I know some of you are reading this thinking things are about to get mean, or nasty but that's not the person I want to be. I don't want to be mean. The truth is I have been hurting for a long time and I've kept it all hidden. I've pushed it down into a deep dark corner in my heart. The good news is it's in my heart.
Let's go back in time. Let me show you how I became the person I am today. Let me express my gratitude to all the people that have helped me, taught me and have stood with me through my life. And those that haven't always.
***
I have this picture from my childhood (don't we all) that I just adore. It's a special moment. In the picture my dad sits on a stool to the left with his arms reaching out in front of him. On the right is a little toddler me, leaping from a chair into the air towards my dad. I'm in mid air in this shot, on my way to my father. It's a very beautiful moment. This little girl, wildly excited to take a huge leap of faith into the air, and into the safety of her fathers arms.I don't remember that moment, but I have it captured on film and have always kept it near and dear to my heart. The earliest memories I do have my father are...well they're not great. I was very young when my parents split up. My brother is 7 years older than me but we didn't get to live together long. From the earliest I can remember, I lived with mom and he lived with dad. In the very beginning I would go up to Washington to stay with my dad for a period of time.
This is one of the first memories I have of my life...I must have been 4 or 5 and I remember being at my dads house on one such visit and the cops came to our door. And they pulled me away from my father. It was just a normal day. I was just playing. And then I was sitting in the back seat of a cop car. My little girl legs just dangling over the seat, facing outward towards the cops. They were asking me questions I didn't know the answer to. Where was my mom? What is my address? What is my phone number? Oh man...is this a drill? I didn't know I needed to know these things! Where's my dad? Why are you doing this to me? Can I please go back inside?
I honestly can't tell you exactly how the situation resolved. I don't really remember more than being scared in the back seat of that cop car wishing someone would come help me understand what was going on.
As it turns out, I was there on a regularly scheduled visit. And my dad (from what I've been told) decided he wanted to keep me a little longer. I was his daughter and he wanted to spend more time with me so as my father he said "I have a right to spend more time with my daughter!" and he kept me. By the way that's not a direct quote. It's what I imagine he thought in order to take the action he took. Well, mom wasn't gonna have that. They had agreed on something and now she felt like he was keeping her daughter away from her, against both of our wills. So she called the cops and told them he had kidnapped me. Which I guess technically he had. Kind of.
As I type this, I see no fault in either of their actions really...I mean yea, you guys could have maybe talked it out a bit better and avoided the whole terrifying cops thing, but you did what you thought was right at the time. And you were both passionate and aggressive because I am your daughter and you wanted to spend time with me. That's beautiful and I thank you both for taking a stand for me, even if it resulted in one of my first memories being something terrifying for me. That set the tone for my life. I was afraid. A lot.
This is a good lesson for all you parents out there. The things you do when your children are young matter. We carry that shit into our adulthoods. They become daddy issues. And yes, mommy issues too. They both acted from a place of fear. They let their emotions get in the way and got carried away and things got scary for the little girl they were both trying to protect.
Now, something else to know about me is from birth, the odds were stacked against me. By some freak course of planetary alignment, they found out while I was still in the womb that my kidneys couldn't function on their own. They had to induce labor and do extensive surgeries on me in order for me to live. It wasn't a common surgery at the time. Some kind of new still working out the kinks kind of thing. They were able to get one kidney to start functioning but the other one, no such luck. I was a tiny baby (actually the biggest in the ICU), helpless and defenseless. They gave me a hopeful estimate of living 6 months.
How terrifying must that have been for my parents. What a decision to have to make. You're excited about your new baby. You've done this once before, now you're getting a little girl. Perfect! A boy and a girl. Yay! But then you find out your baby needs some crazy surgery to have a chance to live. I can't even imagine how difficult that would be. And then they tell you the surgery was a success but she still may not make it very far? Well no wonder they get so worked up when it comes to me. They almost lost me.
I turned 30 this year. I survived. I have been defying odds since the beginning. Because my parents fought for me when I couldn't fight for myself. That is what really set the tone for my life.
Fast forward a couple years after the whole cops is my real life thing and we arrive in Toledo. A small town near the Oregon coast, just outside of Newport. It was a very small town at the time and still is today but it has grown since I lived there. Now, mom and I are living in those apartments I remember that were just behind the local bar, across from the library, pool and park. What a great place to raise a kid! Minus the bar for me, but bonus for mom! Let's not pretend hard working single mothers don't sometimes need a drink at the end of the day.
I remember my dad came to visit me in those apartments. I remember playing with him into the night and saying goodnight. He was going to sleep on the couch and I snuggled up in my bed, eager to play with my father again in the morning. But when morning came he was gone. That is my memory. I remember feeling the disappointment. I remember being a little girl, 6, and feeling let down, hurt, angry but most of all, I was sad.
I was no longer going on regular visits to him. After the cops slash kidnapping thing...that was kinda off the table. He left that day when I was six, but he stayed in touch regularly. He sent me cards for every holiday possible. My birthday (uh yea that counts as a holiday in my world!), Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Patricks Day, Easter. If there was a holiday he sent me a card. I still have them all. I kept every single one of them. I cherish those moments where I felt connected to my father. Where I felt loved and remembered and special. I remember for Christmas one year, these huge (to me at least) boxes showed up for me. They were filled to the brim with stuffed animals. Oooh and I was a little girl that just LOVED animals! It was heaven!
Dad was really good at those claw machine games, I was told in the letter he hid at the bottom for me to find. He collected these for me and sent them down to me for Christmas. The shipping on those big boxes must have cost a fortune. Mom must have just been thrilled (not) to have a bunch of stuffed animals that I was instantly attached to suddenly tagging along with us everywhere we moved. Always in tiny apartments. In fact, the apartments he mailed those stuffed animals to was so small that my room was actually a closet. Not like a Harry Potter closet. I think it was probably like a laundry closet or something. It had built ins that served as a dresser for me and cupboards for me to store my things in and my tiny little girl bed fit snuggly into the back. So yea my room was a closet but I had a bed, and I had everything else I needed. It wasn't perfect. There were cockroaches.
I remember one night, laying in that tiny room with my light on. Just looking up at the ceiling and thinking. I was eating an apple. I turned my head and on the toy dresser next to me I saw a little cockroach. He was brave. He came out in the light. For the first time my instinct wasn't to be scared of this bug. And he wasn't scared of me. We locked eyes. I know, this is getting weird. Stick with me here folks. I bit off a tiny bite of my apple, and slowly put it down in front of him. He picked it up and started eating it. That's right. He used his front two legs to hold it in front of his mouth and sat there mashing away at his apple bite, the same way a rabbit would chew. And then I turned my head back to the ceiling and enjoyed eating my apple with a friend.
What the hell just happened? It's what I remember about that apartment. I remember my room was a closet, I ate an apple with a cockroach and my dad sent me what felt like hundreds of stuffed animals. My mom just sat back and let me enjoy them. She never said one bad thing about them. She knew she would have to take them with us when we moved. Anything my dad sent me was untouchable. I would not throw it away. It was like gold. I would show it off. "My dad got me this!" "Hey, my dad got me this!" My mom let me have that. She encouraged it. She didn't intercept my mail from him and encouraged me to write him back. She never said one bad thing about my father. She let me form my own opinions and didn't put her own agenda ahead of what was best for me. Thank you for that mom. I noticed and I know we've talked about it since I've become an adult but I want you to know how much I appreciate it. And I want other people to see the good example you set for me, and others, by doing that.
You also taught me to do whatever it takes to make it work. We lived in that little studio apartment where my bedroom was a closet and I ate beside cockroaches because it's what we could afford. But you made damn sure I always had a roof over my head. Whether that meant taking me with you when you cleaned hotel rooms, or locking me in the back seat of the car to sleep in the parking lot while you worked at that awful office place, you did what had to be done to make sure we were able to live under a roof and stay fed. You did it all on your own. You were strong for me. Most importantly you taught me the importance of having fun, no matter what your circumstances are. You taught me that fun is always possible.
Fast forward again and I'm 8. We live in the best apartments we ever lived, on Oak Street. My elementary school was literally just around the block. It was a great neighborhood. The neighbors were close knit. It wasn't like a big block of apartments like the last ones. It had this beautiful garden area in the courtyard. You had to climb a flight of stairs to get from street level to our garden and apartments, There was only one apartment that had another beneath it. Most sat above the garages. Great find mom!
These were great apartments. All of the adults were friendly and welcoming to this single mom and her daughter, Muscles. What a quirky pair we were. They accepted us with open arms and that is truly beautiful. I remember you all. I remember our landlord, Klaus. He was German and was missing a thumb. He was very hands on. Fixed everything himself. And he let me tag along with him. He taught me the importance of hard work. He taught me to do things right the first time so that you don't have to come back to do it a second time. He taught me what a good man could look like. Just little Muscles and Klaus, fixing things around the apartments. Thank you Klaus. I'm sure by now he's passed on (maybe not!) but he helped me become the person I am today. And others can learn from his example, through me. He will not be forgotten. I'm making certain of that right now by putting this out into the world.
I remember Donnie, the old man that lived in the one street level apartment. Every weekend he would have a garage sale. But it wasn't your regular old garage sale. He took things and fixed them up and sold them. Really, his garage was a store front. He would go around the neighborhood putting up signs for his sale. Sometimes I got to go with him. I was his little helper. I helped set up and break down his shop each day. I watched him tinker with gadgets. He taught me to be curious. Donnie taught me again, the value of hard work. He passed away but he will live on forever in my memory as a good example of a human being. He lived to help people. At least that's what my childhood eyes saw. Because of his little store I was able to get roller blades and a bicycle all my own. He also taught me about generosity.
It's in these apartments I remember one of the last times my brother came to visit us. He would take a Greyhound bus down from Washington and we would go to the station to pick him up. I loved it. The bus station was so cool to me. All these busy adults running around looking important. Plus it's the place where I'm finally going to see my brother again. I was always excited for that. They had these cool chairs for people stuck waiting there for long periods of time and these chairs you guys....They had little personal TVs in the arm. It was the coolest! That little girl would have lost her mind if she saw an iPhone.
Anyway, I remember playing war with my brother. Not normal war....He hid in my closet, behind a wall of stuffed animals. I hid behind my bed with my stuffed animal ammo around me. We would poke our heads up and throw a stuffed animal at each other. Back and forth. Again and again. That was fun. Thanks for playing with me Robert. I loved playing with you and I'm so blessed to have a brother that wanted to play with his kid sister. Thank you for giving me happy memories. Do you remember that Dogwood tree in the courtyard that we used to climb? Mom has an awesome picture of us in that tree. Just hanging from the limbs of that tree, like little monkeys, and we are as happy as can be.
Thank you for being a good example to me. You taught me I could feel safe around men. You taught me how to have fun without worrying about if it might be messy. You taught me to be more like a boy. Climb trees, play war, pogs, cards, all sorts of things. I didn't get to see my dad but I did get to see you. You served as my connection to my father all those years ago. And I appreciate the way you handled that responsibility. You are a good example to others of how to be a good son and brother. You didn't tell me all the bad stuff that happened at dads. You didn't tell me the resentment you held inside about me being closer with mom, just like I didn't tell you I felt the same about you being closer with dad. You didn't talk bad about my mom or dad or step mom to me. You might have here and there but not enough that I remember it. Well, I do remember when you told me that dad (and maybe my step mom too but I can't be sure...it's all a little hazy) made fun of my handwriting. I didn't want to keep writing to him after I heard that.
I'm sure it was just something said in passing and wasn't said with any hurtful intent. But it did hurt me. This is an example to be careful with your words. Especially around children. I wrote my dad an angry letter after that. Telling him how hurt I was, not just by that but by his absence in my life.
In that angry letter I sent to my dad I told him how hurt I was as a child not having her father around. I wonder what an angry 8 year old me wrote? I remember he called me when he got that letter and talked to me. He addressed my concerns over the phone. Thank you dad. I know that must have been hard to do but I appreciate you taking the time to do it. My mom tells me now that she's the one that put that letter in the mail and she tells me she shouldn't have. I'm glad you did mom. By doing so you helped open the line of communication with my dad. You took something that most people would sweep under the rug and you let light shine on it. You gave a little girl a chance to speak up for herself. And you gave dad a wake up call he needed to have. Thank you mom. I'm sure the phone call was very different for you two than it was for me. But what I got out of it was that my dad cared about my feelings. Good job you guys. Truly, that must have been difficult to navigate but in my eyes your handled it with grace.
I don't remember seeing my dad after that time he left in the middle of the night. That's my story. He could have left early in the morning but to me, I went to bed and he was there. When I woke up he was gone. My story goes that I didn't see him again for 10 years. We had contact but that's how my memory sees things. I'll admit I was young and I could totally be missing a lot of things that happened in the middle there. But this is my truth at this time in my life.
And later on the story changed. Got bigger. After dad got married and had another daughter, I started to disappear. The letters slowed and eventually stopped. I don't remember phone calls. I don't remember visits. No more presents. I was sad but I grew used to it. I'm now 9 or 10. I got a birth announcement for my new sister and a picture of her. My step mom wrote to me and sent me pictures of all my new family. She reached across a difficult situation and included me in the conversation. Thank you for that Sue. I do appreciate that effort and I do recognize that it did take effort.
***
I made great friends in school. Like, amazing friends. We're still friends to this day. My life was different. There was always a weird spotlight on me. I'm not saying that to be cocky. I'm saying it because that's what it feels like to be the weird kid in school. Don't tell me I wasn't. My name was Muscles. My mom was a single mother, we didn't celebrate holidays traditionally because my mom had become a pagan (which she never tried to force upon me. Yet another great lesson from my mother), and was in a lesbian relationship for a portion of my childhood. There was essentially a target on my back. Well, actually the target sits on my waist and back. Huge scars from my life saving surgery. We all know how cruel kids can be. I was very different and boy did the other kids let me know about it. In fact, once when I was in a day care while my mom was in a meeting, a little boy came up to me and said "Is your name really Muscles?" to which of course I replied yes because that is my name. His response was "Let's see how strong you really are" and he pinned me up against the wall by my throat. An adult intervened but that moment taught me how scary it can be to be different. That moment taught me fear. He taught me to hide my weirdness.That happened before I met my friends though. Once I hit middle school I was set because I made the best friends ever. We are the friends the term BFF was invented for. We were all weird in our own ways and lived a little differently than others but we had each other to lean on. And they stood up for me. They wouldn't let people hurt me and if someone did hurt me they had to deal with the wrath of my best friends. They taught me what it was like to have sisters.
Because we didn't celebrate holidays the same way a "majority" of people do, I was allowed to stay with friends for their family holidays. By allowing me to do this, my mom gave me the opportunity to experience big family holidays. I was able to see how different every family is. I was able to feel more normal. Thanks again mom. One of my favorite Christmas memories is staying at my friend Sarah's. We were in middle school and I got to experience what it was like to wake up to find a huge stack of presents under the tree. Mom and I had modest Christmas celebrations. And we actually celebrated the winter solstice, not Christmas. Anyway, she had sneakily sent along some gifts for me to have Sarah's parents add under the tree so I would have something to open Christmas morning. But they took it a step further. They bought gifts for me. They welcomed me into their family with open arms and a huge pile of presents. I felt like Santa was real again. Thank you very much. Thank you mom for giving me the opportunity to have moments like this in my life. Thank you to Sarah's mom for welcoming me into your family as if I were one of your own. I am very appreciative.
Those same apartments I loved so much are where my mom fell in love with Cherie. We moved from our apartment into Cherie's. She effectively became my father figure. She was loud and charismatic and together she and my mom took care of me. I remember sometimes they fought (just arguments from what I was exposed to) but we were a pretty happy little family overall. And This is where I start really remembering Grampy. He came to visit on a regular basis. He took us out to eat at this place called JJ's Buffet. It felt so fancy to me. A place with endless food and I was allowed to get ice cream pretty much every time. Heck yes!
My moms relationship with her dad was a tough one. He wasn't the same father to her as he was a grandfather to me. Those men are very different people. My moms father beat his wife. She died young. I never got the chance to meet her but the pictures I have seen of her tell me a lot about her. She was stunning, polished and magnetic. When she died, the kids blamed their father. He was an alcoholic who beat their mother. If I'm remembering right, he wasn't allowed to go to her funeral.
Despite that past, my mom decided to give her father another chance. She let him come into our lives and become my Grampy. You gave him another chance to be a good man. And that's what he did with his chance. He used it as a chance to be better. He showered me with love. He spoiled me. He taught me so many things. He eventually gave up drinking. He took his second chance at life by the horns and held on as long as he could. Literally, as a bull rider in his 50's, and by hanging on well past when the doctors thought he would die. It was really hard watching him grow old. I saw him as this strong cowboy of a man. And I watched him wither away. I used to spend every weekend with him and my mom. As an adult. It was our weekly ritual. I would get up, go pick up my mom and we'd go visit at Grampy's little apartment. Then me and mom would go grocery shopping for all 3 of us, with Grampy usually paying for it all. Mom and I would go thrift store shopping first, just for fun. Not with Grampys money though. Or maybe it was sometimes. With permission of course. He spoiled us as adults too.
Mom, you taught me that it's ok to give people second chances no matter how bad their past is or how much they've hurt you before. You gave me the chance to have Grampy in my life and we all know that I'm better for it. He wasn't perfect but he was there. Consistently.
I know, I'm airing out a lot of peoples dirty laundry here. But you know what, this is my story. These are my memories. And I'm not doing this to be vengeful or hurtful. I'm doing it because these kind of things need to be talked about. Not swept under the rug. We all had trouble navigating this because there is no handbook for when life gets tough. You just figure it out as best you can with the knowledge you have at the time. But if we choose to speak up instead, to share our stories, then maybe we can help other people better navigate their own turbulent times.
***
On Veteran's Day I posted a picture of a few framed pictures I have on my mantle. Two of my Grampy when he was in the Army, and one of my mom in the Coast Guard. I wanted to thank them for their service and for what they gave me in life. My step mother was the first person to comment and she said "Too bad you don't remember your father was in the service too". She took my loving post of gratitude and turned it into a chance to cut me down a little. I will acknowledge I don't believe that was her whole intent with that message. She was hurt that her husband wasn't included in his daughters post thanking the 2 veterans that raised her.This is where things got ugly for the first time in years. Decades. She's made little comments here and there about how I need to visit more. How I need to be there for their daughter more. And I've let them slide by without saying anything. I let them slide by because I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want to speak up. I didn't want the responsibility of being a role model to a girl I barely knew, even if she is my half sister.
Really, I let them slide by for so long without saying anything because I wanted to give my sister a good childhood. I stayed quiet for so long because I know how much my little sister loves her daddy and I was not going to be the person to take that from her. He was there for her and I resented her, and him, for that because he wasn't there for me. But I didn't want to tarnish the love that little girl had for her daddy. My sister got to grow up in a family where she experienced what it's like to have both parents around. She got to grow up in a strong, and loving family. She got to learn her own lessons and have her own memories.
She remembers growing up in a house that had my pictures plastered up on the walls along with all the other kids photos. I know she remembers this because I saw those walls the few times I went to visit. I remember feeling strange that these people I did not know had pictures of me all over the place. Now of course, I see it as a good example of how they included me in their lives, even though I wasn't allowed to be there physically. My sister grew up yearning for my attention because she knew I was out there. My pictures were all over the place proving I existed. And I pushed her away because I was hurt.
Ouch.
When my step mother made that comment on my loving post of gratitude, I decided it was time for change. I would no longer let snide comments be the way we communicated. I would no longer sweep it quietly under the rug and move on. I let my pain out. I spoke up for myself. I spoke my truth. Because it didn't feel like anyone had ever taken the time to consider how I felt in all this. She was hurt that my dad wasn't included in my Veteran's day post and lashed out in her way and she deeply offended me with that comment. This was not the time, nor place to have this conversation but that's where this conversation started.
This is what I said - Wow. How dare you! That's so rude. A father is a person that raises his child. He was not that. I remember a man who disappeared in the middle of the night when I was six years old without saying goodbye. I remember not seeing him again for 10 years, despite he fact that he lived only a few hours away. I remember the responsibility was on me to see him, even though I was living in poverty with no car of my own, and I'm the child! Why is it on me?
I remember he came down, with you and (my sister), to my high school graduation. But I also remember how the cards, letters and gifts from my dad stopped almost the exact moment his new daughter with you was born, save for the birth announcement of my new half sister. I remember feeling so inadequate because if my own father didn't care about me, who else would ever care?
I was excited to have new family and you sent me pictures and a few letters and emails but you put the responsibility all on me to make visits happen. And as someone who felt abandoned by her father for most of her childhood it wasn't exactly at the top of my list to go out of my way to see him, even though I did a few times.
I will say that I am who I am thanks to his absence. And thanks to the pain this has all caused me.
I know my father was in the service. I know that's how my parents met. I also know that my mother was a strong, single parent who raised me to be able to take care of myself and my Grampy was the best father figure I could have asked for.
Thanks for you input.
I was taking time to be thankful for the life I was given and to the people who raised me. I wouldn't be here without my dad but no, he is not the person that comes to mind when I think father. That is my Grampy.
Eventually, my father responded with his truth. And guess what? It's very different than mine. He feels pain over my pain. Over knowing he has helped cause pain in his little girls life. We're all in pain. We all had a very painful, very personal, and very public, conversation about our truths. The people in my life rallied around me. Lifting me up, supporting me and sending my love while I had this uncomfortable conversation. They helped me to finally be strong enough to speak my truth, which in turn made others strong enough to speak their truths.
Now real conversation can happen. Now, real change can happen.
***
Dad - You said that you are, at least as far as I'm concerned, a poor excuse of a father and you will never be able to change that. I don't think that's true at all. We are both still alive. There is still time to change. Now we both know how we each feel and we can finally move past the pain and start something new. I know it can be done because my mom achieved change with her relationship to her father. Let's keep that cycle going and get rid of this pain cycle we've spent far too long spinning around in.To my step mother - I am sorry you are in pain. I'm sorry for the pain you've experienced in the past. Please don't let that pain continue by spreading it with your well intentioned but hurtful words. You may think you're being smart and speaking your truth when you say these things, but you're not being very considerate of others truths when you do that. Let's use this awkward, painful conversation as the start of something that can be more productive. Let's set a good example for your daughter. And again, thank you for having my pictures up in the house and for trying to reach out in your own way over the years. Now you know I'm a sensitive person and words hurt sensitive people. Please use this knowledge to grow.
To my half sister - Hi. I'm sorry I don't reach out and talk to you more. I didn't feel comfortable, and if you've read this long, loooooooooonnnnnng post, maybe you'll understand better why I've kept my distance. But I admit, it was selfish of me to not consider your truth. Yes, I had good intentions behind my actions (and inactions) but I know I hurt you with my absence in your life. And that is not what I want to be for you. I want to help you, uplift you, set a good example for you. Will you give me another chance?
To my brother - I love you. Thank you for everything. Seriously, can we please talk on a more regular basis? Yes, this is as much my responsibility as it is yours. But if I don't reach out for a while, try to reach out to me. I don't want to continue to let years pass with no interaction from my family.
To my step brother - I'm sorry I hurt you and your mother when I spoke my truth. I was unaware of your truth, and frankly it didn't matter because I needed to speak my truth. This conversation needed to be had. This might not have been the most ideal time or place, but the hard stuff is hardly ever ideal. I remember your wedding picture. Your mom sent me a copy, along with a pile of other family members I never had the chance to meet. I still have it tucked away with all my other keepsakes. You both look very happy. Thank you too, to your wife. I remember her reaching out to me with letters. You have strong women in your life that do try, but I hope you understand a little bit more about why I resist and why I have kept my distance.
Thank you to my cousins for being my first best friends. Thank you to my aunt and uncle for the many good examples and lessons you've taught me over the years.
Thank you to every person who has ever been a part of my life. I truly would not be me without each and every person that I shared a moment of my life with. Thank you for lifting me up. Thank you for being strong for me when I couldn't be. Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for being a part of my story.
