Monday, September 29, 2008
I'm Proud!
I wasn't always what you would call a proud person. I had many reasons which damaged the mechanisms that would have allowed me to be proud and for a long time I didn't even know they were damaged. I just couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.
My first memories are of my grandmother and grandfather, great-grandmother, uncles, and cousins--all on my Mother's side. Then somewhere in there comes my Mother. I only remember my Father when I remember that I can't remember nothing about him but the 2 times in life that I spoke to him on the telephone.
The first time I remember hearing his voice, I remember how it scared me; something stirred in the pit of my stomach as he said what ever it was that he was saying. I just remember thinking that I wanted that feeling to happen again and again and I couldn't speak because of the intense pleasure emanating from the receiver of the telephone down to the back of my belly button. It felt like Christmas lights were blinking on and off in my brain but all over was like the warmth of logs from my grandmother's hearth. I was mesmerized by the thrill of this strange electricnicity.
I immediately felt ashamed and ran to hide. I still think that this must have been akin to a childhood orgasm; but because I couldn't really express that it was just the sheer joy of hearing, for the first time, a deep, sonorous voice of a man, that everyone said was my father who, (at last!), wanted to talk to me. I was already 10 years old and could not even remember that he was my father --- and all that got mixed in with the pre-pubescent curiosity that all of us have but few of us have a healthy guide to get us through the giddy, heady, unimaginable terror of the roller coaster ride it is to go from little child to the not-so-little-girl, man-woman relationships that are supposed to happen between parents and children.
I guess that's why I was, for a period of time, a precociously, curiously, promiscuous, lonely loner of a little girl shoplifter, ---an only child--- raised by grandparents; teased and alternately tortured by older cousins; used by uncles for their perversion and my curiosity; married as a teenager to escape from the mother and step-father tag team of designer discipline; and pregnant 2 times before my eighteenth birthday; then finally married and raising a child so that I could finally have a friend and someone to love me five months shy of my twentieth birthday.
But now? I am proud now. I am proud to have just survived myself and all of the things that I did and did not do to get here.
I graduated from high school at the age of 16 and was immediately accepted for Honors Freshman Admission in college based on my SAT not my GPA. But I did not get a degree until I was 41. I still don't have a BA--- but I think my BS is definitely of the PhD. category.
I became a Licensed Practical Nurse in this impractical world of health care. I have been fired from jobs because I spent too much time caring for the patients--- while on the other end of the spectrum-- I have had to work 18 hour days because the state mandated that I would be fired for abandonment of patients when the next nurse did not show up at her appointed time and the facility would not or could not find a replacement for me even though it was my fifth day of working 12-hour shifts. That I could hold down a job---actually have a career--- and one that I would still be doing today were it not for being hit by a car in 2006--- is something that I am extremely proud of especially since it is the service oriented professions that everybody takes for granted but in fact we rule the workforce.
I am proud of myself for all that I have done to myself and survived. I am proud of myself for all that was done to me and I smiled . I am proud of myself to be able to just get up and see another day whether it be rain, or heat.
I am proud. I'll try to let someone else know that I am proud of them too. I may not know your story--- but I am proud that you're still here to tell it.
Will you please let me know if you have something to be proud of? I'm right here knowing that you may have not had the courage to talk before the last day, hour, minute or second ago. But because you took the time---I'm proud!
My first memories are of my grandmother and grandfather, great-grandmother, uncles, and cousins--all on my Mother's side. Then somewhere in there comes my Mother. I only remember my Father when I remember that I can't remember nothing about him but the 2 times in life that I spoke to him on the telephone.
The first time I remember hearing his voice, I remember how it scared me; something stirred in the pit of my stomach as he said what ever it was that he was saying. I just remember thinking that I wanted that feeling to happen again and again and I couldn't speak because of the intense pleasure emanating from the receiver of the telephone down to the back of my belly button. It felt like Christmas lights were blinking on and off in my brain but all over was like the warmth of logs from my grandmother's hearth. I was mesmerized by the thrill of this strange electricnicity.
I immediately felt ashamed and ran to hide. I still think that this must have been akin to a childhood orgasm; but because I couldn't really express that it was just the sheer joy of hearing, for the first time, a deep, sonorous voice of a man, that everyone said was my father who, (at last!), wanted to talk to me. I was already 10 years old and could not even remember that he was my father --- and all that got mixed in with the pre-pubescent curiosity that all of us have but few of us have a healthy guide to get us through the giddy, heady, unimaginable terror of the roller coaster ride it is to go from little child to the not-so-little-girl, man-woman relationships that are supposed to happen between parents and children.
I guess that's why I was, for a period of time, a precociously, curiously, promiscuous, lonely loner of a little girl shoplifter, ---an only child--- raised by grandparents; teased and alternately tortured by older cousins; used by uncles for their perversion and my curiosity; married as a teenager to escape from the mother and step-father tag team of designer discipline; and pregnant 2 times before my eighteenth birthday; then finally married and raising a child so that I could finally have a friend and someone to love me five months shy of my twentieth birthday.
But now? I am proud now. I am proud to have just survived myself and all of the things that I did and did not do to get here.
I graduated from high school at the age of 16 and was immediately accepted for Honors Freshman Admission in college based on my SAT not my GPA. But I did not get a degree until I was 41. I still don't have a BA--- but I think my BS is definitely of the PhD. category.
I became a Licensed Practical Nurse in this impractical world of health care. I have been fired from jobs because I spent too much time caring for the patients--- while on the other end of the spectrum-- I have had to work 18 hour days because the state mandated that I would be fired for abandonment of patients when the next nurse did not show up at her appointed time and the facility would not or could not find a replacement for me even though it was my fifth day of working 12-hour shifts. That I could hold down a job---actually have a career--- and one that I would still be doing today were it not for being hit by a car in 2006--- is something that I am extremely proud of especially since it is the service oriented professions that everybody takes for granted but in fact we rule the workforce.
I am proud of myself for all that I have done to myself and survived. I am proud of myself for all that was done to me and I smiled . I am proud of myself to be able to just get up and see another day whether it be rain, or heat.
I am proud. I'll try to let someone else know that I am proud of them too. I may not know your story--- but I am proud that you're still here to tell it.
Will you please let me know if you have something to be proud of? I'm right here knowing that you may have not had the courage to talk before the last day, hour, minute or second ago. But because you took the time---I'm proud!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
