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- My Story: Part One
My Story: Part One
The Trash Bag
It’s Wednesday, November 15th, and today we’re doing something a little unusual.
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My Story
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to tell you a story. It’s about me, and I think it’s important. Week after week I write this newsletter in hopes that it will make you a more thoughtful and strategic community builder, but the layers of community are so many that I often feel like I go in with great ambitions, but can’t quite get to the core.
Perhaps I’ve caught the end-of-the-year reflection bug, but I’ve been deep in thought lately: why do I do this? Why does it matter? Have I been drinking community Kool-Aid or is this as critical as I think it is?
To get to these answers, I am sharing my story; sharing it in a way that highlights and draws out lessons in community. My hope is that it will give you a deeper understanding of its potential.
I should add that I am quite nervous. I’ve tried to do this several times over the last month but kept imagining a drove of people hitting unsubscribe.
There’s a proper balance between emotion and logic, personal and professional, and my hope is to dance right on that line, because stories matter more than listicles and frameworks.
My mother was a goddess. From my earliest childhood memory, I spent all of my time adoring her. She knew every word to every song on the radio. Sicilian with long, dark, shiny hair, hazel eyes, curvy frame. When she walked into a room, people noticed.
She was a young twenty when I was born, and I am certain that in those first years she did the best she could. She loved me, provided for me, and let me have tea parties with my stuffed teddy bears, surrounded by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into various cookie-cutter shapes.
There was another side to my mother. Underneath the sparkle, she fought to control a rage that, to this day, I cannot trace the source of. It was like a switch that suddenly flipped. There was rarely a buildup and certainly no warning signs.
When I was 8 years old she met a man. I am not sure that I had ever entertained the thought of a father figure, but if I had, he was it.
Our first time meeting was during some sort of casual get-together between co-workers. He managed a pizza shop where my mom was working in our hometown of La Crescenta, California.
Home
A bunch of her friends decided to convene after work one night at someone’s home. It was a packed house and my mother was definitely not the only single parent, as there was a whole platoon of sugar-gorged children running amuck. At some point, a store run was in order. Someone had to stay with the kids. He volunteered. The minute the door shut behind the rest of the adults, He turned to us with a mischievous smile on his face.
“We’re going to have some fun without them!”
He quickly instructed us to knock over furniture, throw trash around, and make a general mess of the place. I assure you, we didn’t need to be asked twice. Two of us pushed over an armchair while three went to find a rope. One was on trash duty and another was busy pulling VHS tapes off of a shelf. Whoever said kids were lazy never put a squad of them on destruction duty. We were driven.
With a rope in hand, he instructed us to tie him up. He dutifully lay on the couch while we bound his arms and ankles, then dog-piled him and waited for the return of our parents.
What kind of an adult would encourage these shenanigans? The best kind! I loved that he thought it would be hilarious to make it look like we were drunk with power and out of control. I adored him immediately. This was my first encounter with him, and I was smitten. He had "dad material" written all over him.
I was also perceptive enough to note the way my mother looked at him. It was a face I'd never seen her make before. They reminded me of people on TV, all sparkled and smiles... It made me want to laugh a little, even if there was a hint of sorrow at the thought of someone third-wheeling my mommy time.
My mother didn’t do relationships halfway. They became very intense, very quickly.
Over the next six years, our family grew by one (a half-brother) and moved many times. There would be fights…the kind that woke me and my brother in the middle of the night and ended in police and jail time. There would also be a dark secret that, once revealed, ultimately resulted in the police giving her a choice: you can keep your daughter or your husband. You can’t keep both.
So began my time in foster care. For the next couple of years, I was shuffled through 22 homes with all of my belongings shoved in and out of trash bags. Sometimes I’d be somewhere for a day or two. Once as long as three months. I even spent a night in kid jail because there were no homes available; just me in a cold, 10x10 cell and blues playing through the speakers.
One of the longest nights of my life was spent here
I didn’t feel I was particularly bright or thoughtful. I spent most of my time in survival mode, just trying to get through a single day without letting too many thoughts or fears get processed. But in hindsight, this is exactly when the idea of community started taking root. During car rides, I was hypnotized by houses—all of them. Their front yards, windows—who was in there? What did they do? Were they happy? Every structure represented the potential for belonging, and belonging was the most foreign yet important thing in the world to me. So far, I had been nobody’s someone.
I was a below-average student. I was moved so many times that I never accumulated credits. I gave birth to my daughter at 16 and that sort of sealed the deal; no one took me to school again. There was this sort of unspoken dismissal of my existence as if no one expected anything of me, and that was ok, that I needn’t expect much of myself either.
There were, however, two constants in my life; the desire to dance and an almost angry hunger for autonomy. I couldn’t do much about the former. I asked many times but social workers would remind me that there was no money for extracurricular stuff and that foster parents would have to pay for dance out of pocket (they wouldn’t).
Autonomy was trickier. I wasn’t in charge of any aspect of my life. Instead, this hunger seeped out in other ways. I questioned everything: rules, authority figures, norms, systems—whatever. Sometimes it was a great asset; I loved creative problem-solving, but mostly, it was tedious rebellion that did nothing to endear me to the sea of foster parents I met.
When I had my daughter, my social worker told me that my options were limited: either we would be separated from each other (because no foster home could take a teenager and a baby) or I’d be sent back home to live with my mother and stepfather. The choice was made for me (because of course it was) and I went home.
There aren’t any words that can do justice to how it felt to return to the sickness that was my family. And now I had a little girl of my own. I petitioned for emancipation, which was granted, and suddenly we were living in my 1994 Nissan Sentra.
The next season of life was a different kind of rough. I went from no agency to total agency without having developed any life skills or critical thinking. We slept in a nicer neighborhood at night (for safety), went to a grocery store in the morning (for sink baths), and just sort of...floated.
The street where we’d park and sleep
It’s here that we close out part one and make our first major pit stop to talk about seeds.
I don’t believe in the idea of being self-made. I respect those of us who had to develop the grit and resourcefulness to get through some almost insurmountable challenges, but I’ve never met someone who didn’t have at least one seed planted in their lives in the form of a person who spoke truth and light over them. Sometimes it’s in passing, sometimes a long-term mentorship, but almost always, it’s a just seed.
In relationships and in community, we are constantly planting seeds.
Someone posts a question about getting more clients. Another poster chimes in with a resource or idea that plants the seed for a new tactic.
A community event brings two people together who build an easy rapport and exchange numbers.
A member who never speaks up, but checks in every day sees a discussion that is just what they need to take the next step.
It’s why community matters—we’re constantly planting seeds: ideas, strategies, encouragement, warnings, all things related to the human experience.
Many times, whether that seed ever grows into anything isn’t of real concern to us. We share a thought or response and go on with our day.
But sometimes, we’re deeply invested in outcomes and often, we won’t see the fruits of our labor. It may even feel pointless. I think that was true for people in my life. Talking sense to me wouldn’t appear to be the best use of your time. Even into my 20s I was still in survival mode, and matters of maturity weren’t part of survival. What they didn’t realize was that the seed they planted was later watered by others. And that every word mattered.
In my teenage years, two people in particular likely changed the course of my life. My Godmother Nancy was one. We had a complicated relationship, because although she loved me, she and my mother had been best friends since they were 14, so there was never a full ease between us.
But she told me I was creative. And smart. She told me “if you ever ‘figure it out’, there’ll be no stopping you”. She told me I was destined for greatness, and as cliche as that may sound, I was 15 at the time, and tired of the weight of being unwanted. When she spoke words like that, it made me feel like there was a secret source of magic in me, one that I hadn’t discovered, but would. Like a superpower that would be revealed in time. It gave me this tiny tingle of anticipation.
It did not, however, change my outward behavior.
Years later I was working through a temporary employment agency. I was paid 8 dollars an hour to work in a medical clinic. I had a co-worker named Becky—a lovely, sunshine of a woman who was always in a good mood. One day I made a jokingly disparaging remark about myself, to which she replied “But honey, you’re so smart”.
I was what now?
Funny, but that very plain statement gave me whiplash. I certainly was no such thing. She must have read my face because she doubled down on how much potential I had and how quickly I picked things up.
That one interaction, one that lasted all of a minute, would lead me to make a decision within the hour that would radically change my future.
But that’s for next week :)
Onward,
April
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