Name: Amber

Age: 26

Is: coffee whore, lackey slave girl, artist, closet geek, sister, protector, lover, opinionated, photographer, venomous, etc.

Was: runaway, drug addict, playful, dancer, hopeful.

Will be: happy, peaceful, understanding, tolerant, accepting.

Story: I will do all I can to avoid sounding like I am whining about my life, because I'm not. Really. As people say, I would be where I am right now if it weren't for where I went.

I started off the daughter of a woman named Louise, and I suppose she is really where the story should begin. My Mother. My mother had a very difficult life, as many of our mothers did. She was frequently abused by her father and male siblings as a child, which left her with two distinct personalities. A child and a woman. As she got older, the two would fight often when she drank, which she did often in her adult years.

As soon as she could pronounce and understand the words 'run away', she did. I believe she was approximately 13, give or take a few years. Her only brother that treated her well had recently died in a car/bicycle accident, and she had no reason to stick around. She left, and to date, that is probable the best decision she ever made in her life. She ended up living hand to mouth for many years, until she began stripping. She says this to me more, as a side note "I was more of a comedy act," she says looking at her under developed chest "but they liked me and paid good money." At the age of 19 she became pregnant. Hello world, Amber was born. Since she still had to make a living, I lived with various nannies. I really don't remember my mother in those years, I do remember the people who took care of me though, and the other children that were around.

My mother got married to a man name Mike. They procreated twice in a very short period of time. I have sisters, two of them, and they are only 10 months apart. The marriage didn't last, and my mother left the three of us with Mike. I remember not understanding that. I was HER daughter...and she was leaving me with this man I hardly knew, and these children that wouldn't leave me alone. She had to go, and I had to stay. I found out years later that she was going crazy, and her drinking was out of control. But for god’s sakes, the youngest was still in diapers. I didn't see her for many more years

Growing up with Mike [whom I consider my only father, not even a step father] wasn't bad, in retrospect. He demanded that I learn to be independent. He did not need to discipline me with force; he was just intimidating...so it never went that far. I do love him for all it's worth, but when I was younger, I honestly believed he looked at me with resentment. I was left with him. He had no choice but to take me in. He had to raise three girls on his own, and there was no one to help. THREE, when only two were his. This feeling carried with me well into my teens. Finally, at age fourteen, when I couldn't take it anymore...I left. Guess where I went to live?

At the time, my mother lived in a trailer park with her common law husband Scott. She took me in with open arms, and I lived with them for awhile. Life was pretty good from my view point. I was allowed to smoke, do drugs, and drink all I wished...just as long as I could hide it well, and my grades never slipped. If we were any more white trash, I would have had a mullet with bear claw marks at the temples. For some screwed up reason, I ended up dating the school's all star athlete. Football player, rugby, hockey and wrestling. My mother saw son-in-law tattooed to his forehead. Until she found out we were having sex. Then, in a drunken rage, she called him up and swore up and down that she was going to have him charged with raping her daughter. I ran away that night.

Ended up in a group home. That wasn't as bad as some people think. I met amazing people, found better drugs. My mother tried to make amends with me. I refused. Left the group home and moved into an apartment, on my own when most of the people I was in school with were still trying to think of ways of conning a later curfew from their parents. Not me. I have never moved back in with any sort of authority figure. I have never pitied myself. I think I've done pretty well. All in all.

My mother and I speak now, especially since I've moved across the country. It must be easier when there is no face to the voice. She often says things like "I must have raised you right, you have so much strength" or "You get that from me"...and my skin always crawls. She did nothing; she has no right to claim my traits and characteristics as her own. But I say nothing, because mother is fragile.

That is all for now.


all content [ unless otherwise specified ] Amber 2005 & Thereafter