3- Parents divorce, first memories of sexual behavior with other children
AJ… I think that was his name.  It was behind a couch in the living room.  It had wood slats behind it.  He didn’t orgasm.  He wasn’t sure what I was trying to do exactly.  But it did feel nice.  I was supposed to make him feel nice.  Right?

4- Memories of father molesting me
The strangest things stay prominent in memory.  We went on an amusement park ride and all of the stuff fell out of his shirt pocket.  We sat and waited at a table near the ride.  His hand under my dress the whole time.  The boys thought I needed to rest because I was such a baby.  They mocked me for sitting.

5- 5 kindergardens, big acting out sexually behavior
I was the new kid again.  I wanted someone to like me.  I needed someone to see me.  He looked at me and tried to make friends.  That’s how you are nice to someone, right?


6- Moved to Oklahoma/Texas, Uncle Bob hurt Tommy
My uncle was actually trying to defend me.  Given how horrible Tommy was to me, it was a good instinct.  But that drove a permanent wedge through our family.  I don’t think Uncle Bob ever got over the guilt.  It felt like the whole world just went up in flames.  Hysteria.  Silenced.  Ripped away from everyone who might be able to track my story.


7- Tommy’s accident, Michael raped me
It’s kind of funny how trite pieces of it are.  Of course I started acting out.  But most people don’t start this kind of acting out until they are much older.  More proof that I was precocious?


8- Denny was born, come back to California, started cutting
These generational lines feel important and I don’t know why.  It’s like a ticking time bomb until something blows up.  I suspect that Tyra and Denny might opt out of having kids as a way of breaking the cycle.  Or maybe they will accidentally have kids because human beings are animals and we all want to pass on our genes.  And they will live in poverty, addiction, abuse… who knows.  I need to not notice any more.  The cutting is interesting.  There are different kinds of cutters.  I started out with serrated knives.  I don’t know how I avoided scarring.


9- Tommy moved in with us, my father raped me
Tommy chased Denny around the house with his wheelchair hurting the baby’s fingers.  That was Denny’s introduction to the world.  I was left alone, constantly in horribly unsafe conditions.  I found the strength of will to call my mother in the middle of my father raping me and she told me that I made my bed now I have to lie in it.  Oh man, but he didn’t put his penis in my vagina so it doesn’t count!  I should be more sensitive.


10- Jeremy raped me, Tommy tried to kill me
It’s rare that I get flashes of the sodomy.  There’s a fun word.  I think that has been the primary assault I have physically relived.  I get flashes of the stuff with my father, but for whatever reason the sodomy caused more damage.  Maybe because there was no mix of pleasure with the pain?  It was very difficult for me to learn to have anal sex, even with all the sex I’ve had.  I actually think that the way I have anal sex takes the place of cutting for me in terms of needed level of self-harm.
    
11- Tyra was born, tried drugs, escalating acting out behavior,
I toss in the “tried drugs” because I think it is kind of funny.  I took two hits of pot.  Once.  I had a coughing fit and puked into a cactus.  Some stupid kid near me talked me into snorting baby powder.  We thought white out was pretty awesome.  The “escalating acting out”.  I snuck out of the house pretty often.  The only time I went to an honest-to-goodness party I fell asleep on the couch about 30 minutes in.  I came home to my mother filing a police report and she acted like I had robbed a bank.


12- Moved to LG mostly permanently, asked a 25 year to fuck me, dated other 25 year old, grandfather died
This was when my mom made me the favored child for a little while.  She really was trying to save me.  She feels like she threw Tommy to the wolves, but she probably did save my life.  The sex was awful and painful and (combined with the boyfriend treating me like a hooker) it scared me straight.


13- tried to do the “normal person” thing
I tried to follow fashion.  I found out about trendy music and movies.  Of course this means I was a goth.  But whether people want to believe it or not, “counter culture” is mainstream culture too.  I was part of a social group. I got to enter into the flow of friendship formation.  It was weird.  I felt like I was coming home to Los Gatos, and everyone acted like they didn’t know me.  They were the only constant forces in my life but I was the only inconsistent part of their lives.


14- dated Airforce Michael
Picked him up at a gaming convention.  I helped him lose his virginity on his 21st birthday.  In Vasona Park in downtown Los Gatos.  Yup.  I’m that girl.  I have always loved dating geeks.  I’m a pretty girl and geek boys like that I am a pretty girl who wants to talk to them.  I’m also smart.  And not afraid of being smart.  So that’s double plus good.  


15- Patrick raped me, Justin tried to rape me, attempted suicide, psych hospital stay
This group was full of people who had serious entitlement issues.  A bunch of spoiled rich boys who really believed they were allowed to have and do anything they wanted.  It was bad.  And yet, that’s not the real story.  The real story is that I was very sexually aggressive and when guys responded it scared the shit out of me.  Not all guys are going to listen to “no” once they are lead on and they are easy to pick out of the crowd.  I didn’t tend to go home with the guys who wouldn’t have sex with me.  That’s a lot of the reason I have a lot of respect for the one guy I have kept from that crowd.  He had sex with me (even though he was 20 and knew he shouldn’t) but he followed the camp site rule.  So even in the midst of the trauma there were valuable life lessons.


16- dropped out of high school, Tommy killed himself, group home, 6 months in Bakersfield, speed experiment
I don’t even mention my father stalking me.  That is the prevailing feeling of the six months in Bakersfield.  No, that’s not true.  But that was true of the last couple of months.  I was terrified.  Then we came back to Los Gatos. I started working full time and my mom started stealing my paycheques.  I had to pay my share of the rent, you know.  My manager at Ross gave me speed.  He was probably fucking the other 16 year old employee I hung out with.  The company shut me up fast.


17- started West Valley, my father killed himself
I remember the night the night my brother Jimmy called me screaming about our father’s death.  I left the house and walked all over Redwood Estates.  I sobbed and screamed.  I ended up at Jenny’s house and she held me while I sobbed.  I didn’t know what it was like to grow up with a father.  But you never get over wanting your Daddy.


18- given date rape drug , found bdsm, started dating Tom,
Oh that whole date rape situation was awful.  I was acting out all over the place.  Lots of bad decisions.  And the response was across the line victim blaming.  It was all my fault.  Luckily when I found the creepy online guy who introduced me to bdsm I left before sleeping with him.  Thank god for some boundaries.  And I found Tom.


19- left W.V., lots of moving around and couch surfing, growing awareness of safe sex, trip to Australia
Really this period was characterized by my relationship with Tom.  I dated a lot of people for the first six months and I did a lot of things that were suboptimal, but I learned and improved rapidly.  Tom wasn’t real up for the kind of communication I needed, so we had problems.


20- pretty sure this is when I started blogging,
I’m upset about not having my g-blog archive anymore.  I wish I had started backing up my data years ago.  This was a happy, stable period of my life.  I think that is what bothered Tom so much.  He knew it was a calm before the storm.  We entered into a 24/7 M/s relationship.  


21- graduated college, started grad school, trip to London/Paris
It was becoming increasingly clear that Tom was not my forever partner.  We coped with this in ways that were mostly healthy and functional.  Better than anything I’d ever seen.  By this point we were moving more into the Daddy/daughter play than the Owner/slave.  Tom didn’t really want to hurt someone who was in as much pain as I was in all day every day.  Instead he took care of me.  It was interesting.


22- started dating Noah, broke up with Tom 
You aren’t supposed to talk about it, but Tom has a low libido.  It’s not a big deal.  I don’t.  So all of a sudden it was a big deal.  In the final year of our relationship we had sex 11 times.  Some people think that is fine but it isn’t for me.  Lots of sex with my partner keeps me from chasing self destructive sex.  I mention that I started dating Noah, but he isn’t actually the person I negotiated poly for.  Or the boy I developed a crush on.  He was unremarkable except that he was So.Fucking.Pushy.


23- broke up with Noah, did lots of drugs with James, started teaching, dated Puppy, trip to Ireland
Got sick of that pushy thing.  He wanted someone other than me.  He didn’t know who I was and I didn’t know how to let him find out.  Sort of.  Maybe.  Or maybe he wanted exactly me and I didn’t know how to be me and stand next to him.  So I dumped him and sobbed the whole way home.  Hanging out with the Burners was fun.  I feel like I happened along at a golden era of fun no-strings-attached-sex for a whole bunch of people.  It was responsible and very loving in a sleazy sort of way.  No really.  It was awesome.  The trip to Ireland was awkward but allowed me to start letting go of Tom.  Teaching was consuming most of my life.  Sprint! 

24- Puppy dumped me, married Noah (7 days before my birthday)
Puppy was probably telling me the truth when he said he never loved me.  He’s still an asshole.  Marrying Noah was the right call.  Eloping is still a mixed bag thing for me.  I feel like I didn’t have a wedding because I was afraid that people like me don’t get to have weddings.  People don’t come.  I don’t have a family to invite any way and weddings are for your family… right?  


25- rape scene with Noah
I’m glad we did this and it hurt like hell.  It lead to good therapy work and wonderful growth in my relationship with Noah.  It’s kind of comfortable being able to say with great confidence that I know exactly what kind of monster I married.
  
26- Had Shanna, failed out of grad school
Other women seem to enjoy pregnancy.  Not me.  It was horrible.  I lost almost 20 lbs in the first 5 months.  Then I had preterm labor and bedrest.  And with regards to the MA? I was told, “It’s obvious that you know the material… but you just didn’t quite write enough.”  I’m not even sure I’m bitter (today, right now) any more so much as I just feel sad.  What a horrible system.

27- Miscarriage, therapist overdosed, Francesca overdosed, trip to New Zealand
That first miscarriage was hard.  I found the fetus in my first postpartum cycle.  That’s not an experience I ever want again.  My beloved therapist overdosed on heroin.  She had been going down hill for a while.  It was really obvious.  Another close friend overdosed on heroin.  She was in a lot of pain and no one saw.  That’s hard to bear.  Traveling is so wonderful.  This trip was closer to what I like in travel.


28- Miscarriage, Had Calli
I started the miscarriage and got in my van to drive to Portland.  I was supposed to leave that day and didn’t see a point in stopping my plans for something like that.  If I stop my life for sad things I’ll never get up again.  I’m frankly surprised nothing bad happened given how I cried.  Then I had my Calli.  I had a nine day labor then I hemorrhaged after her birth and nearly died.  My response is to feel like it is ridiculous how I make everything sound so melodramatic.  That’s really not an exaggeration of what happened.  It’s pretty minimizing, really.  But I feel like I shouldn’t say it.


29- Uncle Bob died, outed my whole family, wrote ¼ of a book, remodeled my house
Uncle Bob was my savior and an abuser.  He was a bully and a flirt.  He was good people and he was a racist.  These things are complicated.  My family wants me to keep silent.  I want to take up space in the world.  I feel like if I don’t find a way to take up space in the world I am going to explode.




14 days till I leave and I’m not sure what I’m packing.  We are going to be gone for a month and I’m packing for four people and extensive travel through multiple climates.  I want to sit here and keep writing. But that is derailing my life.  So really, I need to turn the computer off.