Today, I am grateful for an interesting life. Despite, abuse in my childhood and her life-long alcoholism, my mom gave me an interesting life and uncommon experiences. via /r/gratitude

A comment on Reddit this morning got me going down a rabbit hole of thought and memory. My mother is nearly 80 now. She’s a life long alcoholic and bi polar. Now, she also has both vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s. She’s been a lot. She was abusive when I was a child. She left me in the hands of abusive people. She has been a lot to deal with in adult life and I have had to cut her out of my life several times.

Despite all of this, I am remembering the roadtrip she took me on when I was four. We drove down the US east coast and then along the Gulf of Mexico, through Texas and into northern Mexico. I still remember nights lying in the back hatch area of our 1972 Ford Pinto staring up at the stars. Along the way, we picked up a wanderer who would later become quite well-known after he authored a popular book on being the child of an alcoholic (a weird coincidence for my life) and together the three of us adventured across the border in into Mexico. I rode burros with Mexican boys in a border town. I crossed into Mexico technically illegally riding on the future author’s shoulders as he waded the Rio Grande. I wandered Mexican back streets with him while my mother recovered from bouts of drunkenness back in the hotel. We were cornered by a group of young toughs with bullwhips in a back alley. We were let go, as both the author and my mother later told me, because of some local legend about a white haired boy and in the desert sun my blond hair was nearly white.

Later, we had interesting visitors: an African physician my mom dated, friends who stopped by while traveling between different communes they lived in. She took me to a holiday party given by a small Marxist-Leninist group she somehow came into contact with. In the ‘60s mom had become friends with a few people in the music world. This led to free tickets to see a major performer who was managed by her old friend’s husband. She knew people who wrote for Rolling Stone magazine in its early rebel days. We went to dinner with an old friend of hers who was a member of a famous folk trio and went backstage to several of their shows. I think she’d had a fling with him and used to daydream he was my real father instead of the deadbeat who actually was.

With my mom as a child, I got to see much of the eastern US, usually traveling with just a car and a tent. I got to see northern Mexico on foot and by car as a young child.

Despite the alcohol, mental illness and abuse, my mother also taught me to read before kindergarten. We’d spend time each evening taking turns reading pages from The Hobbit. She always encouraged any interest I had and taught me to love reading, history, social and political thought. She mostly left me free to follow whatever ideas of trends I picked up on. Free thought was a priority. All of this benefitted me throughout my life.

While covert sexual abuse from her and physical abuse from her later boyfriend as well as the ravages of her drinking and mental illness brought much pain and trauma to my life she did give me an interesting childhood which allowed me to have a more open mind and willingness to explore different ideas and experiences as an adult. The pain and the damage is still there but today I am focusing on and being grateful for the good stuff and bountiful legacy she left me in other areas.