Letting go of yesterday. Book excerpt.

When I was five years old, my older sister Angelina told me to let go, that she would catch me.
I was hanging from the second story balcony of our apartments. Prior to this, I sat alone, picking random blades of dead grass and watching the older kids climb over the rail then drop 7 feet to coolness. Soon I found myself once again wanting to fit in.
My little hands were slowly losing the fight.
“Just let go I’ll catch you!’
Glancing over my shoulder I noticed that the kids I was breaking my neck trying to so desperately ‘wow’, had lost interest and were now huddled underneath the broken street lamp. I should have kept my little but on the grass and left this madness to them but it was too late. I fell and in the process of breaking my fall, I shattered my left wrist. My sister failed to keep her promise and I failed yet again to make the team.
Arriving home from the hospital, I brought with me a plaster cast and an excuse to miss school for a while. A week later I returned and was vaulted into the role of the coolest kid in kindergarten. Everyone flooded me with questions about my arm and so I lied in great detail about how all of my friends and I took turns leaping from my roof. By the end of that day, my cast was completely covered with names and little doodles curtesy of my new friends. Had I known something positive could derive from such pain, I would of thought twice about constantly wearing long sleeve shirts.
I skipped home that day but was quickly tripped up by my father’s sour mood. He took one look at my cast and demanded to know “WHO IN THE HELL SAID YOU COULD DO THAT?” As I sit here many years later I still draw a blank when looking for an answer. But to be honest it wouldn’t have mattered what I came up with because any answer would have still resulted in a trip to the closet where the metal coat hanger was. Standing there in the living room naked dad gave me what I had coming and I left without going anywhere. Whether it was the coat hanger or my father’s words, I tried to only be physically present.
Eventually my needing to feel acceptance would drive the wedge deeper between my father and I.
“Daddy my arm is itchin real bad and I can’t reach it” I complained some months later. Rising from the couch my father snatched me up by the nape of my neck and pushed me into the kitchen.
“SIT YOUR ASS DOWN!”
Doing what I was told, I found a seat at our little kitchen table while dad rummaged through drawers. Violence was the only solution to my family’s problems and at five years old, I had become accustomed to this. However when I saw my dad coming at me with a large knife, I became a little nervous.
Without a word my father sat beside me and began to scratch the itch.
“Daddy I don’t think it’s ready to come off yet” I cried. With a catty look, he continued to saw away. Between my tears and the dust from the cast I was unable to see if he was making any progress but I felt the hot knife every time it found my skin. Eventually the cast came off.
“There you can scratch it all day if you want now!” he said as he staggered back to the living room and resumed his place in front of the television. Through blurry eyes I inspected a bloody arm that I didn’t recognize. Picking up what remained of my self-worth, I made an optimistic attempt to revive it only to realize that it was no use. My father had destroyed everything. Cast included.