so how does an egg get scrambled?

Ever wonder what the first person who scrambled an egg was thinking? I mean think about it...they are holding an egg, probably getting ready to poach it or set for frying when while cracking the egg, the yolk gets broken and well they probably panicked. Maybe they thought they could use a fork to re-assemble the egg only to figure out that whipping it into a frenzy it would look like one big yolk. The rest is history. Omlets, souffles, mayonaise, fritattas, scramble eggs, and quiches are just the first things that come to mind.

On the human front, at least for me, it seems the same. Events took place to crack the shell, maybe not by choice but just the cards being dealt at the time. Somehow, the cracking of the shell caused the yolk break too.

First Crack:
My parents divorced when I was 8. It wasn't like we were sad to see it happen. My father was an extremely violent and honestly, evil man. He had a short fuse and would blow up for the smallest things. He beat my mom the entire time they were married. When that didn't seem to be enough, he beat my brother and occasionally he beat my sister. He never hit me -- not during this marriage. He saved that for later. My father, though, seemed shocked as all get out that my mom finally said enough. One thing I have learned about women in my life. We take a lot of crap, but when we finally say enough, there is no turning back. It took my mom 14 years, several police home visits, guns being held to her head, knives to her throat and the occasional dragging across the kitchen floor by her hair. When she said enough... it really was. Within a short period of time, my father was out. The twist is that I went with him. I was a kid. My father said he would kill himself if I didn't go. While I knew what he had done, he was still my father. I did not want him to die, not if I could stop it. So I went. I think that move, secured my place in the scrambled eggs hall of fame.

So, perhaps, like the the newbie who busted the yolk, my initial action was to get the yolk whole again. Not reconcile my parents, but to keep my father alive. When you're that young and the world is falling apart around you and you couple that with a manipulative person like my father using suicide to take you away, you do believe somehow you can fix it and if not, it is all your fault.

I would say that this was the first time the shell was really cracked and the yolk broken. Prior to this, the violence was all that I knew. While I knew it wasn't safe, I did not know it wasn't normal. It really was all I knew. I remember getting on my bike and riding to a neighbors house to call police to stop the fights. I was 6 years old. I also remember getting slapped silly for getting inbetween my father and my mom in one of his rages. As strange as it sounds, it was normal to me. Like clockwork, every friday night. They would go out, come back, fight, my siblings would hide and I would stupidly try to stop things.

Leaving my mom made me playdough for my father's manipulation and he was the master. I bet Fisher Price would have made big dough (pun intended) if they had someone like him dreaming up ways to form, design and mold playdough. I was with my father for 4 years. During the first two, I had no direct contact with my mom. He intercepted every call, letter and package. He used that time to tell me how cold and uncaring my mom was. By the end of the second year, I believed every word he said. This was 1975, courts did little to ensure parenting plans, child support, etc were enforced.

But again, like the newbie that broke the egg yolk the first time, I still kept trying to repair the yolk. Something deep down made me believe that what was right would overcome what was happening... and regrouping was possible. Boy was I dreaming.

more tomorrow