Dear Diary:
Chapter 3: New Town…. New Start
Trigger Warning: In this article is my truth. It contains discussion of childhood trauma, physical abuse, and domestic instablity.
Most of us have imagined starting over in a new town — being the new kid at school and reinventing ourselves. I was no different, except my dream was about beginning again with my family. My parents were back together. He promised this time would be different, that he would change. I believed him. I remember looking out the window of my dad’s car as we drove into our new town. In the middle of a wide-open field sat a stone, and on top of it rested a smaller stone. To me, it looked like the world was giving me a big thumbs‑up. At four years old, it felt like the best sign I could ever receive. I thought everything could only go up from there. I still think of that stone.
It's no longer there.
We moved into an apartment we called “the brick building.” It’s funny now, because almost every building in that tiny town was brick, but somehow that one became the brick building. We lived there for a couple of years, long enough for the good memories and the bad ones to stack up on top of each other. The town didn’t offer much — one stoplight, one gas station, a school, a small library, and bars.
Life in the brick building wasn’t exciting, but it had its moments. My siblings and I would race down the back staircase, play under the bridge pretending to be trolls, grab pizza from the only shop in town, and just exist in that small world as kids. But even in those moments, we were reminded of our place. My dad always said children should be seen, not heard, and he meant it.
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Of course, the good memories never came alone. The bad ones followed close behind. It didn’t take long before he started drinking again. My mom would wake us up in the middle of the night so we could drive pick him up. I remember one winter night when he stumbled out of the car, fell into a snowbank, and started laughing that his butt was cold. We thought it was the funniest thing in the world. My mom didn’t laugh. Now I understand exactly why.
And with the drinking came the hangovers — long, miserable days where everything we did seemed to set him off. Laughing, running, playing, even breathing too loudly. Crying was the worst offense of all. He was the definition of the “I’ll give you something to cry about” generation. But let's be honest he was always a ticking time bomb just ready to go off.
I always felt like I was the worst child, or maybe I just remember my trauma more sharply than my siblings. One summer, I got kicked out of the Summer Rec program for saying a naughty word underwater to a girl in my class, about my older sister. She wasn’t my friend — though I wished she had been — and she ran straight to her mom. Her mom made sure I was kicked out. I shouldn’t have said it, but I was just a kid.
That night, my dad hurt me. Not as badly as he had before, but enough to make the message clear. I was grounded to my room for the rest of the summer. I wasn’t allowed out to use the bathroom unless he was asleep or gone. I don’t know if my mom switched to nights because of what happened or if she had always worked nights. Either way, she was home — just not present. She didn’t say much to me. She slept during the day, and I sat in my room watching PBS. Not PBS Kids — PBS. It was painfully boring. He had taken all my toys away during the first week. Anything to make me feel as low as he wanted me to be.
And before you ask why I didn’t sneak out when he was at work: I never knew when my dad would be home. If he walked in and saw me out of my room, even just to pee, he would turn on the P.O.D. album — and you can guess the rest.
P.O.D. became its own kind of torture. He played that music every time he was about to lay his hands on us. I don’t know if he used it to cover the crying or if he was just a psycho who needed some kind of villain soundtrack. Either way, even as an adult, I still feel a wave of dread when I hear their music.
It didn’t take long for our time in the brick building to end, and honestly, I wasn’t sad to leave. No one in that place ever helped us kids anyway. Maybe it was the era. Maybe they didn’t care. Either way, it didn’t matter — we were leaving. We were moving on to something new — our own home, one we were supposed to build ourselves. A fresh start, even if everything else stayed the same.
