I guess at the beginning is the best place to start. I was born, a bunch of stuff happened, blah blah blah, and here I am now. Easy right? Not so much when you're trying to decide just how to describe your life. Sure I have twenty thousand memories swirling around in my head, but how do I decide what to share and what not to share, what's relevant to my story and what's just white noise in the background?
I guess to really get a good idea of who I am, we should really start with my parents. I mean everybody has them right? Even if they aren't in your life or you never know them, you still HAVE parents theoretically. I had a mom and dad. I loved my mom and dad. I didn't always like them, but I loved them with all my heart.
My mom was the youngest of five children and my dad the youngest of three. Both of their parents had been married and divorced, at least once before. My parents married young. My dad was nineteen and my mom was only sixteen when they took their vows. She dropped out of high school to marry my dad. Not sure why her parents allowed this. My parents would've never allowed me to drop out of school to marry my boyfriend, but as I was told numerous times, things were different back then and they were much more mature at a young age than I was.
They weren't married for long before my dad was drafted to go to Viet Nam. I remember my mom telling me they had just found out she was expecting me two weeks prior to his receiving his draft notice. By the time he came home, I was three months old. He missed the entire pregnancy and came home to a ready-made family. Mom always said he was a different person when he came home. Of course this isn't surprising. War changes people. He never really talked about it but he had nightmares we all knew about. You had to be mindful of how you woke him up if you didn't want to get hit because he always came up swinging. Not intentionally mind you, it just happened. He left home a boy and came home a man; a man who saw things people should never have to see.
My mom was one of those people that other people liked to talk to. My grandma used to joke that she never met a stranger. Mom was one of those people who could meet someone in the grocery store and have them telling her their life story in a matter of minutes. She was definitely a people person. She never really had a job outside the home. They decided when they got married that mom would be a stay at home housewife and mother. Dad never wanted her to work and she wanted to be at home. It worked for them.
Mom had suffered from health problems for as long as I could remember. She had back problems all the time and was in pain for most of her life. She had problems during her pregnancies and suffered a severe calcium deficiency, causing her bones to be weaker than they should've been. All total, she was pregnant three times, but the first time she miscarried and lost the baby. Then came me, and finally my brother. When she gave birth to me, they found I was breech, but not your typical feet-first breech. My legs were turned back up toward my body and I was coming out bottom first. She really should've had a cesarean but they weren't as common back then and I ended up tearing her up pretty good. I remember her telling me at one point one leg was coming and the other foot was turned up toward my ear, and in order for me not to be born with my leg broken, the doctor had to tickle the bottom of my foot to make me yank it back up inside, which caused me to shift, making it easier for me to eventually come out.
Physical problems weren't the only issues my mom dealt with though. She suffered from depression and around the time I turned sixteen, they discovered she was manic-depressive. Nowadays it's called bipolar disorder. In a matter of minutes, she could go from being happy, to crying, to screaming and back to happy and never know why. It made living in our house, how should I put this?...interesting at times to say the least. Piecing together bits and pieces of memories from other family members, we gleaned that most likely her grandmother had suffered from the same mental illness but they knew so little about it back then it went un-diagnosed. You don't get to choose the genetic line you come from so you just learn to make the best of the hand you're dealt.
My brother was three years younger than I was so they tried to spare him seeing as much of it as they could. He was sent to stay with grandparents off and on when Mom's episodes got worse. Personally I think she suffered from more than just bipolar disorder looking back on things now. When she had manic episodes, she would also sometimes have delusions. Very vivid delusions. I remember once the cousin of a friend of mine was getting married and my friend invited me to attend the wedding with her. My mom was convinced somehow that Jesus was getting married and that she hadn't been invited. She had my dad driving her all over town looking for the church. Other memories are far fuzzier or maybe I've just blocked them out but that's the one that's always stuck with me. Her episodes escalated until finally Dad had no choice but to have her forcibly committed for a while. I don't remember much about her episodes after that because I tried to stay away from home as much as possible, paying more attention to my boyfriend or hanging out with friends so I didn't have to deal with the quiet chaos at home. I didn't share most of what happened with Mom with anyone, maybe because I didn't want to deal with it, maybe because I was ashamed. I don't know. It was just easier to pretend like everything was okay. I got pretty good at pretending.
