The Planetarium

Today we were talking about the planetarium. The place where our school takes a trip to learn about the sky and planets and everything space. My husband mentioned he would love to go again. I knew I had never been to our local planetarium. It was a trip every middle school takes. Today my kids asked WHY I have never been there and that was the question the sparked the answer I didn’t really want to know. For years I just figured I had been sick. But today when I answered it came out as “my… dad… called me off of school.” This answer lead to more questions of why he would do that. “Did he not want you going to then planetarium?” No. He was off of work, my mom was working, so he wanted the day to ourselves. You know, to have sex with his 12 year old daughter. I had forgotten it was the day of our trip as soon as he said he had called me out of school. I knew what that meant. I knew what kind of day I had ahead of me. But I remember getting on the bus the next school day and EVERYONE was talking about how awesome it was and asking why I wasn’t there. I, of course, gave the “I was sick” excuse which quickly became my reality. But after years of dealing with the things my father has done to me, taken from me, I just keep uncovering more and more. All the little details. All those times. And now it is just one more thing stolen from my childhood. The trip to the planetarium.