April 8 Means She's 29

I was working with about 500 other people in the basement of a closed down, abandoned old department store, our temporary work site while the city hall building of the City of Whittier was being renovated (it had been determined it was cheaper to relocate all the workers rather than work around us). It was also where I turned 29, having a 5 year-old kid and was trying to reconstruct my life from a divorce. (Several years later that renovated municipal building would suffer during the Northridge earthquake and those same people became emergency response teams for the entire community.)

I knew my kid would be okay, cuz I had enough love to keep my arms around her forever.

It was walking-zombie-land for awhile; I was physically there, but not altogether. I recall having to go back home while I frantically drove (her to preschool and me to work at the City) and getting forgotten lunches, matching shoes and the sort.

There came a time that I knew I was gonna make it and being 29 and divorced and having a kid wasn't the worst thing in the world. I created friendships and re-connected with family. Not ever really a drinking person, I did the divorce initiation ceremony of overpartying, a night of too many tall Long Island Ice Tea's (the kind that have lots of different types of liquor and go down so smoothly) found me laying on the top of a six foot brick wall. It must have been easy to climb, but the fall hurt like hell.

My kid is 29 now. Her divorce initiation ceremony unfortunately found her meeting her neighbors, one of whom was a young 'puppy' and the other, a female, a registered nurse. Puppy boy turned out to be not just fun to hang with but between puppy-boy and the nurse who was a functioning methhead, my kid was introduced to meth.

I didn't have my arms around her cuz' she was an adult and needed to initiate on her own. It must have been easy for her to try meth the first time and become addicted, she says the fall hurt like hell.

She is lucky because she didn't sink as far as many people do from this particular drug. She's finally got most of her life together again, this is now three years later. Last month she celebrated her three-year sobriety mark, today she celebrates her 29 years' day.

She says she is proud of me and I am extremely proud of her. My kid.