Why I'm mad at Bill Cosby...

...forgive me as I dally through this...

I'm really mad at Bill Cosby. 

For the past year or so, he's been in the news for some horrible crimes against women. Which is horrible. As the owner and operator of my own vagina, the thought of someone in a position of power using that power, mixed with drugs, force and a healthy dose of fear...sickens me. It should sicken anyone who either has, or knows someone who has a vagina. 

It fills me with anger that Bill Cosby leveraged his power and position, under the guise of "helping" for his own sexual benefit. It sickens me that he used drugs as a primary method for doing this. It terrifies me that anyone would mistake these crimes for what they are: rape. It's not cheating, it's not taking advantage of someone. It's rape and Bill Cosby is a rapist. 

In the big picture, I am furious at Bill Cosby for his crimes against women.

But in the smaller picture, I'm mad at him for stealing from me some of my favorite family memories. 

We, as in my entire extended family, grew up spending summers and other important occasions on the shores of a tiny lake in northeastern Ohio. Any number of my favorite family memories take place there. 

Thanksgiving at the lake was always one of my favorite holidays. All the family, the in-laws and the out-laws would be there...as well as any other wayward soul who didn't have a place to go for Thanksgiving. It's always been a source of pride for me how inclusive my family is. There were endless seats and card tables to be added to the Thanksgiving table, always enough food and good times for any spare roommates, floor mates or friends. Looking down the longgggg table on Thanksgiving day, I could always be proud of my family and our traditions. 

One of those traditions, started somewhere in my pre-teen years, included all my cousins, my mother's youngest brother (who at that time was single and took his role of "favorite uncle" VERY seriously) and an array of old Bill Cosby sketch albums. Uncle P took it upon himself to make sure that our comedy education was complete and we'd spend hours listening to Cos with his "Noah" bit and his "Buck Buck" bit. 

Right now, I could call every single one of my cousins and upon them answering the phone...I could just say "Noah" and a guarantee they would respond with "WHAT"...we listened to those albums, as a group, every year. It became a time honored tradition. Even when Uncle P started bringing around his new girlfriend, who eventually became our beloved Aunt S. 

I can remember the first year she was with us, they listened to one album with us and as we put on the  second, they excused themselves for bed. My oldest cousin looked at the group and stated, "the torch has been passed."

Because I loved these sketches so much, I looked into and found Bill Cosby's beloved "Fatherhood" album. This became one of my sister and my's favorites. We quote it to each other, singing "Dad is great, give us the chocolate cake."

I used to watch the Cosby show, thinking that if I were to parent, I would want to parent just like the Cosbys. With a firm hand, a sense of humor and a lot of love. 

A few years ago, at our family reunion, my cousins and I did carry the torch, downloading several albums onto an iPod and introducing Uncle P and Aunt S's two daughters to these sketches. The entire family sat together, around a fire and quoted them word for word. It was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. 

...and so I'm mad. Because while those sketches are still funny and clever and chock full of comedic genius...now, they're tainted. 

I cannot listen to the Noah sketches without thinking, "when he got off stage that night, did he assault someone?"

How on earth could a man who made a career of being "everyone's dad" actually be a monster?

It leeches into my perfect memories of Thanksgiving and of perfectly hilarious times with my family. 

And while my anger is nothing compared to the army of women who truly were violated, I feel like my memories were violated, we listened to Cosby because he was wholesome and in still being wholesome, was damn funny. 

But he wasn't wholesome. He wasn't anything of the sort. Richard Pryor said fuck a lot, but he didn't force anyone to actually do it. Cosby did. 

So while our paths will never cross and Mr. Cosby's crimes were not aimed at me, they have affected me. Stolen from me a favorite memory and stolen from me a favorite thing to do with my family. I can't laugh at Cosby now, hearing his voice makes me think of nothing but pain that he caused countless women. 

...and now the thought of Puddin Pops, just hurts my stomach. 

the dates of your life...

I'll confess, sometimes I use my phone calculator for basic math tables. My father would be terribly ashamed, considering the hours he invested with me as a youth to get me to learn said tables...

...some of them just never really stuck...sorry dad...

on the flip side, if a date somehow becomes engrained in my memory, it's there...locked in and stuck...for there rest of my life. 

Today is one of those dates that sticks...for about a decade now. 

10 years ago today, right around this time of day, I came home from work, the door was slightly ajar and upon walking in my husband commanded me to sit down. 

Today, 10 years ago, I was surprised with divorce papers. 

Why won't my mind let me forget this day? Why does my memory store every moment of that night, from what I was wearing, to how the street felt on my hands as I crumbled in the middle?

If it can let go of the memory of the answer to 9x6, why on earth does my mind insist on retaining the memory of such moments?

I tore up the papers, convinced that if I tore them up, they wouldn't exist. "We're Catholic and have been married for 8 months and 5 days...we aren't getting divorced"...I remember thinking, I remember pleading. 

The next few hours I can remember almost every detail of. My parents cars pulling up on the street in front of the house, the discovery of my ex-husband's (a "was-band" in terminology I recently learned) cousin with his head pushed in the back window; a "witness" I'd later learn. (But still to this day don't completely understand of what.) My mother's attempts to hold me at the front door of the house, while I was wildly flailing my arms and begging him not leave. Eric stating that he was going to call the cops and claim I was "holding him hostage" if I didn't let him leave. (In some ways, I would have liked to see him call the cops and wonder exactly what he would have said and what would have been the response from Indianapolis's finest) 

Once he passed by me, my mother let me go. I ran out to the street, begging him not to leave.
Pleading with him right upto the point where he drove away, leaving me a crumpled soul in the middle of a damp street, for my mother to pull back to the sidewalk.

I fought her embrace and grabbed my keys. The exact thought in my head was "I need to be anywhere but here." I pushed by my mother, ignoring her pleading requests that I not drive off in the state I was in...and made it to the car...throwing it in gear and tearing off, crushing through the gears of the standard transmission... The radio played, I turned it off. 

I had no idea where to go and no idea who to talk too. 

I had the foresight to call my boss and let him know I would not be at work the next day and I drove through the treelined streets making turns with for no reason.

Who should I reach out too? Who would be nonjudgmental and calm me down, to the extent that could happen. Who could I call that could place some sanity into an otherwise insane evening?

ASC was on her honeymoon, an injustice I'll never quite forgive Eric for.

My sister was in training for her first job, to bother her would compromise that...

I called SJ...who picked up in two rings. I blurted out that Eric had just served me with divorce papers and that I didn't know what to do. The poor girl was in the midst of a shift in her second job, as a server...but took time to tell me she loved me and we'd figure this out. 

When I realized where I was driving, it was to my Parish, where I had been married a mere 8 months earlier. I wound my car around back and found myself in the grotto.

Rocking back and forth...declining calls from my mother. I couldn't bare to answer them.

I stared at the statue. I asked it accusatory questions...shouted really...at the concrete and, on some level, expected answers.

I rubbed my face against the cold, wet grass, letting the rain shower over me, one million tiny pin pricks covering me...the smell of wet grass and rain in my nose. 

I cried with a primal urge I had never felt before. A sadness that was so profound, my mind had yet to define it, let alone process it. 

It was SJ who finally told my mother where I was. For some reason, it felt humiliating to tell her myself. I have no idea why.

As mothers are prone to do, mine showed up and showed out. Sitting with me in the cold wet grotto. Rocking me in her arms. It must have felt terrible. Knowing how much pain I was in and knowing there was nothing in the world she could do for me...Nothing but sit in the rain, on the wet rocks, listening to her oldest daughter alternate between wails and shrieks. My mother, who can find light in the darkest of nights, could not find light in this. My father's pain was so intense and his heart problems still in such transition, he was forced to go back to their house, to get medication. While I have never and will never forgive Eric for his lack of empathy regarding my father's heart problems (While requiring that we pay utmost attention to his own father's illness, which we did.) in certain small ways, I'm glad that there was only one parent in the grotto with me that night. There were plenty of other situations to come and I'm not certain that the sight of my crumpled body in the middle of the street or the sounds of my wails in the grotto would have ever left my father. 

I can remember the feel of the rocks and the softness of my head on my mom's shoulder while I heaved sobs that came from the pit of my soul. I remember my mother finally convincing me to come home, which was based around my initial desire for a shower. I can remember pulling back up in the driveway of what had, until a few hours earlier, been my marital home...I remember seeing the ripped shreds of paper my mother had pulled from the trashcan, the paperwork I had torn up. 

It's been a decade and I survived that night. Along with countless other nights that followed. But I remember that one in vivid technicolor detail, with each of my senses. 

And I think of that night, every year, on this day. I try as much as possible not to relive it. However, often that's not possible. Without trying, I relive that night, the sights, the sounds, the scents.

It lives within me, I've lived with it so long, it's part of the makeup of who I am.

And I won't give it back, even for instant recall of math facts. That night profoundly changed the course of my life, sending me off course from the safe harbor I was expecting to the rocky seas of uncertainty. The journey from that night to this one has not been an easy one. 

In the decade that has transpired since that night, I've had other nights that have rocked me to the core of my being. That have assaulted me with change. I've stumbled as much as I've flown, cried as much as I've laughed. I've learned that life is a collection of game changing nights.

I've evolved enough to realize that change is the process, not the product. 

I've also learned that ships were meant to sail in the ocean, no matter how many icebergs float alongside them. You'll hit any number of them, but there are always lifeboats on their way, no matter how high up you have to send the flairs. 

Life does only one thing: It goes on.