My childhood spearheaded by a mother obsessed with visual perfection had baptized me for this life; but my present reality was not a contrived plan. I had no intention of marrying. None at all. After two failed marriages before the age of twenty-five and one child out of my youthful carelessness, I was single for life. My gifted son had finally flown the nest and as a celebration of my new found independence I relinquished the responsibility of yard maintenance and purchased a townhome. Unknowingly, with one stroke of a pen I surrendered my life to the ravages of toxic black mold.
Tag : Christian Humor
Chapter 3
A DNA mutation had left me with extra guilt chromosome. Single motherhood nurtured this milady like a master gardener.
Chapter 4
And there it is, like a serial killer with a knife stabbing us over and over again. We want to scream, "I'm dead already. Stop!" But we don't. We don't because we know we screwed up. We know we deserve to feel this horrible shameful guilt because our child is the only ten-year-old in the entire fifth grade class who didn't turn in one red cent for the Christmas drive.
Chapter 6
My mental health wouldn’t allow such sound decisions. I, the product of a dysfunctional alcoholic family, was anything but daddy’s little girl. I was the spit in his eye, the stone in his shoe, the child he tried hard to wipe from the face of the earth every chance he got. In short, my inner child desperately needed to feel loved and wanted - just once in her life.
Chapter 7
Despite my tendencies toward self-destruction, which had been mentioned once or twice by a few former friends and ex-therapists, I like to think of myself as a visionary. (Perspective is everything.) One could say that our foray into living in other people’s houses was a brilliant move that perfectly positioned us to ride out the worldwide economic collapse. It all began innocently enough with a suggestion from my mother. In all fairness to her, it really began with a red sofa.
Chapter 8
My anit-dates would be all gussied up, shinning like a new penny with broad non-chemically treated smiles, clearly excited about the evening they mistakenly believed awaited them. I'd open the door and say, "What are you (emphasize, you) doing here?" Their explanation followed. These were nice guys, the kind of guys I didn’t like.
Chapter 11
Some children’s bedtime stories involve fairies, princesses and frogs; ours always involved our family living under a bridge destitute, homeless and filled with shame. These nightly warnings came from her uncontrollable fear that our way of life would be swept away should my father’s alcoholism be discovered by the outer world. She tirelessly lied; covering his tracks to ensure her three little chicks weren’t cast out of society and into the gutter. We were expected to follow suit and thus I received my PHD in Lying Arts before the age of twelve.
Chapter 12
People are always saying that things happen for a reason. I guess when the board of our Baptist church built theirnew multi-million dollar sanctuary and forgot to include a cross it was because God was trying to point me in another direction.
Chapter 13
I can’t put all the blame on my parents or my nose for my enormous inferiority complex; my hip played a big role. Having been born without a right hip bone made me a little bit of a freak from the get-go. My early years were spent in pillow splint braces that pulled my feet together and pushed my knees out. Sitting Indian style is still a synch for me, even at my age. My mother, God bless her, had been raised Methodist. The Methodist aren’t big on the whole miracle thing unless it is to explain all the stuff that Jesus did in the Bible. But my mother was an out of the box thinker and all those years I couldn’t walk and sat on the floor in those big ugly metal leg braces, my scrawny little knees poking out to the side like a frog, she just kept praying. Sure enough God grew me a hip bone and by the time I was three I was able to walk.
Chapter 14
My middle sister was always claiming she was talking to fairies in the woods around our house and aliens had abducted her as excuse for always missing curfew. Growing up in a family where insanity was the norm, my instincts taught me to question everything and everybody.
Chapter 15
In that moment the inexplicable grace of God shook my world. My right leg was growing, with twelve witnesses gathered around me. The leg stretched outward, longer than the left, as if to make a point, so that there would be no doubt as to what we’d seen. Then it moved back, perfectly even with the left.
Chapter 16
When I was small, if I fell asleep on a family trip I would always wake up alone in the car in some parking lot; cleverly setting the stage for my abduction, sort of like leaving your keys in car on purpose. Unfortunately for both of us, the whole abduction plan never worked out. Tenacity was at the heart of everything my father did and just because I wasn’t snatched from the backseat in some parking lot he wasn’t about to give up. One of their most creative schemes was the free puppy give-away approach. The note on my playpen, written in my father’s impeccable handwriting, read, “Free baby”; my mother had left enough diapers, formula and toys inside the playpen to help a family get started. I can only imagine the look on their faces two days later when they drove by the intersection and discovered I was still there. Life is full of bitter disappointments.
Chapter 17
There weren’t a lot of photos of me in our house, I guess because I looked a lot like Edward Scissor Hands from the waist down, without the cute pouty expression, at least until I was three. After that I think my parents didn’t want to document my development. Denial would be everything if I was ever arrested.
Chapter 18
Kids from screwed up families become all kinds of things. We hide ourselves behind silence, heavy make-up, sexual promiscuity, rebellion, performance. Our school, like all schools, was full of girls like this; we are a sorority with different chapters. The Mean Girls chapter was the one no one wanted to mess with; their raccoon eyes, thick with black eye liner, relayed stories of abuse and rage. No one was listening.
Chapter 19
Knees knocking, I bent down to retrieve my belongings. I saw the girl with the knife as she hit the pavement, her head snapped against the concrete. She didn’t get up. The Dragon girl kicked the switch blade over to me with her boot, “Pick it up,” she said. The metal handle was still hot from the Mean girl’s grip only seconds before. It felt good in my hands. A sudden rush of confidence swept through me.
Chapter 20
The tiny Episcopal mission of my choosing had a congregation of less than a hundred. It was the summer of 1969. No one wore choir robes like in the Baptist church. No one spewed out hell and damnation messages. No one seemed to care that I was an ugly misfit with a nose that swallowed my whole face.
The Vicar sat in the center isle of the tiny chapel and shared stories about the life of Jesus. Shame based at my very core, Baptist preaching had always stirred the hornets’ nest. But in the summer of 1969 I forgot all about religion and fell in love with the Real Jesus. The Vicar’s stories transformed Christ from some historical distant figure to a living, breathing man who struggled and hurt and had been rejected. I could relate to that! Sundays couldn’t come fast enough. The little red-brick light-filled chapel became an ethereal realm where I felt safe and accepted.
Chapter 22
Before the full effects of dark vortex I had just stepped through could take hold Charles Manson entered our lives. His cult's brutal murder of Sharon Tate sent a shock wave that was to rip me from the arms of my tiny Episcopal safe house.
Chapter 23
I could feel his alcoholic tobacco stained breathe on my face, hot with rage. His hand hovered close to my cheek. Locked in battle, we glared into each other’s eyes. Minutes passed. I braced myself for the blow.