Smashed/2005

When I turned 40, I had a birthday party at Jimmy and Irene’s house. I hadn’t started my therapy with Scott yet. Daddy and momma were there, separately. My grandparents, my daddy’s parents were there and all of my siblings.

There was a wound in me that was getting deeper, the hollow grief of loneliness was sadistic, and ate my heart.

Mia began dating Brandon Chennault the man she would later marry at the end of the year. Brandon was 20, handsome and shy, he was about “5,7” and extremely kind. Mia always dated handsome men. He came to my party too. Maybe it was the atmosphere, everyone was with their spouse, Moe had Mike, momma had Roger, Boi had Marianne, Jimmy had Irene, Misi was with a nurse named Terry who she would later marry and who would be the father of her baby Jessi, daddy was living with Cathy. It was like this continued stab in the ribs, “You have no rib you were taken out of no one.” “You are unlovable.” “No one ever loved you, nor ever will.” It’s that type of dialogue, the incessant chatter of the voice that calls you a loser, your own voice that conspires against you.

Besides that my face was all scratched up as Emma was at her worst at that time. I was being beaten by her nearly every day. I don’t write beaten as she was not even 12, but I didn’t hit her back of course, I would shield myself or try to hold her arms. But she would take me unawares.

I remember the time she hit the back of my head against the kitchen cabinet, unexpectedly. I literally saw stars dancing around my eyes which blurred my vision. Gabe, Emma’s therapist and the ladies from Families First used to tell me to call the police whenever she assaulted me. But I couldn’t call the police on her if it was me she assaulted.

This was like winter, even though it was almost Spring I was living in winter, in a blizzard, estranged, and ostracized, the identity that characterized me over the years.

It had been years since I was intimate with a man. Pete Pappas and I had been together three years ago. He was my friend through my relationships with Doug Vaught and Klassen. Despite the fact that he was married we talked to each other often. He was still married, and then we crossed the line into intimacy, and we never called one another again. That was in 2002.

The family gathering continued, my grandparents had already gone home, thank goodness. Otilo, Irene’s "poppy" as she affectionately called him kept pouring liquor into my plastic cup of punch. He didn't mean any harm, this is how he celebrated. This was years before he was diagnosed with dementia. He was "pura vida" filled with life that was his eulogy at his funeral years later. Years before that when momma was on the way to grandma’s “velorio” a “funeral wake” Otilio had given momma his flask to drink in the car. He wanted to take away momma's pain. In all honesty, I don’t remember why she was riding with him on the way to the velorio anyway. During the velorio momma passed out and fell into daddy’s arms and he carried her to the car. Very dramatic that is how our family was, very intense family dynamics.

Later that night I burned many round circles into my arms until the skin turned black from the butt of the cigarette. I suffered no pain from pressing the cigarette deep into my fore-arm.

It fascinated me seeing the skin turn black, so I pressed more circles into my flesh. I wanted it to hurt but it didn’t.

My inebriation was different from other peoples. Some people get “friendly” and “happy” when they get drunk. Others are hostile and begin to fight with people. I began to scream as if I were traumatized. Moe had to take me to her truck until I calmed down. I don’t know why I became hysterical maybe it was that I believed I had been molested as a child. There were sinister feelings that delved into my psyche, and being inebriated only exacerbated this. When I calmed down a bit, Moe and Mia helped me to the upstairs bathroom. I began banging my head against the door. I used to wonder about the exaggerated reaction of drunk people, do we choose our reaction?

The next morning, surprisingly enough I didn’t have a “hangover” the way everyone says that you do. My head didn’t hurt at all, I was lucid. The thing that I did feel was shame in front of my daughter, nieces and nephews. I never drank, but turning 40 and still being single, devastated me.

It was only by the Grace of Jesus Christ that was the only time I had ever gotten drunk.

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“Whereas you have been forsaken and

Hated,

So that no one went through you,

I will make you an eternal excellence

A joy of many generations.”

(Isaiah 60:15)