Chapter 1

 Silent years

They say you’re to look at a person’s family and upbringing to understand them and their issues… Guess that speaks volumes in my case.

Guess we should start with the intro to my family…

Mom{Patti} well.. She was a ballet dancer turned Playboy Bunny.. Yep.. 5 ‘1 ” 100 pounds of beautiful little blonde Swedish and Irish mix bombshell Barbie. Born to a family of 5 with her being the oldest. Grandma{Jane} had my mother at 15 in a time when being a single mother was frowned upon. Grandmother was the den bunny mother at the Miami Playboy club before I was born, she was 5’4″ , Black haired beauty with fair skin true Irish descent or what she liked to call black irish. She has my mother the second oldest Jim with two different men and finally met and married my grandfather (Barry) before having the last 3 kids Tammy, Brett and Lele. Tammy died in a car accident when she was 16, right before I was born.

Mom worked at the club with Grandma before I was born and became a Playboy Bunny. Then she married my sperm donor..Billy, 5’7” dark hair and brown eyes. He was a local transient from New York . He was one of 7 brothers that grew up in New York (all of which I’ve never met) in a big Italian family. He moved to Florida to become a bartender and drug dealer that was trying to make a name for himself…

Side note: What Patti didn’t tell me until I was about 8 was that she had cheated on him and she wasn’t sure who my real father was… But I’ll get to that.

Yeah, welcome to the chaos instantly… There’s no easy way to slowly ease you in. This was and is my life

The first core memory I have is a small 2yr old(ish) version of me sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons and staring out the big front window at the trees, eating a bowl of lucky charms while pulling all the marshmallows out. While in the background a tall thin black man is chasing a thin white woman into the bedroom to have sex,all while my father and mother are somewhere in the back of the house arguing because my mother found needles in the garbage. One room sex ,the other fighting that eventually ends with my mother being hit until she stops arguing. Welcome to the end of the 70’s era.

Then there’s just me just eating my cereal… Staring out the big window and occasionally looking at the black and red playdough spider(cause that was the guy’s name that made it for me )… All the while, through the fireplace, I can barely see through to the other room where Spider is under the sheets with his lady.

I remember liking that house.. It was surrounded by trees and had tons of windows with a tree growing in the middle of an atrium looking thing in the middle of the house.

I don’t remember when but after that life changed.. mom left Billy and took me with her…

There’s only micro memories of things like beaches, the ranch and horses for a the in between.

Next memory I have is playing in a big house on a canal in Jacaranda. The large white tile kitchen, big pool in the backyard, two stories with a huge walk in closet in my parents room. I would go into the closet and get cracker jacks from the candy stash there on occasion and now I have a step brother Bart, who I adore and always want to be around… But to him I’m just annoying and he tolerated me.  My new stepdad Barry, is 6 ‘2” and a large built blonde man that smiles a lot and treats me like a princess. Him and my mom married when I was 3.

I remember smiling and laughing there in that house, that is until while I’m brushing my teeth one day and the house got raided by the police. I just remember being held at gunpoint while finishing brushing my teeth then brought downstairs to the couches to sit while they haul off my new dad.

He was taken and charged with being the ringleader of the hit squad, yep he was a hit man…

 Tons of articles hit the papers and from there I was hidden from the world for a bit.

My step brother Bart left after that… But I don’t remember exactly when.

Before the major incident I remember going to the movies with my step dad in the porche once in a while and playing with the McCaw we had that flew off one day but not much else.

And the house disappears into a small townhouse… Mom’s always angry or frantic but tries to go shopping a lot or go to the local drive thru… So I stayed to myself, always playing with my dolls or drawing in my books. It was the easiest way to keep me quiet and away from getting her angry.

Most of my memories now bounce between visitation at the jail to see my stepdad Barry, being in my own world of play at home, or being at my grandmother’s.. Grandmother’s was always my sanctuary where I could venture alone and do more kid things like climbing trees, fishing and swimming all day. Those were weekend mostly and during the week I was at school usually being bullied for the family I was born into.

Let’s start with  being a child at the jails (those I remember the most). Getting dressed and driving to the jail only to wait then go through metal detectors.I would then be pulled into a room and be strip searched just to go visit him. The pat down when you get someone who didn’t feel right about making a child strip. The awkward waiting with my mom while she either argued with the guards or was trying to look and keep positive towards me while I knew inside she’s climbing her own hill internally.

The smell of the visitation cafeterias with the microwaved sludge they called food that you get out of the vending machine is forever burned into my brain. Having to sit across from him while he talked to Mom holding her hands over the table and going over whatever information he wanted her to convey to whatever person he needed. Coloring in my book or looking out the windows looking for any kind of view, but not really getting one since we lived in Florida and everything is flat. I hate that. All of it.. the flat.. There’s no extra visual experience, just what you see right in front of you. I would imagine far away lands with beautiful mountains and waterfalls. Anything but flat. It would keep me occupied while the parents would talk and try to keep it coffee cause they didn’t want me to know everything, it wasn’t hard to see what they were talking about though and I understood. I would just pretend that I didn’t know it was ignoring them but I wasn’t,I just knew to keep my mouth closed.

Moments at the house were more quiet…

Mostly it’s me and my art or toys and daily life chores.. Occasionally it’s me making my own food when one of my uncles, babysitters and moms friends are there.  Many early memories are of me getting myself up in the morning and ready for school while trying to slink out after saying goodbye to a sleeping mother and trying not to wake her since I know she just got home from working the night shift at the local bar.

I remember a lot of those mornings of walking to the bus stop alone and if I missed the bus I dreaded waking her so much that I would walk 3 miles to school by myself and only call my grandmother if it was bad weather. The only time it was different was when my Uncle John lived with us. John was not born into the family but he was better than blood. He lived with us for a while and he would help cook for me and take me to school if I missed the bus. 

Some nights mom stayed up parting. Those mornings we had company and the downstairs would be filled with smoke while I rolled off to school. The house smelled of alcohol and cigarettes while they chatted away. Those nights ended when I started rolling my dollar bills into coke straws. I never saw the coke but knew it was there.

I remember having McDonald’s a lot, especially when it was around the holidays cause Mom always wanted to shop. She lived to shop and would do it at any given chance. I still don’t feel like it’s Christmas unless I have a eggnog shake. She would pack me up in the car and hit the Mc Donald’s sometimes on the way and on the way back from the mall after shopping for hours. I remember hiding in the racks while she would go and try things on and buy a million things. I would end up carrying a ton of bags back to the car with her. I always felt like I was just there to carry the bags. I would barely say I liked anything so I wouldn’t have to try anything on or start her into another frenzy. More things I looked at, the more bags I had to carry. We had a Porsche 911 and I would have to lay down in the hatch back because there wouldn’t be enough room for me among all the bags on some of her excursions. 

John would watch me sometimes so I didn’t have to go shopping. Him and I would watch movies and he would leave me to my art while he cooked. He was tall with dark hair and one glass eye with a muscular build. John had lost the eye as a kid and once in a while would wear a patch if the glass eye bothered him. He wasn’t very good looking facially but he had a great disposition. He was also gay and had come down with AIDS while doing a stint in jail. None of that mattered to me, he was great and kept my home life easier.

 Things I remember as a kid mostly were calls from the jail from Barry, always doing the house chores, trying to do my things to Patti’s liking. John cooking with me, movie nights where we’d make popcorn and root beer floats.I remember Sundays were beach days and Grandma’s on weekends otherwise. During the week most of the time keeping my head down and dodging people that had the rude comments about my family but I also remember the crank calls… People trying to talk dirty over the phone as soon as I answered, heavy breathers, and of course just rude people calling to shout nasty things. The phone calls became almost a source of entertainment. I learned to make them entertain me and they usually would hang up once I started asking what they were wearing. 

I started to learn to confront the people talking shit slowly as a child. It started with the phone calls. Then I started doing it with the bullies at school… Slowly I took to standing up for myself. 

Now were there good times? Oh there were, but I don’t remember that many really.. they are barely a glimmer in my childhood. I remember filming the occasional commercials at my grandmother’s property. I remember doing a diet Pepsi commercial, a Publix, Wheaties commercial and a Coffee Mate commercial. All because of my family’s property mainly. The crew would see me and want to add me into the script. I was young and just went with it. That was only a few moments in my childhood. Most of it was either being told to just be quiet or to go do my homework, doing the house chores, cleaning, cooking for Patti once I was old enough or being an errand runner. I did the laundry, vacuumed the house, dusted and cleaned the bathrooms as well as dishes mostly. If it wasn’t perfect, I had to do it all over again to perfection. I felt like Cinderella to an impossible mother. To the world around her everything was picture perfect including having me always on my best behavior, behind closed doors it was like a sterile home. I always had to project the perfect child.

I remember the basic glimmers, the Christmas trees filled with presents, the once in a while showing my art and getting smiles, the occasional dance recital or fun in nature. 

But what I remember the most….

I remember getting bullied a lot. Even as a cute little blonde girl that’s just a child ,I got constant remarks about my family. The teachers either looked at me like I was a dirty tissue or were really nice to me.. I remember the nice teachers the most. The teachers that would help me pick up my stuff when it was time to go, the ones who helped me during lunch with math problems that I wasn’t great with. The one who taught me how to garden and got me into after school clubs. They were my main communications besides my dog or cats when I got home. I guess that’s why I like animals more than humans a lot of the time. When John lived with us I could be more in my world. Otherwise my mom would have me sit on the toilet while she got ready for the night shift and tell her about my day while I did my school work. All before eating dinner while she ran out the door and whoever was watching me once John moved out would watch TV until I went to bed.

I taught myself to ride a bike, roller skate, cook, get myself up every morning and do my own hair, and dress myself for school daily. I learned to be self sustaining at an early age.

My grandmother’s had a lot of animal interactions(there were more glimmers here). She had land and lots of it.. there was trees and a lake, horses, guinea hens, peacocks, cows ,with tons of places to just walk. I loved going there. It was more relaxing for me. Grandma and Grandpa would get up early and make coffee. Sunday’s Grandpa would go get a bag full of fresh bagels and make it a breakfast morning with all the trimmings of lox with onions and tomatoes and we would just enjoy. Rest of the week Grandma would make me oatmeal with brown sugar and cream. Then I would spend the day doing anything in nature. Fishing, catching minnows in the lake, climbing trees(well one that was my favorite) helping feed horses, finding the barn cat and playing in the fields, or swimming with my cousin in the pool. On rainy days I’d binge watch Disney movies on the VCR and raid her library of books and encyclopedias to pass the time or look at the treasures hidden around the house.

During the summers I went to summer school or went and helped at my grandfather’s dental practice. Grandpa was an orthodontist that went to Georgetown University before he met my grandmother. He had a video game there,a pac man that I would play, and his office staff was always so nice to me.  Grandpa was always patient with me and would always make time to listen. He was quite a lot like me, but once you hit a good topic he was a fountain of conversation.

During the school year, after school, I was usually at dance classes until dark. That’s when I got picked up and went through the night routine with Mom.

Most of the places outside of my home or my grandmother’s were like a constant barrage of insults.. kids were mean and honestly the grown ups weren’t much better most of the time. My dance classes were the same thing. The popular regular girls would make fun of me or treat me like an outcast, but the instructors were usually nice. Once I started standing up for myself I slowly started to open up.I had a few of the neighborhood kids that became friends but many moved in and out in my life. One girl stands out cause she would stand up and talk back to people for me… Leslie.. I still wonder what happened to her. Her father was a minister and she was always a strong presence. Once they moved, new friends moved into the townhouse community. The house was the same inside, John says for a while and moved, my mother’s friend Roni and her kids moved in and then left.  It was a revolving door and most only stayed a few years at most. I learned to never get too attached.

Most police interactions were never nice. Whatever family member I was with would get defensive. Meanwhile I was always the quiet one just trying to be invisible.

That’s what I usually tried to be… Invisible.  

At some point this is when Mom told me about Mark… The other Dad that was in the background. She told me she didn’t know who my biological father was because she cheated on her husband before I was born. I remember thinking, what a great conversation to have with a child, but hey.. Nothing about my life was ever normal at this point so why start now. Mark was a guitarist for the Charlie Daniels band when Patti met him. He was tall, thin and had dark long hair with hazel eyes. 

I met him when I was 8 and remember flying up to meet him while his wife was away because she did not know about me. He was no longer with the band and had gained weight . I remember thinking that he was definitely not my moms type from the guys she had around her.

I remember playing with my little ponies in the hotel room and him being nice and trying to offer anything he could… That was the only time I saw him until I was older.

I was about 9 years old around the time that my grandfather was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.. Any time I could spend with him, I would. He dove into macrobiotic diets and I watched him change. He went from being a tall man with a food belly to being a tall thin and trim man in less than a year. He was the grandpa that would sit at the table after everyone was done and pick from their leftovers on the plates before they cleared the table before the cancer. After the food switch I would try all the new foods with him since I could see the disappointment when he no longer had plates to pick from. That was our bonding time laughing at some of the flavors or my faces trying them. No matter what he always kept positive during his transition into the health food diet but he was always alone in his journey. Jane would cook two seperate dinners most of the time. 

My time at home with Patti when no one lived with us was spent walking on eggshells. She constantly teetered between nice and Mommy dearest. To the onlooker, it was all smiles and niceties, but once the viewing eyes were gone I was the brunt of her rage if anything was out of place. I remember getting dragged out of my bed by my hair when I forgot to empty the dishwasher. She would dump out all my drawers into the middle of the floor and make me redo every drawer while screaming at me. I remember her hitting me across the face with a phone book and when my nose bled, she stood there accusing me of doing drugs, when I was 12. I remember her losing her shit over the vacuum marks not being perfect, the streaks on the tiles after I wiped them down, or me not folding things properly. She would beat me then act like it never happened 20 minutes later. One time she smacked me so hard she broke all the blood vessels in her hand and the next day looked at me while inspecting her hand and said “ look what you made me do”.  It was never ending excuses that she would give me as to why she was discipling me for a basic thing that she would lose it over. I was to cater to her every whim and keep my mouth shut and obey at all costs.  I learned early on it was better to never be seen and always move 2 steps ahead of her.  So when we had house guests I was never happier. She would keep busy and they usually would be a great buffer and help with the chores.

The next few years were kinda a blur. I bounced between my grandmother’s and my mom’s. At one point my grandmother had a young boy J move in and she fostered him to go to school . He was 4 years older than me and was my first crush. I looked forward to going to my grandmother’s. I was still only a young girl, so he treated me like it. I remember kind of following him and my cousin around all the time and once in a while when he talked to me it was another glimmer. Moments where I was noticed.. It gave me butterflies. The family would joke that one day we would probably be together and it fed my fantasy in my mind, but part of me knew I would never really be seen by him. J was about 6’ with dark hair and brown eyes and had an athletic build. He trained with martial arts and was in football so I would try to watch him workout whenever I could when I was at my grandparents. 

In middle school I made a few friends.. Yep, the outcasts. I found a few friends that didn’t care that my family was a shit show. I still dealt with ignorant kids.Mostly the kids now left me alone when it came to dealing with me. They just talked about me or made snide comments from time to time in my presence. I tried to ignore them. I found a few people that stood up for me and I would as well but it never ended, the constant fights to just be. I would get into fights at my bus stop, then go to school to only have to defend myself from more ignorance. Once I confided to a friend that I was so over my life that I wanted to remove myself from the world in a note (it got intercepted) and that’s when I ended up in counseling.. back then it was peer counseling in the school system. I got an older girl assigned to me.. little did she know what she took on…. Emily was nice and we talked at least once a week but I could feel even her unease when she didn’t know quite how to help me. It wasn’t her fault, I kept most of the daily home events a secret because I knew Patti would be worse if I told anyone what homelife was like. So I kept to the cliff notes and Main points with Emily. She even called in the main counselor at one point, Mr D., he was nice. He finally realized that a kid wasn’t good for my situation to talk to so we talked and made it a weekly ordeal. He talked to me like a person not a child and that was refreshing. At one point he realized I had more of a brain than most adults and asked me to be a peer counselor for his program since I had more experience in dealing with harsh situations and I was good at reading people better than any other kid he knew. That became my drive, that kept me going daily, knowing that I could help other kids navigate and learn how to not let others destroy them.  I’d become good at that, not letting others destroy me and learning how to read their energies to avoid the confrontations. It was like being a shield.. not so much invisible but now a shield to protect. And that’s what started my roll into trying to understand everything. That’s a whole new mission that came to life.

 I started to just analyze people and their actions with reactions. Always taking notes mentally. 

 J was in high school then and even gave me a book on self discovery. I remember him handing me “Way of the Peaceful Warrior”, by Dan Millan. Explaining to me that he thought it would be perfect for me.  It was to become my Bible. I read and reread it multiple times, even highlighting parts for myself.

I still cried many days by myself.. they were always silent tears and in the corner of wherever I was or in a bathroom stall.. Then I would buck up and act tough just to be left alone. I never let anyone know they got to me. I learned to act like everything rolled off me like water off a ducks ass. My grandmother saw it occasionally but would always tell me I was dealt a raw hand and that I was handling it well….She would tell me that no matter what I was making the best of a raw situation.I hated seeing the complete worst in humans always oozing on to myself or others.

That was, until my rage started. Then there was no more crying.. only anger mixed with emptiness.

I always tried to look at things and analyze why everyone either idolized my family or hated them, and in turn, took it out on me… Why was I constantly the road kill in this path.. No one cared how they looked at me, no one ever thought to try to talk to me except my counselor. He realized I wasn’t mentally a child like the rest of my peers and understood when I would get into fights trying to stand up for myself and he would back me up in the battles with the teachers and principal. We talked about how I needed to not let them get to me but, in all honesty, it was hard. No one knew that while at home my mother, who everyone looked to as this amazing beauty, was so bipolar that I never knew who I was going home to. Some days she was nice and tried to show interest, and other days she would be the ugliest person on the planet yelling about how nothing was clean in the house even though I cleaned daily. She was like the movie “Mommy Dearest” but hated the reality of that term when I tried to show her that. I would literally try to be invisible everywhere I went, there was no solace, except the farm. I became obsessed with human psychology and sociopaths, reading up on all the famous serial killers and their lives. I tried desperately to understand how people could switch off their humanity one second and go postal the next only to switch to suzie homemaker a split second later. I constantly felt like I was walking the tightrope at home, always trying to balance and stay on the rope without flustering.

My inner child was screaming for peace while my outer one was just trying to dodge every bullet. My anger was starting to bubble to the surface once I really started to see that these things weren’t what should be happening to a kid my age or any person for that fact. I watched as friends my age had basic lives and basic childhood problems while I was made to grow up faster and felt like I was the battering ram of my house.

It was around this time that I was looking for salvation.Friends were great but most didn’t really pay much mind to what was really happening in my life. I started trying to date, looking for a person to share and confide about life with.  The hardest part when looking to date in my family was Patti. Introducing anyone to her was the test. Most guys would instantly be interested in my mom. She was the original M.I.L.F. It was extremely daunting since I wasn’t the bombshell, I was more like the ugly duckling with braces and glasses but a decent body just a little on the curvy side. Between the looks and the brain of a more mature person that’s been through more at my age. It was hard to find someone I could connect with. Forget that most of the boys were from school and the pickings were slim to begin with. Most of the boys were stuck in a bad episode of Bevis and Butthead. Already knowing I had more intelligence and a larger view of this world, not many could connect.The only one I was interested in was J, and to him, I was still a child. Everyone knew my family, most still thought my mother was hot ,so I realized quickly that this was going to be just another knock down daily that I would never live up to being this perfect Barbie. Then I met D ,a guy 4 years older than me, I was instantly drawn to his smile, it sparked my interest. He was 6’2” with dark hair that was clean cut with brown eyes and freckles. There was just something in his eyes.

The first time we met was when my friends and I were at a local roller rink and my friend was the one flirting with him, but he kept his eyes on me most of the time. I was shy and honestly didn’t try to flirt since she was the one sitting on the main stage in this performance. Eventually she noticed I was eyeing him as well and she ended up literally pushing me on to his lap. In that awkward moment,

He looked at me and smiled and asked if he could kiss me… Little did I know how much my focus on life and myself would change so much in that moment. This is one of those beacon of light moments in my life instead of just a glimmer.

We kissed, and it was like time stopped. My thighs burned and I felt a thrumming of energy thru my whole body. Forget that this guy was 4 years older, forget that I was some 13 yr old awkward girl. At that moment I felt like the universe literally said,” Hey I’m giving you a life line”. I remember a feeling as if time itself stopped and a humming of energy pulsated around us.

I remember coming home after switching numbers with him and stuttering my way out of that situation and feeling like the world just made more sense. I felt lighter, like I was not going to go through life being invisible. That for once I actually connected and was seen, not just an object that was in the background or someone to wipe their feet on.

I felt as though I had something that was privately mine.. We began talking all the time and it flowed.. I would sneak out and spend the 2 or 3 hours sitting around with him and just connecting.. sometimes it was just make out sessions, sometimes it was actually laughing and talking. I would find his cologne in his glove box and spray my jacket so I could smell him when we weren’t together. It would help on the days where the world and Patti were insufferable. He was my bright light in the dark tunnel every day. No matter how insufferable my day was or Patti’s mood swing, I looked forward to D and I and our time.It didn’t last long though.

Just as fast as he appeared, we lost touch.. His number got disconnected and he just disappeared… He was gone and the world got grim again… I felt like everything was daunting again. I would reminisce about his cologne smell and wonder what happened.

Little did I know, it was the universe saying you’re going to be busy, you need a break. And so I kept on,only now, I was always looking for him in every outside encounter.. not frantically, but always keeping an eye out. I always waited to run into him again.

My adopted dad Barry(the hit man) got out of jail that year. They fumbled the evidence in court and so he was out on a technicality. Mom was instantly happy and I had more glimmers in that time. They would joke and play around in the house and it wasn’t uncommon for me to have to tell them to keep it down while I was on the phone because they would be wrestling or laughing super loud. Barry would make it a point to go on father daughter dates once a week and take me to the movies. It was always interesting because people constantly would recognize him or think he was Nick Nolte (they looked very similar, if Nick was super buff) 

Barry saw the toll that society had on me and taught me how to fight and we started having gym days instead of movie dates pretty quickly. I can remember Patti even getting irate with him because I was getting ripped and she thought it was too much but he constantly would argue that I had the perfect build and he could make me a competitor one day. Honestly I didn’t care about that, I just liked that now people didn’t talk as much trash. I found a balance… No longer looking like a fragile thing to torment but now a little more menacing with force behind me. Patti even took a hiatus in her abuse while he was home and would only keep to yelling at me instead of hitting me. 

When Barry got arrested again around a year later this time I was ready for the barrage of insults.

My birthday was coming and J started to make comments more about my growing up… I was being noticed.. he still made me giddy but not like D. I Missed D still and hated that he was gone. The false promises started flowing from J.. even though I knew they were false, it was something to cling to and fill my time. We could talk but I never felt major connection.

I finally made a deal with myself that for the sake of losing my virginity I didn’t want to be madly in love or it be with someone who I would be in a relationship with since I figured I didn’t want to be left with a bad imprint if it all went south. I had already watched too many of my girlfriends go through that heartache and watched as they regretted their decision.  I wanted no regrets and to be in control of that emotional scenario. So that summer I decided I needed to find an alternative fling. It wasn’t long after I made that decision that I found a lifeguard at the camp I worked at. He was good looking with a short lived job around me with bare interaction was perfect. This was to be my conquest.