Where Went Gypsy Daughter

I have begun to write my memoirs. I will probably not post any more of the story here but I felt like posting the beginning. Which may look very different in the end.





Where Went Gypsy Daughter
memoirs of a wild child

started August 19, 2010

I begin with an ending, as all things do I suppose.

My mother passed away just four weeks ago, leaving the world less one remarkable and very strange woman. She could be one of the cruelest persons I have ever known but I loved her dearly and always will. She was incredibly intelligent and talented, and almost always in trouble. She could be kind too, and those times almost make up for the rest of our lives. I know that she loved us in the way that she could.

She hated children and told us so often but she almost always added that she loved us anyway, because we were hers. There were many times that we barely had money for food so she would take us to see a movie. Sometimes those included porn, which she told us not to watch.

With no proof other than our own experiences, my sisters and I have long thought she had Multiple Personality Disorder. I even documented some of the personalities at one time and learned some of the cues and triggers. I believe there were at least 7 different people living in my moms' body. But I guess that doesn't matter much now, nor did it matter then or any other time, since it changed nothing.

What did matter was the effect she had on the world and on each of us. A tiny little woman of around 5 feet who was both deadly and fascinating. To three little girls she was like a god, she could happy and giving or insanely angry and destroy everything in an instant. She broke us in so many ways and yet, we are who we are by our own hand. We will always have the scars but there are good memories as well.

It takes time to learn how much power we truly have over our own lives, and the road to that realization can be quite amazing ...







I was born on the 4th of December, 1963 in Springfield, Missouri. President Kennedy had been murdered less than 2 weeks before I was born. An ending and a beginning. My mother was 27 and my father was 16, though my birth certificate says slightly different.

I have two sisters, Becca who is 10 years older than me, and Pepper who is less than 2 years younger.

I don't recall much from my first few years of life but I have a few photos and a few letters from that time, I've seen other photos and been told the stories.

When I was about 2 months old we moved from Missouri to Maine. I actually remember my mother holding me and looking down from a cliff onto a beach below with seals. I know there's no way i could recall that but my older sister confirmed that it happened. I remember many things I probably shouldn't. Maybe I remember so much so that others can forget.

After about two months in Maine, we moved to Florida and lived in a couple of different places there. Mainly on Marathon, one of the Keys, where my grandparents helped my mom and dad buy a small motel to run and make their living. As the story goes, we moved soon after to the mid-west coat of Florida and then back to Missouri.

My father left my mother when I was about a year and half old, when my mother was pregnant with my younger sister. The story is that, as he was driving away he opened the passenger car door and physically shoved my pregnant mother out while she was holding me. My grandparents and uncle were there to see it, it happened in their circle driveway. He drove away and wasn't seen again for a few years.

I only have one memory of my father as a child. I don't remember how old I was or where we were living but I was pretty small. Pepper was just starting to walk so i was probably around 3 or 4. He just showed up one day, I don't recall even knowing we had a father until then. I don't remember much about it except that he kept wanting me to sit on his lap and I wouldn't, then he chased me through the house with a belt whipping at me because he said I had talked back to my mom. Becca and my mom chased after him trying to stop him. I don't recall how it ended but that's the memory I carried with me of my father for the rest of my life.

I should also mention here that I had have aspergers. To be fair, no one knew I had it back then and I debated mentioning it yet but, I think knowing it might help make sense of a few things. I don't think knowing it would have changed anything in my life though. I believe I was destined to a life of drama and chaos so that I could better appreciate the simple, quiet life I strive for now.




I have a few scattered memories before the time of my fathers only visit.

I remember living in a motel, Pepper was just a baby and I was just learning to walk. I actually have a brief memory, like a snapshot, of me sitting in a baby walker thing playing with plastic blocks. It was at this time I learned to swim. I don't recall the specifics of how it started but I so loved the water and we were in the pool almost every day. Eventually Becca would drop me into the water from the little diving board and I would bob up and swim to my mother who was waiting in the shallow end.

I remember living in a house, which seemed like Missouri, and running around naked or in just undies a lot. Poor Becca always trying to make me keep clothes on and my mom yelling at her to put clothes on me. Somewhere there are some photos of me on the porch of an old house sitting in a big flower pot, playing in the dirt. This is also where Pepper and I would sit on the cool wood floor and watch Batman on a big black and white TV.

Another memory from around that time was getting to go on a boat my grandparents had, or had rented. It was what people now call a Party Barge. I don't remember the actual boating but I remember getting ready to go and my grandmother telling my mom that I was much to old to still drink from a baby bottle and that it was embarrassing. My mother told her that we would grow out of it and she wasn't worried. I was embarrassed and angry by what my grandmother said but I don't recall anything else about it.