My beautiful letdown

My beautiful letdown

On the surface, my smile appears genuine when in actuality its taken years to adequately perfect for convincing purposes.   However, my eyes convey a different story.   The things I have seen, the things I have been through and the things I pretend don’t exist have been contributing factors to who I have become and how I perceive the world I live in to be.
I took my first breath of air in 1983.   I was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by both parents.   I am the oldest of their three children and am their only daughter.   In my baby pictures, the beer cans scattered around took away the expected purity and innocence I was entitled to.   During the workweek, Monday thru Friday, my life was borderline normal.   My father valued education; therefore everyday immediately after school, studying and completing homework was expected.   My mother was trained to have dinner ready at a specific time and dinner consisted of the entire family being seated at the dinner table.   My father was the strict disciplinarian whereas my mother’s role was simply to be “just there.”   My father was never affectionate towards me.   I always thought there was something wrong with me, like I was contaminated with a disease that restricted him off in fear of a contagious infection.   I started believing it was because I was a girl and he was scared I would cry rape or molestation if he hugged me, kissed me on the cheek or even said he love me out loud.   My mother and I had nothing in common so a mother-daughter bond didn’t develop until later on.   On the weekends, my parents were alcoholics.
Being the oldest, I inherited the responsibility to be the caretaker of the entire family.   At school, specifically on Fridays, I used to vomit and shake just from the nervousness of anticipation of the nightmarish events ahead of me.   I became the mother to my two younger brothers.   My goal was to shield them from witnessing my parents’ alcoholic behavior.   In turn, I sacrifice my brothers’...