I was born in San Francisco

I was born in San Francisco. I always thought that I should be someone special to have been born in a place so magical, so full of life’s mysterious and sultry style. I always thought that, then I grew up and decided that I wasn’t special. In fact, I was rather the downside of ordinary. That is how I felt for a very long time. Teasing and bullying on the playground gave way to verbal and physical abuse in my relationships with men. I never thought that I deserved the teasing, the bullying, the abuse but it was there and it took its toll on me. I didn’t ask to be burned, to be turned into a “crispy critter” as the other children referred to me. I didn’t know who I was other than that monstrous looking creature other people were sure to see when they looked at me. So, I grew a thick skin, I brushed my hair over my face, covered my body in layers of clothes, and learned how to laugh at myself before anyone else had the chance. I grew bold and took risks that I shouldn’t have as a teenager. I left home at the age of seventeen to live on my own, to make my own decisions –right or wrong. Today I live with the results of the decisions I have made over the years. Today I still feel the downside of ordinary, nothing special. The specialness that could possibly have been part of me is only seen in my children. The intellect I could have been, the bold and assertive woman, the loving yet disciplinary mother, and the socially adept individual. These traits and more are found in my children. I long to channel these traits and perhaps one day I will, but for now I live in a cluttered numbness in which my feet and my mind stumble about lost.