This is a lame essay that I wrote for my lame english 111 class. ((Why I have to take ENG 111 when I've been in college for three semesters is beyond me.)) The assignment was to write a researched memoir. This is only my rough draft.

I had a dream. Maybe it was emotional stress—creating a permanent tension between my shoulder blades. Maybe my deliberate alcohol saturation the previous night came back to haunt me. Or maybe it was just random neurons firing in my subconscious—but that’s not a fun explanation. The worst feeling in the world is the feeling of impotence—the inability to control your surroundings or better your situation.
Gypsies had taken over my home and settled in. I alone of my family was left to extricate the villains. I stood outside the house looking in as strangers moved our furniture and broke our precious things.
The ground underfoot was dry and dusty. The small patches of overgrown grass that managed to find purchase in the dirt were brown and brittle. Tall, thin trees with dry foliage rattled in the wind overhead. The evening sun shone into the yard casting a yellow glow. Its reassuring warmth belied the frustration and fear and anger that churned in my stomach at the indignity we suffered at the hands of these invaders.
I tried everything I could think of to save my house. I fought, I threatened, I spied. I even asked two policemen passing by on bicycles to radio for help. All to no avail. The gypsies laughed at my efforts and defeated our rescuers. It was all up to me. The alien family had settled in so comfortably that they started holding birthday parties and weddings. As a result, I felt like a stranger in my own home.
At one point, I managed to clear the house. But the imposters rallied again and drew me out of doors. The sun had set and the chill of the air in the inky darkness seemed to penetrate to my marrow. There were no stars. The only light came from the fixture by the front door, but it was insufficient to illuminate the side yard and the ancient garage structure that yawned open like a giant black mouth. In this side yard the gypsies had tethered two ferocious black dogs. In order to protect my family and save my home, I had to eliminate these two animals.
My step-mother showed up at this point, took care of one dog, and vanished again; but the other dog remained. Its feral, yellow eyes glowed in the partial darkness and its sharp, white teeth gleamed as it grinned at me ferociously. The hair along the ridge of its arched back was raised and looked more like spiked armor than fur.
The dog reared up and knocked me to the ground. Its razor teeth ripped at my arm as I fought with all my might. I shoved my bloodied forearm down its slimy throat and was rewarded with additional wounds on my shoulder. The hot saliva burned my hand as the dogs paws scrabbled at the concrete. It flailed, trying to get away, but I had maneuvered myself into the dominant position. The beast’s eyes bulged as it fought frantically for air. Finally, it went limp and I threw it to the ground. With the passion of a gladiator, I crushed my enemy’s skull beneath my boot. I shivered in the cold as my bloodlust subsided and I averted my eyes from the carnage I had created.
Since turning 21 in August, I have been struggling with how best to deal with my parents’ divorce. This seems ludicrously delayed, since my parents divorced when I was five years-old, but the off-again-on-again nature of my relationship with my mother has made it difficult to cope. Since “becoming an adult” and taking on responsibility for my life, I have been trying to decide whether to continue interactions with my mother.
Before the divorce, I was often left in daycare or in pre-school or squirreled away in the back room of my mother’s lingerie store, The Sultry Rose. I was aware that there were changes happening when I moved with my dad into a friend’s house for a few weeks, but the real shock came when we moved back into our home. The carpets reeked with dog urine. There was trash on the floor. Everything was gone. My familiar pink bedroom was bare except for a couple of trash bags with baby toys on the floor of my empty closet. I vaguely remember being really excited to see what she had left for me and tearing into the bags to find an orange colored pony squeaky toy.
My birth-mother never remembered holidays like Valentine’s Day or Christmas. She rarely remembered my birthday. Phone calls were long and uncomfortable and unsubstantial. Although she and my step-father gave me a car as a graduation present, they did not come to the ceremony, even though I was president of my graduating class.
For a long time, I have been suffering the pain she has put me through in silence. I have never said anything to my mother about the agony of her indifference, though I have discussed it at length with my mom and dad. On my twenty-first birthday, I called around dinnertime and left her a message. “Happy birthday to me. Thanks for calling. It meant a lot.” She didn’t call me back. It was a month before my step-father called and wished me happy birthday; my mother didn’t even talk to me.
In her book, Elizabeth Marquardt discusses the long-term consequences on children of divorced families. She says that the “happy talk” that revolves around divorce is misleading.”…[D]ivorce does something to childhood and to children, even when it doesn't "permanently damage" them in the ways that social scientists know how to measure.” You would think that fifteen years after an event that occurred as a small child, an individual would be able to compensate and adjust. Well, they do, but there are invisible ramifications that cannot be readily quantified. In my case, I have been putting a band-aid on a wound that has been torn at for years and years.
Soon after my mother left, my dad met my step-mother, the woman I call my “mom.” They have been with me through it all, including birthdays and holidays and major milestones in my life. She and my father have given me the skills I need to succeed. If I am well-adjusted and competent, it is largely due to their love and patience. I grew up quickly at the age of five, but they have brought me the rest of the way to adulthood.
Since taking charge of my life as an adult, I have made a decision. I am done dealing with the pain. I am going to take charge of my relationship with my birth-mother. It is going to end. The pain is going to end. I am done feeling like a stranger in my own house. I will own the pain and I will conquer it.
When I reentered the house, it was afternoon again and my heart felt like it wanted to rip apart. A part of me was so glad that the threat to my family and personal happiness had been destroyed, but something deep inside me regretted having to kill the dog that so closely resembled my own pet. I tried to justify my actions. I tried to justify its actions. Ultimately, there was no justification.
And then I woke up.

Works Cited (because I'm a lame, college nerd)
Marquardt, Elizabeth. Between Two Worlds : The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce. New York: Three Rivers P, 2006.

Labels: depression, divorce, dream, self-therapy