The Ribbon

They call us "Survivors".We are the Adult Children of Alcoholics. They call the girls, the "Perfect Daughters". Because we learned how to adapt, how to deal with conflict, neurosis, other's odd behaviors. We are empathic; you can count on us. For an alcoholic, we are perfect: we know how to keep the secret, know how to lie so people never find out. This is why we have the eating disorders, and other compulsive behaviors. If we are perfect, then we will be assured everything will be OK.We made it through a childhood of chaos. We are not victims. We are survivors…Someone asked me in the middle of my dance class, why the make-up? I said I had had a date. Bad date. What else could I say? That I try to make the outside look pretty so no one will notice how ugly it feels inside? That I am covering up two weeks of restless sleep? Migraines? It's easier this way. People understand bad relationships. Nothing to be ashamed off. You don't get embarrassed for having a broken heart.If I truly am a survivor, where is my plaque? Where is the street named after me? If I had survived breast cancer, there would be a pink ribbon my friends could wear in support, there would be many walks through Central Park to raise money and awareness. I would wear the scars on my breasts like a badge of honor. I would not be ashamed…When I was about ten years old, my mother took me to a homeopath to help with my insomnia. I was a nervous child you see, and did not sleep well. The doctor prescribed me some homeopathic thing, and my mother and I started a ritual: I would take the three little white pills and let them melt under my tongue, drink a glass of milk, warm, with honey and sometimes my dad would let me put a tiny bit of rhum in it…I'd read in my bed. Then my mother would come, we would recite a prayer together…She'd turn the lights off, and I would fall asleep, hailing the Virgin Mary, singing a song, or fantasizing about the Academy Award or Pulitzer Price I would one day get. The year I was ten was the year I got the best sleep ever.The insomnia started again on the Sunday I arrived in Nantes, in the North West of France, to visit my parents and brother. January 28th. 2:04 Pm. That day, my dad was absent from the welcoming session at the train station. Just my mother and my brother. For the past 5 years, my sister has not spent a vacation with us. Not that I really blame her either…One of our last trips together was for a New Year in Egypt, Cairo. My mother was so excited, she was waiting in the middle of the terminal in a pink sweatpants/sweatshirt combo, jumping up and down, waving her hands… My dad was pretending to be embarrassed; my little brother had already run up to us… That winter, I lost another few pounds, my sister got disowned-again- Our last "trip" all together was for her wedding, last September: A time bomb as well. It exploded at midnight on her wedding day...She survives by being angry and avoiding family time like the plague-if you’re not close, physically and emotionally, people can not hurt you- I survive by trying to please everyone-if everyone is happy, then everything can be OK. She'll come to my dad's funeral the day he dies, just to make sure he is really dead. I will come and cry for the dad that could have been. Each one of us just trying to stand up, any way we can...That Sunday, no jumps, no colors. No dad at the duty free shop. Just my brother and my mother. And that's how I knew.So I waited for it. I waited through a silent snack. I waited through teatime in the kitchen whispering to my mother and brother. I waited through the key ceremony between my brother and I during which I got a copy of the keys to the downstairs apartment where my brother and his boyfriend lived with their snakes, pet rats, and computers. Apartment always locked. Even when my brother slept alone, his boyfriend banned during my parent's visit, so small and fragile in their very big bed. I always see my brother as fragile although he is probably the strongest. He has no memory of daddy before. Before he was a drunk. Before I turned 13. I don't know if he even remembers the day he kept banging his head on the floor, hoping the screams would go away. But he sure as hell remembers years later, helping my dad off the floor so he would go pass out on his bed.If I was surviving AIDS, stars would wear my red ribbon on their red carpet. Organizations would send mass emails to raise awareness and money. VH1 would show a special report, on December 1st. Bono would perform at a huge concert in the middle of a Park; gay men would chant silence equals death in my honor…I waited some more through a dinner resembling the dinners years 13 to 17 when I left home. Dinners where I would not stop talking, because if my chatter filled the room, maybe, just maybe we would believe we were having a normal dinner. Maybe, just maybe we could pretend my father's plate was not left untouched, his eyebrows were not frowning, and that nothing was about to happen.But of course it did. Because it always did. At some point, I had to stop talking. At some point, after minutes of silence, something always, always happened.It started as I was clearing the table. My dad said something under his breath. Mumbled not clear enough so we would understand but with enough tone that we knew it was not nice. Maybe something about how everyone was a failure among his kids. How another man was fucking his no-longer-part-of-the-family-son. In the ass. In his house… Or maybe it was something else this time. My brother wasn't always out. My dad was always drinking…I have what my mother calls convenient hearing. I choose not to hear things that are too painful for me to hear. So I did not hear my dad's mumbles. I just saw my mother's face. I heard her spit out her anger and disgust at my dad's drunken monologue. Because he was drunk. He had been drunk for the past 3 days. He was probably drunk as my parents took the plane to come here: the family home…Heck; he had probably not sobered up from the last time he promised never to drink again…And my father, all intoxicated, just laughed at my mother's pained words, calmly walking to sit in a chair in the next room. Then walking back into the kitchen, once again smiling at her distress. And then he started to whistle. That's how we knew he was really drunk. It's the only time when he had the ability to whistle for hours and hours, without it ever ending. A very high-pitched sound that just never shuts up!My mother left the table. I heard a door slam. I went to look for her but could not find her. So I went to take a bath. With bubbles and music so I would not hear a thing besides Kayne West's new CD. And if I left my head in the water, then everything disappeared: all I heard was the beating of my heart. Things could get quiet that way.They call us survivors… pffff. If I had survived a war, children would tie bows around trees, there would be a parade with yellow ribbons on people's collars for my homecoming. Someone would produce a made for TV movie about my life. Larry King would interview me and maybe I'd be Time's magazine man of the year!I got out of the bath, and found my mother. Eyes puffy and red. She was holding a can of beer. "This is what I find when I collapse on the floor near our bed. Under OUR bed"… I went to talk to him, because I always tried to. That was my role. I try to talk to my dad, and defend him as much as I can. Causing me to betray my brother and sister. But I had to. I was the special girl, the perfect daughter. The only one who understood him. If I didn't talk to him, who would? If I didn't talk to him, maybe something much worse would happen...But this time, daddy was too drunk to even listen to me. And I heard another excuse after the other. It's not him. He's not really drunk. It's my mother. She makes it up. She finds cans of beers. It's all in her imagination…There always is a reason…When I was little, I sometimes pretended to believe him. Because I could not admit that the father I loved so much, the one that took us to McDonald's on Sundays; the one who held the seat of my bike when I took the little wheels off; the one who had special cups for my sister and I, on display in his restaurant-a cup for our hot chocolate of Wednesday afternoons- I could not believe he would do this to us… I was so scared of what might happen if even I no longer believed in him. My brother was standing besides my mom, in the kitchen. Hands on her shoulders. She said: "I am so fed up. So fed up. I just want to swallow a bottle of pills and never wake up".So I started crying, my brother started crying. My mom kept crying. And my father would not stop whistling.I did not know what to do. No one explains to you that there comes a time in life when you have to be the responsible adult of the family. No one tells you, that when you turn 13, you have to start taking care of yourself. And then, comes 28, you have to take care of your parents. So I tried calling the suicide hotline. One thing I had learned from reading all those Marie Claire's and other Glamour magazines was that you should never, ever take a suicide conversation lightly. Even when you are convinced they do not mean it. And I kept trying to call and kept getting a busy signal. After my fourth attempt, we all laughed. My mom wiped her tears and said: "I am tired but I do not mean it. It's against my religion. And I love you kids too much." And we laughed at how pathetic this all seemed. Our reunion spend in tears with a suicide hotline that constantly rang busy. It would have been really hysterical had we been placed on hold with "All by myself" playing…If I had survived lung cancer, my insurance would cover the costs of my healing. There would be some big corporation I could sue for damages. I would get repaid for all that I had lost. Provided I didn't die. And if I did die, people would praise my memory. She died a fighter. She tried to beat that crab!I laid in bed for hours and hours, listening to every single sound I heard. Was that my mother crying? My father getting up to puke? Or to hurt my brother? Was that someone trying to break into the house? Who would get up first? Who would scream or cry first? Was something worse about to happen?That night, everything was quiet. It usually stayed that way. My dad had passed out in his bed. My mom had swallowed sleeping pills (2 with a glass of water, I checked) and slipped herself next to him, my brother had gone down to his apartment, locked the door… I was resting my head on my pillow. To fall asleep, I squeezed a pillow, my stuffed animals having been donated to charity years ago… And I started to play pretend. Of a day when my book would be published, when Pharell from the Neptunes would dedicate a delicate song to me on TRL. Where I would get to be a UN Ambassador and save children in the world… And I started to sing. I hummed the Kanye West song,Through the wire: I made it through the wire…I'm a grown ass kid… I am a champion…Turn tragedy to triumph…Make music that's fire...Spit my soul through the wire…If I had survived abuse, incest or rape, I would write a biography and go on Oprah. Tears would strike the audience's faces. Maybe we would come up with a gold ribbon. There would be applauses at the end of my story. There would be a center named after me. Purple ribbons given away; people would understand my breakdowns.At age 28, I cry on the sidelines of my dance class and pray no one noticed. I go get sips of water or pretend there is something in my contact lens. Just like I used to do at age 13. Hoping no one in the store heard my father tell me to go fuck off….People do not understand. They tell you to forget your family. They tell you not to let it influence you. To take a step back. To cut the cord. It's hard to understand how I would still love those who hurt me so much. It's hard to understand how there can be love surrounded by so much pain. But this is the way alcoholic families live. In our own way, there is a lot of love, and even more heartache. In a way, it is like having a broken heart…They call us survivors…all I survived was my childhood. I do not get a refund on it. I do not get the sleepless nights back; I can't erase the memories. I do not get a parade, a walk, and a dance-a-thon. And I do not get a colored ribbon.