St. Patrick's Day (writing class assignment on a familiy ritual)

Coming down the stairs for breakfast, I forget that it is actually a holiday. But when I turn the corner into the dining room there is no question that there is a holiday happening. Everything is green. It looks as though Kermit the Frog threw up around the house. Shamrocks hang off the light fixtures. The dining room table cleared of laundry for a moment, replaced with green shamrock plates, green plastic cups of green milk, and green napkins. I sit down, ready for what is to come. Dad brings out the platter of pancakes. These are no ordinary pancakes. My mother has spent the better part of the morning perfecting green food coloring shamrocks in the center of each and every pancake. The kitchen garbage can is overflowing with the quickly discarded imperfections.


We know what is to come: The hunt. But we have to wait until all 3 of us are finished with our green breakfast before we can start. My sister and brother eat so slowly so I always have to wait for them. We have to flip our plates over at the same time so nobody gets a head start. Taped to the bottom of our plates are little green paper shamrocks with the first clue on them. We each have a separate list of clues, but we all have to go at the same pace. So, even though I could find the Leprechaun’s Gold way before my siblings, I have to wait and move at their speed. Or else. I don’t want to start the day with an “or else,” since that would be worse than anything.


The first limerick, neatly printed on my shamrock, leads me to something I treasure in my bedroom. There’s the second shamrock – in my violin case, folded around the strings of my violin. I’m not supposed to read it until all three of us return to the dining room. We all have to read our clues aloud to everyone before going onto the next search. The second limerick leads me to my toothbrush, the third, under my pillow. A forth limerick takes me to the VHS tape of my sixth grade play of the HMS Pinafore. (Why the music department thought HMS Pinafore is a good musical for sixth graders to perform is beyond me!) Now the fifth one is the same as my sister’s and brother’s clues. We know this is the final limerick; it will bring us to the Leprechaun’s Gold – finally. It leads us all into the living room, behind the couch. There it is: the pot o’ gold!

This hunt for the Leprechaun’s Gold happened every single year. By the time I was 11 years old I was tired of it. And I made the mistake of voicing my opinion once. I was 13 years old and extremely jaded by life by this point in my life. My mother’s abuse had become intolerable. I couldn’t do anything right. Everything was an argument and a punishment. When I was 11 years old my mother began locking me in the pitch-black basement of our house. So by 13, I hated her. So I came down to the breakfast table already hating the day. I was wearing my all black ensemble. That was the first mistake; I wasn’t wearing anything green! My mother commented on that right away. So she started it – not me.


I refused to eat breakfast and tried to leave the house to go sit at the bus stop at the bottom of our hill. It was at least two hours before the bus came, but I always left early to avoid fighting with my mother every morning. The perk of leaving early was also that I could smoke a couple cigarettes before the bus came. I would sit on the corner curb where the sewer grate is. That way I could just drop my smoke down the sewer when I heard my father’s truck start coming down the hill.


My mother would not let me leave the house until I finished “the hunt” with my siblings. I uselessly argued the point that I was not a child anymore. So I flipped my plate at the right time. I stared into space while my 8 year old sister and 5 year old brother happily read the first limerick aloud. They trotted off to find the next clue while I begrudgingly moped to my first destination. Returning to the living room with the second shamrock in hand, I received what I should have known was coming: a hand coming quickly toward my face.


“GO DO IT OVER AGAIN! AND BE HAPPY ABOUT IT!” My mother screeched into my ear as her hand connected with my cheek. This hunt was not something I could do in my current mood. I had to animatedly skip to each clue showing how excited I was to find the pot of nickels once again. God forbid I age-out of these traditions. I began crying from the pain of the slap but tried to hide it from my mother. Crying was a weakness she could not deal with, no matter the situation. My father, the buffer, had already left for work. He had, apparently, aged out. I tried to dodge what I knew was coming. I needed to get out of the house as quickly as possible.

“You did it again! Are you happy with yourself? YOU RUINED ANOTHER HOLIDAY!” I was too late; she said it.


This was not new news to me. According to my mother, I managed to ruin every holiday by the shear fact that I was alive. In her book, I was the single reason holidays sucked in our house. It had nothing to do with her drunken bipolar episodes or her need to stay up all hours of the night decorating in a hyper manic, drunk state. In my mother’s warped world, I was the cause of the 1986 Valentine’s Day Massacre, the 1987 Easter Explosion, and the Great Groundhog’s Day Debacle of 1988. All because I breathed. I won’t even get into all the Christmases I killed or New Year’s Eves I drowned. It was all my fault. Who knew a child could have so much power in a family of five?


As my mother began telling my sister and brother how I killed our family leprechaun, I left the house. I ran down the stairs to the sound of my brother crying. I ran past the bus stop. I kept going until I was inside the cemetery gates. It was still too early to go to school. So I sat and smoked with the late Thomas O’Connell. He didn’t care that I was crying. And he surely knows that I did not ruin Saint Patrick’s Day.

I'm back

So I disappeared again for awhile. But so did my need to flee.

It's weird...I lost my license due to a lapse in my car insurance and my own procrastination. But not having my car, while it was upsetting at the moment, has been fine. In fact, my need to go and get away from work, my apartment, my life, has subsided.

I'm back to the life I had before I had a car in 2000 - taking buses and trains to get around. Luckily, the metro-NY area has amazing public transportation.

The times it really bothers me is when I need groceries or want something right away. I have learned which restaurants deliver and which ones are on the direct bus route. I go to a different library - but it's on the bus route.

I am very thankful that I live where I work. That has been a huge blessing.

More writings to come...

Why?

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I have so many intense emotions built up inside me that I can barely breathe. But then I go to therapy and can't get them out. I don't let myself cry. I force myself to swallow back all these thoughts, feelings, and emotions. I leave therapy and then sit, crying in my car for hours!

That's my safe place - the one place I SHOULD let things out. But I can't! So now I have to face another week of holding it all in. Another week of not being able to let myself feel anything.

Why do I do this? What is wrong with me??

Scratching at the door

Here I am - scratching at the door - needing to go out. There is still this insanely intense need in me to go - somewhere - anywhere.

All of my friends think I'm crazy. Am I? Just because I want out of feeling stuck? Or is everyone who actually stays put crazy?

I wish I had enough money so I could buy a small camper and just drive around the country. I love driving. It doesn't even have to be far - just away. But road trips are amazing! There are so many emotions tied to open road. You can choose to feel them or just blast music and karaoke your way across America.

I love the wind in my hair, the sun creating heat illusions in the distance, the rest areas, and the intrigue. You can be whoever you want. You can escape yourself and be someone else for awhile. Sure, when you stop your real self catches up with you, but you have time to pretend and play.

Truck stops and rest areas are absolutely amazing. I could write something at every rest area! Then maybe I could find some small town in the middle of nowhere and stay for a month or so. See if I can fit in and be accepted.

Anyone want to pay me to drive across country? I'll write all about it! Sounds like a great book or movie to me!

Write Away

I joined 2 writing classes which begin next week. Both are titled, 'Writing Creative Nonfiction.' I also have purchased a book called, "The Write-Brain Workbook: 366 Exercises to liberate your writing." I'm going to write my creations here. I will mark the title with an asterisk to denote these writing assignments. Who knows what will come out of me in the next couple weeks?!
Join me on this journey of discovery and words.

Soul Murder

Does anyone else get the need and/or urge to just up and leave. I mean, quit your job, pack up whatever fits in your car, and just drive. Am I all alone in this?

I guess it's my "norm." To runaway. To flee. I guess I've always felt this, but right now it is hitting me hard. I love my job - it's not that I feel stuck in a crappy job (like Harvard!!!). I am working with emotionally disturbed children once again and I really love it there. My boys are amazing. I absolutely LOVE seeing them learn something new - a new way of looking at things, or a new behavior to an old feeling. Why can't I find a new behavior to all these old feelings?

Here's the deal...my birthday brought up way more issues than I thought possible. These past two weeks have been frought with nightmares and flashbacks, not only from the kidnapping/rapes, but also from my mother's abuse. Thoughts and feelings that I thought I had a handle on have suddenly flooded back to the surface of my consciousness.

It is amazing how much damage is done by parents. How can we undo trauma put unto us by our parents? Trauma causes our brains to actually change - peaks and valleys - enlarged hippocampus, etc. One study regarding childhood trauma and brain development refers to the trauma as "soul murder." (That sounds like my problem!) So how do we fix a murder of a soul?

My solution is to runaway.

Another Birthday - More Blues

Today is my birthday. 34 years old today.

Between my birthday last year (read: Birthday Blues from 9/20/08) and today so much has happened. And so very much is still the same.

I'm still the same sad girl who is a professional at hiding my pain.

Ask my coworkers what words would describe me and they may say things like bubbly, happy-go-lucky, optimistic, quick to make people smile, cheery, etc.

Ask my closest friends and you would probably get something closer to the real me: intense, pensive, thinks too much, hurting.

How many more birthdays will I have to feel like this? When will I finally be able to say - today's my birthday & things are going pretty well??