Serendipity

I was 19.  Married. Alienated from my family. My husband…an ex-con with a desire to spend more time with his friends, partying with his booze and his drugs.  Nightly.  Some nights…some mornings…he never came home. When he did, there were arguments, complete with mental, emotional, and sexual abuse.  Then he’d sleep.  Only to get up, shower and be gone again. Then there was my baby.  He was beautiful and who I could rely on to love me…as much as he relied on me to care and love him. But that didn’t stop the pain.  So much pain.  And loneliness. It overwhelmed me.  Pushed me toward an abyss where I shouldn’t have been.  Not at 19. The first time I tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose of pills, he kicked the bathroom door in and slapped the pills from my hands.  Shook me, pleaded with me not to do that again.  I loved him sooo much but he loved his partying life more.  He couldn’t understand how much I depende...

There have been times over the years that I have seriously wished that I could step out of my life, walk away if you will, for a while, to ease the racket that overwhelms me in my mind. It’s not that I necessarily hate my life as it’s been or is, but rather it’s wanting to get in touch with the person inside. I became lost with the death of my mother in 1975, when I was 16 years old…and although I’ve come close to re-finding that person within, I’ve never fully made the complete trip because life, as it too often does, took over and some things, like this, were set on a back burner until…. When I had my breakdown in 2001, I wished as deeply as I could wish, that I could go away for a while to a Buddhist monastery to heal, to finish that long journey of discovery, and to step away from my life as it was, out of the person that I was, and start over…from the inside-out. Of course, it’s just a wish…one that I’ll never see become reality as I have no funds to get myself that far, and I’...

I cannot improve or add anything to this anonymous letter received in May, 1982 from a mother in upstate New York. She belongs in this book. --Erma Bombeck “ANONYMOUS” Dear Erma, You feel like my best friend. The only thing that surprised me was to find out that I am taller than you. Anyway, I have something I want to talk to you about. There is no solution to this. I just want you to know we exist, we are human too and we hurt with the helplessness I can’t begin to describe. I belong to a group of people that doesn’t even know it’s a group. We have no organization, no meetings, no spokesperson, we don’t even know each other. Each of us, as individuals, are way back in the closet with the rats and cockroaches. We may not even be any different than our neighbors. We look the same, talk and act the same, yet when people know our secret, they shun us as lepers. We are parents of criminals. We too love our children. We too tried to bring them up the best way we knew how. There is small sol...