Not Everyone Grew Up Like You

Today, I sat at a meeting. It's no big deal....I sit at meetings often times, throughout the week, when I could squeeze it into my old work schedule.

The meeting was different today, because I heard a man talk about going home to see family. How interesting that this was the topic of discussion! I had just been home this past week and realized that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Unlike any other occasion where I had lived in another state and travelled back, this occasion was different. I am different. I am on a journey, learning about myself and most importantly--I am sober. Now, to the average person this does not mean much; for those of you who grew up the way that I did, family can be a bewildering, heartbreaking, joyous, touching and unique concept in and of itself.

I realize, although it may seem strange and out of the grasp of many, that I was born unto the perfect parents: my soul planned it that way. In order to become the wonderful butterfly I am one day supposed to be, I had to endure the pain, the suffering and the heartache that was my youth, my childhood.

Growing up this way, envokes certain feelings of apprehension and anxiety for me as much as it would feelings of warmth and nostalgia in another.

I stay at my grandmother's when I travel back to where I hail from, simply because she is nourishing, loving and provides the most stability for me; these things I find are important for me, even in my adulthood. I did not see my father. Oh, sure, I called him--on Friday, as a matter of fact. He answered and explained to me how busy his weekend was, when so-and-so was working, his band practice and so forth. I did not see my father on my visit. My mother, the member of the family most responsible for my angst as a child, shared a brief car ride with me to pick up my house key; the ride was mostly silence and dotted with her screaming at me for getting too close to the shoulder, asking a few questions about my life in New York and talking to herself, apparently. At least I think that is what she was doing; maybe I just want her to do something odd so that it makes it easier to detach from her.

My grandparents, the paternal ones, are in denial about the problems of our parents. 'I think we are on the verge of becoming a dysfunctional family,' she says. You think?

From my mother's mother, I receive the constant flow of love and support that I always have, even if she doesn't understand my ohm bracelet, my fascination with crystals and chakras or my love of the big city. She is and always will be more like my mother than my own. If it hurts my mother to hear this, I do not feel sorry---what I feel is sadness. I frankly do not know her anymore. She is not my mother, but merely the shell of her.

So as not to run completely off course, my father calls today, asking if I was still in Illinois. With regret, I said 'No Dad, I'm back in New York.' When he told me that he had wished we had seen one another, I told him that I thought he was too busy or at least that's what he implied. He apologized, and I know he meant it. Maybe next time, I said. I still love him even with all of his deficiencies. They made me who I am. They did it perfectly, just as I said.

One of my dear friends remarked to me today, that the odds were against me turning out the way I did---that I am truly a miracle. I guess there is no way I can deny that. The odds were against me, and yet here I am.