We moved around a lot as I was growing up. Some times the move was across town. Other times it was across the state. Mostly it was due to my parents trying to work things out and then not succeeding. It was due to the Bipolar ups and downs. It was due to the alcoholism. It was due to a lot of things.
I remember living in an apartment building not too far away from my grandparents and my brother and sister. I would walk to and from school each day. I had a friend in the building who would walk with me most days. I don't remember if he was in Kindergarten as well or not. But I remember I liked having a friend walk with me.
Most days I would play with my friends in school then go home and play alone in my room. I had lots of imaginary friends and I would play board games with them. I would pretend my room was another planet or some place far away. I would spend hours coming up with new stories to act out.
I also spent my time watching T.V. with my mom. I grew up with MTV (when it was still music) and with "Young and the Restless." I watched "Sesame Street" and whatever else was on at the time.
We moved again and again and again. One place we lived was a little white house in Minot, not too far away from the fairgrounds. I liked this house...a lot. We didn't have all of the noisy...and nosy...neighbors around us. I think I was about five or six at the most when we lived there.
It was at this house that I distinctly remember watching my daddy drive away...again. And not too many days later, I sat at the top of the stairs listening to my mom cry in the kitchen. She was cutting her wrists. She yelled at me to call my grandpa to come and get me. She said I was going to go live with him. I didn't know my grandpa's phone number, but I knew Kathy's. Kathy was and still is a great friend to my mom. I didn't know what to say other than mommy was crying and I was going to live with my grandpa. I think I also said something about the blood on the floor.
I went back to my perch on the top of the stairs and cried. I thought my mommy was going to die. I didn't know what was going to happen to me or who was going to take care of me. I felt so alone. Those minutes seemed like years while I was waiting for someone to come. Kathy did come and mom got some help.
A few years ago while I was praying. Jesus took me back to those stairs on that night in my memory. He took me back to my loneliest moment. He showed me that I wasn't alone at the top of those stairs as I was watching my mother try to commit suicide. He was sitting there beside me. He was holding me as I waited. I wasn't alone.
That wasn't the only time my mother tried to kill herself. She had many times that she didn't want to live anymore. Sometimes I thought it was my fault and I tried to be better. I tried to stay out of trouble and tried to be a good little girl.
Many memories are full of broken glass.
Several years later we were living in Grand Forks, ND on the Air Force Base. Mom and dad had a few good years together and they were trying to make it work. My dad had gone through the legal system to officially adopt me and give me his last name. It felt so good to have my daddy there. He taught me how to ride a bike. This time when we moved around, we all moved together.
I believe I was in the third grade at this time in my life. Dad was drinking a lot those days. He came home late from the bar and they would fight. But they were together. We were a family.
One day, I was playing in the back yard with my friends. I was excited to have friends. I didn't have many friends since we moved a lot. It was hard to make a new friend when we moved around.
We had a swing set and I was hanging up-side-down on it. We were laughing and having a good time. I heard my mom yell at me inside our duplex apartment and I thought I was in trouble for not playing on it right. I told my friends that I would see them later but I had to go now.
I walked in to find broken glass everywhere in the house. I thought that my mom was mad at me for swinging up-side-down on the swing set. I must have been very bad in order for her to break so many things this time. Maybe she was mad at me for not washing the dishes right. Maybe I forgot to feed the dogs. I wasn't sure, but I knew I must have done something wrong. She sent me to my room. I sat on my bed and cried. I tried to think about what I did to make her so mad.
Mom came into my room and broke everything she could. I had collected some seashells from the beach when my family took a trip to Corpus Christi, TX. It was a happy family trip and I cherished those seashells. They reminded me that my family might work out. She broke them all. She broke my mirrors. She broke whatever she could throw on the floor. When she was done smashing and yelling and crying in my room, she told me to clean up the mess and she went and sat in the living room to cry some more.
I was on my hands and knees in the middle of broken glass picking up each small piece when my dad came home from work. I remember him looking down the hallway right into my room. He came rushing and picked me up out of the brokenness. He asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was cleaning it up. He told me to not worry about it and put me back on my bed.
Mom got help again that time. But I was never reassured that it wasn't my fault until I was an adult.
My dad retired from the Air Force. He had spent 20 years of his life in service for our country. I was (and am) so very proud of him. Now that the Air Force was not keeping him in North Dakota, he moved our family to Texas.
My dad was born and raised in Texas. When he joined the military, he had hoped to be stationed in Texas. He was frustrated when that never happened. He was eager to move back to be close to his parents and his boys. I was not eager to move again.
I remember hiding under the table at school. My classmates stood in front of the doorway into our class. I hoped he wouldn't find me so that I could stay in North Dakota. I felt the safest I had ever felt and I was terrified about moving. But he found me and we left in a green cargo van with as many of our belongings as possible packed around me in the back.
My mother didn't like being in Texas. I didn't like being in Texas. My parents fought more and more. So she packed me up and we left. She drove to Phoenix, AZ where her first husband lived. He took us in.
My parents ended up getting a divorce when I was in the fifth grade and I grew up very quickly.
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