My Mama's Mustache & Other Inherited Stuff  

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

My aim:

To examine as insightfully and honestly as I am able my past with a view to changing the future.

I began that journey over twenty years ago when I picked up my first white chip in Alcoholics Anonymous. It was September 13, 1988. This is an ongoing process, lifelong in fact.

Now it is time to talk about what I know.

The first future this will affect is my own, followed by my children, grandchildren and a handful of siblings.

This broadcast, limited in its audience, is practice. Would you believe I used to be shy, introverted, reclusive, and afraid of my own shadow?

Would you believe I used to sway with every ill wind, tremble at anger or disapproval, and run from every difficult situation?

Would you believe I spent a half century filled with self-loathing, insecurity, paranoia, and no idea how to get to “normal”

How did I get here from there? What changed? What drove me forward?

I did not write my memoir to tell the world what happened to me. I wrote it to tell my family who I am so they would not be afraid and because I believed all would benefit.

Good intentions, but in some ways it has backfired. I am shunned, hated, and avoided like a leper.

However, the book has been another step towards freedom for me. I see and hear major ways in which my book has furthered the relationships between my children and myself.

I have emails and vocal testimony as to the benefit it has been to others, including a few dozen relatives that include siblings, cousins, nieces, and nephews.

I believe it can do more good. So here I am, learning a new career, talking to people. It is a stretch for a girl who once hid behind curtains watching the world go about its business.