Excerpt: The Hand You're Dealt

From 7 Days:

I grew up in my home. Just like everyone else. With parents that worked. While I went to school. And everything was normal. My parents that worked were divorced. My mom that worked was an alcoholic. My dad that worked picked me up every other Friday night and brought me home the following Sunday afternoon. 

I didn’t know that other people had families with both mom and dad that lived together. I didn’t know to miss it. I didn’t know that other people had parents who were home when they got home from school. It didn’t occur to me to resent being a latchkey kid. I didn’t know that other people had mothers who didn’t get drunk most nights and pass out sometimes before making them dinner. I just learned how to make my own dinner.

I spent a lot of time confused when I was a kid, but I never felt sorry for myself. That’s just the way life was for me. And when I got older I realized that other people had these different upbringings, these ways of living that people said were “better” than mine; my life was not better or worse, it was just my experience.

This was not a conscious decision. This was just what happened. I did not decide to not be bitter. I just wasn't. I did not decide to let things go. I just did. I did not decide anything. I just lived.

I look at my life and see that I am a healthy person. Which sometimes still baffles me when I look back without rose-colored glasses and see my childhood as it was, versus how I lived it.

Maybe it’s that I’m from California and my environment (outside my immediate family) played a role in shaping me to be a laid back California girl. Maybe I’m genetically disposed to go with the flow. Maybe a little bit of both.

When I look at this life, my life, I wonder how I ever got through certain parts of it. My mother’s death when I was 16, for instance. The night I found out she was dead I was living in a placement home less than three miles from my grandparents home. I was not allowed to leave the placement home. I wasn’t allowed to leave because they thought I might try to hurt my self. They thought I might try to use drugs, to run away, to kill myself. They did not know me. To be fair, I didn’t know me, either.

I thought it absurd at the time, but what could I do? These were the rules. The eight months I’d spent in placement had done for me what could not be done for many. I saw these girls who had been a part of “The System” for years; some, for their entire lives. These girls did not have families. These girls bounced around from foster home to placement home to jail and back again. These girls had no concept of what it was to be a part of a family; they had never experienced it. But I had.

After seeing these girls and the lives they felt they were forced to live, I understood that I wanted, needed, deserved a life that was not caged by any authority other than my own conscience. The conscience that had been developed by a family that was just as dysfunctional as the next American family—a family that meant well and simply didn’t have the know how of practicing what they preached. Somehow the values of honesty and love and integrity had actually sunk in. And Placement taught me how to apply those values in real life situations.

In my mind there was no option of using drugs. No option of escaping, of running away. No option of killing myself. No option of putting myself in motion to be like “those girls”. The only option was to get up, put one foot in front of the other and see what happens. The only option was to do that every day until I figured something else out; until one day it didn’t hurt anymore. Lather, rinse, repeat. That was my only option.

I wonder if some people think that they just are not capable. I wonder if some people don’t understand the value of putting one foot in front of the other just to see what happens. And I wonder what makes one person get it and others spend a lifetime not even trying to figure it out. I understand it’s easier said than done, having done it myself.

We live in a world where people can grow up in the ghetto and live a millionaire lifestyle with hard work, and maybe a little luck. We also live in a world where people can grow up in a millionaire lifestyle and end up homeless in the ghetto because it was just too hard. I wonder if it is sheer force of will. I wonder if it is genetic disposition. I wonder if it is happenstance.

I’ve worked hard to get where I am in my life. I am in a place of peace with the deaths and disfigurations of my family life and childhood. I am in a place of relative honesty in the way I live my life. I am in a place of love and gratitude for everything I have and the people in my life. I am in a place of continuous growth. I am in a place of positive thinking. I am in a place of putting one foot in front of the other…not just to see what happens, but because I know that good things will always be put in front of me, regardless of anything else that comes into my life.

And still I wonder why I worked so hard to get here. I wonder why I didn’t step in front of a bus or swerve into a semi truck or drink myself into oblivion just to mask and get rid of the pain. I wonder why I didn’t beg for money when I had none. I wonder why I tell the cashier when he gives me too much change. I wonder why don’t smoke pot as a means of staying calm.

Is this the genetic disposition I was born with that makes me this way? Is this the environment I grew up with? Is this because I’ve been here before and learned little bits and pieces with every return?

Maybe it’s all of these things. It was not sheer will, it was not a conscious decision, it was not just dumb luck. There is something inside me that drives me to be healthy. There’s something inside me that drives me to just put one foot in front of the other, even when I don’t believe it’s going to do any good.

 

And what is it for you? What is it for you that makes you play the hand you're dealt?