27 Years Silent

After 27 years of being on this planet, I have finally decided to write this book. I have purposely put it off to try and ward off negative reviews about it because I’m a first time writer. But my life is interesting and I have said numerous times that it should be a movie. So here it is my life in black and white for the whole world to see.

Let’s start out with when I was born. I was born on a Wednesday that just so happened to be Valentine’s Day in 1990. I really don’t know much about my journey into this world but from what I’ve heard I was trouble from the start. My mom and dad were very loving parents. So much that they let my dad’s parents adopt me at the age of 8. That’s a different chapter.

So here I am little chubby legs and a chubby face with my black hair and blue eyes making my grand entrance into the world by making my mother almost bleed to death. I know that’s not funny but she should’ve known what was going to happen when she had sex with a Sasquatch. My mom is very tiny by the way. I thought that my life would be normal. But little and innocent baby face me had no clue what was in store for me through my first 10 years.

As a baby, I lived with my parents. Mommy and Daddy. We lived in an apartment and then in a trailer on a hill behind my grandparent’s house. The apartment was loads of fun growing up. I can remember when I was about 2 my mom would take me to the playground while my dad would be out working on the riverboat. Off to a pretty good start huh? Well, time goes on and I notice that there is one friend that my mom likes to have over. Again, I was two, and I didn’t understand what was going on at all. I didn’t know this man I just knew that he was friends with my mom and I wanted to be friends with him too. I wasn’t allowed though. Every time that he would come over to visit I was sent to my room for a nap. He seemed to really like my mom but didn’t really want me around. That memory seems to fade into another. This one is very different. I remember being in the apartment with my mom and dad and they were fighting. Oh lord were they ever. I was still about two and I witnessed my very first assault. My mom and dad were fighting over her new friend I think and dad wasn’t happy about it. I don’t remember the words that were said but I do remember seeing a pair of scissors going into my dad’s leg.

Mom and Dad split for a while and then we moved to a trailer behind my Nanny and Papa’s house. This I do remember very clearly so I must have been around three or four. I thought that was the best place ever. Nothing really happened up there that I can recall the only thing I would remember is at a very young age I would sneak out in the morning and run down to my Papa’s house as fast as I could. I would be there for hours and hours and then they would get a phone call asking if I was there with them. I spent my life there. The older I got the less and less I saw my mom and dad. I thought that they would be back to pick me up to take me home. I was let down after a couple of years finally realizing that they weren’t coming for me. So my parents divorced and went their separate ways and I was with Nanny and Papaw.

Living there was great. I went to church every Sunday, Sunday night and Wednesday evening for years. I never missed a day unless I was sick. I remember coming home from church and wanting to go to my aunt’s house after Sunday school. I ate my lunch and headed towards her house. They had a big driveway and my uncle worked on cars. My Nan would always call right as I left to make sure that someone knew that I was on my way there. I was in such a hurry and I was so excited to go that I didn’t even notice my aunt’s dog, Toby. Toby was a royal pain in the ass. He was mean and I have my cousins and their friends to thank for that. When I first saw him it was too late to run back home. I really wanted to play little cars on the rock that was protruding out of the hillside in their driveway. Toby was a black German Shepard/Wolfhound mix. He was quite scary looking. I know that when he was tied up he would always lunge and snap at you.

My aunt took me by the hand and said he wouldn’t hurt me and to pet him. She stood by my side as I reached out to pet Toby. I was surprised that this nasty devil dog was pleasant. She turned around and headed for her house and assured me that she would be back that she was going to take a shower and that my uncle and cousin were behind the garage. So there I was me and Toby, so far so good. You have to think that being three or four at the time a kid loves animals. Big or small we had to pet and hug them. Well, I warmed up to Toby and thought I will show him that I’m not afraid of giving him a hug. WRONG! Toby didn’t like hugs. I turned to run and Toby jumped up and knocked me down. I screamed for what seemed like forever and nobody came. I can still see Toby jumping from side to side on my little body while he was tearing up my face. Finally, my cousin saw him and shouted. Toby got off of me and my cousin picked me up and rushed me to Nanny and Papaw's. I remember seeing my blood all over the back of his shirt and when we got there my Nan wrapped me in a blanket and Papaw sped to the hospital. I remember lying on the table waiting for someone to come in. My Nan was by my side the whole time. The nurse came in and cut my shirt off and everything went dark from there.

When I woke up, I was in a different hospital and my room was filled with Halloween decorations and I saw my mom. My mom had come to sit with me and she held my hand and asked me how I was. Then everything fades again. It’s funny how your brain works and how certain memories stay with you for the longest time but I imagine that if anyone had a traumatic event it would more than likely haunt them till the day they die. After coming home I remember standing on my tippy toes to look in the mirror to see my face. Toby had ripped the left side of my mouth and cut the right side of my temple. Toby basically had my whole face in his mouth. The bite obviously left a scar and I hated it for the longest time but now I’m ok with it. I can’t get rid of it and even if I did I don’t think I would.

I’m going to leave out the hear-say and other dramatic stories that I have heard through my life about this period of time that we’re in right now. Believe me, there was nothing good and nothing that I can prove to be facts. Everyone has their own skeletons in their closets. Now take time to process this. A couple that has had a history of violence in their relationship. They had a baby and “tried” to make the marriage work for the best interest of the baby. They cheated and had battled their own demons in their lives and their lives might have been worse than what I’m letting on that mine was. The distrust and lack of loyalty for one another was something that I never wanted for myself. The stories that I was told made me want to be better than what they were and what they had. I wanted to have kids that had both their parents that loved one another and could be there for anything that they would ever go through in their lives because I never had that. I believe that every woman and man at some point in their lives has had the exact same thought. We want to be better than our parents and our parents want that for us as well. That is why I’m not angry at my parents anymore. It took years of therapy to finally understand that what I was dealing with wasn’t my fault.

Years go on and I’m about five or six. This is the time in my life that I wish I could’ve skipped. This is where my innocence left me. These have to be the years that destroyed my childhood. How could anything be so bad that it could ruin a child’s life that could be worse than a dog attacking your face? Take a moment to think about it. Now let’s see if what you thought is correct.

My cousin had come down to play Barbie’s with me. She had the Barbie Dream Castle that you had to unfold and was a real pain in the ass to that. We played for hours changing their clothes and pretending to be princesses and what not. She then asks me if I wanted to go to her house and play. I asked my Nan and she said that it was ok because my uncle was there to supervise.

When we got there we went to her room and I was so ready to play Barbie’s because she was older and she had more than me. But we didn’t play. She had a different game to play with me. First, she asked me to give her a kiss and I did on the cheek. She then asked me to give her one on the lips I did and got back down to play Barbie’s again. We played for maybe five minutes and she asked if I would like to learn a different kiss. And being about five or six you only know of one. In my mind, I was like how many more are there. I would love to know what it is so I can show Nanny and Papaw. So I told her yes. She kissed me with her tongue in my mouth. It was weird. I told her to stop and she told me to do it to her downstairs. I told her no again, and again, and again. Her mom came in and told me that it was time for me to go home. I don’t think she saw me do anything or even if she heard anything at all.

When I got home I felt weird. I felt different. I didn’t want to play with Barbies anymore. I didn’t want to do anything like that anymore. I told my Nan what had happened and she told me to never tell Papaw that she would do that for me and they would talk to my uncle about it. I don’t think it ever happened because when my cousin would come to visit she would make me kiss her in that “special” way. It went on for almost a year. Nothing was ever said. Nothing was ever done and she got off scot-free. I had so much anger in me. I felt like I wasn’t worth anything and that my feelings and things that I was going through didn’t matter to them at all. I never did tell my Papaw. I thought that my Nan had already done so. I found out after my Papaw had died when I was in my early twenty’s that she never did speak of it to him. Her reasoning for that was that she didn’t want Papaw going up the hill to her house and beating the ass off of her and smacking my uncle around for letting it happen. That right there ended my love for my Nan. I mourned over her as if she had died. I’ve lost all my respect and love for her. I really don’t know what my Nan was thinking about when I told her. I imagine she knew the real reason why I was feeling the way I did and continued to take me to a therapist to talk about random shit when all she had to do was speak up. That’s all that it would’ve taken.

When I was about seven or eight I was still angry. I was seeing a therapist and it wasn’t making sense to me why she would want to talk about a girl I went to church with and what the big deal was for me to act like her. I found out that my Nan had told my therapist that I was envious of this little girl and the things that she did and that I was jealous of her parents. This set my little heart on fire. I hated that girl. Why would people be bringing her up to me on what seemed like a daily basis? Why would my Nan compare me to her what seemed like every single fucking time we went to church? I hated it. I got to the point to where I couldn’t stand that little girl so I made fun of her behind her back. I would taunt and tease and say hurtful things to others about her. I didn’t like that little girl and I didn’t like myself anymore.

With all the hurt and anger inside I needed a way to relieve my frustration and all the tension that I had built up in just a few years. Here I am around eight or nine and I have discovered that if I hit something I feel better. If I beat the mortal hell out of anything I’ll feel better and that is what I did. I would catch stray cats and dogs and beat the mortal hell out of them. I couldn’t tell you how many that I have killed at that age. I would steal chicks from my neighbor while he was away and break their necks just because it made me feel better and I would trough them across the railroad tracks in the front yard.

I’m around eight or nine and I’m severely fucked up. My mom and dad left. I haven’t seen them in years. I got my face shredded by a dog that had been mistreated and then my cousin decides she wants to teach me something new that would ultimately fuck up my childhood. And my life keeps going. I remember coming home from school to find out that my mom had come to town but had to leave quickly. I had later found out that she had come to sign adoption papers and had made a statement of “I don’t have anything here anymore.” My little heart was crushed and broken into tiny little pieces. She didn’t stop to say bye, I love you, kiss my ass. She didn’t say anything to me before she left. My dad still came around but only on his terms. He never stopped in to just see me. He always wanted something. Borrow something, lend him something, or feed him something. I didn’t really know why he didn’t want to see me nor did I know why my mom felt the same way. I was very confused.

Like all kids, they have a mom and a dad. I however did but didn’t at the same time. I had Nan and Papaw. I was fine with it but my classmates thought it was weird so they shunned me in a way. I only had a few friends at school. One friend that I had really didn’t talk to me there but when we were out of school she was fine with hanging around with me. I didn’t understand what the big deal was but apparently not having a mom and dad at home is a big deal. Then again this was late 90s so kids then were a lot different than kids today.

School was my getaway. I loved it. I wanted to stay there forever if I could. The teachers were so loving and kind. They cared. They cared for me and everyone in the building. School was the only place that I could go and be a kid. I had friends there and they didn’t know my dark secrets. They allowed me to be who I wanted to be; Just a kid.

I remember my first best friend that I loved to hang out with. We became close friends in Kindergarten because our dads had the same first name. Being that young and finding the smallest similarities between the two of you end up becoming lifelong friends. I loved going to her house because her parents allowed you to be kids. Nosey little kids that want to explore everything. There was a house that used to set near where she lived and we would try and creep in and look around but her mom always knew when we were close to it. “Mom-dar” is what I call it. My friend and I did everything together. To me we were similar to sisters. I believe my most favorite memory was when we would play in the creek in the summertime. We didn’t know what got dumped into the creek at the time so I think that’s why we have a hefty immune system now. One year we got into an argument over Pokémon and we were told that we couldn’t talk to one another anymore but over the summer break, we would write each other via postcard. I had the best times with her. I feel that her parents felt obligated to take me places with them because my grandparents were old and didn’t take me places except for church. I’m grateful that he parents did that for me because I got to do a lot of things I probably would’ve never done.

When I was ten I discovered boys. I had my crush and I crushed on him hard. He lived down the road from my Papaw and Nan’s house right across from the school where we went to. He was the cutest person in my eyes. He knew that I liked him and so he would pick on me every day. You know what kids do. I showed my affection my punching him in the back of the head. Little love taps. One day at school I found a little piece of paper that was slid slightly under my pencil holder. I looked at it and he had written “Will you date me? Yes? No?” Thinking back on that now I’m laughing. I see my own kids picking on some other little boy or girl because they like them.

That is the first ten years of my life. The next ten gets a little better. Couldn’t get any worse right?