At this pount, I was working as a hostess at an upscale restaurant. All of the waiters were males who wore tuxedos and cocaine flowed liberally throughout each shift. At the Christmans party, the owner allowed us to drink and of course, I went overboard. It was Christmans Eve and I was supposed to help my Mother cook for 15 people. I went home, she knew I was drunk, and once again, I broke her heart. One night my friends and I went with one of the waiters to a soccer shop he owned to get loaded. He was very good looking and he liked me. I felt very special that this handsome 24 year old was willing to hang out with a 16 year old. We drank tequilla and did cocaine way past my curfew. I went home missing my pants and my Mother confronted me. What was the troubled, worried heart of a Mother that cared was mistaked for meddlinig, being a nuisance and basically wanting to ruin my life. She cried, again. The next morning her business partner and she came into my room and informed me I would be going to rehab in Minnesota. Of course I said no and left. I ran down the canal to the Rio Grande. She had called the Sheriffs Dept. and I could see that they were on the banks of the River looking for me. the never found me but my brother did. He was so disappointed in me and it really broke my heart. There was a part of me that wanted to be good, I just figured I was hopeless. I managed to run away again and stayed free for 3 weeks before being tricked into going. The ambulance was on the way to my house when a trusted friend showed up to rescue me. I was able to get to her car where she slipped me a hit of LSD before I was hauled away to the psych ward in a local county hospital while I waited for my plane. I had an escape plan at the airport but I couldn't make it because I was surrounded by my brother and Father. We boarded the plane, had a layover in Dallas (where I saw Willie Nelson) and on we went to Minneapolis. Rehab was clearly not for me. All I did was get into trouble every chance I could get. People always aske me what my drug of choice was and I would say "coke and Rophynol", No one could understand why I absolutely loved the date rape drug. At that point, I didn't know the answer. I figure it out someitme later. I loved it because it killed my conscience. I was what I always dreamt of being, a emotionless, completely sociopathic zombie. Now, I am not a sociopath and I am glad for that now. But back then, my life was in shambles. I had failed school, my relationships were gone, everything good I once had was destroyed amd I never thought it would come back. I was not ready to change and I managed to get high while I was there. My Dad got me out of there because he was convinced I was going through a phase. I moved in with him, he gave me a car and I was back in El Paso for summer school 1995. All of my friends were in summer school with me. It was fun at first. We were stopped at the border a couple of times and searched. They always broke our pipes. Back then, the punsihment wasn't as harsh as it is now. Most of the time they never took our pharmaceuticals. I started selling pot and coke. I carried it around with me in a Crown Royal bag. I fels like a badass. Little did people know that I was crying myself to sleep at night when I did sleep, I hated looking at myself in the mirror and I wanted to die. I almost got my wish several times throughout this time. Once school started again, I saw no point in going. In September of 1995 I decided to ditch school and try and find some money. I broke into some houses and got caught. One of the houses happened to be the Chief of Police's house. I stole his loaded guns and got pulled over with them in my car. I was lucky that I didn't try and use them because I would be dead as I write this now, but I was that stupid. My first ecperience in adult jail was when I was 17 years old. El Paso county jail was a very disgusting place. I was in there with a very diseased prostitute that scared the crap out of me. I was in there for 2 weeks and then released on my own recognisace pending my sentencing. Funny enough, the judge who signed as my birthfather was the judge who sentenced me to 10 years deferred probation. I thought I had hit bottom, I thought I was done but as the addage says "Why do you keep hitting your head with a hammer? Because it feels so great when I finally stop." Living with my Dad was easy. He had no idea what I was doing and if he did, he knew he couldn't stop it. There are not enough days left for me to provide the proper amends to my Parents for what I have put them through but I would like to think I try. I was arrested a second time at Taco Cabana. A friend and I were stealing beer and she got caught. I threw a burrito at the woman holding her in an attempt to create a diversion to no avail. Instead, I went to jail again, along with my best friend and when we got out, I did not see, or hear from her in 4 years.
My aunt, who recently passed away, was one of the most wonderful people I will ever know. She loved me like her own daughter. She let me call her everyday while I was in jail. She never gave up on me, she was always there and she was the one person I knew I could talk to about anything. She was able to live long enough to see me as I am now and for that, I am able to have a little more peace.
My probation was now violated. I was on a list to go to a court appointed treatement center so I ran. My mother gave me a box of my belongings and drove me to the Mexican border. It was the saddest moment I had up to that moment. The look in her eye was as if I had already died and she was staring at my body. I cringe thinking about it. I went to live with some friends and I had a job as a telemarketer in El Paso. I soon was no longer welcomed due to my behavior so I was homeless once again. I always conned my way into finding a place to stay and at one point a group of us had an apartment. It was empty, but it was a roof over our heads. One night, I had done too much cocaine and other crap and I had a small realization. I was going to die ad the tiniest part of me didn't want to. I called my Mom crying and she said she would look for a place to go. By some miracle, I was able to go to a place called La Hacienda in Hunt, Texas. I was kindof motivated to get sober at this point but all I really wanted to do was figure out a way to be abole to drink and smoke pot without doing everything else. The first person I met would prove to be a pretty strong influence on me for the next decade.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
My angels flew faster than I could score coke in Juarez.
People asked me to write more so here goes post 2 for today.
9th grade exposed me to sex, drugs and rock and roll. I had gained a friend that had a car. She was older than the rest of us and taught us all about sex. Of course we all thought we had to try it. My first time was with a guy who is now a very flamboyant gay man. We had our suspicions about him back then as I am sure he knew but sleeping with me must have driven him over the edge. This means one of two things...I am either really really good, or really really bad at it. My friends were known as sluts. At this point I was only a slut in training. I remember stealing a sign for my friend to hang on her door that said "Go home and practice." She needed it for all of the popular boys who would go to her house to get laid, suck at it, and then go to school the next day only to treat her like crap, deny anything ever happened and call her names. Since Karma is awesome, most of those assholes ended up knocking a girl up, drinking too much, staying in El Paso and doing nothing with their lives. It is truly sad when high school is the high point of peoples lives.
It wasn't until the summer of 9th grade that something change in my social situation. A long time "friend," who is now an overweight alcoholic with a cocaine problem (karma), accused me of stealing $100 from her brothers room during a back to school party. I didn't do it but my best friend believed that I did and stopped being my friend right before school started.
I was now entering Coronado High School alone. I still had my slutty mentor and a new badass Colombian girl with a passion for getting high and reaking havoc. That summer, before my 15th birthday, my old BFF had tried acid. I was so angry with her. I lectured her on the evils of drug use and explained how it destroyed me that she did it the day before my birthday. Soon enough, I wanted to try it. During my 1st period class a really fat young man had made a deal with me. If I were to take 2 hits of acid right at that moment I could have it for free. Me being the moron that I was, decided that would be a good idea. 2nd period was orchestra. All I remember is that there was a test. The notes on the sheet of music started falling to the ground. My teacher is one of the strictest people on the planet and she knew something was up and she sent me to the nurse once I bursted into tears. The nurses office was in completely green room. It was a very odd place to find myself the first time I did acid. I managed to make it through school by convincing the nurse I had taken diet pills, I am not sure how. I did this not only because I was curious but I really wanted to be cool. I just went about it in a really bad way.
Pot was easy to get in high school and another friend dared me to eat as much as I could out of a huge bag she had. We had a school assembly that day and I had a profound thought. "If an alien came down and sall this event, I wonder what they would think of us clapping." After school, I went to my friends house where she proceeded to find me in the fetal positon rocking back and forth licking a Butterfinger wrapper.
My girls and I shared a locker and hung our bras up in it. Yes, we were that cool. Mine was green, the Colombian had the black one and the slut had the red one. Homecoming was coming up and a nice young man asked me to go with him. We wore mums on our arms and his was the last mum I would ever get. One weekend I was grounded, I got a call from a friend who had told me, David had died by jumping off a bridge into the Rio Grande and breaking his neck. We weren't going out persay, but we were close and it was very sad when he died. I just remember not wanting to feel anything then more than ever. Instead of going to his funeral, I ditched school and went to the park to get high. I thought thats what he would have wanted. Delusional. I had made friends with a very nice girl who hung out with me and kindof took me under her wing until I slept with her boyfriend. Which I still hate myself for. I am very lucky that she is still in my life and has forgiven me my past.We did acid together a lot, the first time I took mushrooms was with her, all in all we had a blast..for awhile. A friend of mine had asked me If I wanted to "trip." I didnt know what was on the menu that night but it was something called Jimson Weed. Most people only do this drug once. Not me, I did it several times. It was a terrible drug. My Mother had to watch me hallucinate for days and wondered if I was going to ever come back. This particular drug killed a few people we knew. They suffocated from eating dirt thinking it was water. One night, I was going to walk home when I had drank a lot of the Jimson Juice and for some reason, my good friend noticed I was leaving and threw me in a car. If it wasn't for her that night, I don't think I would have made it home. Angels. I have many, Thank God.
I was still in orchestra and that year we were gearing up to compete in England. The thing about drugs that I love the most is that they were able to stop my never ending thought. To call my thoughts racing is not enough. Constantly I have been bombarded by thoughts, mostly negative, and as a selfish teenager that does not have a lot of knowledge, it can be a very scary, lonely place.
The most unfortunate part of my early journey is my failure to maintain any morals and my ability to think only of myself and not care who I hurt in the process. It was as if I hurt badly inside and I was going to hurt as many people that cared about me so they would know how it feels. Since I have been passed this way of thinking for awhile, I cringe to think about all of the negative things I have done and I will spend the rest of my life trying to tip the scale of karma back in my favor.
In my sophomore year of high school, I was also introduced to something called speed, A friend of mine told me it was better for you than coke and that it is o.k. to do it. We went to a gross studio apartment and these two greasy, acne riddled mid 20's men pulled out some tin foil and introduced me to the drug that will steal your soul and leave you wondering if you ever had one to begin with. Crystal Meth, or Crank, as I knew it, made me feel 10 feet tall and bullet proof. I would sneak out at night to do it, I introduced several of my friends to it, and one of them ended up marrying the greasy older guy that introduced it to me. I will forever hate myself for that. BTW, I really don't hate myself, its just my way of saying I know how terrible I was, I can't even believe I was this person and I am very glad I killed that part of me.
By the time summer had come along, my life was in shambles. It doesn't take long with that crap. I no longer felt the need to attend classes, I was failing all of them anyway. My mom felt it was really important to join the orchestra in England. I had plans for England. I was going to party like a rock star. We went to a family reunion and I overheard my Mother explaining to her family how difficult I had become and him responding "Well, what do you expect from those adopted ones." Needless to say that really hurt my feeligs which I showed by getting extremely angry.
Finally the time for England had arrived. I smuggled marijuana there in my cello and my cigarette pack. My thoughts were that customs was unlikely to check us since we were all dorks. Successful in my endeavor we arrived in England. A friend and I managed to get seperated from the group and lost in London. It took $80 to get us back to where we were supposed to be. I got away from the group as often as possible and got high, met up with locals and smoked hash, tried ecstasy, made out with a young man from the Harvard choir at a wine tasting festival and spent way too much on a 6 pack of budweiser; which I did not realize was considered an import. I loved England, it was the first place I could real feel the History. One night, a few friends decided to get drunk with me, I was the one that went to get the whiskey. Teachers Whiskey to be precise. I don't know why I ended up in the hotel room of the Orchestra directors son but there I was. We drank almost the whole bottle to ourselves. When I got back to the hotel, the instructor was waiting for me. She said "stay away from my son," She just kept repeating that. At this point, I was probably suffering from alcohol poisoning and I tried to slosh myself up the stairs. On the way down the stairs at the same time was the assistant principal. A middle aged bitter woman that seemed to take pleasure in the suffering of troubled teens. (Or so I thought then) She knew I was drunk. I was then taken back to my room, where I started to vomit profusely all over myself and crying "I don't even know who gave birth to me." For some reason,, that fact was bothering me more than usual that night. The next day I had to got to Anne Hathaways house. Note to readers: Do not go there with a hangover, people were really short there and you will repeatedly hit your head. I had to spend the rest of the trip with the assistant principal. When I got home, my mother was devestated...again.
I was getting ready to enter my 2nd sophomore year and my final year in primary education. I had met a boy in England named Tony. He was a really nice guy. We walked on the beach together, he treated me really well and I treated him like crap in return. It didn't last. I often wonder how he is.
At this point I was partying all the time. Getting high was no longer the event. It was the thing I did before, during and after the event. I worked at a steakhouse as a hostess and I had money to go to Juarez on the weekend. By this time, I had found a love for cocaine and rophynol (date-rate drug) I would always score from the same guy on Friday nights. One night, a different guy was there. I followed him through the streets of Juarez until we got to a shack covered in white powder. I didn't realize I was in trouble until he threw me on the bed. I remember his hands around my throat and me pleading with him to let me go. He was ripping my shirt and prying my legs open on a dirty bed. I fought. I scratched, I did anything in my power to get the hell out of there. I couldn't understand what was happening to me. He was trying to kiss me as I struggled to get away from him when suddenly, for whatever reason, I broke away from him and hauled ass outside. I had no idea where I was so I started running as fast as I could. I am not sure how, but I found my way back to the club where my friends were and pretended like nothing had happen. It is a good thing my angels fly faster than I did when I wanted to score coke.
My memories of Mexico are reasonably blurry. I remember jumping out of the window of a moving vehicle, yelling about drug prices with a man who had a gun, getting arrested and having the cops steal our cocaine, and several other dangerous episodes from which I have no idea how I survived. That brings me up to the Spring of 1999. Things are about to get interesting.
9th grade exposed me to sex, drugs and rock and roll. I had gained a friend that had a car. She was older than the rest of us and taught us all about sex. Of course we all thought we had to try it. My first time was with a guy who is now a very flamboyant gay man. We had our suspicions about him back then as I am sure he knew but sleeping with me must have driven him over the edge. This means one of two things...I am either really really good, or really really bad at it. My friends were known as sluts. At this point I was only a slut in training. I remember stealing a sign for my friend to hang on her door that said "Go home and practice." She needed it for all of the popular boys who would go to her house to get laid, suck at it, and then go to school the next day only to treat her like crap, deny anything ever happened and call her names. Since Karma is awesome, most of those assholes ended up knocking a girl up, drinking too much, staying in El Paso and doing nothing with their lives. It is truly sad when high school is the high point of peoples lives.
It wasn't until the summer of 9th grade that something change in my social situation. A long time "friend," who is now an overweight alcoholic with a cocaine problem (karma), accused me of stealing $100 from her brothers room during a back to school party. I didn't do it but my best friend believed that I did and stopped being my friend right before school started.
I was now entering Coronado High School alone. I still had my slutty mentor and a new badass Colombian girl with a passion for getting high and reaking havoc. That summer, before my 15th birthday, my old BFF had tried acid. I was so angry with her. I lectured her on the evils of drug use and explained how it destroyed me that she did it the day before my birthday. Soon enough, I wanted to try it. During my 1st period class a really fat young man had made a deal with me. If I were to take 2 hits of acid right at that moment I could have it for free. Me being the moron that I was, decided that would be a good idea. 2nd period was orchestra. All I remember is that there was a test. The notes on the sheet of music started falling to the ground. My teacher is one of the strictest people on the planet and she knew something was up and she sent me to the nurse once I bursted into tears. The nurses office was in completely green room. It was a very odd place to find myself the first time I did acid. I managed to make it through school by convincing the nurse I had taken diet pills, I am not sure how. I did this not only because I was curious but I really wanted to be cool. I just went about it in a really bad way.
Pot was easy to get in high school and another friend dared me to eat as much as I could out of a huge bag she had. We had a school assembly that day and I had a profound thought. "If an alien came down and sall this event, I wonder what they would think of us clapping." After school, I went to my friends house where she proceeded to find me in the fetal positon rocking back and forth licking a Butterfinger wrapper.
My girls and I shared a locker and hung our bras up in it. Yes, we were that cool. Mine was green, the Colombian had the black one and the slut had the red one. Homecoming was coming up and a nice young man asked me to go with him. We wore mums on our arms and his was the last mum I would ever get. One weekend I was grounded, I got a call from a friend who had told me, David had died by jumping off a bridge into the Rio Grande and breaking his neck. We weren't going out persay, but we were close and it was very sad when he died. I just remember not wanting to feel anything then more than ever. Instead of going to his funeral, I ditched school and went to the park to get high. I thought thats what he would have wanted. Delusional. I had made friends with a very nice girl who hung out with me and kindof took me under her wing until I slept with her boyfriend. Which I still hate myself for. I am very lucky that she is still in my life and has forgiven me my past.We did acid together a lot, the first time I took mushrooms was with her, all in all we had a blast..for awhile. A friend of mine had asked me If I wanted to "trip." I didnt know what was on the menu that night but it was something called Jimson Weed. Most people only do this drug once. Not me, I did it several times. It was a terrible drug. My Mother had to watch me hallucinate for days and wondered if I was going to ever come back. This particular drug killed a few people we knew. They suffocated from eating dirt thinking it was water. One night, I was going to walk home when I had drank a lot of the Jimson Juice and for some reason, my good friend noticed I was leaving and threw me in a car. If it wasn't for her that night, I don't think I would have made it home. Angels. I have many, Thank God.
I was still in orchestra and that year we were gearing up to compete in England. The thing about drugs that I love the most is that they were able to stop my never ending thought. To call my thoughts racing is not enough. Constantly I have been bombarded by thoughts, mostly negative, and as a selfish teenager that does not have a lot of knowledge, it can be a very scary, lonely place.
The most unfortunate part of my early journey is my failure to maintain any morals and my ability to think only of myself and not care who I hurt in the process. It was as if I hurt badly inside and I was going to hurt as many people that cared about me so they would know how it feels. Since I have been passed this way of thinking for awhile, I cringe to think about all of the negative things I have done and I will spend the rest of my life trying to tip the scale of karma back in my favor.
In my sophomore year of high school, I was also introduced to something called speed, A friend of mine told me it was better for you than coke and that it is o.k. to do it. We went to a gross studio apartment and these two greasy, acne riddled mid 20's men pulled out some tin foil and introduced me to the drug that will steal your soul and leave you wondering if you ever had one to begin with. Crystal Meth, or Crank, as I knew it, made me feel 10 feet tall and bullet proof. I would sneak out at night to do it, I introduced several of my friends to it, and one of them ended up marrying the greasy older guy that introduced it to me. I will forever hate myself for that. BTW, I really don't hate myself, its just my way of saying I know how terrible I was, I can't even believe I was this person and I am very glad I killed that part of me.
By the time summer had come along, my life was in shambles. It doesn't take long with that crap. I no longer felt the need to attend classes, I was failing all of them anyway. My mom felt it was really important to join the orchestra in England. I had plans for England. I was going to party like a rock star. We went to a family reunion and I overheard my Mother explaining to her family how difficult I had become and him responding "Well, what do you expect from those adopted ones." Needless to say that really hurt my feeligs which I showed by getting extremely angry.
Finally the time for England had arrived. I smuggled marijuana there in my cello and my cigarette pack. My thoughts were that customs was unlikely to check us since we were all dorks. Successful in my endeavor we arrived in England. A friend and I managed to get seperated from the group and lost in London. It took $80 to get us back to where we were supposed to be. I got away from the group as often as possible and got high, met up with locals and smoked hash, tried ecstasy, made out with a young man from the Harvard choir at a wine tasting festival and spent way too much on a 6 pack of budweiser; which I did not realize was considered an import. I loved England, it was the first place I could real feel the History. One night, a few friends decided to get drunk with me, I was the one that went to get the whiskey. Teachers Whiskey to be precise. I don't know why I ended up in the hotel room of the Orchestra directors son but there I was. We drank almost the whole bottle to ourselves. When I got back to the hotel, the instructor was waiting for me. She said "stay away from my son," She just kept repeating that. At this point, I was probably suffering from alcohol poisoning and I tried to slosh myself up the stairs. On the way down the stairs at the same time was the assistant principal. A middle aged bitter woman that seemed to take pleasure in the suffering of troubled teens. (Or so I thought then) She knew I was drunk. I was then taken back to my room, where I started to vomit profusely all over myself and crying "I don't even know who gave birth to me." For some reason,, that fact was bothering me more than usual that night. The next day I had to got to Anne Hathaways house. Note to readers: Do not go there with a hangover, people were really short there and you will repeatedly hit your head. I had to spend the rest of the trip with the assistant principal. When I got home, my mother was devestated...again.
I was getting ready to enter my 2nd sophomore year and my final year in primary education. I had met a boy in England named Tony. He was a really nice guy. We walked on the beach together, he treated me really well and I treated him like crap in return. It didn't last. I often wonder how he is.
At this point I was partying all the time. Getting high was no longer the event. It was the thing I did before, during and after the event. I worked at a steakhouse as a hostess and I had money to go to Juarez on the weekend. By this time, I had found a love for cocaine and rophynol (date-rate drug) I would always score from the same guy on Friday nights. One night, a different guy was there. I followed him through the streets of Juarez until we got to a shack covered in white powder. I didn't realize I was in trouble until he threw me on the bed. I remember his hands around my throat and me pleading with him to let me go. He was ripping my shirt and prying my legs open on a dirty bed. I fought. I scratched, I did anything in my power to get the hell out of there. I couldn't understand what was happening to me. He was trying to kiss me as I struggled to get away from him when suddenly, for whatever reason, I broke away from him and hauled ass outside. I had no idea where I was so I started running as fast as I could. I am not sure how, but I found my way back to the club where my friends were and pretended like nothing had happen. It is a good thing my angels fly faster than I did when I wanted to score coke.
My memories of Mexico are reasonably blurry. I remember jumping out of the window of a moving vehicle, yelling about drug prices with a man who had a gun, getting arrested and having the cops steal our cocaine, and several other dangerous episodes from which I have no idea how I survived. That brings me up to the Spring of 1999. Things are about to get interesting.
Growing up down in the west Texas town of El Paso...
Cotton fields still surround my childhood home. I grew up around all boys. In order to fit in and keep up, I had to act like them. I wanted so badly to be able to do things as well as they all did. A true tomboy, my body is marked from horse-back riding debacles, being ran over by the death trap we called a three-wheeler and various other bad ideas my brothers and I came up with. I did anything they told me to do. We spent the days acting out Red Dawn. We truly thought WWIII was coming soon, a theme that has stuck with me for nearly 3 decades. I loved shooting guns, gutting fish and going camping. All skills that will serve me well if the World does go into a downward spiral.
All in all, childhood was relatively normal. My parents faught a lot, my Dad liked to drink. He would have me get his beers and I remember chugging them before giving them to him at a very young age. When he drank, he sometimes wouldn't come home until late, he and my Mom would fight and my brothers and I would wait at the window for him to come home.
I spent most of my childhood with our housekeeper. Maria was a wonderful woman who taught me how to speak fluent Spanish, cook great Mexican food and was my main caregiver when my Mother was at work. Mom was busy with herr own business and was at work a lot. She deliverd wholesale bedding plants to local nurseries and was very successful until about 2000. She delivered the plants in a renovated white handicapped "short bus." This was also our mode of transportation to and from elementary and junior high school. Another reason why I took the dark road ahead. Never make your kids ride the short bus if they don't have to. I was allgergic to milk as a baby and my Mother tried everything which, lucky me, rotted my baby teeth out requiring me to have silver caps on my front teeth. Kids can be cruel, I was different, this did not help my cause.
I found out I was adopted very young. My brothers never let me forget it. My parents didn't treat me differently but I always had in the back of my head that I was not a blood relative and that I did not belong there.
By the time junior high school hit, the stress level at home had escalated significantly. We all went to counseling. We tried everything to make it work. At this point in time, the focus of bad behavior was my oldest brother. I didn't know what that meant. I remember that Christmas like a few others was started off with a nasty fight between the rents and us being locked in our rooms until it was over.
One night in 7th grade the fight lasted a lot loger tha usual. My brother Darren told me "Mom and Dad are getting a divorce." I couldn't comprehend what that meant. I didn't think parents could do that. I was given a choice. Stay with your dad or go with Mom and she will get you a dog. I chose the latter option. Ginger Snaps was a poodle mix that was dumped by the canal near my new house which was coincedentally located next door to my Fathers house. It made moving simple.
My mom and I moved into an old farm house that she redecorated and renovated to be a very cute little two bedroom house. It was perfect for us. It was around this time that I started acting out in school. It was the beginning of some very dark and deadly days.
I was a member of a Methodist Church. It was at a Church retreat that a game of truth or dare led me to an awful situation. I will not go into details but what happened changed me for the rest of my life. The game was played with me an 11 year old and 2 17 year olds. From that point on, whatever self esteem I did have went out the window right along with my innocence. I saw myself as less than, uglier than and dumber than everyone else in the World. This incident has also played a role in my resistance agains organized religion. I mean, what kind of God was with me that night? Now I know better but at the time, I was pissed.
The first time I got drunk was when I was 13. My brother gave me Southern comfort and Mountain Dew. After tripping over the dog and putting my hand through a picture frame, my Mom was on to me and my brother was in deep crap. I liked being drunk. I always was a dare devil and did whatever someone asked me to. I was extremely curious about dangerous things and this lust for a rush has brought me closer to death than I ever realized. I loved being goofy and feeling good. Soon after that, was my first trip to Juarez, Mexico, my first joint and a series of very poor choices.
My best friend and I only had eachother as friends in juior high school. Those were the most terrible times I can remember only next to prison. I was akward, my head was way too big for my body and I played the cello. We were picked on, abused and laughed at. It was pretty sad times for us. I was in track and ran long distance, it was during the two mile run practice that I smoked my 1st joint. It did nothing to me but I pretended it did. Come to think of it, I don't even think it was marijuana. Soon enough I was able to ge tmy hands on the real thing.
Since my parents lived next door to eachother my BFF and I went to my Moms when she was out of town. We loaded my grandfathers ivory pipe full of seeds and stems and maybe a bit of pot. At first I felt nothing but after awhile, we started laughing. We made the trek through the field back to my Dads where we were able to find some ribs, ice cream, candy and popcorn. It was the best food I had ever eaten in my entire life. From that point on, I had found my passion. I loved getting high and I figured, if pot feels this good, what does the other stuff feel like. I didn't dive into an empty swimming pool. I didn't go kill anyone. Everyone lied to me. The worst thing that can happen to a pothead is nothing. Which, if you think about it, sucks really bad. Some of the people I hung out with fell victim to this and they are all now 30 somethings, living with their parents and still getting high all day with no education, no motivation and nothing to look forward to. That didn't happen to most of the potheads I know, most of us made it out and some still smoke and manage their lives fine. The ones who stayed stuck had other issues to contend with. Soon, it was 9th grade. This is where things started to get very ineresting. Stay tuned.
Like I said previously, this blog is not supposed to be my life story and I am going to leave a lot of stuff out. I just want to provide a thorough enough background for you all who actually read this to get a sense of where I am coming from.
All in all, childhood was relatively normal. My parents faught a lot, my Dad liked to drink. He would have me get his beers and I remember chugging them before giving them to him at a very young age. When he drank, he sometimes wouldn't come home until late, he and my Mom would fight and my brothers and I would wait at the window for him to come home.
I spent most of my childhood with our housekeeper. Maria was a wonderful woman who taught me how to speak fluent Spanish, cook great Mexican food and was my main caregiver when my Mother was at work. Mom was busy with herr own business and was at work a lot. She deliverd wholesale bedding plants to local nurseries and was very successful until about 2000. She delivered the plants in a renovated white handicapped "short bus." This was also our mode of transportation to and from elementary and junior high school. Another reason why I took the dark road ahead. Never make your kids ride the short bus if they don't have to. I was allgergic to milk as a baby and my Mother tried everything which, lucky me, rotted my baby teeth out requiring me to have silver caps on my front teeth. Kids can be cruel, I was different, this did not help my cause.
I found out I was adopted very young. My brothers never let me forget it. My parents didn't treat me differently but I always had in the back of my head that I was not a blood relative and that I did not belong there.
By the time junior high school hit, the stress level at home had escalated significantly. We all went to counseling. We tried everything to make it work. At this point in time, the focus of bad behavior was my oldest brother. I didn't know what that meant. I remember that Christmas like a few others was started off with a nasty fight between the rents and us being locked in our rooms until it was over.
One night in 7th grade the fight lasted a lot loger tha usual. My brother Darren told me "Mom and Dad are getting a divorce." I couldn't comprehend what that meant. I didn't think parents could do that. I was given a choice. Stay with your dad or go with Mom and she will get you a dog. I chose the latter option. Ginger Snaps was a poodle mix that was dumped by the canal near my new house which was coincedentally located next door to my Fathers house. It made moving simple.
My mom and I moved into an old farm house that she redecorated and renovated to be a very cute little two bedroom house. It was perfect for us. It was around this time that I started acting out in school. It was the beginning of some very dark and deadly days.
I was a member of a Methodist Church. It was at a Church retreat that a game of truth or dare led me to an awful situation. I will not go into details but what happened changed me for the rest of my life. The game was played with me an 11 year old and 2 17 year olds. From that point on, whatever self esteem I did have went out the window right along with my innocence. I saw myself as less than, uglier than and dumber than everyone else in the World. This incident has also played a role in my resistance agains organized religion. I mean, what kind of God was with me that night? Now I know better but at the time, I was pissed.
The first time I got drunk was when I was 13. My brother gave me Southern comfort and Mountain Dew. After tripping over the dog and putting my hand through a picture frame, my Mom was on to me and my brother was in deep crap. I liked being drunk. I always was a dare devil and did whatever someone asked me to. I was extremely curious about dangerous things and this lust for a rush has brought me closer to death than I ever realized. I loved being goofy and feeling good. Soon after that, was my first trip to Juarez, Mexico, my first joint and a series of very poor choices.
My best friend and I only had eachother as friends in juior high school. Those were the most terrible times I can remember only next to prison. I was akward, my head was way too big for my body and I played the cello. We were picked on, abused and laughed at. It was pretty sad times for us. I was in track and ran long distance, it was during the two mile run practice that I smoked my 1st joint. It did nothing to me but I pretended it did. Come to think of it, I don't even think it was marijuana. Soon enough I was able to ge tmy hands on the real thing.
Since my parents lived next door to eachother my BFF and I went to my Moms when she was out of town. We loaded my grandfathers ivory pipe full of seeds and stems and maybe a bit of pot. At first I felt nothing but after awhile, we started laughing. We made the trek through the field back to my Dads where we were able to find some ribs, ice cream, candy and popcorn. It was the best food I had ever eaten in my entire life. From that point on, I had found my passion. I loved getting high and I figured, if pot feels this good, what does the other stuff feel like. I didn't dive into an empty swimming pool. I didn't go kill anyone. Everyone lied to me. The worst thing that can happen to a pothead is nothing. Which, if you think about it, sucks really bad. Some of the people I hung out with fell victim to this and they are all now 30 somethings, living with their parents and still getting high all day with no education, no motivation and nothing to look forward to. That didn't happen to most of the potheads I know, most of us made it out and some still smoke and manage their lives fine. The ones who stayed stuck had other issues to contend with. Soon, it was 9th grade. This is where things started to get very ineresting. Stay tuned.
Like I said previously, this blog is not supposed to be my life story and I am going to leave a lot of stuff out. I just want to provide a thorough enough background for you all who actually read this to get a sense of where I am coming from.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
And in the beginning, there was a T.V. box.
Mine, like many other life journeys starts out pretty basic. A tale of an ordinary girl living an ordinary life, in an ordinary town under extra-ordinary circumstances. An arguement for nature v nurture. Days filled with laughter, tears joy and drama, hope and a vast amount of pure unadulterated fear. Emptiness, self laothing, unexplinable voids in my soul, remarkable moments of pride, accomplishment, failures and moments of absolute contentment no matter how fleeting they have been and will always be.
I chose to write this blog for many reasons. The main one being that I am adopted and I find that this single event has and probably will always have an affect on how I view life and relationships. A natural born cynic with a twisted sense of humor and a sense of empathy that simultaneously overwhelms and pisses me off.
I was born in 1978 in a typical "clinic" located within the beautiful cityscape of downtown El Paso, Texas. For those of you who can't imagine what that is, try picturing the hospital in Kill Bill, that is what I do. My birthmother was 18 at the time I made my presence known to the World, was struggling with a nasty addiction to heroin, cocaine and alcohol. She did not make my birthfather aware of the pregnancy and up until recently, he never knew he had a daughter. I am not sure if he has demons but after meeting him, I venture to say he like everyone else on this planet is not without his problems. To this day, she is still not sure who he was, rather she provided me with the best educated guess she could muster up. I was delivered by a doctor who was later put in prison for letting a woman bleed to death in a late trimester abortion attempt.
My adoption was handled rather sneakily and not all that legally but it worked out. All my mother Ann wanted was a baby girl. She had two sons already and was too afraid that she would have twin boys instead of a girl and therefore wanted to adopt. The lawyer called her on July 18, 1978 and simply said "I have a little girl here, she looks white and you better come and get her." Off she went with our maid Maria to the dingy downtown clinic to pick me up. I arrived a month early and my Mother was not prepared. She had no car seat so I was taken home in an empty T.V. box to begin my life with my new family.
A few things went wrong during this process in my opinion. My Mother didn't tell my Dad I was coming and he was out of town on business. He came home to find me sleeping in a bassonette on the kitchen floor. My brothers were not prepared for my arrival either and I think it was a lot harder on them than they have ever admitted. The adoption could not be made legal without a Father's signature so a loyal judge did the duty of signing. 17 years later this judge also presided over me when I was facing several counts of burgalry and other ridiculous crimes I committd on the way to finding myself, but I will get to that part.
I am not writing this blog to talk about my life story as much as I am writing it for my own theraputic reasons and to help anyone who has felt the way I do. I have always felt different. I have always felt out of place. I have often thought I was an alien that was placed here to observe and comment on the obvious, unusual, spectacular, astonishing, devestating and often confusing events that happen to me around me within me and through me.
For those of us who are adopted, it is a very weird thing. When the person who is supposed to love, nurture, provide and stand by you throughout your life gives you away it kindof sets you up to have problems with trust and relationships. You go through life wondering why you act the way you act, look the way you look, think the way you think and you will hold on to anything that will make sense to you. For me,the answer was Madonna. I worshipped her when I was growing up and my older brother convinced me through a strict regiment of indoctrintation, that she was my birthmother and had to give me up if she wanted her music career to be successful. For those of you who knew me when I believed this, I apologize and it is one of the most embarassing things I will admit to throughout my blogging journey.
Another issue that goes hand and hand with adoption is that you never know what you are going to get. In my case, the problems were mostly addiciton, insecurity and an over active imagination. My poor Mother had no idea what she had gotten herself into.
I am new to the blogosphere, I have no clue what I am doing and like I said before, I am doing this for me and to those of you who actually read this, Thank You.
I chose to write this blog for many reasons. The main one being that I am adopted and I find that this single event has and probably will always have an affect on how I view life and relationships. A natural born cynic with a twisted sense of humor and a sense of empathy that simultaneously overwhelms and pisses me off.
I was born in 1978 in a typical "clinic" located within the beautiful cityscape of downtown El Paso, Texas. For those of you who can't imagine what that is, try picturing the hospital in Kill Bill, that is what I do. My birthmother was 18 at the time I made my presence known to the World, was struggling with a nasty addiction to heroin, cocaine and alcohol. She did not make my birthfather aware of the pregnancy and up until recently, he never knew he had a daughter. I am not sure if he has demons but after meeting him, I venture to say he like everyone else on this planet is not without his problems. To this day, she is still not sure who he was, rather she provided me with the best educated guess she could muster up. I was delivered by a doctor who was later put in prison for letting a woman bleed to death in a late trimester abortion attempt.
My adoption was handled rather sneakily and not all that legally but it worked out. All my mother Ann wanted was a baby girl. She had two sons already and was too afraid that she would have twin boys instead of a girl and therefore wanted to adopt. The lawyer called her on July 18, 1978 and simply said "I have a little girl here, she looks white and you better come and get her." Off she went with our maid Maria to the dingy downtown clinic to pick me up. I arrived a month early and my Mother was not prepared. She had no car seat so I was taken home in an empty T.V. box to begin my life with my new family.
A few things went wrong during this process in my opinion. My Mother didn't tell my Dad I was coming and he was out of town on business. He came home to find me sleeping in a bassonette on the kitchen floor. My brothers were not prepared for my arrival either and I think it was a lot harder on them than they have ever admitted. The adoption could not be made legal without a Father's signature so a loyal judge did the duty of signing. 17 years later this judge also presided over me when I was facing several counts of burgalry and other ridiculous crimes I committd on the way to finding myself, but I will get to that part.
I am not writing this blog to talk about my life story as much as I am writing it for my own theraputic reasons and to help anyone who has felt the way I do. I have always felt different. I have always felt out of place. I have often thought I was an alien that was placed here to observe and comment on the obvious, unusual, spectacular, astonishing, devestating and often confusing events that happen to me around me within me and through me.
For those of us who are adopted, it is a very weird thing. When the person who is supposed to love, nurture, provide and stand by you throughout your life gives you away it kindof sets you up to have problems with trust and relationships. You go through life wondering why you act the way you act, look the way you look, think the way you think and you will hold on to anything that will make sense to you. For me,the answer was Madonna. I worshipped her when I was growing up and my older brother convinced me through a strict regiment of indoctrintation, that she was my birthmother and had to give me up if she wanted her music career to be successful. For those of you who knew me when I believed this, I apologize and it is one of the most embarassing things I will admit to throughout my blogging journey.
Another issue that goes hand and hand with adoption is that you never know what you are going to get. In my case, the problems were mostly addiciton, insecurity and an over active imagination. My poor Mother had no idea what she had gotten herself into.
I am new to the blogosphere, I have no clue what I am doing and like I said before, I am doing this for me and to those of you who actually read this, Thank You.
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