My Mom, Her Boyfriend Harry, and My Son

The "what-I-don't-know-can't-hurt-me" approach to life is designed to help one "not feel pain" when reality - current or past - is (or seems) too painful to face. But whatever the ostrich is hiding from is sure to eat the ostrich nonetheless. It's time to take my head out of my - sand - and shine a light into that dark and scary cave of childhood.

Synopsis: A dragon keeps a damsel in distress hidden away where he tortures her nearly to death. Her children respond to her screams of terror with curdling screams of their own. The dragon stomps out of its cloister, heaves over to the eldest (the boy), grabs him by the neck, and violently flings him across the cave against the wall where he slides down into a motionless lump on the floor. The monstrous fire-breather then leaps upon the older girl, its weight atop her, stopping her gasps with its tight grasp around her neck, too, until her body ceases to quiver. The dragon doesn't see the youngest girl hiding in a dark corner, peeing her pants. It snorts and retreats to continue its torture of the damsel. The children awake dizzily and retreat into their fantasy worlds - the boy, Stephen King; the girls, Walt Disney.

The long-awaited knight in shining armor never arrived, but that didn't stop me from continuing to fantasize about being rescued by an older man into adulthood. At age ten, I started dreaming about strange grown men climbing through the window at night to whisk me away and take care of me forever. There were a few unsavory characters who entered the scene here and there, but none of them saved me: I was molested eight times from age four to age twelve, mostly by drug addicts and alcoholics (and once by my brother, when I was four, but he was seven, and I just don't think he knew any better).

I haven't written about the year my mom left our dad when I was eight, and we spent three months homeless and living on hot dogs with the aforementioned alcoholic-abusive Fiery Dragon (who was really, well, "The Carpenter on Peppermint Schnapps"...I'll call him Harry). My mother did leave him when I was fourteen and took our younger sister with her; my brother went to live with his heroin-addict best friend and I went to live with our dad and his abusive, meth-addicted girlfriend. So my reality, as a child, just wasn't all that great. But, unfortunately, it didn't stop there. After high school, I fell in love with a heroin-addict-alcoholic who wasn't really abusive until about two years into the relationship. Then, before I knew it, I was drinking and using heroin, too -- and now I was my mother. Once I saw that, I left him, after being with him for ten years. Then, I was back on my knight-in-shining-armor quest. The fairy tale really just turned out to be one long fucking nightmare.

There is of course a problem with accepting a myth-story (fake = "having a false or misleading appearance; fraudulent") solution to my problem. But it wasn't until I tried to apply that "solution", repeatedly experiencing disillusioned failure, did the reality fairy pull me from my blindness and blind me with its light (you'll get that if you read Plato's Cave Allegory from his Republic; there are no fairies in it, but it's quite apropos).

And further still, there's a problem with the problem to which I'm accepting a problematic solution. The problem itself is fake, atleast now. As an adult, I don't need to be rescued. And if I really feel like I do, well, I've got the roles all mixed up. I'm the knight in shining armor, not the abused princess or damsel in distress (unless I make myself those by continuing to chase these nasty Princess Charmers). And while I thought I'd be slaying dragons when I shone the light into the cave of my life, what I'm actually finding is a trove of treasure.

Many who come from dark childhoods are afraid to look (that is what fantasy is for). But one of my best friends just killed herself because of the torment she was feeling, not wanting to look at the upbringing that shaped her into the love addict she became (so she could change herself), and not able to cope with her Prince Charming leaving her for another woman.

I decided to brave it. I'm here to save myself, after all. So I started with my brother, because with him lies my first dark memory that tormented me long into adulthood. Surprisingly, writing about it gave me an immediate precious gift that I didn't expect.

I had my son with me a couple weeks ago, a day after writing that post (I share custody of him with his dad). I had written about my brother's dinosaur and space books, and then I realized that I had gotten my son a couple of dinosaur and space books for his fourth birthday in August! But -- having been so involved in my pursuits of Prince Charming the past few months (besides, um, the past 21 years) -- not once had I read them to him. I remembered how the things my brother used to do with me constituted my entire world, and the question, I am my son's world - what world am I giving him? came up and gently tapped me on the shoulder and begged for my attention.

So I read to him, intently. Later in the day, I was proud of myself. Because I have started writing about my childhood, I also thought: If my son grows up and writes about his past, what will he write about? It was a way for me to change myself here and now and be the kind of mother I need to be for him.

With resolve, I began to invoke in myself again The Knight in Shining Armor, for him. I do know this: he won't write about men beating his mother until she chokes on her own blood, or men choking him until he passes out. He won't write about his mother always being behind a closed door, or about her being asleep for most of the day, or drinking 100-proof Southern Comfort for breakfast. He won't write about jumping into dumpsters for cans, crushing them, and taking them with his mom's boyfriend to recycle for hot dogs, beans, cigarettes and Peppermint Schnapps. He won't write about his mom telling him that they were "going on vacation" and then leaving his dad and not seeing his dad for a whole year, or ending up in a shelter for battered and homeless women and children for a few months until his mom got back together with her abuser. He won't write about fending for himself and microwaving a couple tortillas with cheese or putting chili powder on a head of lettuce and calling it dinner. He won't write about having to wear dirty second-hand clothing and being teased every day at school for it. He won't write about only getting to see his dad every other weekend and his dad's meth addict girlfriend throwing kittens against the bedroom door and killing them. He won't write about how he got an F in Art in 5th grade for attention and asked his mom to spank him so he could see if she cared, but then have her say, "That's fine, honey, I'm sure you did your best." He won't write about having a 16 year-old girlfriend when he's 12, or a 21 year-old girlfriend when he's 16 -  at least, not if I can help it.

I let my son see his dad more than every other weekend. I have conversations with him, teach him things, and let him know how much he means to me. I have a job, a car, and I take him places. When he grows older, I'll be there when he gets awards in school. I'll be there to pick him up from soccer practice (or whatever sport he chooses, if he wants to play a sport). If he joins a choir, I'll go to his performances. I'll make sure he gets put in honors classes. If he gets an "F" in Art in fifth grade just to try and get my attention, I'll give it to him, and ground him for a week. If he gets placed in the 4th-6th grade county spelling bee as a 3rd grader, I'll take him myself instead of making him ride the bus with all the older kids and no lunch. I won't let us be homeless for a half a year and call it a camping trip. I won't move 600 miles away when he's 14 and only see him once every three years. I'll be there when he gets married, and when his wife has their first child. I won't be drunk every time he calls me on the phone, sometimes driving, and talk to him about my new alcoholic boyfriend punching me in the nose.

I was pushing my son on a swing at the park the day after. And I realized something else - I don't have even one memory of my mom ever taking me to a park. I have hardly any memories of being with my mom at all. It's no wonder that I've been so desperate to find some kind of love wherever I can. I thought of this just when, after pushing my son on the swing for 30 minutes and wanting to stop and sit down at the table and let him find a playmate to run around with, he asked me to do another "underdog" (my dad did take us to parks and used to do "underdogs" with us on the swings).

So I made myself keep pushing. Besides, I was really enjoying the conversation. My son was giving me a full synopsis of the movie The Goonies that he had just watched for the first time at his dad's house, and it absolutely tickled me (it was one of my very favorite movies growing up). But, finally, he did get tired of swinging, and he did find a playmate with whom to play with his three Godzillas and two dinosaur figures, and I could finally do what I'd been dreaming of - sit down. So I sat down and began to write about my mother never being there for me, but that prompted me to do something else - I called her. 

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it's actually part of a weekly ritual. I call my mom once a week, at a minimum, to let her know I love her and am thinking of her. I got the idea from a woman who was speaking at a convention on spirituality. She said, "Now here's a prayer for you all; I dare you to try this: before you go to bed every night, say, 'God, please have people treat me tomorrow just the way I treated people today.' Do that for 30 days and I guarantee it'll change your life." I haven't done it for 30 days - and that was 34 days ago. But, it did change the way I treat my mom. All I want is for her to call me, to think of me, to ask me how I'm doing -- to love me. So that's what I do, every week, for her. Maybe I oughta do it every day.

Forgiveness is an exact science, really. You swallow pain and resentment and churn it into compassion and understanding before regurgitating it as patience, tolerance and love. It takes a lot of energy and practice, and can be pretty damn exhausting. But one thing she did teach me: "Two wrongs don't make a right." So no matter how difficult it is to swallow when she says has no regrets for the way she "raised" us, and forgives herself, I just let it come back up calmly as, "I forgive you, too, Mom."

And I could tell she was drunk and on pills and probably won't even remember the conversation. But if she's still alive next week, I'll just do that same thing. It's the death of the defaultus modus operandi -- instead of trying so desperately to be loved, now I love. I love my mom, I love my son, and I love myself.