My View Finder.....

6/26/10


This blog entry is dedicated to a long time friend, and fellow adoptee. Brie L. Love you Mama. We are actively breaking cycles everyday....
Also to my beautiful creations- Nicholas and Ava-Victoria.

*I knew a girl who told me, She told me "You don't want to know-You don't want to know all they've done to me". When she was done crying she just cracked a joke. She cracked a joke. And she has a smile for every thunderstorm, She has a smile for every thunderstorm....*  ~ Chris Pureka.


         It's a balmy Southern afternoon. The move up until this point has exceeded all of my  preemptive wishes and blue prints, for a considerably smooth transition. Nick and I were barreling home down the 385 So. towards Colombia. Excited after going to the local IMAX for Toy Story 3.

      When we arrived, Pop was in his shop in the garage, doing his thing- tinkering. We walked in to the main house, and it was seemingly quiet. We stumbled across my Step Mom in the office, at the computer. She was lending a strong hand in constant round the clock surveillance for cost effective airfare, to get my daughter out here. This by way of my best friend Kelley. We were trying to wrangle a one way ticket for my 5 y/o old, and a round trip for Kell. I was desperate to get my daughter and best friend to the East Coast. Of course Kelley would have to return to the opposite coast... again. However- Ava was on her way out to complete this process in its entirety. Jackie was writing figures down, one after another. Trying to manipulate a system that supposedly doesn't need the manipulation- when really, in fact... it totally does.

      Nick and I were excited, we wanted to motivate them to come out with us, to dinner at a local restaurant in town. The restaurant even had a live band that evening... a 70/80's band. RIGHT UP MY 52 y/o Fathers alley. It was allegedly the only place my Father who was professionally trained in the culinary arts- would NOT bitch about the food. A place that he, a man of few words and conveyed emotions, actually conveyed some "emotion" towards the plated entrees.

     The air was thick, there was a prickly energy. All the hairs on my neck, for once weren't pasted to my neck from the sweat and natural exorbitant humidity, instead were erect. This should have been my first signal.....
This friction looming in the wet air, should have been all too familiar. It had been so very long, however something was hauntingly familiar.

..." Jackie, we checked out P Simpsons, it sounds fabulous.... they even have a live band tonight.... What do ya say?.... Lets get you two out of this house for some dinner...."

(J) ...." Awe honey I really appreciate the offer, but I really am not up for it...."
      ...." You're Pop and I got in to it, over the pool, while you guys were out...."

 *(They are putting a pool in for my kids, to weather the heat out here.)*

(Me)  ..."Oh No!.... I am sorry".....

    Now normally this would not have bothered me. Pop and Jackie have been together half the span of my natural existence.  Both very strong personalities in very differentiating ways.

   I of all people know what a commonality, a relationship hiccup like an argument can be. Had a few of my own... Some criminally violent and furious give and takes... with my Ex husband. Especially after we buried our first daughter Olivia Noel in November of 02. I know these things happen.

    I was a County away, when this particular disagreement between them went down. Somehow though, as I witnessed, heard and felt detachment. The free floating , convoluted attempts at carrying on, in separate directions- like oil and vinegar. This balmy late afternoon was starting to show it's hand.....

(J) ..."You might want to ask you're Pop, he might want to go..."

(Me) ..."Oh, okay..."

   A little downtrodden, I walked out to the kitchen, in hopes to snag my Pop in transition from a pit stop in the master bath, back out to the garage.

(Me) ..."Hey Pop, P Simpsons has a great 70's and 80's cover band tonight... You wanna go-....."

   Before I could even finish my thought, an assertive "No" came wistfully out of his mouth, as he slid through the slider. Back outdoors to the pool project.

     Obvious tension still existed. Both were outside on opposite sides of the property. As I watched out the window from the kitchen, Cold sweating sweet tea in hand. It was like my own little private View Finder.
The little picture window in the kitchen. My own children's toy, a relic. I looked out on the property, I was alone in the house. A creeping solitude, a quiet darkness entered in to my heart.

     When we were children we forced that resistant plastic toggle down, anxious to see the next frame. White knuckling that Son of a Bitch at times, out of sheer excitement.... There was no resistance, there was no white knuckling today. At 31 my View Finder refreshed itself involuntarily at times, much to my disruption and befuddlement. This afternoon was one of those times.

    As I peered out that window in the kitchen, it succeeded through the frames of some of those most painful moments. Childhood moments...
   You see, It wasn't Jackie and Pop's baggage that triggered this windfall of emotions and curdled pain. It was my own. It was baggage from a childhood forsaken, a childhood of rage, abuse and endless tears, of shame.

   Now being that I only have fragmented memories of my childhood - secondary to the extreme pain I endured, physically and mentally/emotionally. I would have to estimate the beginning of this emotional and mental abuse started somewhere between 7 and 9.

   Yes! At 7 years old the person who forced me to call her "Mom" or "Mother". The woman who would slap me across the face and mouth if i slipped and referred to her as "she".... As if her own hypersensitivity to my early survival techniques of detachment affected her so viscerally- She had to translate and conduct those feelings in to physical assaults on her 7 y/o "daughter".

   Yes this woman would  "DEMAND!" the respect and title of the most coveted role in life. Then so sacrilegiously and egregiously  would spit vile words in to my young ears.

(Mom)...." You are you're Father's favorite..."
..." You are why my marriage will never be the same".....
      (both of these ridiculous accusations obviously untrue)

  If that isn't enough, shortly after I turned 9 y/o I got the double whammy  the old 1-2 punch...  the uppercut followed by a left jab for the official T.K.O of my Ego and Id.....

(Mom)....." We should have NEVER adopted you..!!!"

      I was never and well,  will never be the same after hearing those disgusting remarks. I mean what monster, says that to a child? The child that is forced to play the part, to fit the bill, to keep appearances immaculate and unspoiled. When all she was, was in fact rapidly and aggressively spoiling inside.

    This 9 y/o would soon turn in to the 12 y/o that started ingesting large quantities of liquor for "the assist". The assist in detachment and disconnection and survival. The 12 y/o that eventually would grow in to a 29 y/o with serious alcoholism.

    So as I stood at the window today, I dug deep. I clawed my way through some pretty ravenous territory. An Area 51 of my own soul- so to speak. A wasteland of oppressed hatred. My View Finder found it all, captured it perfectly. I didn't even have to hold it up to the light. The light shown through on its own accord. The memory fragments flooding my head and drowning my minds eye.... the 9 y/o girl gasping for air, turning cyonotic, trying to scream for help before her last breath.... Squelched.... snuffed out while so, so many just stood back and watched. This 9 y/o would have to save herself, resuscitate her own lifeless body, breathe life back in to her own weary soul.
It is in fact possible to have a weary soul at 9, at 12 at 16... at 31.
I am living proof.

   Today my View Finder provided me a hurdle in sobriety. A momentary lapse of superior strength and bravery. It's triggers like these that portion out the most dedicated from the least dedicated.
This shit ain't easy folks. It;s not simply just saying "No I don't drink, but thank you anyway".... or just declining that "First drink" as we say in A/A. This shit ain't as easy as it looks.....
It is a battle of breaking habits of comfort and disconnection. 18 years of learned behavior and detrimental actions. At the hand's of one's own self. Motivated by self preservation of all things.

   So I rode that wave of self doubt and question today. I rode it as it crested and crashed to the sandy floor of my inner child. Meeting the toes of those little feet, with cold saltwater. Frigid and forceful. Backing up quickly, as quick as possible. Till the water came no more, till the tide receded and the sand became warm and porous again. Inviting and pliable... forming and fashioning.

     I fought so hard to make it this far in life, let alone relentlessly for the last 18 mos of sobriety. I WILL NOT let it slip away like sand through my toes. Not without a holy or unholy battle ensuing. If not for me, for my own two children. I am fighting this battle for the two most important pieces of my life. Nicholas Anthony and Ava-Victoria. I am showing them something different, something brave. I am giving them something I was not given.... I am breaking the cycles.


(To my son and daughter, the light in my soul shines because and for you both- I love you both more than you will ever know. However I will try to exceed you're knowledge of this everyday we spend together...till my last breath.)