9-25-10

My kids tease me that I have no friends outside of work. They say that my sister and friend Godo don't count because Kellie is, well, my sister, and Godo is a friend that I met through work, even though we've been close friends for about 12 years. It isn't easy for me to open my heart to people because it seems I always have to say good-bye at some point.

My best friend growing up was Lara. We were pretty much inseparable from about 8 years old to 20 years old, the point when a very close friend of mine died in a car accident and my world sort of fell to pieces. I found myself walking numb in a life I didn't really understand anymore. Everyone around me just wanted to get high and I found myself suffocating in doubt and shattered dreams. My mom and step dad and I weren't really getting along for reasons I can't even recall. My world was dark and lonely. As much as I tried to make sense of it all, my sorrow kept pulling me under. One night, in a moment of weakness and despair, I took about 20 Tylenol PM's hoping to end the pain. Lara called me that night and sensing that something was wrong, but unable to get over to me, called our friend Nate. Nate came over that night and stuck his fingers down my throat and then made me drink coffee all night. In the morning he took me to a place where he worked as a volunteer and introduced me to a shrink who told me I didn't really want to die. He told me that I needed to focus on me and get away from the things that were weighing me down. As much as it hurt to know what I would have to leave behind, mainly Lara, I knew that he was right. I didn't want to be a part of a world that celebrated the memory of a friend by getting high and drinking, but that didn't mean I didn't want to be part of this world. I've never told anyone about that night. Partially because of the shame I feel when I think of the pain I would have inflicted on those that loved me if my attempt to kill my own pain would have succeeded and partially because it hurts too much to remember. Funny thing is that Robbie's death was the tipping point for saving my life. His death changed me and what I thought was important. I walked away from the person I was to become the person I wanted to be.

After phoning my cousin Nick in LA to see if I could come crash on his floor while I worked my way back in to school, I packed my bags and said good-bye to my family and friends in northern California, promising to pave the way so Lara could come join me soon. Lara and I wrote each other every week, each letter closed with a promise to meet up again. With each letter I wrote though, came a realization that bringing Lara to my future life would also mean bringing a past I couldn't bear any more. Guilt weighed heavy on my broken heart. She was literally my other half, and walking away from her because I was afraid of falling back in to a world of pot and beer bongs was the hardest thing I've ever done. I know she would have understood my reasons, but I didn't want to hurt her with my decision.
Slowly, with a chasm of broken promises and unspoken sorrow, we began to drift apart.

It took me a while to make friends in southern California. My cousin was away in Europe for the first month I lived here. Thankfully, I had my sister Kellie, who I idolized growing up. She had come down a few years before me, staying with Nick just as I had. Kellie lived with her boyfriend, Guy, at the time so I spent a lot of time hanging out with them and with my new friend Erin. My parents, who were mad that I packed up and moved away, actually called my cousin Nick while he was in Europe and told him I was having parties and taking his Mercedes out cruising. I didn't understand why they made up those lies, but my life was far from what they described and their accusations drove a wedge between us that just seemed to get deeper as the years have passes. Kellie helped get me a job as a waitress at The Bakery Cafe, where she also worked. I struggled with the new job at first, as it required me to open up to people. There was this crowd of kids about my age who came in twice a week after some meeting. They all drank coffee and chatted a few hours. After a month of waiting on the only people close to my age, I was frustrated that they had never asked me if I wanted to go do something and at last, I worked up the courage to tell them so. One of the guys innocently asked if I had gone out and done anything fun yet. All of that lonely frustration was unleashed on this poor unsuspecting guy. I went off on a tangent about how they were the only ones my age and that they had never once introduced themselves or asked me to go hang out with them.  They apologized and offered to take me out on Friday night for a motorcycle ride to the beach.  I was excited and my sister was pissed.  First for going out with people I barely knew and for riding on the back of a motorcycle that liked to go fast. Kellie made her boyfriend Guy come by the restaurant in his police uniform to make sure the group knew I needed to be brought home in one piece or he would have to shoot them before my sister did. That night was so exhilarating and it made me feel so alive. Alive like I hadn't felt in about 6 months.

Finally, I had some friends who I could hang out with and not worry about peer pressure working it's way in to disrupt my life with gin and tonic promises. These new friends went to meetings 2-3 times a week to share and support each other in their sobriety, which worked out perfectly for me.

Life was really starting to turn around. Spending time with Kellie and Erin was goods. I was on the right track going to school, working at night, working as a hair model in a few shows for free haircuts and styles, and then being a nanny to my boss’s kids while she was at work. The more I got involved in work and school, the freer I became. Still... There was this guilt that bore a hole in my heart.  My letters to and from Lara came less frequently.  I met Cesar as I was coming off a pretty intense relationship with a guy named Darryn.   I loved Darryn but our love wasn't meant to be.  Cesar was what some might call my rebound guy. He spoke no English, so I decided to learn Spanish.  Being young and foolish, we got married after dating for about 8 months in a little chapel in Las Vegas.  Needless to say, I got pregnant just as quickly.  I learned almost immediately after finding out I was pregnant that Cesar had problems dealing with stress and anger.  If our baby, who we named Lauren after my best friend Lara, would cry when he was trying to sleep, he would punch me in the back knocking the wind right out of me.  He was abusive and controlling, insisting that all of the can goods had the labels facing forward, his shoe laces were washed and ironed weekly, and everything was in perfect order... all of the time.  I didn't know this side of Cesar before we married and I was too proud to admit to my family that I had made a mistake and that I needed help getting away from him.  I knew I needed to get out of the hell I was living, but I had to plan my escape so I could take Lauren with me. Not a week would pass by without Cesar telling me that if I made him mad, he would take Lauren across the border and in to Tijuana and I would never see her again.  For an entire year, I walked on eggshells so as not to set him off. I took beating after beating, bearing them alone because I was too ashamed to tell anyone, even though secretly I wished someone would come save us.  There were countless nights when I went to bed and wondered if that would be the night he took my life.

Sometimes the only reason I kept on fighting was because I couldn't stand the thought of Lauren not being raised by me.  A pivotal moment came when Lauren at the age of two witnessed her dad pin me to the ground and try to strangle me.  She jumped on her fathers back and tried pulling him off me with all her might, the whole time yelling to him "no poppy no!”  He pushed Lauren off his back and unwrapped his hands from my throat.   Lauren, at the age of two, became my hero.  That night I vowed to do everything within my power to get us away from him.  I worked two jobs and skimped where ever possible.  If I wanted to make a personal call to my sister, I had to do it from work or from a pay phone because I wasn't "allowed" to answer our phone at home. We had basically become roommates, sleeping in separate rooms but playing by his rules, and his rules alone. Two weeks before I would have had enough money to move out and file for a divorce he came home in a really bad mood and instigated a fight and once again changed the course I was traveling. That night he chased me through out apartment complex, dragging me by my hair.  One of our neighbors called out her window asking if I wanted them to call the police.  I screamed yes just as I was diving away from one of his famous round kicks which missed my hip but landed solid on my right thigh. The police finally came and took Cesar away to jail.  I called my sister Kellie at 3:00 in the morning hysterical as I tried to explain everything that had happened over the past coupe years leading up to Cesar's arrest for spousal abuse. I wanted so badly to have Lara there with me. With her I was always strong, independent and confident. Cesar had broken me down both physically and emotionally. He left me feeling powerless, small, ugly, fat, undeserving of love, and anybody but who I really was.  My family rallied around me and I found the strength to change the direction of my life forever.  Over time, I found the strength and confidence I had as a teenager, but in tenfold.  I learned to forgive Cesar, because I knew I would never heal if I didn't.  I married an amazing man who could kick Cesar's ass in a heartbeat and never had to fear him again :-)

No.  I don't have a ton of friends outside of work, but it is because my best friends are my family.  My sister, my daughters, and my husband.  I'm going to find Lara again one day and when I do, I feel like our connection will still be there, just like when we were growing up.

Enough for now... more later.