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Twenty
Twenty years ago I turned 18, graduated from high school and aged out of the foster care system. Various social services programs did what they could, time was up and it was up to me to sink or swim.
I sank like a lead weight.
Instead of spending my teen years learning how to get into college or maintain a full time job or learning to drive or understanding the long term effects of not doing my homework, I spent those years fighting monsters. The constant threat of being ‘reunified’ with my biological family was always, obnoxiously present. In the past I’d learned that the best way to get an adult to take you out of an abusive situation is to get yourself in trouble. It was easy to do, there’s never any difficulty in finding a way to get in trouble. I spent part of my teen years intentionally getting in trouble. I also spent my teen years getting in real, unintended trouble.
I also spent my teen years weighed down by what we now recognize to be a brain injury.
Even now we can’t quite pick apart which was real trouble, what was intentional and what was bad wiring.
I don’t really have an excuse, just this explanation. This is why I sank. I sank because I did not learn the skills necessary to be an adult.
My foster parents had given me 3 very reasonable options, live there rent free and go to school full time, go to school part time and pay partial rent, work full time pay full rent. Completely reasonable and generous options. Even the reasonable options were too much. I didn’t know how to get into college, how to get any financial aid, how to get a full time job. If I got into college what was going to happen when I left my homework incomplete day after day as I had in high school? What what what what what?
I had no idea how to do the things that other kids knew how to do.
I tried to hang on a bit, but my time was up. Time to go. In typical panicky reaction stye I packed up my stuff and left with no notice. I bounced a bit and then called a friend to tell her I could not go to her birthday party because I was kind of in a great big fat bumpy pickle of a problem.
She called me back and asked me to come live with her family. Just like that, come here and live with us. This was no time for pride and bootstraps or anything like that. I was entirely unprepared for life. I moved in.
That was 20 years ago.
They took me in as one of their own and never let me go. I was given a family. I was this obnoxious, surly teenager too smart for her own good with all kinds of ideas and strengths and weaknesses and misunderstandings about the world. They helped me get enrolled in college and figured out financial aid for me. I got to relax a bit and not perseverate on an unknown future. I got a mom and a dad and a sister that were all my own. There was a generosity of spirit that I cannot articulate but for which I am forever grateful.
This happened 20 years ago. Taken in and loved and protected from falling. I would not be where I am today, I would have crashed through the bottom if this hadn’t happened. I would not have survived.
I hold no ill will or anger or anything like that towards the ‘system’ as it were. Everyone did the best they could with what was in front of them. It’s not unreasonable to expect an eighteen year old to act like the adult she is supposed to be. No one had any way of knowing that I was so bent in the middle. I only have gratitude to every single person involved because without that set of circumstances I would not have gotten my new family and I would never want to give that up.
20 years ago.
2 decades.
That’s a long time to put up with someone like me and I am glad they did.
Low tide from a towering rock
I would like to share a couple links with you. Studies and articles that help to clarify and educate people about a disease you absolutely cannot imagine unless you stand in its midst. You can guess, maybe feel the outline, but it doesn’t make sense to you.
Early Adversity, Adult Misery: How Small Events Trigger Depression. Why can’t we see that the abuse is over and that we are safe now? Why is it so much harder to deal with stress? Why can’t you just let it go?
Why Don’t You Try Harder? An Investigation of Effort Production in Major Depression. This one is considerably meatier and I had to read it in little chunks. I hear stuff like this a lot, not just about me, but about depressed people in general. “Why don’t you just try harder? I had a bad week once and I just came up with a lot of ideas and made a plan and put it right into action and I felt so much better!” Indeed you did.
Both of these are helpful at explaining the things that I cannot describe. How do you say, “it is harder for me to clean the kitchen or organize my yarn” to someone who always keeps their kitchen clean and their yarn organized? It doesn’t make sense! They are perfectly capable of moving their arms and legs in ways that accomplish all of the things!
And so, I offer these up. They are not in any way excuses, they are merely explanations, things meant to shed some light.
Rigatoni with squash, collard greens and italian sausage
You should eat this, it’s digdang delicious!
You need:
1 medium-ish butternut squash
1 bunch collard greens
1 pound bulk spicy italian sausage
1 orange
1 tbl sesame oil
1 pound rigatoni
parmesan cheese
Early in the day, like say 4 or 5 hours before you want to eat, take that butternut squash and stab it all over like you’re a crazy clown faced squash killer and pop it into the microwave for 8 minutes. Then just leave it alone. It’s a proven fact that the insides of squashes need only 1/3 more hydrogen atoms to become as hot as the sun once they are microwaved. Leave the damned squash alone for a few hours.
…Later in the day when your squash has cooled to manageable temperatures…
De-rib your collards and tear them up into bite sized pieces, rinse well and set aside.
Zest the hell out of that orange, then cut it open and squeeze all the juice out and mix it with the zest and then add the sesame oil. Set aside.
Grab that squash and slice it open, dig them seeds out from its belly. You will notice that the squash is not evenly cooked. The part around the bulb is cooked pretty well, but the rest of it is not quite done. This is exactly what you want (so, if your squash is somehow perfectly cooked all the way through you should 1. weep in shame and 2. contact NASA and offer to sell them the craziest microwave from Planet Awesome). Peel and chunk that squash up. Some of it will mush and the rest will become, I don’t know, thumb sized chunks (your thumb, not mine, my thumb is midgety and weird).
Put on some water to boil for your rigatoni, add when boiling.
While your noodles boil fry up your sausage over pretty high heat. Once the sausage is cooked through add your squash, toss it a bit with the sausage, add about 1/4 cup of water, cover and turn the heat down to medium low (this would also be an awesome time to add, say, a chopped up apple or pear or walnuts or all of those things).
2 minutes before your rigatoni is done toss the collard greens into the pot with the noodles and stir. When the noodles are ready, reserve one cup of the noodle water and strain the rest out. Give it a goodly shake and unceremoniously dump it into the sausage/squash mix. Turn turn toss toss, the overcooked squash with start coating things up (add a bit of the reserved water to loosen things up if things get too sticky) and the rest of the squash stays in delicious chunk form. Whisk your orange zest/juice/sesame oil together and drizzle over the pasta and give it another goodly toss.
Serve with some parmesan.
Can you even believe it?
{Bubbo note – Chester was trying to help cheer up a friend and maybe other people who needed cheer ups might also be cheered}
Hi hi HI HIHI!! Hi! Hi lady! My name is Chester and I am the dog that knows the thing that is all of the stuff. This is true, right! Another thing that is true is that I tell jokes to the dogs at the dog park and they all do the thing that is laugh and sometimes they laugh a lot and sometimes the boxers try to jump on me and I HATE THAT SO MUCH!!! What is wrong with the things that are boxers? Don’t they know the thing that is not jumping on me? I know this thing!! I know this thing because I am the little dog that has all of the smarts!
This is a joke that I like to say to the nice dogs:
“What does the man do if you do poohibbity on the grass?”…”HE PICKS IT UP!!!”
ha hahahahahahahhahhah OH MY GOD!! DID you do the thing that is read all of that joke! Sometimes when I say that joke I laugh until my nose does sneezes!! Can you even believe that?
“If it isn’t you or the other dog that is doing piwis by the tree then who is it? …”A DIFFERENT DOG!!!”
{bubbo note: Chester just went to lay down for a second, he laughs a bit too much at his own jokes}
“How many barks does it take to do the thing that is chase away the mailman?” …”More than me (Chester) because I am very good at barkings!!!” Get it? “More than me!!”
Also, do you want to know a crazy thing that is not even a joke?? This is a thing that happened but you might think that it is made of unbelievables, but my name is Chester and I am a dog that only tells the true things and I am not Bick Stickerson of W-Peef-Poff-N Super News making up the lies and all of the distortions and trying to win a Blazing Biscuit Award by saying untruths about me (Chester 12Pound of the Puff Snuzzle Action News Network!) You are going to be so surprised that the inside of you head will feel like a bowl of the Cheerios!
Oh my god! Okay! Hihih hIHIHhihi! My name is Chester and that is me
But I already did the thing that is tell you that and if you do the thing that is check at the top of this post you will know that I already gave you the tellings of my name (Chester)!
Real thing!! This happened and you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BELIEVE THIS THING!
There was a day that was not Yesterday and was not a Monday but I know it was a day that we did the thing that was go to the dog park and I was there at the dog park and I was doing RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN! and I was doing piwis on everything and the man did the thing that was PICK UP THE POOHIBBITIES!!
{bubbo note: he’s laying down again, that’s his funniest joke}
CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE IT??
I was doing all my RUNRUNRUN and Maddie was doing the thing where we both do the runnings but Maddie does the running on to the thing that is me and makes me do the rollovers and that is so much fun and then I do the thing where I try to do jumpings on to her back and that is also a thing that is SO MUCH FUN!!
And then! Can you even guess? REALLY?!! I found a thing on the ground that smelled SO GOOD!! Oh my god you do not have a way of knowing how much goodness was smelling out of that thing! I wanted to make yellbarks about how good it had with smells but I am Chester and I know a thing and that thing is to do quietnesses about smellgoods or else the other dogs will try to do takings and then you won’t have the smellgood.
Do you know what I did? I bet you know what I did because everyone is smart to know that I did the rollings all over that smell and I looked like this SZSZSZSZSZSZSZSZSZS all back and forth like all of the goodsmell needs.
But then do you know what happened? I am going to tell you a thing that happened but a thing that is true is that it is SO CRAZY! that you might think that it is the thing that is a make up but it isn’t it is all true or I am not the thing that is Chester 12Pound, trusted journalist and reporter for The Puff Snuzzle Action News Network!!
I was doing all of the squirmy rolls on the good smell and then stupidface stinkleg Bick Stickerson of WPPN and he was making pictures of me!! He tried to pretend that I was doing a thing to tell on the news!! I know that a thing that is true is that all of the things that I do should be made to the news so that all of the people and dogs know about how Chester I am! But this was just rollings in smellgoods, not being the thing that is super awesome!! He did a video of my ZSZSZSZSZSZSZSZ and I got up and I ran at him and I did so many barkings at him and he did the runaways and I was the Chester!
But then another thing happened and I know that this is going to be SO CRAZY that you will think that I am doing fakeries at you, but this is everything that is true!
I was at the home and I was doing the thing that was hiding all my bones when Lester Big Easy {bubbo Note: that’s my dad’s cat} called to tell me to watch the thing that was WPPN news but why would I look at stupidnesses and dumberies and also! Lester! Why are you watching such doofusness?? But then I turned on WPPN and a thing that is true
you won’t believe this!
A thing that is true is that I was on the tv but not on PSANN!! I was on WPPN and it was a video of me doing ZSZSZSZSZ squirm arounds on the good smells but!! BUT!! They did the thing of blur pixels over my weenus and said I was doing NUDITY DANCES!! At the dog park!!
Can you even believe this thing??
Can you???
I was not doing nudity dances!!! I was doing rollarounds!!
Stupid Bick Stickerson!! He always does the untrues and all the people believe him and he has2 Flaming Biscuit awards and I only have one but I am going to do a thing that is win a Flaming Biscuit and then when I go to the place to get the thing that is my award I am going to tell everyone that I was not doing nudity dances.
But even another thing is that Maddie did laughings about it! She did laughings because she thought it was funny to pretend about me doing the nudity dances! I was SO MAD!! That I hid ALL OF MY BONES UNDER THE BED!! And I did not take them out for 3 hours! That is how MAD I was.
But a thing that is true is that I am not mad in the right nows because I did a thing that was do a video of Bick Stickerson doing buttdrags on his grass and I am going to show it on the PSANN!! And We will all do laughings!
This is a thing that happened!
Also
“What is fat but not smart?” …”A squirrel!!!”
This is a picture of me laughing
