The big lie
I have spent my whole life hiding a secret. A secret all of us knew (family) but I hid
behind a wall of shame. The wall began
so early that I wasn’t even aware that it was there. I knew we (our family) was not like other
families I had seen. No, most of them
had 2 parents living in the same house.
And I suspected they had something we didn’t. Security.
This may become painful to write and convoluted if I allow
it, so it may come piecemeal.
The reason this is even being put on paper (now) is
something that happened at work, today.
You see being raised in an alcoholic home really does create
many, many lies. What began as “shshshshsh”
don’t tell the neighbors somehow transferred into “she is sick” to full blown
anger and fear of ‘what if someone finds out’.
I have spent YEARS saying to siblings that she didn’t mean to hurt us,
just to hear it myself. But deep inside I
harbored a fear that just kept rising up and I kept pushing down.
What I believed as a 10year old followed by many years after
that was a total lie. I become angry
sitting here pulling this up again.
Dinners burned beyond eatable.
Milk to drink if we were lucky.
No breakfasts, no snacks, hell, no one home at night. As a kid I just thought everyone lived like that. Now I know they don’t. She was always mad, always angry if she wasn’t drunk. Seeing her sway down the hall so out of it
that all I could do was pretend that wasn’t true. Ice clinking in a glass at 2am, knowing that
is a refill, probably to get her till dawn.
To this day I shudder if I hear that sound.
A woman told me a few years ago that I was covered in
shame. I, of course, stood proudly in
denial. Why would something that
happened years ago, something I had no control over… leave me shameful?
Hmmm. Lie # 1……
I continued to defend her after all what difference could it
make? She has been gone for many years. But it does.
I am seeing a little clearer now.
A part of me never will be ok.
The sins of our “mothers” lives long after they do.
And I followed in her
footsteps. Alcoholic through and
through. I sought solice in the group
that got her sober. I fought sobriety
for years till it kicked me into submission.
I would live a miserable life and die a lonely drunk if things didn’t
change.
So, she got sober in 1976, the year I graduated from
H.S. I tried to forget all those years
of twisted living. I thought I had. Lie # 2.
Like I said, piecemeal.
This wears me out. Again, stuff
what is uncomfortable. Lie #3.
This began as a piece to the shuttled puzzle and got sent
way back in time. The reason I began,
today, was because in my work place I heard myself saying “OUTLOUD” I was raised in an alcoholic home. Whoa!
And the sky didn’t fall.
