Remembering This Life, Part 1

I finally revealed to my husband some of the details I've never discussed with him regarding the experiences I've had with my troubled daughter. He thought she was just difficult all these years, but his toes curled when I gave him word vomit yesterday.

My memories just started flooding, in no particular order. In fact, there are so many events, I can't even weave them into a chronology or connect the dots. Here are some of them:

1. The time I was called in the middle of the night to pick her up from the park, where she was by herself, stoned. When I asked why they didn’t take her to jail for curfew violation, they just said, “Ma’am, just take her home.” She was 17.
2. The time I was cleaning her room and found sex toys, lingerie, fishnet stockings, and stilettos. I think she was 18.
3. The time I found glow sticks and other unfamiliar things in her closet, and figured out she was attending raves. She confirmed this.
4. The time I first saw her giant tattoo and tongue ring. She was 17, but I learned she’d had them since she was 16.
5. The time she begged to move out at 16, and was unbearable to live with. In a moment of weakness, I drove her over to the place she picked. It was basically a section-8 drug apartment, with a bunch of people living there, including a toddler. I almost vomited but did it anyway. She was home within a few weeks. I’ve never gotten over this guilt.
6. The time she told my mother she thought she was bisexual. She was 13 and living with her father. It turns out some older girl did sexual things with her. I think she became very confused after that because she had relationships with other girls, but she was also promiscuous with boys.
7. The time I realized she’s had at least three abortions. I knew about at least two because she told me about them. I paid for one of them. One pregnancy was from a guy I met, who turned out to be a male stripper in a gay club.
8. The time I rushed to the other side of town in the middle of the night because her boyfriend said he took her to the hospital for pain and bleeding in her abdomen. She didn’t want me to come, but I did anyway, thinking I was being a devoted mother. I learned later the problem was complications from an abortion.
9. The time I was called to Walmart to pick her up because she’d been caught shoplifting toothpaste. She was a teenager, living at home—where we had an abundance of toothpaste. Again, I asked why they didn’t just arrest her and they said she was “lucky” to have such a nice cop. That cop also found marijuana paraphernalia in her car, yet still didn’t arrest her.
10. The time I saw her mugshot on the internet when she was 19. She apparently had spent time in jail, but didn’t tell me. I was happy that she was crying in that picture.
11. The time I had to kick her out of my house when she was belligerent and refused to stop her lifestyle. I told her she had to find someone to pick her up, and she ended up in the ghetto sleeping on a mattress on the floor in some awful house. She hated it and that made an impact.
12. The time she was living in the above house, and had to go to months of court appearances. I would pick her up from there and drop her back off. It was hard on me, but I couldn’t have her living with me.
13. The times I took her to court, waited, sat in the courtroom, and even met with her lawyer. She was involved in a porn business, where she was the video “coordinator,” and was testifying against the owner of the company. So disgusting.
14. The time I learned that some of her female friends in middle school and high school were either lesbians or sluts.
15. The time she called me to come pick her up from a friend’s house, but I had to pick her up on the corner because she didn’t want to wake the family. I realized later that she was never at that house. She was 15, I think.
16. The time she called to say she was at a friend’s house and was fine. I asked to speak to a parent, so she put a male on the phone. I knew it was a teenager pretending to be a dad, but I didn’t know where she was, so I couldn’t do anything about it. She was probably 14 or 15.
17. The time she picked up her friend to go to school in the first car she bought herself, lost control, and drove into a wall. Her friend bailed, and I had to get my weeping child from the scene. She later went on to crash three more cars, including mine and her sister’s.
18. The time I went to the apartment that she was supposed to live in alone, and realized she was living with a meth addict who had a kid. The windows had cardboard over them, and they were sleeping on a mattress in the living room because they had rented out the bedroom. It was gross and dirty, and I realized my daughter was using too.
19. The time I invited her and her meth boyfriend, whose teeth were rotted, to my house for a small Thanksgiving with her daughter. I picked them up from where they were staying at his grandparents’ house far away, brought them over, fed them, and brought them back home.
20. The time I met the meth boyfriend’s parents, who were raising his daughter in another part of the state. They were a lesbian couple, and probably seriously embarrassed to have a loser son like that. I couldn’t say much for my daughter—she was with him. She’s a follower, so was doing whatever he was doing.
21. The time I noticed she had a neck tattoo of lips. It looked like prison-grade tattoo, and was done by the meth boyfriend. I later paid to have her get it lasered off after she broke up with him.
22. The times she was robbed: from her car at school (purse), from a friend’s house (iPod and phone), her car at home (iPod). I realize now she probably sold her stuff to get money for drugs.
23. The time I dropped her off at a rap concert when she was a teenager, where she said she was meeting friends and would get a ride home. I got a call after it was over and everyone had left to come pick her up. She was by herself at the venue—even the security people had left.