Right What You No

 "Write what you know"

A lesson for any writer, I suppose, but a mean trick to play on some. 

What I know is a life replete with trauma, loss, abandonment, fear.

Who wants to read about that shit? 

...

Welcome to my narrative. Let's please call this fiction because my memory of events cannot possibly be relied-upon. I don't care to misrepresent myself or others...names are changed to protect privacy. I value privacy, and yet I choose to relay private information. I am grateful for the choice, or the illusion of choice.

I grew up in Yuba City California. My parents divorced when I was 16 and by 18 they were both remarried. Get this, my dad married a woman with the same name as my mom. It was a trip. My dad had been on various drugs for decades and the trauma of finding that out shook my otherwise carefree soul.

Here's what I recall:

Dad had moved out and was kind of MIA. We had seen him around acting weird (read: high),  and then I got a letter from him. I was sitting on my bed at 1641 Sandpiper Drive in Yuba City, a small agricultural town 45 minutes north of downtown Sacramento, California. I probably still had the heart-patterned comforter I begged my mom for because "I would always love hearts." I sat down on that bed with one perception of the world.

I knew we were not "rich" though the middle-class concept was out of my intellectual depth perception. I knew I was a daughter, a sister, a friend, a girlfriend, but I did not know how to self-identify. I was self-depreciating because I had low self-esteem. I was defensive because I was scared and wanted to be mean or rude to someone first before they could be mean or rude to me. It was a logic that followed me unconsciously. (Self awareness is a beautiful thing.)

At the time I was dying my hair blonde (I was born a towhead and my dirty blonde hair was basically blonde anyway!), dressing like Gwen Stefani on the cover art of No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom; not the dress but the baggy pants on the inside flap. I smoked pot and got Bs. I read books, acted in school plays, swam on the high school varsity swim team, wrote poetry, listened to music, lit candles... I was shy and self-conscious. I lacked confidence like some people liked basic hygiene skills.  I stank in social situations and cared deeply what others thought about me. Having been bullied here and there in junior high and elementary, and having never been popular, I was the kid that would have done back flips if I could (yeah, no) to gain a moment of attention or an ounce of peer-based appreciation. I told myself I didn't care what others thought. It's like we are built to lie to ourselves. Those lies may serve a purpose, but as an awkward 16 year old, that lie made me fractured and, at times, mean. 

I sat on my heart-covered twin bed, my small room surrounding and blindly witnessing the shift. 

I sat down on my childhood bed and looked at the envelope in my father's loopy scribble. Addressed to me, I was confused but glad to hear from him. Probably glad to just get mail, too. I don't remember opening the envelope, or what it said in any detail. I just remember the gist. "Been on drugs your whole life" STOP "In rehab" STOP "I love you" STOP. It wasn't a telegram, though that might have easier to swallow in it's novelty.

 Did I drop the pages on the ground or augment the memory with that dramatic detail later? I recall not holding on to the letter and having a strong or overwhelming feeling of something in me shattering. It felt like my world was shattering and I would repeat that (the day my world shattered, oooooh), not understanding that I was shattering. Me, the 16 year old sophomore in high school.

 My father was in a rehabilitation center. Rehab. He had been on drugs my whole life. My mom told me one time he had a gambling problem. We were driving back from some appointment in Chico, traveling south on Highway 99 and crying at this fiction. Maybe he also had a gambling problem, I don't know.

I read that letter and didn't know what to do with myself. I had already learned from my father though, in some way, because I called a drug dealer. I got high, on weed.

My life changed irreparably. My father had been on drugs and my life as I knew it was shifted. My perspective shifted, moved so that I saw things differently. Was anything as it seemed? Was anyone who they said they were?

That moment marked the beginning of many such enlightening moments, but that one was the most profound.

Flash forward to today; I am an imperfect, sometimes happy mess. I have 42 years on this planet, birthed two daughters, write poetry, work. I am a professional with 20 years of experience who graduated with my MBA in 2023. And I have $3.86 in my checking account.  

Life has been a series of struggles and compromises, risks and consequences. The occasional reward. I was so lost in my pre- through post-college years that my future was not under consideration. 

My parents had always told my older sister and I that we were going to college. We toured colleges like Humboldt State with my sister, and she seemed to want to go there. However, after high school, she didn't go. My sister Jesse and I are close in age and we share a birthday. We are, in fact, two years and eleven minutes apart. We were born on the same day, in the same hour. I was born at 2:07 p.m. and she was born at 2:18 pm. 

When I was 16 years old reading that letter, my sister was 18 and already a high school graduate, taking community college courses near by and living at home. 

She was upset with my father when we found out. Her experience with him differed from my mine in a couple of ways. One is that I adored our father and spent time with him whenever I could. My sister was distant from him and he from her. He also fought with my sister days or weeks before entering rehab and was violent. She said he through a telephone at her. This was 1998 so we had real phones that plugged into the wall, or at least the base did. Anyway, this was a corded phone, though thankfully he didn't her her, but either he missed or she moved or both and it hit the wall.

I had not been close with my sister since we were 6 and 8 so she was not someone I called if I needed anything, or if I did I could expect a rebuff more than anything else.

Months after getting the letter, my mom was in her bedroom, her bedroom door locked. She was quiet, but I didn't know if she was sleeping. I just knew she was, for all intents and purposes, Not There. I felt a depression so heavy that the suicidal thoughts may have been plaguing me for days before hand, and I wouldn't have known. 

All I knew is that I was home, I felt completely alone, hopeless and that I wanted to die. I didn't call anyone, at least I don't think I did. I went to the kitchen and got a knife from the knife block. I held it to my wrist. I saw the small serrated blades press into my flesh. I saw the blue veins, stark against the pale skin. I had zero ability to cut my own body, to inflict the kind of pain that I knew I would feel.

I went to the bathroom and filled up the tub. I let the water run warm, not too hot, not too cold. Slightly cooler than bath water. I kneeled at the base of the tub, and stuck my head in. Fun fact, a body will not willing drown itself, you have to trick it. 

Obvisously I'm writing this so I did not succeed in that attempt, nor have I attempted again. That's not to say I haven't had sucidial thoughts. They call it SI, suicidal ideation, the "I want to die" or "I just want to die" or "everyone would be better if I was gone". Mind you this is not the clinical definition, nor is this in any way a clinical book (wow, I hope that has been obvious already but some things need to be stated, idk!). I write this book from the perspective of a patient, a consumer of mental health services in California, and also as a daughter, a niece, a mother, a sister, a girlfriend, a partner, a co-parent, a friend. There are lots of labels you could assign to me. Former feminist-anarchist, novice world traveler, podcast devourer. I listen to music, I make food, I am human. I fail. I make mistakes and I fail. I will fail so many times in the process of writing and trying to publish this book. If I have failed you, please forgive me. However, I am OK with failure, and I hope you are, too. Without failure so many of our greatest pleasures and most-used inventions may not have occurred. We need people to try and fail to improve on everything; ourselves, products, services, government, etc. It's best when failure is admitted quickly and as soon as possible by the person experiencing the failing (notice I didn't use an unhelpful label?).

I have been inspired by the life and art of Frida Kahlo for so long. Decades. A documentary I streamed yesterday had me fall in love all over again through her words. She journaled and her voice, her story echos across time and space. Mirrored by her paintings, her words bring context and clarity to her individual pieces and her body of work. She painted what she wanted to paint, always. She painted because she needed to. She lived a life in physical pain and chose to express her love and her joy through her many mediums. Always painting, always creating. She loved her family, her lovers, her Diego, and others so deeply. She pushed through pain ("viva la vida"*), she experienced loss, she gave her life to a man, she experienced betrayal, jealously, alcoholism potentially... so many shared experiences. I feel close to her.

More to follow...