The Rebirth Series | Entry One: The Before - I Was Her

          I was her once… That bone-thin girl who held her neck when she was nervous. And she was always nervous. Insecure and unsure, too. That ugly, awkward little duckling. A stem who wasn’t sure if it would ever bloom. Still, I gave to everyone before myself. Not out of sainthood, but from a deep-rooted fear that I wasn’t enough without being needed. That I held no value outside of servitude. I lived in a constant state of fear and survival, but spare the self-worth – there was none. My nervous system stayed suspended in a state that felt like a thin wire ready to snap at a breath that came to hard. I didn’t know how I made it that far, metaphorically accepting crumbs in a stomach that was, for years, caving in. Still, I made my way. Quiet literally out the mud. Life had to ruin me to know what true love, success, and a steady foundation felt like. 
          I was six years old when I watched my unrecognizably battered mother walk down the stairs and into the living room. Her skull cracked and her skin shades of blues, reds, and purples I had never seen before. She wrapped my siblings into a hug before being taken to the hospital, but I backed away because she “looks like a monster.” Yes, I said that. No, I didn’t know any better. Sometimes I think that’s when she started to hate me. 
One of my first memories were of my father being arrested, and again, and again, and again. I then proceeded to witness my mother and grandmother struggle with a severe opioid addiction, my grandmother (and best friend) succumbing to kidney and renal failure when I was 12. My mother, spiraling afterwards. My family, living in an SUV in 2008 due to my father’s lies and gambling addiction. Attending 7 high schools before testing out. And, being molested at 16 and blamed for it. Me…wanting to just die already.  Those were my formative years, folks. And that’s just scratching the surface. Because I had to be a mother to my siblings, and to my own mom at various points. I had to bail my father out, and tried to provide for my family with whatever pennies I earned on my hands and knees, cleaning houses of people who were okay with me slaving away for $25 for an entire house cleaning because that’s all I thought I was fucking worth. But I digress.
          I was her. That girl who didn’t see a way, but vowed to make one anyways, by any means. I was her – that girl who knew the struggle and still smiled her nervous smile because that’s all she had left at the end of the day. Still quiet, still soft spoken, still reflective, but, most of all - still hopeful. I was her.