The Marvelous Blues

I wrote this some time ago. I had a dream, a disturbing dream and I needed to capture it.

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She wore a simple white sleeping dress. A shift is what they used to call it in the books she used to read. She does not read much anymore. That may not matter to you but give it some thought. She used to read book after woman-authored book. She read to imagine, to learn, to escape. But now she does nothing. She sits, almost immobilized, trapped in her head with her own thoughts. With nowhere to run. 

She left him sleeping in their bed. It was what she was used to doing. In some versions of this night she would be restless, unable to sleep next to him. Or just to sleep. She would move to the sofa and let herself be soothed to sleep by the tv. Like any other good American. Or any other woman who wrestled with unnamed demons. She was always running away. He also slept soundly. And never mentioned her waking up in another room. It was a ‘thing’ in their life. No big deal. How could it be after what they had done. 

Tonight she rose, slipped away from the hotel room and stepped out into the night. He knew she was going and that was fine. That was the agreement. She would go, do what needed to be done, and she would do it alone. He could not or was it would not? She didn’t dwell on that critical question because she knew the answer. The air was cool but moist. She was used to feeling cold, accustomed to grabbing blankets and sweatshirts to throw on her to keep her warm. Bare feet, bare shoulders and a thin cotton shift was all that covered her from the night. But tonight she felt nothing. She had one obsessive thought. Just one thing she needed to do.

The day had been full and exciting, she thought. But right now she couldn’t remember why she felt that way. She had no memory of what she had done. She had these bits and pieces that she struggled to put together. There was a performance of some kind, groups of people competing, and then there was this possibility of developing a series of talks about infidelity and other relationship issues. It fit so well with her work and her aspirations. It would raise her social profile and professional status. This was good. But first there was this thing she had to do. 

Like all important things, they didn’t talk about it, not between themselves or other people. It simply ‘had to be done.’ Even those words were never said. She spoke in fragments and codes. “You know what we have to do,” she said. He nodded, mute. He feigned mild retardation or innocence. She couldn’t figure out which it was. But he kept himself formless and faceless by being silent. But that didn’t matter in the end. The end was still destined to be the end. And so she was out in the night air, alone. 

She woke up next to him this time. Well, he woke her up. She was cocooned in the clean sheets and covers. He pulled them back making her self-conscious.  “Wait,” she cried. “I didn’t clean up yet.” She twisted her body and wrapped her arms around her body defensively, balling up the white fabric of her dress to hide the blood. It was dry but still bright red. It had the look of the work of an abstract painter who used the single bright color to splatter and streak across the canvas. The color radiated out from her abdomen, the center of it all. She grasped herself tighter and ran to the bathroom. She wasn’t hiding it from him, he knew what she had done. But she was suddenly conscious of the mess and the natural need to clean it . She had been so comfortable in the filth, like she wanted to make sure he saw and shared it. But now that she’d been seen she could wash it all away. 

The sink water ran and she rinsed her hands.  She had no memory of what she had done, she just knew that she did it. He came into the bathroom and approached her. He was still silent. She was relieved to have him there. They didn’t talk but they moved in sync. Washing hands and drying hair. She was no longer alone in it. They would leave after this. She could make the calls and set up the events and start this new stage of her life. She stepped toward the door, suddenly dressed and ready to leave. She raised her hands and grasped the edges of the doorway. He stepped behind her and put his hands over hers. She breathed a sigh of relief. 

You cannot turn a frog into a prince. Or vice versa.

Once upon a time a girl met a boy. The girl was ripped and torn in certain ways, mostly because she was stubborn and at the same time on her own. She was angry because of that and had something to prove. So the boy was perfect. He was slight and green and barely spoke. She dressed him in clothes and carried him with her everywhere she went. He is a prince, she told her family. A real prince, she told her friends. Royalty, she told her ex. She was no longer ripped and torn. She was, instead, a princess.

The boy ate flies. And oozed slime. And always, always sought out dark, wet places to hide. In real terms this looked like his strange fights with male roommates that seemed more like lovers quarrels than common disagreements. This looked like odd sexual practices that he found so normal that he failed to even hide them. Rampant drunkeness at the tender age of 17, that turned into actual alcoholism by 34 and cocaine use by 44. An overt obsessions with pornography that intensified after the birth of his child. Or let’s start here – the complete disregard and disconnect from the conception and later killing of his first child. As he told the princess in their one and only conversation about it some 28 years later, ‘I’m sorry that was hard for you but we all grieve differently.” It also looked like accusations by his daughter that he touched her in ways that made her feel uncomfortable, that she’d seen the porn he created, and that he’d let people take pictures of her when she was bathing.

The fake princess ignored, pretended and continued along her mission to be saved. He was “her husband” and had “saved her” and “was too immature and dim witted” to be evil himself. In the princess’ world it was force and aggression and unchecked masculinity and sexual prowess that was to be defeated. Those were the demons that she could identify and name. She had no language for nice demons. The ones that courted her feelings and made her smile. The ones that did not stop boys from touching her or her favorite girl cousin from experimenting with her sexually or even stop her from trying the same thing with other little girls. Nor the ones that made a way for her high school boyfriend to do the same.

The frog did what frogs do. And eventually the princess could take no more. She packed up his clothes, held fast to her story about him, but committed her self to finding someone new. Really, the frog had leapt out of reach and she was alone and unprepared to manage by herself. And as luck would have it she met a prince.

She did not like him at first sight. She found him to be plain and then hard to hold. He was nothing like the frog. She couldn’t dress him to make him appear to be how she wanted. She couldn’t convince him to do what she wanted him to do. But he spoke and had values and ideas. He was real. She was intrigued and repelled at the same time. It was fear that he could see through her veneer. See the rips and damage and reject her for it. She chose a radical path. She showed him some of her scars. And really, she didn’t choose this at all. She, like many before her, felt comfortable revealing parts of her self for the first time to someone who would listen. But she got more than she bargained for. He expected things of her, made demands, and wanted her to live her real life, not the fictional one she had created. He wanted her to admit that she had lived wrong (because she had).

So she fought him. Hard and bitterly. And still he would not be controlled. And he revealed himself to be aggressive and masculine with a strong sexual prowess. The very things she fought against. And as the frog continued his slide into the pool of slime, she focused on the prince. When he tried to intervene to protect her daughter she fought him for his ways and really, for his concern at all. He threatened to reveal the frog and threatened to reveal her, to kill the version of herself that was whole and good. She lamented with her family about how harsh he was, set herself up as a victim against his aggression, and went about the process of ‘saving’ her daughter from the very forces that had caused her pain. But that was not her daughters pain.

Her daughter’s pain was of a mother who didn’t protect her and a father who abused and neglected her. Not of a stepfather who disciplined her too harshly, which was stern and unyielding, the very things the princess hated.

This is no fairytale. And there is no happy ending. There never is. There is only truth and logic. And the truth is that I gave up everything to protect someone who never did and still doesn’t care a bit about me, someone who gave nice words and soft actions to hide his true dark nature. Ironically, that description fits the frog but it also fits me. I don’t know if I had a real prince. I never took the time to find out. I do know that I took my anger, my fear, and an inherited vengeance against men to blame my son’s father for the sins of my daughters’ father, my stepfather, and every other man who I felt wronged me. My ire was raw and unbound. I fought, physically, to exorcise my demons. But I failed at that. You cannot turn a prince into a frog, no matter what you do. So now I am left with the logical outcome of my success. The frog raised my daughter. I can say that. And it cut her out of my life. I didn’t protect her,. guide her, or even love her. I just got to call a frog a prince.

I have taken losses, unimaginable since I chose the frog. It started long ago and I keep hoping but losing. I can’t accept that I was wrong, can’t understand how my calculations were so off. But it’s a case of mistaken identity. And a royal(wish) line that blames easy targets to settle old scores. Bullshit. I was raised to believe a bunch of bullshit. Lies like all kids do this or punishment is the crime.

It’s time to get to work. To tell the truth. And stop looking for princes and frogs to save me. And get to the business of saving somebody else. The only person deserving of it. Her.

• 255,744,000 seconds 
• 4,262,400 minutes 
• 71,040 hours 
• 2960 days 

That is how much time I have stolen from my daughter. I have stolen 8 years, 1 month, and 7 days of the time that is rightfully hers.

I am very, very good at living in my head, which means living in denial. So to see the black and white of the calculations took my breath away. That is how long it has been since I raised my daughter. She was 9 years, 3 months, and 28 days old when I gave her up.

In the 2960 days between then and now, I have seen her, literally breathed the same air as her, three days. And that is an overstatement. I did not spend days with her. I spent minutes to an hour or so with her. And in that time there was no mothering, no explaining, no planning for her. There was only distracted talk and banter, the suppression of emotion, and the checking off of a task of finally ‘seeing my daughter.’ A task that billions of women check off, effortlessly or with great effort but consistently over time.

I have stolen from her and this isn’t the first time. I aborted my first child. I believe (when I’m entertaining my delusions) that the baby was a girl. I aborted her somewhere around February of 1996. I had just turned 20. I was sick and not ‘ready’ for a baby or even considering a baby. I was in an unstable relationship that was the product of revenge fantasies stemming from another unstable relationship. If you can call it that. But this baby that was growing inside of me, my baby, was a problem and I had a quick and ready solution.

I bargained, as all people facing death do. I promised that I would finish college, go to graduate school and earn my doctorate, I would get married to the father and when all those ducks were in a row I would have that baby. The same baby, mind you. That spirit that I put on hold would come back once I was ready. That is what I told myself and that is what I lived.

I reluctantly did all the things I promised that I would do. I marched through a deep depression and graduated from college with honors. I got accepted to one of the top PhD programs in the country, I bought my own ring, got engaged, and moved several states away with said fiance in tow. A couple years later I got married though I didn’t want to and a few years after that I got my doctorate though I hated school. You would have never known that I was reluctant or felt negatively about anything I was doing, save another deep bout of depression that first year of grad school. I passed my dissertation defense in 2003 but I didn’t attend graduation until the following year. It’s literally just occurring to me that I got pregnant that same summer. I kept the deal. But I didn’t want to.

I owed. I owed that spirit, who never quite became mine, I owed her the time stolen. I stole 8 years, 5 months and 1 day from her, 3074 days from her, 73,776 hours from her.

Her heart, a girls heart, beats about 90 times per minute. She missed 398,390,040 million heartbeats. Ironic that there’s a heartbeat law. That is the thing you cannot steal. I had no right. There is nothing that I did that started her heartbeat. God breathed life into me and started an electrical impulse as a the first detectable sign of new life. And I went to the clinic and confirmed that her heart was beating. And I committed to stopping it. As if any promise I made could make her heart beat again.

I had a baby. She wasn’t that baby. I hadn’t accepted that I couldn’t right that wrong. I couldn’t bring her back. I could only vow to not do it again. Vow to use this degree that was built on her bones to keep others from making the same mistake I did. But I was a coward. So I had a baby and instead of pouring my whole into her I resented her for stopping me from living the life I wanted to live, for tying me to her father, for forcing me to be a mother when I clearly did not want to be. I lamented that the spirit must be angry at me because my daughter screamed and scratched her face. I saw my guilt manifested, a reflection of the demons inside of me. But mainly, I balked on the real deal. I thought I wrote the contract, made up the terms and was good to go. I did the things and deserved to be happy.

I avoid math because there’s truth there. I owed time. And having a baby did not clear that debt. At best, it started the clock. But all of that is devilish talk. Because as is stated in the Quran:

“And do not kill your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Indeed, their killing is ever a great sin.” 17:31

There is deep darkness here. Deep darkness when you sin. And I have tried to run away from that, not accept responsibility for that, and most of all, not repent. I cry out, “I was right” when I know I was wrong. I never told anyone about my first child. Because I was wrong. And I don’t talk about my second child. Because I am still wrong.

I used to obsess over her when she was young. But it wasn’t about her. It was about spirit and contract. Guilt was tied to her perception. Was she angry? Could she tell I didn’t love. Her. I did but simultaneously didn’t. And her father. He escaped it all. No responsibility. Ever. Running away or really just using me to cover his own demons. My contract depended on him. Me, him and her.

He got me pregnant. He rejected me. He abandoned me with the child that WE had to have. He ripped apart the solution to my problems. He revealed me to be raw and ugly. He made the truth plain. I was just some girl who was wild in high school, just as wild in college, and ended up pregnant and having an abortion as a way of hiding who she really was. He didn’t care about her. No matter what bow she put on it. No matter what fake marriage and forced family connections she made. She wasn’t connected and cared for because she hadn’t fostered that connection. I hadn’t fostered that.

So this child of mine. Who has been through hell at my hands. Whose spirit is literally borne out of mine, I gave her away because of the deep darkness in me. Because of who I am and what I did. Because to keep her meant to face my demons, to destroy the rest of my life, to recast the things in my life that I called normal or at least resolved, and to be who I feared to be. And I used other people to do it.

There is no easy resolution in this. And there’s a part two coming. But first. I am wrong. I am dark. I have evil within me.

I want it no more.

I have lost everything because of it. And I sit here holding onto some idea in my mind. Some fictional concept that literally does not exist. It’s useless now. I have nothing save the love of three boys. They are undeserved kindness. A sign that God is merciful and forgiving if I would only submit. I don’t understand God. A God that is so gracious and forgiving. I have done so much against God. But I am nothing. So small and significant that I have only done these things against myself.

To my daughter – you fought your way into this world to meet me, an unloving, selfish mother. I could tell you about my wounds, same as my mother could tell me, but how does that heal you? How does that give you what I stole from you? I can only tell you the truth. And tell you what life has told me. Be the cautionary example for you. So you can choose different. Do better. Be better than I am and was.

I think that many people have intimate lives that are free of shame. Not free of regret or longing or pleasure or heartbreak. But free of shame.

I don’t have that. I have a complicated, or not so complicated but unsavory relationship with intimacy. It can be wonderful. And at the same time it can be dark and shame inducing. A pleasurable experience is great in the moment. In some ways it can be like a drug – an addictive escape from the real world. And that is shameful enough. Because what is a natural, God-given way of connecting with another human being (and to make new human beings) becomes a marker of pain and a lack of discipline. No one celebrates how great it is to get drunk when they’re having a bad day. They feel bad about that, hide the fact, while doing the very thing they are hiding.

Shame has marked my intimacy. And this makes sense. My first intimate experiences were unnatural and abusive. They were, by virtue of their very existence, wrong. So intimacy is deeply connected to ‘wrongness’ or ‘badness’ for me. A dark shadows underlies it. And though it can be cleared away for moments in time, that shadow always returns. As if I’m doing something wrong.

So then what to do with the pleasure? It gets folded into the wrongness. And then I embraced it. I liked to be ‘bad.’ Not, I was human and desired intimacy like all other humans. I was different.

I’m tired of that feeling. Caring this unnecessary weight. The fatigue of the work is getting to be heavier than the shame itself. There’s more to say but not right now. This is just a short meditation on shame. And the intention to free myself of it.

Talking about my daughter is something I don’t do. I have shaped the people around me with my silence. If you want to get along with me don’t mention certain things or I will shut you out. Silence and distance are my weapons of choice.

Who are they to provoke the wave of feelings that comes when I mention her name? But really, who am I to feel how I feel? Who am I to put those feelings above all else?

I spend so much time examining myself. Even this blog. But let’s talk about her.

There is no pat way to sum up my relationship with my daughter. Outside of this – I did not want her and it shows.

I spent the first five years of her life pretending otherwise. I took her everywhere, took a million pictures with her, and made her the apparent center of my life. If you met me then you felt like I was as committed a mother as any. Maybe even more than others because her Dad was such an awful human being who made clear he didn’t want anything to do with her. But if you dug deeper you’d see that I was running on imitation auto-pilot. I followed the day care decisions of my best friend who had her daughter on the same day. My friend planned the birthday parties. My friend even planned the first baby pictures. She was the mom. I was tagging along.

I’m hesitate here because I’m still not digging in. I did not want her. And I couldn’t tell anyone that because that was awful. A mother cannot not want her child. But I didn’t. And still don’t.

I am numb now. I described it as dead inside. I’ve cursed myself to not feel anymore when I would rather feel. It’s the motivation of life for me. Emotions that encourage action. That tell me whether I’m on the right path or wrong. But these emotions are all misleading. And this paragraph is the same because I don’t want to get into this. But I must.

I did not raise my daughter. I sent her to her Dad, her awful Dad, and he sent her to his parents. I settled into that. I wanted her to be with his parents. I treated it like giving her up for adoption to a ‘good family’. I let myself believe that it was for the best. I told myself and other people all sorts of lies about why this needed to happen. I couldn’t control her (she was 7); Her sexualized behaviors were too much, too triggering, and I couldn’t manage it anymore. Someone else had to help; Her stepfather was too rigid and borderline abusive (rather than literally trying to keep her from being harmed and trying to address the behaviors that I only complained about); She wanted to go, she didn’t want to be with me.

Lies. All lies.

I didn’t want to raise her. I didn’t want to raise the child who I saw as the part two of the child I aborted. The darkness of that following me. I didn’t want to raise her. I stayed in a sexless marriage with a man who used and resented me.. I stayed because I killed our unborn child. And when I got pregnant – let’s talk about that. When I got pregnant I was surprised. Just like everything else I wanted to trick God. I made a deal when I had the abortion – I would ‘bring the spirit back’ after getting my degrees. Finishing school and starting real life. And I had done that. I had my three degrees. I had my postdoc. And soon I would have my job. Cycle complete. But I still didn’t want a child. But the deal, though. So I did what I never did and had unprotected sex. I gambled. But I had to, I told myself. I had to attempt to make good on this deal.

Like most things I do when I try to do them, I was successful. I got pregnant. And in my mind lost everything. The job I wanted. Living where I wanted. I didn’t want a child.

I felt like she knew how I felt. From the beginning. She knew.

So for eight years she has been away from me. Without seeing me and rarely talking to me. And the fact is – I have been ok with that. Because I tell myself lies to make it ok. I don’t sit and think about her and how she feels. I don’t think about what it means to her that her mother doesn’t want her. I pretend that circumstances have created that. This desire to not raise her is so strong that I have literally sacrificed my family, my sons and their Dad, to do this.*

When I was being asked to raise her and let her father off the hook I lost my mind. People write that but I’m serious when I say my mind, the part of myself that is sensible and logical, the part, no matter how small, that is ethical and moral, was quieted. Or rather, silenced. And I operated on raw emotion. I raged. I fought. I jumped out of cars and picked fights. I laid on the ground in a fit of lunacy, almost screaming “I can’t, I can’t.” Can’t what? Raise my child?

My story of abortion and lost souls and bargains with God are good writing. But what about my child?

My child is brilliant. And awkward. And rebellious. She is more mature than me. She feels deeply. She gets anxious. She used to lie a lot about small things but told the truth when it mattered. And she has grown up with her mother and has to make sense of that to have any sort of life. I’ve been blessed despite having thrown her away. It can’t be for myself. I’ve been blessed with boys and family and Islam. And I’ve resisted all three things but they persist in my life. For her.

I think about myself when I think about reconnecting with my daughter. I think about how it will look. How it will feel. But I rarely think about what she needs. She doesn’t need me. She needs family, her brothers, Islam.

So when I talk about my daughter I should talk about that. What she needs and how to give it to her. That’s what matters now. That’s all that matters now.

*I did not do this alone. I never parented from my own mind. And I joined forces with my mom at a certain point in my daughter’s life. Gave up control and will and stepped back into the role of a child so I didn’t have to do the hard things and made the hard decisions. And now I’m here, struggling to explain myself when my actions have been tied to her motivations. What she thought was best. Another post for another day but an important interjection to make. I did not do this alone. I was supported every step of the way by a woman who felt that this was best. Still does.

When things are uncomfortable I go for distraction. I shift my thoughts to something else, something benign and meaningless. I’ve been doing this so long that I am almost unaware when it happens. It’s like little lapses in memory. I look up and find myself doing something with no real reason for doing it. I’ll tune in and be reading some random article about a ‘canceled’ professor. Or I’ll be engrossed in some Facebook video or post that has nothing to do with nothing. When I force myself to get back to the subject at hand I engage in another battle. I chase the me that is holding the offending thought as she runs and hides behind other earlier thoughts. It’s a bait and switch where I do my best to NOT think about the thing that I don’t want to think about. This was probably helpful throughout my life. It helped me push past painful experiences, retain a ‘sunny disposition’, and most importantly, it helped me do the things that I thought were moving my life forward. Grad school, work, creative projects were all done while I did this dance with myself.

I’ve been doing that this morning. Dodging difficult thoughts that I don’t want to address. But that’s why I’m here. There’s a structure that reminds me – write. Do the work. Stop running. Please. For the love of all who love you, for the love and protection of your children. Stop.

My daughter used to talk to me. She doesn’t now. Literally, she doesn’t. But when she was young and I was her mother and she could trust me, she talked to me. And one day, when I was driving her to school, driving down this beautiful tree lined street where I used to walk/jog, where I dreamed of moving to, she said, “I kissed James.” Things were not good at the time. I was struggling with being a real single Mom for the first time. Living alone with my daughter after forcing her Dad to move out. He responded by not doing shit to help with her, deliberately increasing my load.

I had a new man in my life. Funny, I paused on how to describe him. Friend? Nah. Boyfriend? No. Malik was unlike anyone else that I had put in my life before. Self-assured, assertive, and very clear about the way to do things. I was fixated on him and concerned about whether I could actually have a lasting relationship with him. I wasn’t sure I wanted it but more honestly, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I didn’t think I was the type of woman he would be with. But that’s another post for another day.

But there was tension because Malik was clear about elements of my. life that I was hiding from. My daughter’s father had a porn company. This wasn’t something that he did when we met or at any point before we had a child. But he started it after she arrived and I just let him do it. Pretended that it was fine, harmless. It’s something that I’m not even getting into right now as I write.* I put an asterisk as a marker for myself. I will dig deeper at this point next.

Malik saw the obvious and told me I should not let my daughter go with her Dad to his friend/business partner/sexless soul mates house because of it. And because I wasn’t welcomed there. Because, how could I protect her if I didn’t know what was going on with a group of people who were hostile to me? But me? No, I was myself. Stubborn and uncertainly certain. Determined to be right and to make her Dad who l had designed him to be in my head. And mainly, I was determined to have him take responsibility for the daughter that I hadn’t wanted to have so I could live. He had left me alone with her for five years. Not doing shit. And now I had a chance with a good guy, one who actually desired me, one who fit me like a glove, intimately and intellectually. I wanted to do that. Immerse myself in that relationship. I wanted the freedom to do that and constant parenting got in the way. At least that’s what I told myself at the time.

I kept letting her go with her Dad. Contrary to Malik’s objections. And it was all good until his warnings came to pass. So like the devil that I was becoming, my first thought when she told me was, “Shit. How can I fix this so Malik won’t leave.” Not, “Shit, my five year old daughter is telling me she kissed someone. And she did it at a house where porn is discussed, viewed and maybe even produced. What really happened and how can I make sure nothing like this ever happens again.” Honestly, I struggled with writing that even now, eleven years later.

So instead of calling Malik for back up, instead of calling my Mom, instead of calling my best friend who’s also a child therapist, instead of pulling from my own personal experiences or even professional experiences, I focused near exclusively on minimizing it and addressing that small remaining fragment that I’d reduced it to.

I’m a piece of shit for that. For other things too but let’s start with that.

(More to come)

“You have no right to do wrong“

A nurse told me the truth. She told me without knowing me, without knowing my situation outside of my Dad’s rapidly failing health. She felt inspired to speak to me, the authentic me. She talked of God and fear and joy. She talked of ways to die with peace and dignity and ways to die holding onto fear. And in the midst of her spiritual counsel she looked me in my eye and said “You have no right to do wrong.”

God’s property. She told me I was god’s property, given life by his will, and I had no place doing wrong with his belongings.

This is not the first time I’ve been told this. But God keeps trying with me. Keeps sending me messages and messengers. One has been steadfast, giving years of his life to communicating with me. And I am like my father. Headstrong and determined to do what I have willed myself to do. My father would rather rush to his grave than to suffer through a thing he has decided is not for him. His desire to be right may take his life. And he must know this but still he holds fast.

I am my father’s daughter. Determined. Steady. Strong when I want to be. But so many times I hold fast to what’s wrong. I mean, really, I put a death grip on the thing, the desire, the idea of what is best for me and no matter how many times I’m told or even shown that I’m wrong, I will not let go. In fact, those times of telling me strengthen my hold. Because I stand to lose even more if I’m wrong now that I’m facing of such opposition.

My family is into appearances. But not just to look good but to overlook or even hide what we really do and who we really are. My family expects me to present as a good daughter, educated, capable, and without pain or problem. I am burdened by an expectation of normalcy and even exceptionalism without the foundation of safety and nurturance. And if I show the cracks in the facade I’m betraying us all. If I tell my secrets I’m encouraged to get therapy. And I’m also told to leave the family secrets out of it. Let people handle their own shit.

There’s validity to some of it. My shit is my shit, after all. I can do with it what I will. But what if it creates shit for you? Are you to be expected to keep my secret and only discuss what has been created for you? Am I to discuss how I abandoned my daughter and hid her outcries and not discuss the family, and the culture that created that particular monster? How would you suggest I go about it? What happens when someone asks – but why would you do that? Ah. I’m on my own there.

I’m choosing a two step strategy to attack the darkness in me. First, acknowledging what I’ve done and owning it. Not making endless excuses for it or pretending it away. Second, acknowledging the system that shaped me. The pool of secrets and lies that I emerged from. And from there, I’ll overlay that phrase from the nurse. I’ll take the data and color it with the mantra – you have no right to do wrong.

I have no right to hide darkness.

I have no right to pretend to be different (better) than I am.

I have no right to put my child or any child into harms way, no matter whether I experienced that myself.

I have no right to protect the reputation of anyone who is doing wrong.

I have no right to waste my time in this world on chasing the wrong.

I have no right to be wrong.

So then I have to do what’s natural and what’s been set out for me. I have to do what’s right.

Shit.

So let’s dive in.

If you’ve ever been touched as a kid, exposed as a kid, viewed as a sexual object as a kid then you’re likely in one of two camps. In the first, you’re an avowed sexual ascetic. You’re conservative and perhaps sexually avoidant. You move with an abundance of caution and you are Uber-protective of kids. That shit is not happening on your watch.

Then there’s the other camp, the one where I set up my tent and keep adding to it. I’m glamping at this point. (Truthful interjection: I’m making light of something that I honestly don’t even want to write about. But that’s really why I’m here). So this other camp is a lean-in type of place. A place where we cope by making friends with the devil. Where things ‘aren’t so bad.’ Where we go harder in the direction of sexual immorality. The literature calls this camp promiscuous. That’s a stupid term that means little. What really happens is we have more sexual interaction, even starting as a kid, and with each act it reduces the value of the original infraction. Sometimes in big way and sometimes in small ones, but each time it lessens it and that’s what matters. Touch me at 5? Shit, what about the time I played those same games with my Dad’s friends daughter? It’s just how I am, right? You didn’t do shit to me, not really.

But you did, but shit, let me add to it. The problem is you can’t reduce it. You can’t make it mean nothing. But those attempts to do so eat away at who you are and your sense of wholeness and wellness. Your sense of goodness. You blurred the lines and now they’re unrecognizable. You have become the problem.

I was seven when I had oral sex for the first time. Read that. Seven. And it was with my eleven year old cousin who I idolized. She was amazing (at least in hindsight that’s what I tell myself). And the games were fun and I wanted to keep playing them and I blackmailed her into continuing to play by threatening to tell on her. I was angry when I performed oral sex (but a kid can’t do that – so what’s the language? There’s no language for this). Angry because I did it and it was kind of weird but I did it and when it was my turn she tricked me and used her thumb. I was humiliated. At seven.

Where do you go from there? How do you make that right? Especially when you already know its wrong but think its more about getting in trouble than a life long mark on your sexual development. At seven I’m now obsessing over girls and interacting sexually with them. Because it makes what happened normal. That’s it. Everything is geared towards normalizing that unspeakable. I wanted to write ‘abnormal’ but language matters and sexual acts performed by children are unspeakable. We confuse common with normal.

I still don’t want to get into how I was once I started having sex with boys. I was ‘good’ by having one boyfriend in high school but, my God, what I did with him. How I did it. And seriously – I just erased the word ‘willingly’ because that is key to everything. It had to be willing, I had to be ‘bad’, I had to own this because if I don’t own it then I have to go back to the beginning.

I’m off topic though. So the second camp ends up being pretty self-destructive. If you’re intelligent you might be a high functioning self-saboteur. I’m very intelligent. And I’m the rest as well. But it’s my life, right? If I want to destroy myself why should you care?

Here’s where the true danger enters. People like me will sacrifice everything to keep the math going. I was on safe ground when I focused on my first experience at age 5. Fuzzy memories of sexual touching. Big bad boys whose names and faces I’ve forgotten were the target of my sexual angst. But my cousin? I didn’t even think about what happened with her. I wrote stories and even made a film about that early experience. But I was absolutely silent about what really mattered. And I was exposed when I had a daughter of my own.

I was tested. My five year old daughter was exposed to sexual content – including hard core pornography. My daughter interacted sexually with younger boy. She kissed his penis and laid on top of him and who knows what else. Over and over again. She told me her Dad, my gay ex, let people come into the bathroom while the was bathing and they took pictures. Her Dad who had a porn company. She told my son’s father that she felt uncomfortable around her Dad, that she could feel his finger on her vagina when he washed her, could feel his erect penis when she sat on his lap.

And in the end I lost my. mind. I chose her Dad over her. I abandoned my own efforts to prosecute him, I stopped trying to find out what happened, and I gave her away to him and his family. My family supported me. Because we have that thing in common. We cannot and will not call molestation wrong and we will not protect our kids.

I vilified my son’s father and at one point literally attacked him for trying to address what was happening to my daughter. For daring to insinuate that I had a problem loving her, a problem truly protecting her. He was the problem. Just like the babysitter’s kids. Because if he wasn’t the problem then, shit. I needed all those experiences to be because she was ‘curious‘ or ‘over-sexualized‘ not because she was molested. I needed to love my cousin, not feel sexually assaulted. All kids engage in sexual play, I said. Me. The trained clinical psychologist who worked at child trauma clinic. I pulled every statistic I could think of to support my metered response. I became the devil herself.

“And do not kill your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Indeed, their killing is ever a great sin.” Quran, 17:31

It would seem like this a Roe v Wade inspired post. But I’ve been wrestling with abortion since I had one 25 years ago. Yes, 25 years ago and I’m “still” dealing with it. You’d be surprised at how common that is. One Facebook group that I’m a part of has people all the time posting about abortions they had 40 years ago. It makes sense. If it’s a real thing then time has no impact. Time isn’t real. The act is real and the act stays with you. Even calling it an ‘act’ is misleading. Deed is better because it ties in misdeeds and immorality. A sense of right and wrong. And still, language is failing me. It’s not a ‘sense’ of anything. All these words that hide or misconstrue actual meeting. There is right and there is wrong. And this is wrong.

I was young when I got pregnant. I was 19. I cringe writing that because it had been ingrained in me to not be a statistic. This was a thing in the 90’s when I was coming of age. Single black mothers, teenage moms, and on and on. My stepfather told me to ‘just use a condom‘ when he felt like he couldn’t control my relationship with my high school boyfriend. His lack of control, or rather giving up of control is a whole other story for a whole other post. In college, when I feared I had an ulcer from the stress of my senior year my mother responded “I know what it better not be.” My favorite cousin was ridiculed for choosing have her child when she was in college. She had had an abortion in high school but they didn’t discuss that. Her mother was incensed and hurt, my mother echoed her sentiments. Having a child was not acceptable. How dare she not exercise her right to ‘choose’ something other than life. There I go again. Something. How dare she not choose to kill her unborn child. Again.

No, they didn’t see it this way. We tell ourselves all sorts of things to do the unthinkable. I know I did. It was just a lump of cells. There was no life there yet. No spirit. No parts of God just yet. The lump wasn’t viable. The lump was not a baby. Not anywhere close.

I was stupid for getting pregnant after all that I knew. But I was in a self-destructive phase and in some ways wanted to go through the whole experience. More accurately, I didn’t care. I didn’t give it serious consideration. I knew abortion was on the table, never really thought about what it meant, but felt comfortable enough being risky because I had an out. Be careful of those outs.

My college boyfriend was clueless. Or so I wanted to believe. He went on to become my husband and then my gay ex. The gay had been there all along, just another thing I could pretend away, not deeply consider, or make what I wanted it to be. So this boy who seemed to be having sex to have sex with a woman went along with a lot. This part is hard to write about. It might be more disjointed than I intend. And if that’s the end result I’ll edit later but for now, I’ll keep pushing. My Dad was out of town for a few months and I would stay at his house off and on. A really nice house in a nice part of town. I took my boyfriend there and we had sex. Funny that I place getting pregnant on this specific instance. But during sex the condom broke. I told him he could keep going. It was ok. In my mind, I was about a week after my period so I wasn’t fertile. I was wrong. Supremely wrong in my understanding of my own biology. My periods were long and fertility is highest about 14 days after your period STARTS. So I was right about at the moment in time. This was the first time we ever had any form of unprotected sex. And I cannot say why he didn’t pull out and why I didn’t insist (outside of the fact that I communicated very little during sex and that really wasn’t a dynamic between us). I actually hate thinking about sex with him. I push it to parts of my mind that are hard to reach. This is no different.

Backstory – I was not at all over my high school boyfriend. Had recently really and fully ended any type of relationship with him, even friendship. Well, he ended it with me. I sent him a “Dear John” letter hoping to give myself some space. He was in jail for what I thought were stupid reasons. And he was relying on me like we were together. Calling all the time. Having me do things for him. He was back to acting like he owned me. He responded to my letter by demanding his things back and not contacting me after that. So being honest – I was reeling over my plan to get my space and control back backfiring and him dumping me. So here I am, with the new guy, trying to pretend that I’m in love and trying to erase my history with my ex. Good move.

My period did not start. I was working at Applebees. Feeling crampy. I kept going to the bathroom to check and nothing was there. No tint of pink discharge. No nothing. I knew I was pregnant. I knew why I was pregnant. But I hoped I wasn’t because like all things, I didn’t expect it to really happen. I get off on the ‘fuck it’ mentality when it serves me emotionally but I never seem to be prepared for the actual fallout when it comes.

I can write about the process of going from not really knowing to being at the abortion clinic. I’ll do that at some point but for now let’s fast forward.

I’ve decided. My gay ex doesn’t give a shit. I’ve been the sickest I’ve ever been so my decision, which I made before the extreme morning sickness hit, is highlighted each minute of the day. There is no forgetting that I’m pregnant. No forgetting what I’ve decided to do.

At the clinic, I go in and go to the exam room. They perform an ultrasound and show me the small lump. The mass of cells that is my child. They hear the heartbeat. We hear the heartbeat. I hear her heartbeat. ‘Yes, you’re still pregnant. It’s right there,” the examiner says. This wasn’t asked but it hung in the air – do you still want to do this?

Yes. I don’t know if this really happened but I remember turning over, away from the screen. Not in tears or anguish. I wanted to not see it. I still want to not see.

I had them put me to sleep and when I woke up my baby was gone. My baby was dead. Yeah, people don’t like when I talk that way. But what if I felt that way? What if I rode through the last 25 years seeping into a form of insanity because I saw my baby right there, alive, and I didn’t stop. I didn’t save her from me. Save her from her mother. I went through with my plan to end her life. Not because I had all these plans that she was ruining. But because I was a piece of shit.

People can say what they want about Roe v Wade. They can talk about the horrors of not having ‘access’ to abortions. But no one wants to talk about the horrors of abortion. What it really. means to carry the load.

I am a struggling Muslim. A struggling believer. That’s another post as well. But the verse at 17:31 says it all. It explains why I have run from my deeds for all these years. It explains why I felt bad despite the culture of acceptance around abortion. I told no one for 15 years. Not a single person outside of my gay ex. And I refused to talk about it with even him. It was my sin. My burden. But carrying it alone didn’t serve me. Or help anyone else. I can’t undo my sins but I can be a warning for others. A testimony.

And I have to stop running, too.