the abortion

I was always so troubled about the first pregnancy and abortion.

why would anyone do that?

He said “Let me come deep inside you, say you love me until the end of time!”

well I was not ready for that but he had me pinned down. I said to myself let it be of free will and opened myself to it because there wasn’t a whole lot else I could do.

tonight I learned that my father told him to do that to me to make me marry him.

I’ve been beating my brains out all theses years why a person–a man– would do that, and then I would get an abortion.

it goes deeper than this, these waters are such as I myself have never tested.

it gets so complicated.

my mother said, ” It happened when you were 13.”

that’s a long story in itself.

but I assume she was hinting that someone had had sex with me when i was 13. It was so ambiguous, a one-liner. Like when I walked past her on the phone in Summit, NJ, and she had a weird look on her face and she said “keep it in your head.”

I have had 2 1/2 years without her presence now and it’s still hard, but it doesn’t get bad any more. If I see her or my sister coming I just change the channel. If there is anything significant warranting actual attention I offer that but generally it is malfeasance and I walk.

my father is and always was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Claire got jealous of my special relationship with Steven (which does not exist any more; whether he is living or dead). She was jealous because I was bigger and older and stronger. She had animosity towards me that I was not aware of and my mother never bothered to clue me in. She did too!

it was like when I always blew the curve in math class and

I thought that was super funny and didn’t realize that my classmates did not enjoy that.

But, back to the point, the truth has been obvious to me, or at least, the part of it that I really needed to know.

I have been touching on this lately, but there was too much going on.

it was my brother.

he had been after me quite a bit on vacations as my parents always put us in the same bed.

that morning out on the beach I remember looking up at him with the worst feeling. Yes, I was 13.

he was the father of my child.

I’ve already talked about driving the boat up on the mudflats and that now I know they would be able to tell I was pregnant because I’ve seen similar situations myself as an adult.

So, as I understand it they took me for a DNC in New York and there were complications when I got home to New Jersey.

but they did what they do and sent me away to Kent School and used there methods to force me off of it in my mind. “It” would be the baby I lost, not understanding, and everything surrounding that. A little ‘it’ just like me. But I was a Kent School student. I was “a preppy.” Everything about me had to change.

I’ve been running ever since. For a while it became physical–running 5 miles a day because of something my father did that triggered the memories. And someone in my psych treatment said “why did that bother you so much?” and I thought that would be obvious and now I see it. It was a minor event but It is because of what I just said. It triggered those painful memories. Of Steven at the beach, and everything associated with it.

so, yeah, now i can figure it out about the abortions. I seemed to fit the perfect Project Rachel prototype: the abortion, the compensatory pregnancy and then, the atonement child. And somehow, on one level that remains true. Because I didn’t consciously understand or know about the child with Steven. But I couldn’t get anywhere with the counseling. So, I had FOUR children THREE ABORTED. That makes everything make sense.

I thought about the name a long while ago, when I was posting a lot prior to the alien encounter and going to the hospital. I called the child Arthur. He needed his name. It makes me feel slightly sick to think about it–about conceiving a child with my brother. But I know the child would need a name.

that’s the end of a long journey. I’m crying.

I have a lot of work to do.

this is good. It was always true since the beginning of time. It doesn’t do further harm to know it. It’s better to know.

My living son can finally take priority if he wants to. I know it’s been an insane life for him and how much hate he must have for me. All I can do is say how sorry I am, Ian and pray that in your greater maturity you will be able to see better THROUGH the things that you and everybody else took for granted at the time. And remember that John’s Hopkins had a hand in it. AND SUE.