Today my baby is 4.

Today my youngest baby is four. I'm elated, over the moon with excitement about the meager birthday he's had today. Being a mom was a natural wish that I had before I had children. I craved motherhood in the naive way that lonely, dysfunctional females typically do. In my sick little mind I thought that having a baby would cure my loneliness, make me forever linked to another being's soul. And I would be loved.

The way that my oldest son came to be wasn't ideal. I blame cheap beer and feeling lonely on the longest relationship I ever had. Most of my relationships were very short and anxiety ridden, it's hard to commit when you don't believe that anyone could truly love you. I'm slowly changing that belief but I have a ways to go before I really believe it. My approach is still to push people away because if they love me they will fight for it. Problem is that I can't recognize when it's been proven. There's no way for anyone to win.

I had lost my job in Santa Rosa due to drinking, no one wants to have a shaky alcoholic employed as the body piercer at their shop and I was a 22 year old drunk. I would drink a 12 pack every night, without fail, because when I drank that much it was the only time I didn't feel pain. It wasn't rewarding, I did humiliating things and slept with questionable people all in the name of numbness. Numb was a great feeling. Numb is the closest thing I have found to peace to this day. One day it led to my dismissal from a job I loved and I felt the only escape from this was to come 'home' to Ellenburg. I had gotten the number for an old friend that was crazy as hell but reliable for a place to stay and she welcomed me back. My plan was to come 'home' and make enough money to get back on my feet and return to California. California is the place my heart feels most comforted by, a place I really feel like I belong. I'm comfortable being a 'freak', someone that stands out by blending into the colorful and diverse Bay Area scene. I like being in a place with hookers, junkies and punks. I like feeling not extraordinary in my diversity.

When I lost my job I took out my facial piercings, drank enough booze to deaden my grief and sucked it up. I thought I would be back soon. What I didn't count on was ending up pregnant. Don't get me wrong, I wanted a baby---but I wanted a family, too. There was this huge part of me that thought I could replace the family I never had but always wanted with a family of my own. And I settled.

When I got to Ellensburg there was a guy I had known living in the trailer park (yeah, I said trailer park) that I had once flirted with and I knew we would be a couple. I thought that at the ripe old age of 22 if I couldn't make it with him then there was no one. So I tried. There were so many red flags, so many warnings but when you haven't experienced or believed in good things than you settle for what you get. What I wanted was love, but I was his rebound. I forever heard of the ghost of his meth crazed ex, someone he loved and loathed. I would never be enough because of her but because of her, his massive feelings of inadequacy kept me around. I had so many reasons to run during our relationship but my 'bulldog' personality kept me persistent, sure that my 'love' would keep us strong. It was a bad relationship, we got drunk and fought, made up and started over. I fell for his honey moon period sweet talk and he kept me around, I'm sure, because of my submissiveness to him.

And one day I knew. It wasn't a great time to find out--I left to visit Cali for a week and he slept with my room mate and a junky. Every time I called him from California he was unavailable. When I came back we broke up. But we were tossed back together when my room mate threw me out because of their affair. I had no place to go but he took me in. And eventually, one day, I felt funny. I walked to my work after drinking a few beers, as per the norm, but the smell of bacon made me puke. That was unusual. I thought about the cramps I had for a few days and started asking the other waitresses about pregnancy symptoms. I called a regular and asked him to bring me a pregnancy test. He brought it, I took it. I was fucking pregnant. I was pregnant. Oh my god, I was pregnant. Pregnant. Fuck.

I didn't tell him. I just didn't drink that first night, which was unusual. I remember him putting his hands over my nose and mouth, cutting off air as he told me this was what he had always wanted, me not drinking, but it was too late for us. I was so afraid.

I didn't tell him I was pregnant until the growing pains drove me to explain that the reason I wanted the password to his computer was to look up symptoms of a miscarriage. I was sure I was losing our child. He begged and pleaded, asked me to have an abortion, told me that he would pay for me to get artificially inseminated but PLEASE don't fulfill his family curse by having  this baby. According to him his second born would signal his death. His father had died when he was a baby and me having this baby would kill him. I was his death sentence. 

Needless to say, he didn't die.