Memoir - Part I

"I believe with all my heart that we are what we dream. If by grace or chance we reach it, the energy inside us creates another to follow."

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You see this at the top of my blog when you come to visit. It means a lot to me and keeps me young and energetic. Let me share with you briefly why. It has a great deal to do with my upbringing and my reaction (some may say 'rebelling') against it. This will be a running series of posts, because I feel the need, even at 53, to purge a bit of emptiness. I beg your indulgence....

In 1982, my parents divorced. I was living in Indianapolis in my own unhappy marriage at the time and beginning to seriously progress as an actor. One day, about three or four months after their divorce, I was visiting my mother. We were having lunch in her apartment, talking about whatever it was that my mother wanted to talk about...there's a good indication of my relationship at the time with Mom and Dad...when she said "I want to show you something." She went to a closet and pulled out a box. Placing it in front of me, she said "Go through there. You'll find stuff you've never seen, I'm pretty sure. Ask me whatever you want." So I did...Pictures. Letters to her from family I'd never met, and there are lots of those people. (NOTE: I say that because the extended family is SO big. Mom came from 11 children; Dad was part of a brood of 9. I sat down one day and counted up my first cousins alone...I stopped at 103. Most of those folks, I haven't seen in at least 40 years...but that's another post.) I saw my college diploma, which I gave to Mom and Dad and wish I hadn't, because it now had water damage from being in a box in the basement...I suddenly came across a document that caught my eye.

It was a marriage certificate. From the Wayne County Courthouse in Monticello, Kentucky, my mother's hometown. Each of their names were on it, of course, along with the Justice of the Peace. Two witnesses, probably people in the office at the time. It was dated July 26, 1980.

July 26, 1980. It means exactly what you think it mean.

Now common law took precedence, naturally, and so yes, they were still my parents. I was shocked but not surprised. My brother and my sister both took it much too personally; we all have our baggage. But why they felt that it was time to marry, when they had lived together for 29 years, was not explained. When I asked, Mom simply said "I don't know." I remember asking many times to both parents about their anniversary. Dad would always say "Ask your mom." Mom would repeat it..."Ask your dad." And since I was the oldest, and it was the early 50s, well, they HAD to get together. Abortion was not an issue for them, and I realized then why every once in a while, Dad would call me or refer to me to others in conversation as "the little bastard". And chuckle about it. There are other secrets which I never asked about, because that was a part of their own history. I am not privy to it, nor do I wish to be. Everyone, EVERYONE is entitled to their own privacy. Even Mom and Dad.

I swore then that I would not, if at all possible, hide from the world like that. Now yes, I have my secrets, we all do. But they belong to me and no one else. But I firmly believe that this was the beginning of my own attempt at openness in life. It means the world to me, and I still long to be accepted for it. That's why when you read me, you find viewpoints that usually chafe against the norm and still make sense. Hopefully. And that's why I continue to dream and grow and reach out. The little corner of the world in which I grew up, with its fears and hiding places, taught me well that being afraid is human. Allowing your fears to dictate to you what to do is also human, but something we all need to fight every day. That is where my own ambitions, my goals, my DREAMS have helped me deal.

If we don't have dreams, we die inside....To be continued....