Introduction
I'm new to this whole being 40 thing. Every time I think I'm getting it, life pulls a rug out from under my feet. Leaving me, once again, with a sore ass, and a bruised ego. Life's not so bad, though. I have great kids, a loving boyfriend with a cat and a job, and a few good friends. Which, really, is all a person could ask for and reasonably expect to achieve. So, I feel like I haven't done so bad.
Considering how things could have turned out, that is.
My mother and I were on the phone shortly after my father died and she said, "The day you were born, was the day my life ended". At first I was taken aback by the statement, and calmly asked her how I was supposed to feel about that. She said she didn't know, but it was true. Later in an email, I told her I was glad that she was a zombie. She didn't see the humor in it.
Maybe it was true for her, maybe having a baby wasn't in the big plan. She had just bought her new Chevy pickup truck, and a new Shetland Sheepdog that she had big plans for on the show circuit. She had been married to a Navy seaman for almost a year but already saw that he was a player. Maybe she was even working on her exit strategy. Then BAM, life throws you a baby bump.
I get it, I do. Options weren't a big thing in 1975. So, I understand. Maybe she thought that having a baby would straighten out her wayward husband, and that's why she held on in misery for a few more years. Sadly, all that regret and anger poured into a tiny vessel.
I remember returning some of her emotional waste to her in twisted ways. I walked home alone from kindergarten at 4 years old. My parents had divorced, mom had to get a job, and daycare was hard to come by. I would wander slowly home around the noon hour. A couple of times, I found dead birds and brought them home. I would creep into the shaded dimness of my mothers room, where she lay sound asleep after a long night of working at a bank. I would hold the bird inches from her face, and begin whispering, then get louder, demanding that she gaze upon my prize.
The shock, screaming, and horror on her face made it all worth the ass-beating I would later receive. I can't begin to tell you how many times I must have driven my mother half mad. I wandered off to other people's houses, took meandering strolls to new and exciting neighborhoods, and played in construction sites, all to be found in the early evening hours by an officer and given an entertaining ride home. What else does a 4-year-old do when it loosed upon the world with no supervision?
I was better off without my parents attention. Before my father took his leave of us, he had tried unsuccessfully, numerous times, to "lose" me. He left me in stores, restaurants, friends houses, and even on the side of the road. Somehow, I always found my way home. Like a cat that clawed it's way out of the bag, swam to the shore, and ran back to the hand that threw it in. I became adept at hiding in small spaces where they couldn't find me. They often didn't notice I was gone.
The year before the divorce, He was feeding his parrot peanuts. Normal enough, unless you have a child with a deadly allergy. Normal enough, until you hand that child a shelled peanut. Then, nothing is normal. Not ever again. That child saw the other side. That child saw what he did, what the intended outcome was, and that child came back. That innocent soul was forever darkened by a force outside of itself. Tainted by the hatred harbored for it from the day of its birth, Christened in contempt, and protected by other worldly forces.
