by Christal Collette

Created on: May 20, 2009

Her smell was putrid. A mixture of urine and rotting flesh. I could not bare the sight of my own mother for much longer. Who was I to deserve this hand in life?

1. Bittersweet Memories

I gazed up at the tree whose branches hung gently in the sunlight. Oranges were evenly placed between deep green leaves and all packaged into this particular tree of which I had never seen before.

I grew up in Essex, Junction Vermont. It wasn't the place for growing fruit but was just fine at growing alcoholics.

There I stood over 3,000 miles from my little New England home. I was five years old. I had yet to realize what true pain was and the only thing that thrilled me in life was the sweet smelling orange tree that taunted the warm air high above me.

Immediately on the other side of the tree was a run down motel. My mother put her gentle hand around me and beckoned me to follow her into your new home. This was going to be the first of many new homes I would have to move into with my mother.

The smell of the motel was musty. The sun shot through the windows precisely enough to warm a spot on the cheap polyester comforter tucked tightly on the bed. My mother set the shopping bad she had carried for many miles onto a chair in the corner. She was tired. Or was she more than tired? Possibly. Possibly she was utterly fatigued and mentally strained.

My mother's flip-flops had finally worn to the bottoms. A strap had broken on the right one and each time she took a step it flapped in the air as she tried to regain her balance. Since it was so warm she decided that it would be better to go without shoes then to struggle in pain.

Pain. This was the first I felt of it. I wish I could've known then. I wish I could've borrowed someone else's life at age five and moved out of mine. I wanted to slip into a warm bed. I wanted a pink little girls room full of Barbie dolls and princess costumes. Instead, I had very little food and the company of my mother's hallucinations.

Earlier that day we had to make the trip from the bus stop to a motel. I wasn't sure how my mother was going to accomplish this seeing as I knew she didn't have enough money for a taxi. Yes, at age five I knew what taxi's were. My parent's didn't drive so I became accustomed to public transportation at a very early age. So with no money for a taxi my mother did what every poor mother in 1990 would do, she thumbed. This was also the first of a few times I would see my mother thumb for

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