Chapter 3: The Traveler Speaks: Part 1

Introducing Mira

So…I uh….don’t remember much about my mom.  I was only 5 years old when she…died.  Some kind of cancer or something, it didn’t matter to me.  She was gone.  All I remember was that she was in great pain and I just wanted her pain to stop.  What I didn’t realize, in my little mind, was that the end of her pain equated to a hole in my heart that has never been filled.  I have this loneliness inside that just has become a part of who I am.  I used to be angry all the time…didn’t really understand why, and I’d take it out on my dad.  Now that I’m a little older, 14, I am doing better.  My dad tried to get me to go to a therapist, and every once in a while I would, but mostly, I don’t think they really know what they are talking about.  It’s like they know which side their bread is buttered…they only get paid if I go, so it’s in their best interest for them to convince me to go.  Not much incentive to “cure” me….  Instead, sometimes I’d just go sit in the back of the base chapel on Sundays, I wasn’t sure if God even existed, and if he did, why would he let mom die the way she did?  Needless to say, God and I, if He exists, have an edgy relationship.   

I felt I was not myself on meds, and I wanted to feel.  If you are going to be alive, live.  Feel.  The meds were just a Band-Aid to me, not a cure or even a path to improvement, instead, just a temporary escape from feeling.  For a while dad tried to numb his pain with alcohol but one night when he was at the bar, I tried to cook dinner and almost killed myself.  it was something to do with a gas stove and a burned out pilot light…made sense to me to use a bic lighter, obviously the gas was flowing.  I blew up the kitchen but luckily, only my arm got burned…can you see the scar?  It’s actually kind of cool…like some kind of tattoo like you see on guys who have been to prison.  Dad had to have a friend drive him to the hospital to pick me up because he had too much to drink.  We had to deal with social services for a while, but eventually, they said dad was “fit to parent.”  After that night, he never left me alone at home.  

You can do a lot of things to numb pain and loss, but in the end, I came to the conclusion that I should just face it all head on, for better or worse.  If people didn’t like me, my jokes, my laugh….oh well…  I always tried to be nice to people, but also, real.  If you want to know the truth about something, ask, but beware, you will hear my version of the truth, no matter how painfully cutting or insulting it may sound.  Let’s just say, I’ve always erred on the side of truth…and admittedly, it was sometimes an error.  The best thing for me most days was to just spend time alone sitting out beyond the breakers sitting on a surf board.  It wasn't the safest thing, admittedly, but I had friends out there, seagulls, dolphins and every once in a while, I'd see a shark too.  I loved the beauty of it all, and in those moments, I felt like I was really connected.  

Author's Note

any comments are welcome! Always looking for more efficient ways to communicate thoughts.