Confessions 12/12

Edited down to 207 words.

My parents' drug addiction ran deep, and they mined the hell out of it. It went from one drug to another, without pause, with significant overlap. As an adult, I mark my life by what college I was attending, where I was working, or which house I lived in. As a kid, it was more often which phase of drugs my parents were in. At 11, my normal was likely not your normal. My parents were somewhere between crack and methamphetamine.

Their bed was on the living room floor as my bedroom was padlocked from the inside to protect me from all the horrible people in and out of our house (the shooting gallery), and the other bedroom was rented out to pay the bills. I made a noise which woke my mom up and, nerves taught, she rounded on me, uncharacteristically. I stammered an apology and she told me that, when I was little, someone had offered her half a million dollars to buy me and she should have sold me, pretty little blonde baby. I'm quite sure she has no memory of ever having said it. I think she'd be mortified to know that I know that, or remember it. In fact, she'd probably deny it.

Original: 534 words.

There are things, I know, that I will remember that they have no idea were even spoken. My parents' drug addiction ran deep, and they mined the hell out of it. I was a kid and had no say, no means of intervention or removal from the source. It went from one drug to another, without pause, with significant overlap. As an adult, I mark my life by what college I was attending, where I was working, or which house I lived in. As a kid, it was more often which phase of drugs my parents were in. My normal was likely not your normal.

The two conversations I am reminded of were somewhere between crack and methamphetamine - for both uppers kept my parents awake for days at a time, and their nerves ran tight as rubber bands on the edge of snapping, while their minds, focusing on their next high, spun like tires in soft snow. I was about 11 years old and would have been last on the priority list if a list could have been had at all. I looked in the fridge after school and it was empty; not even food-bank peanut butter or government cheese inside. I told my mom I was hungry. She rounded on me, which is uncharacteristic, and got in my face saying "You eat twice a day at school and you have the nerve to expect me to feed you when you get home?" True, the food stamp program did provide breakfast and lunch at school. I learned to eat it all. That year, during the summer, I'd ride my bike to Bixby Park every day by 10:30am so I could sign up for a boxed lunch, which would be delivered around noon, a public service for homeless youth. I wasn't homeless, but it was sometimes my only meal of the day.

Another time, maybe 6 months later, I had accidentally dropped a utensil in the sink which woke my mom up. Their bed was on the living room floor as my bedroom was padlocked from the inside to protect me from all the horrible people in and out of our house, the shooting gallery, and the other bedroom was rented out for money to pay the rent. Again, nerves frayed with anger, shame, pain, and either too much or too little drugs, she flew into the kitchen. I stammered an apology and she told me that when I was little, someone had offered her half a million dollars to buy me and she should have sold me, pretty little blonde baby. I'm quite sure she has no memory of ever having said it. I think she'd be mortified to know that I know that, or remember it. In fact, she'd probably deny it.

As a therapist, I know people often say things they don't mean to say, but remarks like that make me wonder if people really do mean the things they say, deep down inside, and how often they come bubbling to the surface, even if they didn't mean them to slip out. Just as there is truth in kidding, there is truth in anger, and those bubbles have to be kept in check.