When Dreams Were Still Dreams

 

The seed planted in the desert may grow, but you may not like what it grows into.

 

Memory is a funny thing, isn’t it? Some dreams feel like life and life sometimes feels like a dream. Some of my earliest memories are skewed, just like everyone else. But I do remember never having an actual sense of safety. There was always something in the air that permeated underlying tension. Almost as if people were always arguing out of sight and in other rooms. As memory started taking hold, that “sense” turned into concrete experiences. From as far back as I can remember, there was always some form of drug/drugs in any household I lived in. Until I was 9, I remember living with my mother, who found herself in and out of relationships. It was then that I first caught a glimpse of how to perceive relational cycles. In the case of my mother: attract people, pull them in, make them need her, then push them away until they never came back. Rinse and repeat.

 I could see this process externally, but I didn’t see how it was affecting me at that age. Though I have memories of such examples of how she punished me. Sometimes she would lock me out of the house, with the screen door being the only thing that blocked my ability to come in. She would sit and watch television while I would cry to come in and she would tell me that I couldn’t come in until I showed her that I loved her (I think she got tired of the game, because she would always relent when it got dark). Other times, she would make me sit in the bathroom with her while she took a bath and tell me how ungrateful I was. I probably was ungrateful. I am Irish/ German after all. Later on, she would use my father as a weapon of punishment. She (and my grandparents) would explain just how much of an alcoholic he was and that if I didn’t straighten up, she would make me move in with him.

After her second divorce, she held parties every night until 3-4 am. It was quite difficult to sleep, as the music was extremely loud and her “friends” would find themselves in my room at all hours of the night by accident. My safety was never in any danger regarding my body, luckily. But waking up to the sounds of moans or of yelling would be greatly off-putting. After awhile of this, I was sent to live with my grandparents.

It was there that I got to witness a different level of drug use. The prescribed kind.