Part 3 of my childhood.

It is so weird for me to go back and think about this stuff. In the last 5 or so years, I have tried to look past all of this and forgive. I really have no hard feelings for my parents anymore and I think that bringing up some of this is easier because of that. I know that a lot of my personality is driven because of how I was raised and since I am trying to learn who I am and why I do things, I think that remembering some of this helps me with this.


I also don’t want to tarnish the way people view my mother. She is a truly wonderful and caring person that realizes that she wasn’t a great mom. She was a child herself.

My dad can fend for himself and I will only say that he has changed immensely over the years and all for the better. He loves my daughter and I as much as he possibly can.


My dad was in the military when I was born and did not meet me until I was almost a year old. When he came home, he and my mother got heavily involved with drugs and moved to Colorado to get out from under their parents thumbs. They were the typical hippie parents that carted me around with them while they partied. I basically have very little recollection of my life before the age of 4 or 5 years old which is probably a good thing.

My mother and I bounced between living with my dad in Colorado and living with my grandparents in Ohio until I was about 5. My grandparent’s home was the only stable atmosphere I knew growing up and I was often dropped there as to not burden my parents and their party life. This was probably my saving point and allowed me to learn that I did not want to go down that life path!

When I was young, I am guessing about 5 years old, the one thing I do remember was living in an apartment complex with many floors. I was being watched by an upstairs neighbor and was sent home at the designated time that my parents agreed on. I remember knocking on our apartment door and no one answered. I became scared thinking that maybe it was not my home and I had gone down too many flights of stairs. I walked up and down the stairs crying uncontrollably until, I believe, my stoned father remembered that he was supposed to be at home to greet me and found me sobbing up and down the halls.

Up until about 5th grade, I spent the summers in Ohio and dreaded the time when I had to go back to Colorado and live with my parents. Ohio was safe, loving and normal. My grandmother (my mom’s mom) was everything to me. If it weren’t for her, I am guessing that I would be lying on a corner somewhere right now.

While in Colorado, I listened to my parents drink, drug, fight, and party. I would have to stay at peoples houses that I didn’t know so that my parents could go out and get hammered and drugged up. I never really slept at other peoples houses and I seemed to be in a constant state of anxiety during that time. I remember an anger building in me during that time in my life. One that I did not understand nor could I control.

My father cheated on my mom one night and I remember lying in my room listening to my mom sob, knowing that he wasn’t coming home and what he was doing. I remember being so angry and not being able to do anything about it. I was never allowed to have a voice. I was a child and children were not meant to be heard. My mom returned the favor to him plenty of times through out the next few years. She evened the score if we were counting.  I think I was counting.