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The History of Me (LONG!!!)
This is essentially the Introduction entry. Getting everyone who wants to know the glory of my life up to date so when I talk about things you'll know where I'm coming from. This will be a VERY long posting, with the occasional opinionated preachiness. I've written some of these stories many times over. What I like about typewritten/Internet journals is I can now type it, and once and for all save it as a permanent record.
I was born from a Jewish mother and Christian father in the Bronx, NYC. It was my mom's only chance to have a legit in-marriage child. The marriage was falling apart due to him selling drugs and drinking obsessively, and her doing drugs. Yes, there is a chance that's why I'm hard of hearing. But bugger it, I'm not going to go nuts for things that can't be changed. Now I did have a lot of great memories as a kid. I was hardly love deprived. And I was spoiled rotten. But a lot of bad things happened too, so they tend to get forgotten. Particularly, my parents separating. I lived with my mom for some time. I found her porn collection when I was about five... so I learned the business about the bird and the bees waaay early.
My mom went to a clinic in upstate New York for some years to clean herself up. I lived with my dad and his girlfriend. I could go on with that for awhile. But let's just say it wasn't happy, since on the whole most of it wasn't too important. The only really important thing was she had children with him. I hated her for drinking and smoking during pregnancy, even as young as I was. When Anthony was born I often had to hide in the closet holding him as they threw bottles at each other. Somewhere out there I have him and his two brothers as stepbrothers that I really don’t know. I hope they are ok, though she did finally leave my dad and moved away.
During this time of my life I was the ousted person in all my classes. I always wondered if people from my old school called the new ones to tell them just what to say and think about me. I was highly imaginative and had literally a whole world of my own. Between being treated like a leper in school and my home life, and the escapist fantasies I thus indulged in, I didn't learn much in school.
In the middle of the third grade my grandparents on my mother's side went to court and had both my parents declared unfit. This was traumatizing to me. Despite everything I've been through, I still was very close to and adored my mother.
I was sent to live with some cousins in Staten Island who happened to be foster parents. They were good people, but I treated them like s**t. I was a very mad and lonely little girl then. I literally never looked up from the ground when I walked. I had my nails filed to points. There were lots of fun and funny times living there too. If I wasn't so ******** up personally it might have been the best-adjusted place I've ever lived. I still feel guilty for how I treated them. My parents had visiting rights, and I loved them despite what they did to me.
A very significant event was October 1986 (I was 7), when my dad and I carved a jack-o-lantern in the back of his pickup truck. That was the last I saw or heard of him for a long time. I remember being heartbroken waiting by the phone all day on my 8th birthday that next April. Eventually I gave up and convinced myself I didn't care, that I didn't have a Father really. About 13 years later he got back in touch with me. I even went to visit him. We're not super close - but I respect him for the courage to contact me after so much time. I understand he was sick and guilty for his past. I may never know what a real relationship with a father is like, but I’m glad to have a chance to get to know him and his side of the family a little.
My mom moved to South Florida to help grandma with grandpa, who was dying. It was very hard for her, finally being clean but still leaving me up in NY with the Foster Cousins. Grandpa had a very difficult death. Alzheimer's, strokes, and finally kidneys. It really was hard on the family. She also went to school to get a good job so she could get me back. For a few years I went to Florida to be with her every vacation. Then I did something so bad to my foster folks that I don't remember what it was. All I remember is being locked out of my room (which, when you think of it, is really worse than being locked in) and on a plane the next day. I was in the middle of the sixth grade.
Another very important point in my life was my mom getting another boyfriend. In the middle of the sixth grade I remember her picking me up with HIM in the car. His name was Darran, but these days I usually refer to him as "IT" in a tone of disgust. He was charming, handsome, younger than my mom by about a decade... and a drunk. A terrible drunk. He tried to convince me my mom didn’t love me. He told me to eat a tiny glass light bulb (which would have killed me). He threw my kitten across the room and against the wall at full force. He beat my dog. When we lived with him we ran away every weekend to Grandma’s for fear of his drunken rages. He threw furniture around and beat up mom regularly. In a drunken stupor he asked me to touch his p***s once. And yet, it was years until we were free of him. Until she stopped taking him back. I can honestly say he is a person I can wish dead. From what I hear, he’s in jail again, hopefully for good finally. And mom says he wrote to her to tell her he has brain cancer. It could be him trying to get her pity, but I hope it’s true.
I managed through middle school. The few friends I had were much younger than me because I was afraid to approach people my age. After "IT" was gone, we lived with my Grandma in her one bedroom apartment in an old folks development. Mom and Grandma slept in the bedroom. I slept on a couch in the living room.
My passions at the time were singing and reading. Singing I’ve always loved. Reading I picked up as another way to escape life. I practically lived in the library. Since I had no friends to speak of, I went on weekends from opening to closing. I moved from juvenile literature to adult Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy by reading "A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy". I also loved all the "Choose Your Own Adventure" and "Pick A Plot" books . Eventually those grew tedious and I moved on to the more advanced and random "Lone Wolf" books and such. About my sophomore high school year I started to wonder what the TSR on all the books meant. With a bit of research at my beloved library I learned of Dungeons and Dragons. Except all the books on it were stolen and in the bookstore they were all in boxes or shrink-wrapped. So I gave up on that idea. Until one day in class when I over heard two people (a girl and guy) talking behind me about vampires as though they had dealt with and fought them personally. I drew the connection and turned around and talked to them. (A big deal for me, as shy as I was back then.) Through them I met a whole group of people every bit as mentally messed up and imaginative as I was. The girl, Arianna, became my best friend. The guy, Giev, invited us both to his house to play in a Rifts game run by his friend.
This was the high point of my high school life. This was what transformed me from a quiet shy messed up person to a progressively more outgoing geek with a posse. Oh, I can still be pretty shy, but nothing like I used to be. It went to my head and I got kicked out of my performing arts magnet school and had to repeat sophomore year.
Well, Rifts never did appeal to me at all, but I absolutely loved the people, so I kept at it. And, I secretly fell for and developed the worst crush in Alan, and GM running the game. He fell for Arianna, who had no real interest in him at all. A year went by and Alan and I got to subtle flirting. He invited me, and Ari, to go see Iron Maiden. And soon after that officially asked me out on a date. We progressed slowly. Stayed on the phone talking all night together, seeing each other mostly only on weekends. First kiss at about 3 months, lost virginity at 9 months or so. I got him into anime, he got me into metal. He ran games more suited to my taste. I found my first love of RPG's, Changeling: The Dreaming. It was all good.
Once out of one high school, I got into a program at an adult vocational technology school. I studied my academics proficiency based style. In other words, we took the final first, and only studied what we didn’t know. It was self paced and I made up the time I lost. I also got to try photography, and Graphic Design, and thought that was my career.
After high school I continued studying it there, and then moved on the local community college. Academics were always very difficult for me. Because of my rough upbringing, I didn't pay attention in grade school. I never got the basics, and I didn't care. Now that I did care... it was/is incredibly hard. It was always my belief that the purpose of high school was to supply a person with the basic knowledge they require for life and to peruse higher education. I was very sadly disappointed. Upon applying for college, I had to take the academic competency tests so they would know how to place me. I failed the math portion. I had never seen or heard of the problems that were on that test. Why the hell was I not told of this and prepared appropriately in high school?!? I blame the Florida school systems, which has many other problems with it as well.
I took and almost completed a technical degree in Graphic Design. It required little to no Math or Science, and I liked it. But in the real world, you don't get to create what *you* like. And since I couldn't draw, and the market was flooded with people who could both draw and self taught themselves the programs at home... it made the degree and years of studying Design useless.
You may have wondered why I'm covered by vocational rehabilitation? I was born hearing impaired. Totally deaf in my left ear, partially in the right. The doctors told my mom I'd never talk right. HA! Not only do I talk, but I sing! I'd never make pros, but still not too bad at all. However, I have no qualms at all with milking the fact of my hearing for all it's worth. It's my own personal volume control. Family yelling? TV playing too loud? Not a problem! It also has gotten me preferred seating at plays and shows. And of course, my tuition and books.
I know there is a surgery for it. However, I can still function well as I am. So I think I'll hold off and give them time to learn to do it even better. Same theory goes for laser vision correction. I do want it. But anything that major and permanent I want done as safe as possible. And I'm trying to learn American Sign Language. Maybe someday I'll even moonlight as an interpreter.
The first religious spirituality I really took to was Wiccan. I learned about it when Arianna mentioned it in conversation. It intrigued me and instead of asking her what it was, I did mostly all the research on my own. She only encouraged me once she found out of my interest. All the work and choices were my own. My family religions never appealed to me because they were never well expressed. The freedom of Wicca greatly appealed to me. I was a solitary universal eclectic Wiccan because I never could quite settle on just one tradition or pantheon. Later I simply called myself pagan.
I learned more about Judaism after I started dating Alan. His family was more observant. When I went with him to see Leonard Nemoy (Spock) give a lecture on his book of photography called Shekina, It inspired me to learn more about my family’s religion, even if they personally don’t really adhere to it. When we finally got married, I did a lot of research into Jewish traditions and customs. I found that there was a lot of symbolic symmetry between Judaism and Wicca. Also, I went to Israel for free with Birthright Israel, and I learned a lot from that trip also.
After that I wanted to express the Jewish traditions of my family, but I didn't want to give up what I loved from paganism. I still wanted to honor a god and goddess, and the seasons, and magic.That put me in a very interesting merger of interests. The closest group I was able to find that was like me then was the Jewish Renewal movement.
But it all lost momentum as I got frustrated. I stopped really observing and doing very much except for family obligatory dinners and such. I felt like an odd shape that would never fit in or be accepted in any box - or that said box would be very far away at very least. Then my husband came out to me as an atheist. At that point, it wasn't hard at all to just give it all up. If anything it was a great relief.
It's scary how my father's whole side of my family seemed cursed by cigarettes. My grandfather died from throat cancer and chain smoking his whole life when I was a child. Several years ago, my aunt fell asleep with a lit cigarette and burned herself, the apartment, and her mother (my grandmother) from smoke inhalation. She survived, but only after almost a year in coma and almost her whole body needing skin grafts. And after all of that she still smoked. And then my father followed in his father's footsteps and also got throat cancer, smoking right up to the end.
The last and hardest thing for me to give up was the idea of an afterlife. Especially just after my father passed away. I hated the idea of nothingness. I never wanted heaven or hell, if I were to choose anything it would have been reincarnation. So I could keep learning and experiencing, and see what happens in the epic story of the world and humanity. Someone pointed out to me, what I really wanted was more life. So why not just live NOW? They were absolutely right. As they say in the X-Files, I want to believe. Being a skeptical atheist doesn't mean I can't like an idea. But I look for the evidence.
Oddly, you'd think all this would make me emotionally dead. But there is still so much wonder in the world. So much to see and do! More things to learn and try! And though I wouldn't have expected it, I found support, community, friendship, and acceptance in my local atheist and skeptical groups - and I finally feel fulfilled and happy with where I'm at.
As much as I've been through, things have turned around. Whereas I once thought the darkness would never pass, I now bathe in the light of my first true love as my Husband. I have a circle of true friends with whom I can honestly trust. I am living in my own home. Yes, it's not perfect. I am still overweight, and we're financially unstable. My relationship with my In-Laws is seriously dysfunctional. I'm still trying to work out a career and college, despite the academic difficulties. I have PCOS and thus may have difficulty having a child. And I have so many things I want to see, do, read, and learn! And sometimes I feel impatient that some things may never happen. But even at my age... life never stops throwing hard curve balls your way. But after all I've been through, I'm a little more optimistic.
You're still with me? I’m impressed.
Some may wonder why I bare all on an online journal of all things.
Not private at all, I know.
These are my shadows. All real things have shadows. Upon telling Arianna my past, and her telling her own to me, we both agreed we wouldn’t trade for each others, as bad as our own were. It can consume you, or you can face it and live stronger for it. I know there are people out there who have had much worse. Who are still facing it, or who haven’t yet. That’s why I share my experiences like this. In a hope that some how maybe hearing my story might possibly help someone else out there.
"I’m the onion girl. Peel away the layers and in the middle you’ll find nothing." ~ Jilly from Charles De Lint’s novel "The Onion Girl" That middle is the soul, so don’t be afraid of it. Despite all I've been through I still believe there is goodness in the world. If you can try to live life honestly and give everything and everyone your best attempt, it leaves less room for regret, because what else could you do? Keep love and hope in your heart, and dare to be the better person even when it's hard. Find your passion and bliss, and keep it in you no matter what. Something no one can ever take away. A dream. That’s what makes it all worth while.
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