There are many many platforms. I’ve been sitting here, having just arrived at 37. It’s okay, it’s okay. I made it! Partially thanks to Barbara Harris street fighter—seriously.
I think I’ll start a separate newsletter for Christmas in Naples is a Sport. There’s a traditional menu and traditions and fun photos.
I’m beginning to “strategize” my content. I had a meltdown last night trying to figure out Later. You can’t do everything my father once said, so travel isn’t exactly my concern, but then, I’m not sure about sharing the themes I’m talking about, writing about, so I might just end up posting scenes from my life more so than putting on a sexy dress and telling you that you can heal from intergenerational trauma. But maybe I should. Get to a pool.
Should I wait until I sell my book to start a newsletter about it, do you know what I mean? I’m just juggling right now from the standpoint of having had my whole life open before me. I’m just trying to figure out social media in some capacity so I can just plug things in…I have to take this one step at a time.
I sing again…that was the most profound part of the awakening I went through though I could also talk about it as a story that was breaking down since a world held me up regardless if it was bad or good, to be simplistic, and that comes straight out of Hannah Arendt about the larger world. Based on what I went through, not so sure it was a psychosis.
In any case, I ended up in the hospital for a day because I didn’t know if I had been abused and it seemed like I was neglected. I remember Jason fondly at five years old telling me that I smelled, and he was concerned. Now I’m rather comfortable talking about what that was and very happy to be able to since sensationally that was rather tough.
Here are the facts of my early childhood, just to make sure they are very clear:
A stranger took me out of my home the second she saw me when I was four years old…for a day…it ended up being four years.
I say total stranger because someone gave me the topic sentence. It’s more appropriate to say that a stranger took me out of my house and four years later….just because my mother bounced, it’s true. She manipulated a situation…and left her child…basically.
Dr. J, my mother, accused my father of child molestation on the light end so this family was protecting me but that was really wild. As a psychological drama, it’s rather interesting, if not farcical in this case, just due to who Dr. J is though I don’t know this woman anymore…but delusional is pretty on point as an adjective.
She was seriously unhinged.
Then, four years later, this woman decides with a grand gesture that my father isn’t though she has no idea who these people are…to be frank. I could picture some “cool” cutthroat thriller about some mother who takes “destroy the child molester” to a whole new level. It’s one of those—might inspire someone to kill.
My father then gets diagnosed with Alzheimer’s though it is Parkinson’s first after I go home to mirrors being smashed off the walls…and he doesn’t tell anybody. I found out about that ten years later. These years were repressed. What does that mean? It’s a good question. The Oldest Storyteller is a fiction about that. What that will become, I don’t know, but that’s the idea for now.
These have always been the facts of my life but due to the whole situation, it took me some time to get here. Very happy to be. Cohesive. Sensical. Able to show my face with that story, you know, publicly. That ended up, just that, being harder than I anticipated. I don’t necessarily care about what one would like to label what my brief crisis of self was but when you have a woman take you out of your house at four who believes your father is a child molester…then not…and then…she tells you that the way your mother handled you was inappropriate in that way…that’s hard. What am I supposed to do with that? Coming to understand that she didn’t know these people?
That’s not something you “say” without “meaning.” And again, that statement in my case just threw me in more than one direction.
I’m fine now.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to put this in notes, Substack.
In any case, I got out of the hospital and I burst into my apartment like “no, no, no,” like no. I opened up all the windows and sang for the first time in like fifteen years. I had to sit down and I cried. Maybe this was what I wanted to do. And that’s what my cousins hit me with the second I walked back through their door, looking at me—Christmas in a family sport not some patty cake bakers man—what the HELL happened to you? You don’t sing? They chased me, even, “no sense, there’s no sense here.”
We had a sport to play, ancient, regardless of one’s hero home journey. They also, the truth aside, for there are many truths, were the first family to show “concern,” like you’re one of ours. What the hell is this? Franco Franzese especially. Very complicated.
Writing this book ended up being rather revelatory. “You don’t sing…”
They just couldn’t believe that. They looked at me as if I were a different person…a new person…walked into their house.
And for me, I had to really think about that.
Even the idea that these people seemed to know me better than my own parents.
I laughed, I cried, questioned everything.
Glad I worked that out. That I can say that …you can. You don’t have to inherit your parents—nope. Not true. Just not true. Should not be taught. You can heal on a rather profound level. I know people go through all sorts of crises even a mid-life crisis…oh no, I lived my life this way when I didn’t want this. Or, shit, I’m not twenty anymore, I don’t know. People go through all sorts of things.
My parents were mentally ill. Ill. I can explore what that means…but if you take these four years…you will understand what I mean. Now, I can take a step forward. It’s not that I was adopted by all these families sort of disconnected from that fact, if that makes sense. I did not go through foster care. My sister didn’t either. Both my parents were sick. Hello world. Technically, that made me predisposed to developing a mental health issue. Happy to say that’s no longer my fear. I was severely manipulated and one may blame the illness…es. Not the people.
This is my life rewritten—sense, health, sanity, etc. Gotta new lease on life. I started singing again…sort of reaching for maybe something that I loved that I couldn’t pursue in the past. I don’t know, everything is possible in a new way. I feel so much support to put myself out there so thank you.
I think when you get perspective on what has been driving your choices in life…that’s not exactly regret.
“My Way” by Frank Sinatra. They welcome me back with that. It’s my story. Not theirs. Though they all want to be the protagonist.
“Who’s the main character?” Making deals. “Which one of us.”
Anyway, I’ll post here sometimes, too, since I’m supposed to write everywhere and I’m figuring out what I want to do now. I might just post scenes in my Substack since I have a bunch of stuff. I just need to work out my system and this goddamn book really has been rather laborious.
I’ll look up some information around neglect, abuse, children who come from mentally ill parents since my father had an anxiety disorder, eating disorder (yes, at one point), remember…he was sick the whole time. He was depressed as well. Alzheimer’s is a serious illness. In my case, it’s easier to just lead with some terms. I can make a list in my case. My mother was “a pathological liar,” or so I concluded rather early, “hypochondriac, an addict,” etc. Maybe a special person, too, Dr. J. This is her real nickname: Dr. J.
My father and I disappeared to my cousins —why? Because he didn’t call anymore. From what I understand. He was sick, yes, the entire time. It just didn’t land on anyone. Not me though I knew. Anyway, those ten years are a different book. I told plenty of people once his doctor told me that he had diagnosed him ten years before. I could not follow up. Sort of disconnected.
But anyhoo, whoosh, got through that, you know what I mean?
Yes yes, also thanks to Barbara Harris street fighter.
That’s what I mean, it’s a whole new world.
I crack up because, you see, in Barbara Harris’ case, the idea that maybe there IS more to us than surgeons can remove…might…actually be believable to people. Isn’t that funny? On some level. I tend to approach everything as energy so that eliminates any problem. No one can say energy is not real. We believe it can’t be destroyed. So that’s all I have to say about that. I appreciate my stories in general because they all got me through…I wanted to tell them, share them. They were really my support through that.
I would rather sing at this moment in time. I’ll keep sharing the story around these four years…and Christmas in Naples.
I can picture someone I know going “OH.” Yeah, didn’t know that. I always said “I was adopted, sort of adopted” and how I spoke about it was a problem in itself. That’s another book. No, no, no, no more “Maria is a piece of work” and “poor her father,” no no no.
I started some healing videos. I guess on TikTok…that’s a steady stream of content. Every few hours…a few times a day. I’ll figure out Instagram. I’m just trying to get a system going so I don’t need to think about it…and wow, I have to comment 10x a day? Wow. And write. Again, someone suggested I get on social media to help myself which wasn’t a bad idea, I don’t think, but I’ve struggled with it.
People managed to do a lot at once so I’m trying to just tune into—let me help myself. I have goals. If my story lends itself to drama…which is…how I began, truly, then great. I would really embrace that.
I’m finishing the book. That’s my priority. Got it together, what I have. I’m crafting the structure of it right now. Having some trouble there but it’s working itself out. I’m using Post Office by Bukowski as a frame of reference because of the short chapters and flow and dialogue. It’s an autobiographical account, too, so it’s not memoir. This isn’t a memoir, I don’t think. Like, Post Office is about his time working at the Post Office. It includes his wife, etc. I’m trying to find more references like that.
A lot happens. Carmine’s band, the band. He’s leaving it behind, my right-hand cousin, we can speak somehow, and I guess I find it again. It’s sort of the Sound of Music this book, too. They just started singing to me nonstop because I didn’t know the songs. So pretty. They put on quite a show for me—utter chaos. And it was, family was chaos. But this was a different kind. All translating the songs in Italian, not English, at once.
I understand that maybe in a movie I might get there, chill, unpack, and hear Carmine play. It’s just like, okay, STEP ONE is that I don’t remember who I am. That’s step one in the story for me. That I know. For them, too. I don’t seem to understand that, though. I’m going to be reconnecting with my roots AKA my nature, nature, too which is, I think, a better way of framing what this is about. I’m telling them this story…too…and that’s really Franco Franzese’s shining role, you see.
I’m just struggling with the beginning. I feel like I should just get to the first feast where the key phrases of my life are revealed because then…we’re off.
I gotta get back to that.
I’ll post scenes from Christmas in Naples in my Substack. Here too. I figured might as well post everywhere for the moment since it’s all free and I’m shaping what I’m about now. I suppose I could just write a newsletter and say—published this here and here. It’s just that people use Substack as a publication platform as well. Maybe I’m not quite there yet. My friend thought it was “an energy leak” to start a newsletter right now though another writer said—do it. So I might do that.
Anyway, still experiencing some confusion around the world as it stands currently…a material girl living in a digital world in fact. It is what it is.
Thanks for reading!