A guide to: Becoming

To really get to know me, we have to start at the begining. I don't have alot of memories but I will give you what I've got. I was born in the Pacific NorthWest to two young parents with now 3 daughters, no money and no clue. We lived on thrift store couches, free cable (the 90's were fun weren't they?) and Ramen noodles. My parents lived the romaticised broke life you see on TV where two kids run away with nothing but the clothes on their backs and are happy with just each other; for the first 4 years of my life.

It took a few moves, another daughter and a cross county trek with all 4 daughters in tow to release the straw that broke the camel's back. And while I will never truly know what broke my parents up; I do know it all comes back to Mom. Her story is important to mine so I will give you a quick summary. Mom was wild, with dark hair and bright eyes, raising herself in the delapidated suburbs of a big city in the early 80's. By 15 she had her first daughter, and by 22 she had finished having kids, grabbed the eyes of every man she passed and was known as the life of the party.

Mom was amazing, she was the laughter that made thunderclaps sound like a strike in bowling. She was funny, and everyone had a story about something crazy she had done, and she always had the best mixtapes. But she was sad, and she did everything she could to make sure no one on the outside saw it. She passed down a hefty dose of mental illness to each of her daughters, myself included and passed away when I was just shy of my 14th birthday.

My father was sunshine, silly like a summer breeze. He was strong and steady and smelled like home. He was described as warm, charming, determined and strong. He taught us all to fight, to stand up for ourselves and made sure we all knew how to change a tire. He showed how much he cared by teaching us, until one day he just stopped.

When I was 4 years old my father carried me and my younger sister outside to where Mom, and my big sisters were sitting in a car with my aunt. They were going to have a sleep over while we filled up boxes for our long vacation that Mom couldn't go on. My sister and I cried and cried begging for our sisters and for Mom to come with us. We didn't understand then that our parents were divorcing and we were going to live with our Father and his parents on the other side of the country. Our two older sisters were not my father's biological children so they would stay with Mom and we would go.

We saw Mom again 6 months later for our birthdays. She stayed for a few days, and when she left I had no clue I would not see her again until I was 11 and so hurt that she never came back that I had started to tell people who asked that she had died. I know that I should never have said this, and looking back I feel awful for the unkind words my younger self said to and about her.

When she showed up, like a whirlwind as she always did, with both of my older sisters and my aunt in tow I was at first excited to see her. I cried histerically in the middle of my summer camp performance when I saw her facce in the crowd and ran into her arms hard enough to knock her to the ground. Finally Mom was back and we would get to live life like a celebration again! That of course wasn't the case and when she took my younger sister and I to the motel she was staying in my Father called the cops on her and I spent the rest of my time with her in fear that I would never see her again.

That wasn't exactly true, I would see her again, but the enxt time I saw her was in her casket. Just 3 years later, I woke up late on a school day and in a panic, to hear my Father calling mine and my sisters names. We slowly climbed the stairs, confused and afraid that we had done something wrong. My grandma was there, and told us to go into my father's room because he was waiting for us. My grandma lived all the way across town, having her at our house in the late morning on a Friday was unheard of. I instantly knew something was wrong and that someone had died.

The next few days were a whirlwhind and in the worst way. One moment I was witnessing my father crying for the first time in my life, whispering that Mom had died; the next I was across the country helping my older sisters sort through Mom's things and finding plane tickets that she had purchased to visit my younger sister and I, dated for two weeks after her death.

I was mad for a long time. How dare she be so careless with herself? Addicted to drugs? and badly enough that she had overdosed before she came to see me? I deemed her unacceptable. I hated her, and I hated everything she stood for, for a very very long time. Every bit of her I saw in my self I tried to remove. I lightened my hair, I cut my hair differently from hers, and dressed differently, I swore to never smoke or do drugs.

I was angry, mean, spiteful and most of all I was lonely. Growing up in a community that had two parents, and both of them your birth parents I was ostracised because I was a child of divorce, I had an accent from living across the country and I was just plain weird. As a small child that was hard enough, but as it continued into junior high and followed me even after Mom's death I began to lean into it.

I have never known many 14 year olds to be generally happy go lucky but I ceratinly wasn't. I was tired of the isolation, but could not bear the pity or bullying I received at school, and at home things were no better. My father had pretty quickly found a girlfriend after the divorce, and she was mean. She had a short temper and a quick hand and she made it very clear early on that misbehaving had dire consequences. I was an abused child of divorce in a school full of church attenting children with both parents who would never harm a hair on their heads.

At least that was how it felt most of the time. I was struggling with anxiety, depression and anger issues after Mom's death and it wouldn't be for a long time that I felt much peace. The friends I did have didn't stick around long after my anger got out of hand; and I went into High school with no friends and hoping to make some sort of change. High school to be truthfull wasn't much better, the kids I attended school with had parents who bought them cars and who let them participate in sports. I carried a blanket instead of using a jacket and had a backpack on wheels.

I did make a few friends and I have fond memories of sledding down the hill in front of the high school, attending football games and dances, and finding the best places to hide out during lunch to escape the roar of the lunchroom. These friends are how I survived highschool, though none of them remained in my life after high school.

The year after I graduated I had started to forgive Mom, and wanted to right her wrongs. I jumped into an abusive relationship, got pregnant and married at 19, and welcomed a baby boy all in the same year. I hated myself and what I was becoming but my baby boy made me push for a divorce the following year, and finally leave. At this point I had actually been diagnosed with Anxiety, Depression and now Bipolar disorder, which would soon be corrected to BPD then PTSD.

That brings us nearly to present day. Its been years since I left baby boy's dad, and I have met and married the love of my life, and given baby boy his baby brother. I still don't have friends, I still have anxiety and depression, and I am autistic.

My journey has been a lot longer than this short story, and I have been through many more hardships. I have witnessed loss, love, destruction and I have rebuilt. My story is like many, and though the details may be where our stories vary the most, the message is the same. Life is hard, sometimes unbearable, but like the wind in a storm it can change.

Now, I laugh and make thunder sound like bowling, I am silly like a summer breeze. I wear my hair dark and short, and I am teaching my sons to change tires, to share their feelings, treat others with respect and to come to me. I have let go of things and people who hurt me, and choose to embrace the good whereever possible.

Its hard, I love to complain and am a huge crybaby. If something is inconveinent my first instinct is to complain because its easy. And I indulge myself in complaining. On hard days I let myself complain all day, and when I am done complaining I do something that makes me happy, and try to either erase the day from my mind, or choose to remember what was good. Just like Mom, I choose to remember the good.

The time she took me to the living room late at night during a thunderstorm and had me watch a thunderstorm through the big window and laughing with every lighting strike, instead of the fact that she was mad that I was awake. Or the time she so gently picked me up and kissed the tippy top of each of my toes after I stepped on broken glass and she had to bandage my feet; and forget that she was the reason the glass was broken in the first place.

I hope that I am remembered in the same way that I remember Mom once I am gone.

Let yourself complain. Let yourself be mad. Have those big, negative emotions. Just don't live in them. Have them and move on. Close that door and do something that makes you happy. Light a candle, eat the cake, buy a coffee or post the selfie. Life is too short to keep hating Mom, and its not going to get me, or you anywhere.

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