~September

Looking through old writing... stuff from September of 2002. To call it a "rough patch" would be so far from the truth... it was one of the roughest... and it went on and on... right up into June... as usual.

September is always bad for me. It's when the head starts falling apart...

When I was in my mid 20s, I was having dinner with my "father" (have to use that term VERY loosely). It was my birthday... maybe 25 or 26... and we were at a restaurant. I was depressed and a mess.... and griping about having a miserable birthday no matter what I did to avoid it. He says, "Well, maybe it's because your mother left on your birthday."

I felt all the blood in my body flood into my feet.

I felt.... nothing.... whiteness...

Then I started crying.

Yes, in the middle of a restaurant.

Thing is, it wasn't me crying. It was a 7 year old. "I" didn't feel anything... just the tears and the coldness and the shaking knees... but back there was this PAIN... the worst pain you can imagine.... and fear...

...and the heart pounds and races and wails...

It was a 7 year old, just wanting his mommy.


For almost 2 decades my mother managed to convince me... somehow... that it was Art who left. Yes, he did leave... 9 months after she did. All my life she'd stressed how he'd abandoned us... and I ended up believing her. Layers and layers of trauma after trauma... It wasn't forgotten. It was buried... held... kept from me.


Art apologized. He didn't know that I didn't know.


oh ho... the things we don't know....

Happy Birthday to meeeeee