My father served his country for 30+ years in the U.S. Navy.  I remember as a child that he would be gone for what seemed like months at a time.  In all honesty, he was gone for most of my childhood and youth.  Of course, as I learned as I got older, this was partly due to work, and partly due to his relationship with my mother.  I try to tell myself it had nothing to do with me, but that’s hard to rectify in that little corner of my mind and heart that will forever be six years old.

At the time of my father’s accident, I was living with a terrible man who took great delight in belittling me both emotionally and physically, and even though I truly felt like he was justified in doing so, I wanted some way out.  My escape plan came with that fateful phone call from my step-mother.  My father had been washed overboard on a submarine, the doctors did not expect him to survive, and he wanted to see me.  She gave me her credit card number, I bought a one-way ticket, packed a little bag, and took off to California with no intention of ever returning to the east coast.

Thankfully, my father did survive and recovered to an extent.  Looking back as an adult in a completely different life situation, I can see that my arriving on the scene with the intention to stay during my father’s convalescence was incredibly selfish and, to put it mildly, extremely inconvenient.  I know there were other very tragic things happening in my father’s life at the time, and me being there just complicated everything even further, especially given my own post traumatic issues.  Still, they took me in and tried to help as best they could.

I recognized that I was catapulting head-first into another implosion, so I began attending “anonymous” meetings on the Navy base.  Although the 12-step programs consummately discourage members from forming romantic relationships during the early stages of recovery, I somehow missed that memo and saw this group of broken men as a dating pool.  One man in particular picked up on this flaw in my character and sought out my attentions.  We began dating and he quickly invited me to move in with him.

One of my most resolute decisions made during this time was that I would only date men I thought I could beat up if I had to.  This man was no exception to that rule, and while he never once physically hurt me, I later found out he was by no means capable of loving me.  I still believe that somehow I knew that to be true, and was drawn to him for that very reason.

I feel I need to go back in time a bit at this point in my story.  During my teen-aged years I suffered from absolutely terribly menstrual pain.  My monthly cycles were completely unpredictable, and, not surprisingly, my promiscuity led to some physical consequences.  I found myself in the doctors office and emergency room on several occasions, and during these examinations was told by multiple doctors that I had suffered severe physical trauma which resulted in fusions of scar tissue in my reproductive system that would preclude me from ever conceiving a child.  Given my penchant for being raped, I supposed this to be a blessing and a curse.  Thus, when I moved in with this man in California, I considered myself to be completely infertile.

Fires that quickly burn so fiercely often fizzle out just as fast, and so I moved out after a very short time.  Once again, I found myself experiencing “female trouble,” so I went to the doctor for the billionth time.  They did a test which caused me to bleed profusely,  and this new doctor stated, “Only pregnant women bleed this much.”  I laughed out loud.

Apparently, it wasn’t as funny as I thought.  (to be continued)