takes to stick a tiny dagger into a child's heart.

I've learned (very slowly) that is true for almost all human beings, but the thing with kids is that permanent damage is being done that will shape their lives in some way - they haven't learned to be cynical or had an opportunity to become callouse. When the damage is from a kid's own mom, I think maybe it is about three thousand times worse than if it's from any other adult.

It's strange how easily people can so easily come to hate their dads, but simultaneously cling so tightly to the notion of unconditional love for and from their mothers. It's not even like dads are getting a bad rap, because some dads really are very shitty. But I think mothers get away with too much.

I don't know - I guess I just don't ever want to do something shitty to my kid and then blow it off because I know he will get over it because I'm his mom. That's a very shitty thing to do to a kid, all in itself - refusing to acknowledge that being a shitty mom does actual harm to children.

Before I quit drinking, I would spank my youngest son (you know, for "discipline"). One time I hit him much harder than I had intended, probably because I was drunk. I remember it very clearly, though. My son remembers it, too. Sometimes out of the blue (and often in public) he will say, "do you remember that time you hit me so hard? That was really bad." All I can do is tell him that it wasn't right for me to hit him, no matter what, because even though I know I'm his mom and I could very easily blow that incident off (it was just a swat, he was being bad, spare the rod, blah, blah, blah), I don't want him to believe that it is okay for anyone to hurt him.

There is a lot of pain in life regardless of who you are, pain that most of us have little or no control over. Why would I want my kids to believe they have to accept the additional pain of someone hurting them, or being shitty to them?

I don't think that I am an exceptionally wonderful mother. I don't even know how to cook, I don't do laundry, I stay in my bed the majority of each day, I provide no structure for my kids, I keep forgetting to make dental appointments (and appointments to get caught up on immunizations, and remember to order contact lenses so they don't wear the one pair for six months and get horrible and blinding eye infections), and it is hard for me to let my kids even go in the front yard to play, let alone go out into the world and learn about it for themselves.

I'm fucked up. I am not like other moms. The only substantial thing I can consistently provide for my kids is love and admiration. Those are two things I didn't get, though, so even if I do feel a lot of shame for not being a "normal" mom, I do my best to give them that foundation of knowing intrinsically that they are human beings who matter and who deserve to be happy.

When my oldest son was little, I would forget to feed him. I eventually taught him how to pour a bowl of cereal and get some milk in there, and he was making his own corndogs in the microwave before he was five years old. Fortunately, I wasn't a single mom for too long, but it is still hard for me to remember stuff like feeding them. My husband actually makes them sandwiches on the days he is at work and they are home with me; he puts them in baggies and puts stickers and their names on them, so that when they get hungry all they have to do is open the fridge and get that sandwich.

He reminds me to eat, too - healthy stuff, because I have a hard time remembering how to care for myself, too. He's pretty awesome.

Anyway, my mom had breakfast on the table every morning, dinner on the table every night, and made and kept appointments for me and my brother and sister like a professional. I can't remember a single time that she forgot to feed us, or that we had to sleep in dirty beds, or that we didn't have clean underwear, or that there was ever a speck of mold or mildew in the tub or toilet. She paid the bills on time and made logical decisions and was there for us every day when we came home from school.

But she is still such a horrendously shitty mom. At the very least, I feel I can define myself as the kind of mom my mom was not, and that makes me feel really good.

I'm going to go work on that "shitty mom" blog now.

part 105, or "rest in peace, sweet beastie boy"

So Adam Yauch died. I am kind of surprised at the level of my shock and sadness about his passing…but I guess not really. Beastie Boys have been intertwined with my life for over 20 years. They started out as these raunchy little punk-ass bitches, and then really grew into themselves. You know, like me.

I really am thrown off about this. I have been knocked back to younger days, from the crippling disaster of junior high school (Paul’s Boutique), through not graduating from high school (Check Your Head), through the pregnancy and infancy of my first baby (Ill Communication), to wrapping up the emotional hurricane that was me in my 20’s (Hello Nasty).

When I saw an article about the Beastie Boys Anthology, I was all like, “what?” Aren’t anthologies only for old people? Then I was like, “oh,” because it made me realize how much of kid I’m not anymore, and so am legitimately privy to anthologies. When Jonny got it for me, I was very excited. I really loved reading all of the different accounts of what each song meant to each of those guys. I guess when I know what something means to someone else, it kind of bonds them to me – it’s so simple and human to have something mean something to me, and I have that connection with other people I learn about, even when I am certain our paths will never cross.

When Hot Sauce Committee Part Two came out, I realized I hadn’t really listened to any new Beastie Boys in years. It reminded me again of how much people can change, like living different lifetimes over the course of thirty years. Thirty years really is not a long time, but people are so malleable and mercurial (triple points for the correct application of two fancy words in one sentence) that we truly evolve (as opposed to getting old) from the time we are born, and depending on what kind of people we are, even to beyond our deaths.

I’ve been thinking about how the traditional concept of death involves so many bad things. Violence and blood and pain and tragedy and loss and evil and dark; I just don’t feel like that is what death is about. Maybe I am just getting older and less naïve (or more naïve) about it all, but I really associate comfort and peace with death.

No matter how shitty anyone’s life has been, you get to rest when it’s over. It’s a light at the end of a tunnel, offering up hope because when you’re dead, you don’t hurt anymore.

I suppose I’ve been writing a lot about death, and maybe I have an affliction from it. I don’t know, but it’s nothing new – I guess recently I am just getting more comfortable with thinking and writing and talking about it. I feel like it is alarming to people, my fixation on death. Which people, I don’t know, but I feel like I have to not talk about death so much because I will have to convince people that I’m not going to off myself.

Not any time soon, anyway. One thing I have been really fearing the past year or so is aging to the point that I am unable to care for myself. The idea of anyone wiping my own shit off of my own very white, very wrinkled, and very incapable-of-making-it-to-a-toilet ass, scares the bejesus out of me.

I feel so much shame at the idea of someone other than myself being that intimate with parts of my body that I still feel unfamiliar with as an adult. I suppose that’s something to bring up in therapy…

There’s that old fish guy on Spongebob Squarepants who is always going around saying, “I don’t want to be a burden,” and I suppose it’s funny because it realistically parallels life, and I don’t think it is funny now, but I almost pissed myself laughing the first time I saw that old fish guy saying that. I can’t stand the idea that I will one day be the old fish guy who is largely ignored, but still manages to be a pain in the ass, and is constantly pondering the fact that they are still alive.

The phrase “I ain’t goin out like that” is what I hear in my head when I think about my mind and body getting to a certain point of decay. I think it’s a gangster or cowboy thing, that phrase, and I am not a gangster or a cowboy, but it’s such a succinct and perfect phrase to characterize how I feel about getting old.

I also roll around the phrase “I ain’t goin out like no punk bitch,” which is a line from a House of Pain song, and those guys aren’t gangsters or cowboys, either, so I guess that phrase would be more apt to apply to me, but it has too many words. “I ain’t goin out like that” is definitely how I feel about getting old.

What I’m really concerned with is my mind. My mind is not in the best condition for someone who is only 35 years old. It’s cognitively a bit fucked, and that’s not going to get any better as I get older. Part of my brain is already the soup of dementia from all of the trauma I’ve experienced. I seriously don’t think I will be able to safely drive a car by the time I’m 50.

I don’t fear getting older so much as I fear the cognitive deterioration, having to live with the not knowing – is this real? Am I supposed to be here? Am I doing something wildly inappropriate? Are people staring at me like I’m a total freak? What exactly was it that I was doing anyway? Is it really right now, or some time in the past and I’m thinking of the future and that’s how I got here?

The not knowing is a heinous, motherfucking nightmare, and I’m not going back to that place in my mind. I’ve spent most of my life there, asking myself those questions over and over again, and not knowing the answers, and I am simply NOT. GOING. BACK.

Sigh.

I will be impressed if I make it to 65 with my right mind still intact. I’ve been impressed at how I made it to 35 and have never been in a straightjacket, so … who the hell knows? I don’t have to think about it now, though. Now I am trying to just concentrate on being alive, and being right here right now.

I’ve actually gotten really good at that, but sometimes when someone dies, I get to thinking about getting old and decrepit. I know I am going to die. I know everyone I love and care about is going to die. I know people will miss me when I’m gone, and I already miss people who are already gone.

I have figured out though, if I think about what I’ve been through and where I am now – my experiences, my intentions, my best at doing the best I can – I find my life is really very substantial, at least enough to know that dying doesn’t scare me any more than living does, and I’m going to be okay.