…in April of 19841,2, I left this house, appropriately enough on Friday the 13th. I was thirteen, and I was not leaving of my own volition. This was the point at which my mother, who had relinquished custody of me just prior to my starting third grade, was compelled to take me back.
While this set into motion a number of events for which I now have cause to be deeply grateful (so that I can say, honestly, that I have no regrets), at the time, I experienced it as a complete rupture of my time-space continuum. Which is to say it was unfathomably traumatic, and served to compound any number of previous traumas that had built up to my father’s and stepmother’s decision to kick me out.
Everything I write eventually traces itself back to what happened in this house. (For further notes, click through to image on Flickr.)
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1 I was called “Vikki Townsend” then.
2 Photo taken in January, 2002, during a trip to see my grandmother, who was then dying. Stopping by this house and taking this picture was at least as important as seeing her draw her last breath.
