I’m Kathy. With a K not a C. Sometimes I want to say, “K or C. You pick. You could put a M there and I really wouldn’t care except I am definitely not Mathy in a multiplying fractions kind of way.”
My mother tells me my sister gave birth to an eleven pounder born breach. I say, “That’s a whole lot of nope.”
Mom says, “I’ll never forget your birth. Goodness, it was terrible.”
“How so?”
“Something went wrong with the stirrups. That’s all I remember.” Then she laughs nervously.
I think, “You laugh but Miss Possibly Brain Damaged Daughter over here doesn’t think it’s so funny.”
My introduction to my therapist:
“Hi, I’m Kathy. Apparently, something went wrong with the stirrups. Details are sketchy. Also, I used to run behind the mosquito truck in a cloud of Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane also known as the endocrine disruptor DDT. Oh and one time I tried riding my bike down the neighbor’s concrete steps. You know what happened? A big ol’ concussion and a visit to the emergency room is what happened. Does this help lay the foundation for why I have felt like an uppercase oddball during my 53 years on the planet?”
For eighteen years I’ve been working as a paralegal for four attorneys who do child abuse work. Unsolicited advice: Don’t do that. Four attorneys is attorney overload. Also, the child abuse gets old after one day. Four thousand six hundred and some days later I’m still doing it. Exhibit A of why I am a crazy person.
