I give up.

I unintentionally reflect on my childhood at random times during the day. Mostly when I'm asleep, I think, because I wake up really nostalgic and just wanting to rewire my brain into that of 5 year old.

I have the weirdest memories of my youth. Sometimes it makes me wonder why, in my right mind I would want to go back. Relive a lot of the hell I went through. I guess those few, amazing, childlike magical moments that are sporadically placed between vivid scenes of screaming and breaking glass and crying and alcohol.. everywhere, are enough to make it worth it.

You know, I'm really jealous of Danielle sometimes. She was 7 when my dad died. 7. Though she WAS old enough to grasp the fact that we were losing our father, and I have not a doubt in my mind that she was detrimentally affected by it, I'm pretty sure that it hit me a bit harder. I'm also sure that means she doesn't remember much of the 7 years BEFORE he got sick, which would mean she doesn't remember how shitty our lives really were.

We of course got money for his life insurance when he died, and some kind of monthly check from social security. Kind of our government's way of saying "Your husband/father died. Sorry. Cheer up. Go buy things." Which my mother in turn took for, "Heyyy, your husband just died, go on a rampage and drink a lot and do drugs and don't come home for a couple days. Traci is a freshman, she can take care of Danielle for a couple months."

That wasn't even my point. Danielle has always known money. I'm sure she doesn't remember when the ceiling in our dining room was literally falling in because my dad lost his next THREE checks to a bookie, betting on football games and races and fights and god knows what else. I'm sure she doesn't remember wearing neon colored mis matched clothes from the goodwill or being embarrassed when daddy stopped to get a TV or a vacuum or a fan or a desk or chair or a couch or ANYTHING out of someone's GARBAGE, because, "Hey, It might not be broke."

I'm sure she doesn't remember when my mom got robbed and her face got all fucked up, cause she was on the north side of youngstown at 3am buying "things" from a 400lb black man she introduced me to as Big something. Rob, maybe. I don't remember.

And I know god damn well she doesn't remember cringing in the passenger seat of my mother's car, watching the speedometer near 100 as my mother sips a beer and crosses lanes on the freeway in an attempt to get there before the guy leaves. OR being 10 years old and grabbing the steering wheel because you're almost certain you're going to slam into that concrete barrier, only to be smacked in the mouth and told "NEVER grab my steering wheel again. You could have made us wreck."

I'm pretty sure all she knows is losing my dad, and living without him. And having money. And being given everything her little heart desires. Football games and movies and school dances and concerts and shopping. A cell phone since the 7th grade and being absolutely certain that she'll be presented with a car on her 16th birthday. These are the things she knows. Those are the things I didn't.

What I DO remember, are hearing "I hate you" screamed a lot. Fights. Running, barefooted, to the payphone to call 911. Children's services interviewing me. My daddy telling me, every time I got hurt "You cry too much. Walk it off. Be a man." Dropping my mom off at the jail. Visiting my dad in the jail. And in the recovery clinic. Talking to the men he was in the clinic with, and one of them impersonating the Lion from wizard of oz. My dad unplugging some wires from my mom's car so she couldn't leave, and teaching me how to reconnect them. Or him stealing things from OUR OWN house. Or living in 150 different places. Or him telling me I need to stop going to that church down the street because he thinks that guy has a "hidden agenda". Or being so excited that he was at my choir concert, only to go on stage and see his seat empty, and go to the car after the production to find him passed out in the driver's seat with a beer between his legs. My uncle John pouring an entire beer over my head, for amusement. My mom stabbing my dad with a fork. Shooting him with a water gun as he screamed obscenities into my mother's face. Him forgetting me at the store. Or at his friend's house. Him calling to talk to my mom, but never to me. Waking up to people passed out. On our porch. Or our living room floor.

I have to stop now. This is getting depressing.

Sometimes I wish I could just erase a majority of my memories.

But then I guess I wouldn't really be me anymore.