stealing myself from the past

Sister Superhero calls me twice every hour. She knows how I get when I'm upset. How irrational I get. How quick-tempered. How crazy.

When did this kind of behaviour start? When I was 12? 13? I just remember needing to "clear my head" a lot. I remember seeing the bruises on my mother's face and still adoring my father. (I still do.) I remember my parents breaking things, threatening each other with knives, my toddler brother safe in his playpen. The first time I ran away from home, my father canvassed the neighborhood until he found me. He made me promise not to run away again. I agreed. After that, every time I left my house in the middle of the night, it was only to walk and think. I'd follow the Belt Parkway to Brooklyn, lose myself in thoughts, and then find myself on a filthy street somewhere near Starret City. I'd realize that I was a young girl in a place I didn't know, a place my parents didn't know how to get to, and that I didn't have money for a ride or food or a phone call. So I'd find a commercial street and stay in a McDonald's or a gas station or a 7-Eleven until the morning looked like it was close to breaking. Then I'd hurry home, shower, and go to class.

When I was 15, I bought a train ticket to Georgia. I think maybe one of my cousins lived there at the time. If not, I'm not sure why Georgia popped in my head. Maybe it was because I'd heard Atlanta's small enough to jog around, and I wanted to run around its circumference while smoking Newports. I loved being contradictory like that. My brother was in the fifth grade and things between my parents were getting really ugly. The night I was supposed to leave, my parents were having it out downstairs, in the dining room. I could hear them screaming, hear the threat of violence like the Jaws theme, thumping in my temples. My brother walked into my room and sat on my suitcase. He made small-talk, blinked away his tears, pretended not to hear the thud of a fist planted somewhere on our mother's body. I couldn't leave.

That same year, I passed out after taking some X and snorting a couple lines of coke. Carlos had come over to my parents' house. He'd been wearing eyeliner. I'd paraded slutty outfits in front of him and gotted loaded. Then I was out. When I woke up, Carlos was hunched over me, crying and praying. He said I'd been out all night, and at one point I'd stopped breathing and he'd given me mouth-to-mouth. I asked why he hadn't just woken up my parents. He said he would've if he couldn't have gotten me to start breathing, but that he just knew I'd be okay after I'd started breathing.

I was 17 and living with a man six years my senior in midtown Manhattan. For reasons I still can't fully grasp, I'd cut off ties with my friends and started thinking that I knew what I was doing. (Maybe I did know what I was doing?) Days were comprised of high school mundanity, evenings consisted of dinner with the beaux, and nights were spent bartending or waitressing at a neighborhood joint. By September, he'd propose to me and I'd use my parents as an excuse to say No. I was in the familiar territory of being adored by a man most women would kill for, and I couldn't use the L word. It was beyond me. There I was, picking out curtains and china patterns, and I still played the role of a visitor in "our" apartment. By October 1st (my 18th birthday), he'd broken up with me. During a drive from Ohio, he'd said that I'd "shown my true colors" - and apparently they were too "ghetto" and "street" for his taste. I went back to dealing "designer drugs" and weed. Antics would ensue until my lawyer (a father figure) scared the shit out of me.

When I was 20 and full of self-loathing, I went out with SoHo Suit, Military Mother, and our friend Parole Officer, who's a sexy 4-foot-8-and-a-half-inch Peruvian woman we went to school with. Parole Officer left early, and the rest of us figured we'd get into trouble like we usually do. That night, I guzzled glass after glass of chardonnay. I hadn't eaten all day and SoHo Suit kept on asking if maybe I wanted water instead. We walked out of the restaurant, somehow got to West 4th Street, and paid for tattoos. Then we went to the bathroom and I passed out. I vaguely recall SoHo Suit crying and smacking me. Military Mother was telling her to make sure I was breathing. Someone called 911 and a butch lesbian carried me to the ambulance. I spent the night at St. Vincent's.

There were so many more episodes. So many stories that evaporated into the air after they first escaped my mouth. So many (mis)adventures that only therapists and co-deviants know. So many times, I know, that I should've died. Or gotten severely impaired. Or lost all of my innocence.

But, somehow, I managed to hold on to a bit of wonder. A sense of naivety. A desire to love and be loved.

And now, as I think of the changes that've happened in the past 24 hours - my inability to leave the country, the crumbling of my relationship with Rob, the hospitalization of Latina Princess, my thankfulness at having such amazing people in my life (you know who you are) - I know that I'm not going to add to my list of crazy, illegal, life-threatening misadventures.

I'm calling Sister Superhero and letting her know: she has nothing to worry about.