More than spiders, more than pooping on the delivery table, more than velociraptors, more than basements- I am terribly afraid of not being truly forgiven. I do not believe that there could be anything worse than having someone you love, whom you believe loves you, throw your dark and dirty past in your face. It happens. A lot. I bet even you have done it. If you had really thought about it you probably wouldn’t have, but in anger or hurt things come flying out of mouths that we probably didn’t even know we believed. And even if we manage not to say it, is it there? In our heads? At the end of my marriage my husband and I fought continuously. We were amazing at it. Never have two people been so willing to battle each other to no end. In the midst of the screaming things that I thought I had forgiven or forgotten or let go would come racing out of the depths where I’d stored them. I could feel nasty words, designed to cut him deeply, slamming against my gritted teeth- like a moth at a light bulb, frenzied to escape. I remember watching my mother’s face and seeing the exact moment that some crime I had committed as child popped into her head. It was irrelevant and she knew it, but out it came.

That moment, the one in which all the work you had put in to change means nothing, is the hardest to get through. That is defeat.

There is reason to believe that I entered and stayed in a marriage I knew to be toxic because I felt I could never really move past the mistakes I had already made with him. The word “addict” haunted me and in my fear I thought the only way to get out from under it was to live a normal and healthy life with the man I had been so lost with. It was a selfish and terrible reason to get married- he had to make good so I could be okay. And when he didn’t I couldn’t accept it. I had linked my whole sense of redemption on whether or not we made it work. Somehow getting better without him seemed to only make my initial mistake stand out so much more. And so I got worse with him.

I have over a year of rebuilding behind me these days. Choices I made, consequences I owned and success that I earned…but I cannot erase that past. It cannot be undone and it only gets uglier the farther I get from it. The people I have around me now -family, friends and lover- love me. I know they do. I know that they think what I have overcome and where I am headed is what matters- but my fear persists. What if somewhere inside, ready to spring up out of anger or hurt, is a doubt? Should there be? I suppose so. Is it mostly my own doubt? Probably. I never went to rehab because I took umbrage with the idea that addiction is permanent. That no matter how long sober you would always be defined by that weakness. Why shouldn’t I be able to stand up someday and say “Hi. My name is Tricky and I used to be an addict. I used to think that abusive relationships were the only kind and that love was when someone knew that you were horrible but found a way to deal with you. I used to think that I wasn’t worth anything more than what someone else wanted from me- but I do not believe that anymore.” It seemed contradictory to me to ask people to change by admitting that they could not change. Still does.

And so THAT is my biggest fear. That to other people I will always be the addict or his wife or the angry daughter or the cheater or the drop out and that someday someone who I love the most will remind me that it’s true.

Last Thursday evening I had to stop at Wal-Mart for a few last minute essentials before I went out of town. I had the Spawn with me because it seems that you can’t just leave your 3-year-old random places when he is being completely unreasonable and we had had a rough week already and I was verging on delirious. The little booger factory, sensing my weakness, totally suckered me with his toddler-chatter about going to the store – I bought it. Every word. My inner monologue was shouting things about a “victorious mother who managed to make an unavoidable store run and didn’t have to consider slaughtering her womb fruit even once!!!” It was not to be so.

In case the 4 second hike from car to entry wasn’t traumatic enough (hint: it totally was.) I then had the pleasure of spending about 5 minutes trying to stuff the rigid, screaming, kicking and hitting body of my child into a cart. Luckily we were right at the front of the store so everyone in line at customer service caught the show.  I was getting sweatier, he was getting louder and we were no closer to getting the TWO GODDAMNED THINGS I NEEDED (for this awful child, no less) so I called on the last shred of my dignity, none-too-gently forced the Spawn onto my hip and used the other hand to drag the cart behind me. I managed what I’d like to think was a casual stroll-though in reality what was happening was an awkward limp with a stop to readjust the child every third step or so. Bear in my mind that while we are hobbling along to the baby section my darling baby boy is screaming at full volume:

“You’re not my mommy! (Slaps me) I’m not going with you! (Yanks hair) Let me gooooooooooooo!!!(Kicks violently)”

Yes, Spawn- because what we both need is for me to get held up by Wal-Mart security and interrogated about kidnapping you.

Naturally the two things I needed were located on opposite ends of the massive, cavernous echo chamber of a store and any control I had been exercising abandoned me right around sporting goods and the thirty-seventh ear slapping.

Then finally cosmetics loomed before me. (Okay fine, one thing was for me.) When I managed to drag myself, my banshee child and my cart into the correct aisle I discovered 2 or 3 other ladies in it who warmly greeted me with horrified facial expressions normally reserved for dismembered body parts or sudden violent explosions or you know……naked obese people. Spawn took this as a cue to put it into overdrive and wrapped himself around my face, reached deep into my hair and pulled. Hard.   At that precise moment one of the women also browsing for sponge make-up applicators turned to me and informed me that my child’s behavior was highly inappropriate and that were I any kind of a mother at all I would not let him carry on in such a fashion.

Really?

I’m not sure what exactly happened next……I consider myself to be an articulate woman with a sharp and accurate tongue when provoked, calm and vicious even. I remain hopeful that even as the toxic combination of rage, humiliation and panic blurred my vision and made flames shoot out of my nose I managed to put her in her place in such an impressive fashion that she shriveled into nothingness on the spot.

It also could have gone a lot like this:

“howdaresnifflesobsquawkyougasp…..Ican’tnohelp…autismIhateyoushutyouruglyfatfacegasp…sobsnortsnufflesob”

I simply cannot remember. I left with the things I needed and no members of security chased me out of the store which I assume means I paid for them (or they were terrified and just decided to eat the cost) but god help me I cannot remember doing anything after that evil woman spoke to me.

The moral here is this:

When you see a woman being physically beaten, verbally abused and generally shamed by her toddler in a Wal-Mart (because let’s be honest, it takes some special kind of rotten parenting to stick out in such a store) just give her the benefit of the doubt. Assume that she does understand that her child’s behavior is wrong. Go ahead and believe in her enough to think that when her child is swinging from the little hairs at the nape of her neck and trying to get her taken down for child abduction she knows that this is not okay. Your deep, inspiring and profound wisdom is not needed here and unless you want to have the offending child placed into your infinitely more capable hands as the woman runs from the store I suggest you just keep your big trap shut.

Now if she happens to have a little something in her teeth and hasn’t seemed to notice in all that ruckus? You just let it rip, pipe up and tell her all about it.