DMCs: Perfection

M aybe you’re too smart to fall for it maybe you know that everyone gets her “pekel” her challenges and no one’s life is perfect… but a few years ago I felt like I was the only one who had a challenging home life.

I suppose when I think about it carefully I wasn’t actually aware that my home life was challenging. It just was. As a kid you really don’t know anything different from the life you’ve been dealt… until you see the seeming perfection of your friend’s house and suddenly feel a sense of disquiet and unexplainable sadness.

Although it’s never been explained to me I am well aware — have forever been well aware even if I had been unable to articulate it at a young age — that my mother must have some kind of personality disorder. She’d be warm and friendly cuddly and loving one minute and the next minute be shouting her head off hurling all kinds of mean accusations and verbal assaults at whomever was nearest. Sometimes she’d throw things and hurt us physically too. I would always run to do what she asked never sure what would set her off.

We lived pretty close to school — just around the corner in fact — and every day on my three-minute walk home I’d find my feet were walking slower and slower as I neared our house. I realized one day — it stemmed from outright fear. I wasn’t sure what mother I would have when I opened the front door.