The Hole Within

CHAPTER 2

My parents divorced when I was six. My brother went with my dad and I with my mom. I remember being elated. I would have my mom all to myself, (read: pray for being selfish). Only, only I did not. I met Al (who soon became my step-dad) at a house? At a motel room? I do remember that he looked like a hippie. He had a Foo Manchu beard and mustache, long hair and drove a Volkswagen bus. Mom was flushed with excitement when she introduced him to me. I was not impressed. Instead I was sinking inside of myself. I was despondent in a way that only six-year old's can be. I was mad (read: pray).

Fast forward to them dropping me off at Al's parents' house in Elko, Nevada. They were going off to get married. I am not sure how long I stayed there. I do not remember an in between, if there was one. I felt alone. Abandoned. Helpless. By myself with virtual strangers. Feelings that would repeat and repeat throughout my childhood, reaching into my twenties. Feelings of the fear of abandonment and being left alone. I do not know if that was the beginning of my anxiety, my sense of being uncomfortable in my own skin. It was a feeling that left me searching for something, anything, to fill the deep void inside.

Each summer I would go visit my dad. Other than a trip with him to Knott's Berry Farm, those visits are as blank as a sheet of unlined paper. I do not even have feelings attached to the time there. I do know that I never wanted to go. I would cry and throw tantrums as mom made preparations for my visit. I hated going to see him. I was always filled with a dark foreboding.

I have few memories of the years that followed. Moving to Canada to follow my new dad's career as a track and field head coach at Lakehead University. Joining a swim team. My first boyfriend, a pudgy energetic boy who I swore marriage to at the tender age of eight. Meeting my first African-American. Shaking hands, him taking my small hand into his adult, black skin hand. I was astonished by the deeply grooved scars on both cheeks. I stared, fascinated, as he explained his tribe cut him as a sign of coming into manhood. In Utah I had never known, never seen, much less touched a person of color. Although, when caught by my mom puffing on a discarded cigarette butt, she admonished me to "Put that down! A black person could have been smoking that!" I never touched a used butt again for fear that I would put a smelly butt between my lips that a person of color had had between theirs. Don't get me wrong, we were not actively prejudice. The word "Nigger" was never uttered. But as the church implied, they were lesser than us. Cursed by God. Cain struck black as a punishment for killing his brother.

But I digress. Memories are like motes of dust, barely seen, and skirt away when you reach to grasp them. They start to solidify around thirteen or so, but their order is jumbled. By this time, we had moved to California. My stepdad Al had gotten a job at Stanislaus University. We lived in a little town called in Denair, about twelve miles south of Modesto. I enjoyed our modest house with alfalfa fields on all three sides. I now had three new siblings. Two sisters, Dani and Tina, born in California before we moved to Canada and a brother, Kevin, born in Canada. My relationship with my mom was persistently unfulfilling. She was the center of my universe and the desire to have her to myself only intensified. The center of hers was Al. I have since realized the main problem was that I always wanted more.

Mom was not very affectionate. She grew up with a very cold, detached mother. She never learned how to nurture a child. How to make one feel loved, cherished, safe. I was in constant fear of abandonment. While most of the interactions with mom left me yearning, it was the lack of feeling of safety and security that had the most impact. My safety was threatened by a stepfather who was quick to use his hands in anger. My older brother, who had come back to live with us at some point, (read: blank memory), got the brunt of Al's temper. I got the share that was left over. I remember, after a flare of temper and blows, thinking that I wished he would hit us hard enough to send us to the hospital. Then maybe Mom would whisk us away from him to safety. Would she have? Or would she have stuck by her man? Later experience makes me lean to the latter.