build your beautiful self

when I was 12 years old, I fell in love with my mom’s friend’s son.

He was so cute and cool looking. He smoked cigarettes and had long hair. He played the rocker, bad boy look off well.

We hung out as friends for 2 years.

He showed me how much fun it could be to do things that were “bad” and not get caught doing them. We stole things, smoked nasty cigarettes, I smoked my first Mary Jane joint with him, we ran around and went into places that were obviously not meant for us to go in. It was a blast from 12-14!

The last memory I have of that moment in time was the very first time I was completely drunk.

I was totally naive about all of these types of things. The only time I ever seen my parents let any alcohol touch their lips around us was at the high holidays and it was Manischewitz wine! OMG!

I only saw my grandparents and the adults in other people’s lives smoke. None ever did drugs. I was super sheltered and, as a kid that only had a couple friends, I thought this was my way to be cool too.

He had stolen a bottle of Jack Daniels from his parents. They never said anything about the missing bottle, probably because there were 5 more bottles in the closet. He took me downstairs to drink it. We always hung out downstairs. It was the best place in the house.

We went to the back of the basement so if his mom opened the door to call to him, she wouldn’t have seen what we were doing.

He poured me the first glass of JD and I took a sip. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever tasted, and it burned going down. I did NOT want to drink the rest of it, but I wasn’t going to let him think I wasn’t cool.

I drank the remaining booze in my cup and sat there for a minute to let it sink in. I was tanked. Finished.

I went through all the stages of drunkness that night. I was happy, giggly. Then sloppy, couldn’t really control my body in a manner that would make someone think I was even remotely sober. Then I got the spins. When I said I needed to lay down, he bailed and left me in the basement.

That should have been my first clue.

I ended up throwing up for a couple of hours (I absolutely hate throwing up. WORST THING EVER). I then passed out on something down there. I think it may have been a couch. I don’t remember much about the rest of the night or what happened the next day, but I believe my mom found out I had been passed out drunk in the basement and was sent to a girl’s summer camp shortly after. I was 15 years old and had never been to an overnight summer camp, or away from my parents for that long of a time period.

Through the couple years prior, I had learned how to be a badass from what I now would consider a complete redneck, douchebag. Just sayin.

So here is Alissa, Badass Inc at 15 years old going to a summer camp for girls in the middle of the woods with a chip on my shoulder. I was there for four weeks. I get my cabin assignment and realize that the girls in there are all like girls that I knew from school who I didn’t fit in with. I had a couple that ended up being fun.

I ended up really enjoying the 4 weeks and it was nice to not have the pressure of keeping up with troublemaker rocker boy. I felt at ease and found myself dreaming of the boy who was going to save me from it all.  I was riding horses and sailing boats and making art in the middle of the woods, up north Minnesota.

I ended up making a bunch of friends while I was there, but the friendship was super short lived beyond that summer. We all came from different places and when we got back, it wasn’t easy to stay in touch. We had the corded phones and the mailbox. When you are young, writing letters was typically only done to say thank you to your grandparents for your birthday money.

I was lost again, trying to find my way when I got home. One of my best friends was struggling at home and the other was hanging with a crowd that I just couldn’t get into. I didn’t know where I fit in, so I connected with my “dirtball” pot smoking friends I had ever since the end of middle school.

It is interesting how social structure, and hierarchies work in children through their teens and even before. What is even more interesting is how I went from a very middle class, strait laced family to a little pot and cigarette smoking drunkie (hahaha, actually I didn’t drink again for a couple of years after the jack daniel’s incident)!

I ended up finding my drinking trouble making partner again. He didn’t go anywhere. I went to his parent’s house and it was pretty easy to locate him after that.

We reconnected after a year or year and a half of being apart. It started all over again.

We hung out all the time only this time we decided to be boyfriend/girlfriend. It was amazing. He showed me off to his friends. He would get me gas station roses. We would just hang together. Eventually we also had sex. That is what you do in a relationship I thought. It was 16-year-old magical. I was on the pill and he used protection, so I was good. Right?

Boy was I wrong. It was winter when I first missed my period. I was never the most regular anyway and the birth control intent was to help me with that stuff. After a few weeks of nothing, I stole a pregnancy test from Walgreens.

+ Positive +

I took another one.

+ Positive +

I scheduled an appointment with the teen clinic that you can go to without a parent cause your parents would whoop your butt if they knew what you were doing.

+ Positive +

I will never forget the day I told him.

He was 19, I was 16. He left me. Again. Sitting on the couch wondering what I was supposed to do. I knew I was keeping it. I would not have been able to live with myself if I had an abortion. That was my choice to make. He didn’t want to keep the baby. That was the first statement out of his mouth, and I thought about the fact that I had to tell my parents.

I believed that this baby raising business would be easy and mothering skills would just naturally show up. I believed that now I would have a committed and loving relationship because I grew up with a daydream about what real life should be like. It would be wonderful! I would not have to go to school anymore. I could just be the little wife while the hubby makes the money.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA and a few lmfao too.

I did not leave the day I told him. He left to go wherever the hell he went, and I sat on the couch lost in a haze of wtf.

When he finally came back, he was obviously intoxicated. I was devastated. When this guy drank, he ended up being the devil incarnate. When he smoked pot, he was the nicest human ever. He was also bipolar.

Unexperienced in handling my emotions in a rational sense, I freaked. I spit out the facts that I had just told him I was pregnant for sure with his kid he left me. Then proceeded to come back drunk and was being completely insensitive to my emotional pregnant state.

Finally, he snapped. I was standing and he was on the couch. He leaped up and had me against the wall with one arm on my neck and the other in my stomach. I was close to passing out when he told me to leave him the fuck alone and to go home. He let me go.

I fell to the floor unable to comprehend the atrocity that had just happened. I immediately felt completely at fault and I wanted to make it up to him. I didn’t see that I was totally just physically abused and my son’s life was at stake in that moment. I felt remorse for causing him to get that angry.

Crazy huh?