I thought it couldn't get worse.

it did.

There is a variation of the theme, but nonetheless . . the theme is in many ways. God won't give you more then you can handle or . . . the universe gives you what you need to grow or. . . whatever. Apparently the idea is that when your in a place to grow, shits gonna hit the fan. Walk through it. Run from it. Hide from it. Whatever you do . . . its going to change something for you.

This must be that day.

I honestly can't believe today happened. I am sitting here staring out my window, wondering how the hell today lined up how it did. I'm also wondering how to escape it, and realizing with a heavy feeling that I can't. This day had to happen. There was no other option. I'm sick already and hell, it hasn't even happened.

Doing my family mapping for a project was hard enough. I get sick in my stomach every time I even think about having to do a map. Yes, it sucks to make the marks and to see that every family member I have is marked with either drug abuse, sex abuse or mental health issues. I mapped back three generations of family and saw that there were two intact relationships. One is my grandparents the other is my aunt and uncle. That's it. No other long happy marriages. Even sadder when I realize my grampa died young and that they wre considering divorce. My aunt and uncle are married but hes a drunk. Shes a bitch. They stay married to torture one another. And, to prove to everybody else how perfect they are.

So, i call my aunt Lisa, figuring she can give me some glimmer of hope in my family. Some concept somewhere that I can grab to tell me that maybe, just maybe we aren't as unhealthy as our family map would seem. She begins the stories . . . who left who . . who hurt who . . . As I marked the family members I felt worse.

Then, out of nowhere she asks why I didn't ask my mother these things. Nervousness builds as i begin to think about what would happen if I asked mom. See . . . Mom would tell me how wonderful everybody was. How there is no drug abuse or sex abuse. She would tell me that there are no mental health issues. Thats how she does it. Denies everything. Always. So, I explained that to my Aunt, who understood.

Then she said something that rocked me. She began to talk about my cousin Amanda, and how Amanda's young son was just raped. Brutally raped. My little baby seven year old cousin was hurt horrifically. And, she began to talk about how lucky Amanda was that she learned what to do from my aunt when she was molested. I got it . . . I was there. Sad for Amanda and my baby cousin but glad she did the right thing.

Then she apologized to me. She said she was sorry that my mom felt the way she did. She told me that my mom and her just talked and that mom was talking about how I took her man from her. Recently. My mother. My MOTHER told her sister that I took her lover from her. RECENTLY. My stomach dropped. I don't think my aunt meant for it to come out like that. I don't think she meant to tell me. It slipped.

And my heart dropped. Goddammit. Why. WHY? Why after all these years does she stll think that when I was thirteen . . . I took him. Jim. I hate him. I hate her more. Why does she still think I took her boyfriend? My god she still hates me so much that she . . . twenty one years later . . . blames me for getting pregnant by a man who claimed to love her yet tortured me? I just wanted to run away. i wanted to get in my car and drive . . . anywhere . . . I don't care where. Away from here. Away from her. I felt like my heart was imploding. Just . . . folding up.

I can't even think. But, did it stop there? No. I never stops there. That would be too easy.

I couldn't focus and I am learning to not run but to sit in the pain. Not to block it. Not to get drunk. Just to sit. Still. Listen to my own pain and not push it away. I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling. Ironically the same way he would rape me over and over. Looking for patterns. Using the patterns I learned to cope with rape to cope with the pain of rejection twenty years later.

It hurt. It does hurt. I'm crumpled and don't know what more to do.

The day moved on. I don't even know how. I feel like it was just dark, so dark. I began to realize I didn't feed anybody, I didn't communicate. I didn't do . . . anything. So . . . I get up and begin moving around, doing chores and check email.

I can't believe it happened this way. If i wasn't me I would think that it wasn't true. There, sitting in my email, is an email from his sister. My stepfathers sister. My daughters fathers sister. Her aunt. Annette. My heart hasn't beat that hard in years. Fear shot through my body . . . fear is still pulsating through my body. I guess it is a good sign that I can feel right?

Her email is an attempt to tell me that the family knows all about everything. They struggle with what he did, and they think it was wrong. However they want to know Jayme, they want to accept me as part of the family. The door is open. I appreciate that.

And

Jim wants to see Jayme. He wants to meet his daughter. How can I accept that he is a father? How can I trust that he won't hurt her or do to her what he did to me. Or, that he . . .how? How can I stand and face him again after twenty years and pretend that its ok, or that this is a reunion or . . .

What does one do?

But I can't let him meet her alone. That would never work. I don't think she would be safe. I wouldn't be safe worrying.

I have known this was an interest of hers for a very long time, yet, I always thought of it as . . . some day. Not this day. Not tomorrow. Not this month or this year. Some other awful scary time that I didn't have to face right away.

It looks like that day is coming.