Broken.

   I reflect on the events that shaped me in to this person that I am today, and I wonder where it is that I have had the strength to keep going. Today, that strength comes from my girls, but before them, I can't really cite a source. Even for as much as my grandparents love me, I used to think I should just spare the whole world the experience of my shit show life. Yeah, yeah, "life is what you make of it" and all that nonsense. I get it. I hear ya. Just like I've heard everyone in my entire life tell me that. I have these fun mental illnesses that were diagnosed many, many years ago as a result of the therapy that has been required throughout the last 15 or so years. I wish I didn't think about dying every single day of my life, but I do. Most importantly, I wish every single day that I had the ability to forget about all of the horrible shit that has happened to me. It pisses me off so badly that I can't remember ACTUALLY important things, but can remember the sunny, Spring day in fifth grade when a cruel girl in my class made fun of my clothes in front of my entire class when we were going out to the football field at St. James Catholic School for a pep rally. I can see her wretched face saying the words "Your clothes aren't from the mall! They're from WALMART!!! *insert hysterical laughter*" as she pulled the tag out of the back of my shirt to satisfy her sick sense of humor and to look cool with the popular girls (and yes, I remember who you are to this day, and I have relished in your "perfect" life falling apart over the years, believing, personally, that karma is well at work with you.). I remember, at various times, but usually in my nightmares, the times that I was terrified to be in my own home because of my parents. I remember the arguing and being hit with a fist the size of my head. I remember Jackie passed out in her room, cigarette burns all over the carpet by the side of the bed she hung out on, pink Tupperware tumbler full of Jim Beam waiting for her to come to and consume it. I remember when Jim thought that it was appropriate to start letting himself into the bathroom when I was in the tub to get a look, or calling me in to his room while he watched porn and had his dick out, asking if I wanted to see it. Yanking off my towel when I was going to change, and coming into my bedroom at night, rubbing on my leg or ass just slowly enough to make me want to die right then and there. I remember being so mentally abused that I am forever fucked up for anyone who I form a relationship with for the rest of my life. I remember that no one believed me when I called the cops finally when I was 14 years old, and that, after spending two weeks at Greenbriar Children's Home with the rest of the abandoned kids, being sent back to that house because I was deemed a liar. Even the second time that I was sent to Greenbriar, after showing up to St. Vincent's Academy with a black eye, and grossly underweight from the anorexia that I fell in love with freshman year, even that time, no one believed me and I was still a liar. I was laughed at and made fun of every day that the white van from Greenbriar dropped me off and picked me up at SVA, and every single day, I wanted to die.

   My super exciting school years led me to move out of the Gallagher house at 16, and in with a guy 12 years my senior, who was in the Army and loaded and took me away from all of the horrible things that had been my home life. He made me move to Texas after graduation and wouldn't let me say goodbye to my family. Three months later, I returned to that Godforsaken house on Chesterfield Dr. for lack of any other place at all to go after escaping my literal prison in Texas where I couldn't leave the house alone and was abused in a different way entirely. Then, more bad memories started shortly thereafter. I fell into partying with an ex-best friend and we were drinking 5 or 6 nights a week, tearing up the bars downtown and getting sleezy guys to buy us shots and drinks. We developed a pretty serious drug habit that resulted in me being held against a wall, off of the floor, by my throat, with the cold barrel of a large caliber handgun in my side in Deja Groove, being told that I was going to die (and honestly wishing he would just pull the trigger). There was also the time I was held at gunpoint and forced to cook crack for an old dealer who found me and could have killed me but let me work it off instead. Why do I hate my birthday? That would be because I was drugged and violently raped on my eighteenth birthday by a guy I knew from Deja, who drugged me and had his friend drive us over to South Carolina, where I woke up in the backseat of that car, with him on top of me, in the parking lot of the Gold Club, with no recollection of how I got there or what had happened in the last several hours, and in some of the worst pain I've ever felt. I didn't go to the police, because his cousin threatened to hunt me down and kill me if I ever told on him, so I didn't. Every time I did a line, or ate a pill, or smoked something, I hoped that I was doing enough to end my pain. I almost did a few times, having a couple grand mal seizures from my Xanax addiction, and one time I vividly remember seeing a faint light, but I always lived. 

   So, for all of the people who give me shit about not remembering seeing a movie or quotes from this movie or that, or for not remembering what we did together all those years, or even weeks, ago, know that I wish SO desperately that those were the types of things that I did remember, but that the things you've just read are the types of things that I am forced to remember. Know that when you see me smiling, it is nearly always to hide whatever pains me that day. Know that staying alive has been a struggle for me, a battle that I have not yet won. Thank you to the people who have stuck around despite me being who I am. I don't say it enough, but I appreciate the few constants in my life. 

I am broken. That is why I pour so much of my effort into making people smile and happy, so that they may never suffer as I do. I am broken. 

M. E. G.

   Sometime in September of 1983 (I want to say the 24thish), James Michael Gallagher and Jacqueline Linda Evans became what would turn out to be quite possibly the most miserable husband and wife in the history of couples. They were married in the little chapel on base at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, GA, after a brief relationship that was formed in a bar (because that's where all successful relationships begin). Jackie was born in Aberdeen, Maryland, an Army brat, to Tad and Ellie Evans. Jim was from around Camden, NJ, his parent's names escaping me because I never knew them when they were alive (maybe Francis for his father, and I want to say Theresa for his mother, but I honestly am not sure.). The Army brought both of them to Savannah, GA, and booze brought them together in a bar on post. Some time in around early 1985, these two decided it would be a great idea to conceive a child, and on June 24, 1986, at 10:08am, I was surgically introduced to the world. Michelle Elizabeth Gallagher is the name that they bestowed upon me (It would have been Shelby Somethingoranother Gallagher if "Steel Magnolias" had already been out. Jackie reminds me of that at least once a year.), and I rang in at 10#2 and 22" and was the largest baby in the nursery by A LOT.

   I come from a small family, considering that I only ever knew Jackie's side. My aunt and uncle never had children of their own, so I was the first grandchild to Tad and Ellie (that the family talked about, anyway.), and was spoiled rotten and doted upon during my time as an only child. Holidays were small events, as there were only 7 of us at the time (Mike would make 8 in 1989). Grandpa (Tad) spent 20+ years in the Army and retired as an E4, before more years of civilian service and then going on to have an impressive career as a genealogist, recognized by the state of Georgia for his contributions to the history of the state. Grandma had always been a homemaker, aside from a brief stint as a hairdresser in her younger years. They have always been very well off, and those two humans are the ones that I credit for raising my brother and I. They paid for my 13 years of private, Catholic education, they paid for activities and sportsball-related expenses, they took us on vacations over the summer, and we spent more time with them than we did at our parents' house. My grandparents tried SO HARD to make a normal life for Mike and I, but, ultimately, the bullshit that we had to deal with during the time that we did spent at "home" became the elephant in the room that silently explained a very fucked up upbringing that I am impressed either of us survived relatively unscathed.

More on that later...

This crazy thing called life.

   The period of time when a person is alive is defined as "life". Everyone gets one. Sometimes life is a spectacular, amazing, incredible journey, and sometimes life really fucking sucks and is the most difficult thing to try to hold on to. Some people float through life on the coattails of unicorns, dancing across rainbows, and some of us have to relearn to swim every morning, barely treading water and struggling to stay afloat. There are a lot of things that make life difficult - mental illness, money, education (or lack thereof), crime, substances, people themselves - and fortunately for many people, they will never experience any hardships and will simply fulfill the basic goal of living, working, creating a family (or not), retiring comfortably and dying peacefully when they are old and grey, surrounded by loved ones. Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky. I am not creating this blog to garner pity or attention. I have been writing for years, and have filled journals with these words, and that has been cathartic, but I do a decent job of hiding my past from my present and I have decided I no longer care to hide anything about the things in my past that have formed the person that I am today. A dear friend told me recently that one of my most admirable qualities is my resilience, a quality which stems from survival. This is my story.