Tracey Hallberg Introduction, Part 4

Tracey Anne Hallberg is my Monday Guest Contributor.  She is a survivor of Family Crisis, and proof positive that there is light on the other side.  She shares from her heart, leaving very little to the imagination.  

Her story is valid, important, and needs to be shared.  My personal journey is very different from hers, but on my journey, I have come upon many...many...who have had to live through horrors similar to the upbringing Tracey was forced to endure.  

Tracey is one of the most courageous women I have had the privilege to know, and I am honored to share Wings Like Eagles with her every Monday.

Tracey's account is graphic and raw, and is not suitable for young or sensitive readers.  I give her posts a strong PG-13 rating.

  

California

Click Here to See Part 1

Click Here to See Part 2

Click Here to See Part 3

Back to Dick.

I was 14.  I had taken enough of Mama, Dick and being called stupid, feelin' insignificant and worthless.  I sat on the porch swing on the redwood deck with Mama that day.  Sippin' sweet tea, lookin' out at the big garden to our right, beautiful landscapes she had built.  Watchin' and hearin' the birds chirp in the birdbaths she had put in the ground herself.  Red and yellow roses all in a row, surrounded by brick incasings. Mama was so proud of her home.  We had never stayed in any one place that long.  Dick had taken us from the flood in Alexandria cuz the roaches had took over, to a new life.  Afterall, he saved us.  I remember the taste of the air, the sounds of the birds, the feel of the spring breeze.  Then I said these words to her.  They say that in the most impactin' moments, you remember everythin'.

 "Mama, you asked me, why I sleep on the couch when I got my own room.  I know, we have had to do things to stay fed.  But Mama, I am older now, and I don't like old men, and I don't feel safe.  I never have.  I thought maybe if I sleep on the couch, he won't touch me, if he thinks you might walk in.  But he still watches his videos and touches himself while he looks at me, and I jest don't think it's right.  I feel gross, and dirty."

I will never forget my Mama's words, so long as I shall live.  She said, "Tracey Anne. I told you all men are the same.  They only want one thing.  You are lucky.  My father did ten times worse to me. You got no right. Besides, where are you gonna go?"

That is when I finally realized, Mama was not gonna leave him, change, or ever protect me.  I would have to leave.

I was fourteen.  I found my father again.  He sent me a plane ticket.  He lived in San Jose, California.  I remember listening to my favorite Tom Petty song on my walkman, on the Airplane, "Won't Back Down."

Well I won't back down
No I won't back down
You could stand me up at the gates of Hell
But I won't back down
No I'll stand my ground
Won't be turned around
And I'll keep this world from draggin' me down
Gonna stand my ground
And I won't back down.
Hey, baby. There ain't no easy way out.
Hey, I will stand my ground.
And I won't back down.

God was with me.  My God.  Nobody else's.  Mine.

The months to come, would become some of the hardest months of my life.  Most of the world had told me I was worthless.  I didn't know what to expect of my real father, if he would be like my grandpa or what the heckor to expect.

I had abandoned my mother, in her words, which she told me every day in her phone calls.  She would call and cry, and cry, and cry.  Laying guilt trips on me.  Still to this day I cannot stand guilt.  It triggers me beyond words.  She'd say, "You have to come back home.  I am all alone."

I would tell her, "I am not safe, until you are well.  The last thing you had asked me to do in a drunken stupor was to save your relationship by having his baby, after you set the back porch on fire, ran to the back woods, jumped in the old abandoned car on the property and set THAT on fire, with yourself in it.  I had run to the old car, on fire, with a baseball bat, screamin' and cryin' trying to bust open the windshield."  

She was leaning' up against a tree, smokin' a cig, sayin', "Haha!  It was hot in thare!"  You can see why, when the firemen came, I was sittin' on the front porch swing, no expression, just swingin'.  One of them asked me, "Little lady, you OK?"  I looked up at him and said, "Jest let her die already."

I can still remember the time I was three, I woke up to the horrible taste of metal in my mouth.  The horrific screams of  my 8 year-old sister, seein' her pullin' out her hair, staring down at mama in pools of her own blood with her wrists cut.  This was right after Uncle Neal blew his brains out.  So my childhood wasn't somethin' I cared to save.  Memories so horrible I shudder to mention, but I do, so they don't eat the soul inside of me.  So I told them to jest let her die.  I was numb.

I would never go back there.  I went to Washington High School when Daddy moved us to Fremont, California.  We had a cat named Bear, I think, and it was jest he and I.

And.  He.  Was not.  A pervert.  Go figure.  All men don't jest want one thing.  Mama had created her own truth.  Sad.  But true.

I was more grateful for the fact he didn't wanna have sex with me, than any amount of clean clothes or baths in the world.  And he had a microwave.  Which I put a fork in, cuz I had never seen one before.  I thought only rich people had them.

He didn't belittle me when I blew up the microwave.  He jest laughed.  I love my Daddy.  He is the bombdiggity.

 Even if he wanted to take us, Mama was so crazy, she would have killed him then herself.  Daddy was always afraid of her.

I went to school.  Made good grades, was even popular.  Fer awhile.  Til I started gettin' the wrong attention from the wrong boys.

I ended up hangin' out, smokin' weed, quit my softball team to hang out with my friends.  Daddy was so pissed.  He didn't know what to do.  He said, "That's your Mama in you."

The attention made me happy.  From boys my own age.  I had never gotten THAT before.  Jest grody old men.

See, the enemy has tried to distract me from my purpose, many times.

I met a boy, by the name of Jean-Claude.  He spoke French and was very nice to me.  I dropped out of the 11th grade and traveled the country with him.  We dropped acid, smoked alot of pot.  It was fun. God protected me there.  My health, and that he never abused me.  Kept me safe.  He was amazing. But my anxiety of moving around got the better of me.  I would have fits of PTSD, emotional outbursts so severe, he didn't know what to do with me. We visited my sister in Louisiana, where she struggled with alcohol and meth addiction for many years.  I ended up breaking up with him for sleeping with MY SiSteR!  I cannot say I was too faithful to him either.  But, we were nice to each other, so that was good.  I still talk to him to this day.  He turned out to be a wonderful father.  Say, "No!" to drugs, man!

Then I met Chris. That was scary. He did Meth and I tried it too.  I did it a couple of times.  I was done. God saved me there.  Horrible drug.  He pulled a knife on me in the middle of the night.  I got out ASAP.

      

I went to visit my sister cuz I had been out of Daddy's so long.  Pride would not allow me to return. Dana and I went on a road trip to Tijuana, bought some pottery to sell roadside in Oregon.  But that was a bad deal cuz she and her husband drank up all the profits, and they got in horrible knock down drag outs, whereas I got kicked in the head with a steel toe boot, trying to protect her.  I left with my bag, hitch hiking that night, California-bound.  Got picked up by a trucker.  "Put out or get out," he said.  So I put out.  The next trucker, I asked him.  What did HE want?  His reply?  "OMG!  I have a daughter your age!  What is wrong with you?"

I made it to California, worn out, headwound, drug out, hungry, soul dead.  

Rented a room from the paper with the little money I had from selling my belongings in a yard sale with my sister.

Started workin' at Nation's Hamburgers in Fremont California, got my GED, and began going to college.  Uncle Mickey's voice of God, still in there. "Stay in school.  It's your only way out."

My sister called me cryin' one day.  She was soooo sorry for what happened to me.  Missed me so much.  Felt awful.  I forgave her for everything, but never again did I trust staying with her.

College was great.  I would ride my bike all the way up Ohlone Hill.  I took sign language classes. Mama and Daddy were proud of me.  It's my passion I found out.  I like to talk.  To anyone who will listen.  God gave me a voice that even the deaf can hear.

TRACEY'S STORY CONTINUES NEXT MONDAY