Hero

I was called a hero again…
Simply for speaking my mind.
It’s not that hard, being a US Citizen to speak my truth though admittedly sometimes my voice shakes.
Sometimes I say too much, sometimes I make people think, sometimes I piss them off.
I was invited twice to speak at a social justice group because I was that person’s “hero”.
Twice I showed up, and twice she “forgot” to write me up into the meeting’s agenda.
The first time I raised my hand to speak.
The second time it was pointed out that I was there and that I was someone who could speak on the topic well.
I never went back to that group after that.
Speaking one’s truth isn’t hard, learning to separate yourself just enough to do what needs to be done, or say what needs to be said in the hopes that it will make another think isn’t all that hard.
The difficulty comes when you’re the only one standing on the corner holding a sign.
No media, just you and the public.
It’s fascinating to me the type of people you meet while doing that.
Sometimes you open people’s eyes, sometimes you see just how much the human heart can harden.
I don’t do what I do to be anyone’s hero.
In fact, it makes me very uncomfortable when people call me that.
I don’t want to be admired, I’d rather be joined.
I’d much rather someone come along and hold a sign with me, or speak their truth with me than tell me I’m their hero.

Daughter

For years I dreamed of the day I would hear my firstborn’s voice again.
The last time she and I had spoken she was five years old in kindergarten.
She called Boo on his birthday in August and said hello to all of us on speakerphone.
Then in October she called for me…she’d been drinking.
We talked for two and a half hours.
We laughed, we cried, and I promised I wouldn’t say anything on facebook about it, because she didn’t want my father or his wife to know.
For sixteen years I was told by anyone who knew of her “she’s gonna be mad at you ya know. You better be prepared.”
I knew on some level she would be, but I also knew that the ones who would have the greatest sway in her feelings about me would be my father and his wife.
Well I knew that wouldn’t be good.
For starters, when she was 5 my father told her that if they hadn’t taken her in that Child Protective Services would have taken her away from me.
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!
When he told me that I almost dropped the phone.
His excuse to me?
“Well, I had to tell her something.”
“Wow…well done dad.”
On one level, I know what she’s been told. I know none of it has been good, and most of it made up because if she thought I wasn’t so bad then maybe she would’ve wanted to leave them.
But damnit…when is she going to start questioning things?
She told me that growing up she’d wanted to run away a lot.
She said she always knew that if she could get to California that I’d welcome her in.
What she didn’t know was that the only thing stopping me from going to get her was the thought that she was happy there.
I didn’t want to drag her away from the family she knew and put her on a plane with me for eight hours.
(And I didn’t have health insurance to cover the counseling she’d obviously need.)
Me, who she’d always been told was a drug addict that she’d been saved from.
Me, who she’d been told was trying to turn the whole family against them.
If I’d thought for one moment that she wanted me this situation would’ve been dealt with a long time ago.
Since she blocked me on facebook, Boo has been terrified to like or comment on anything she puts up because he’s worried that she’ll unfriend and block him.
That really makes me mad.
It frustrates the shit out of me that she can be mad at me for any amount of bullshit that she’d been led to believe, but I feel guilty when it irritates me that she’s so worried about pleasing my father’s wife that she would never “friend” me. That she would only occasionally respond to anything I said to her, that she would block me rather than talk to me about her feelings.
That rather than responding “hello” to Boo when he messages “hey sis”, she flat out ignores him…
That’s not okay.
He didn’t do anything, and she’s punishing him because she’s angry at me because she’s been lied to since forever.
She was told by my father and his wife: “you need to forgive her”…
I’m sorry, for what exactly?
For making sure she had a roof over her head?
That she wasn’t sleeping on a floor with me?
That she was in a place where she’d get a good education and go to Disney World every fucking year of her life?
I have the same phone number I had when she was 5.
I never changed it. I never got an unublished number like my dad did to prevent me from calling.
I never stopped sending birthday and Christmas cards.
And this year on her birthday she’ll still get a card.
It doesn’t matter where she is, or how she feels about me.
She is my daughter.
I’ve never lied to her, and I never will.
But it’s up to her to ask the questions.