Ever have one of those days where you've had your last argument, you've taken your last load of crap, and you have a valid passport? I have. I've had that urge to blow it all up again; not even the first time. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't do burning things like houses or beds, I don't do things like gluing a man's identity to his leg, and I don't do things out of spite, no matter how many men say so. I just own a pair of hiking shoes, and I can walk away.

Why am I possibly the most annoyed woman in the world? Because I've had enough. Let me start by saying that my name is Bourbon; not joking. My parents come from a long line of alcoholics with the last name of Forrester, originating from Saint Mary, Kentucky. Coincidentally, Old Forrester is the Bourbon that hails from that town, which apparently no longer is a real town according to the government. But, it's in the middle of Kentucky, so is that any surprise?

I am the last of six kids that were all unplanned and supposed to be raised by two people who had way more interest in Old Forrester than in kids or work, or just about anything. It's a well known fact that by the time parents have several kids that are nothing but an inconvenience to them, they start messing around with the names, and I got stuck with Bourbon Rose Forrester. I sound like I came straight out of a distillery.

As the story goes, my grandma was watching the other five kids when I was born, two brothers and three sisters. On the day I was born my siblings from oldest to youngest were Mabel, 12; Matthew, 10; Caleb, 8; Mary, 6; and Margaret, 4. I was beyond an afterthought or an accident or whatever you'd like to call it. My dad used to joke, or maybe not, that I belonged to the mailman. I was taller than the other girls. I had dark black hair, as opposed to the others having blond or light brown. I had bright green eyes, and the others all had blue eyes. As I got older, my chest became far larger than the other girls, and my feet never kept up with the gigantic feet of my siblings.

I don't remember being born, which I suppose is for the best, because my father didn't make it that day. He was busy fishing with his Old Forrester and couldn't be bothered to take part in my birth. I guess that's okay, because he wasn't there for anyone else's birth either. Mom's labor days didn't coincide well with his fishing plans. As I grew older, I realized that dad went fishing most days unless it wasn't in season. Sometimes he snuck a little in during the off season as well.

My dad named me. I was the only child he named. I think it shows why mom didn't normally let him name children. I felt a little slighted being named by my father, and we can't even discuss how I feel about a name like Bourbon. My dad never had any time for me, and I felt that I should have been closer to him, seeing as he named me and all. But, dad didn't much care about the rearing of the children. He only concerned himself with the creating of the children. After that was all taken care of, he headed to the liquor store and out to fish.

But, I digress. I grew up in Winsted, CT. That happened because of a flyer in the window of the local mom and pop pharmacy in Saint Mary, Kentucky. It was a long time ago, and I don't remember it because I was only six at the time. The flyer spoke of the great benefits of living in the state of Connecticut. My dad, Leo, was all about the benefits. He came from a long line of disabled people who couldn't work, because they didn't have time with all the bourbon and the fishing. My mom had something wrong with her that apparently caused her to have seizures, even though she never had one while I lived there. She hadn't ever worked outside the home, but she said that working at home with all us kids was harder than any paying job, even though it didn't pay a dime. My dad couldn't hold a job, so he couldn't work. Made sense when I was a kid. Now, I'm not so sure about that.

I started the first grade in Winsted. It was a whole different world to me. Kids talked different, dressed different, walked different, and behaved different. There were all kinds of kids there too. Some of them were from Jamaica and had the coolest accents I ever heard. I was so impressed by the diversity and the new input in my school that I didn't think too much about why it all happened. I was six and didn't learn to put things together until I got much older.

I was a bumpkin, or hillbilly, or whatever to the locals. I didn't care. I made friends quickly, because I wasn't in idiot as the monikers applied to me would suggest. My teachers were honestly surprised that I could keep up with the class and excel past them in most cases. I thought that I had a weird name, but the kids in my new school had some whoppers too. I didn't feel so bad about being a Bourbon when my two closest friends were Kenya and Emery. In Connecticut it seemed like a lot of people had odd names.

My dad didn't think much of my friends. I thought it was because Kenya was African American, but he didn't like Emery either. Emery was born in Britain and had a British accent. It didn't take long for me to discover that my dad was prejudiced against everyone that wasn't exactly like him, and that just pissed me off. I finally make two good friends that accept me for who I am, and my dad doesn't like them for no good reason. I decided the day that I figured out what a bigot he was that I would never be that way. Then he could not like me too. That was the first decision I made to not be like my parents. It was only the first in a long line of things that I would decide to do or not to do in order to not be like my parents.

In addition to the disappointment of being named after Kentucky Bourbon, I spent my formative years learning a lot about who my parents really were. My dad had a case worker who got him everything he ever wanted, as long as he didn't do anything to earn it. My mom toddled happily along, doing mom stuff and turning a blind eye to how useless dad really was. By the time I was eight years old, I realized that my dad went fishing every day, and I had never eaten fish. He didn't even like fish. Most of the time we had hamburger and whatever mom made with it that day. I thought that the day I found out that Santa Clause wasn't real was the worst day of my life; not that he ever brought me a present anyway. The day I found out that my dad never brought home a fish from fishing was a far more disappointing day for me.

By the time that I was in middle school, which was junior high where I was born, so I had to have it reexplained to me; I had learned a lot about life. At least I thought I'd learned a lot about life. I learned that people came from all over to get the benefits of living in Connecticut. I learned that if you are good at not being useful, you can get all kinds of money and services. I learned that the more kids you have, the more money the government gives you. Anyone who said that having a family wasn't a business never knew my parents. Ask my dad who was upset that my mom never got pregnant again after me. He got angry at her one night and said that she was ruining his life, because she couldn't seem to produce any more children. 

When I got to middle school, I was at the top of my class. That meant that I got to take part in honors classes. I was stunned at how much I was missing out on. I learned magical stuff in those honors classes. I also had a class where I started to learn to speak Italian. I'd learned plenty of Spanish and Jamaican style English, but Italian was exotic. Italians spoke it. The amazing people who brought the world art, religion and pizza. The very day that I started to go to Italian class was the day that I started to dream about going to Italy.

By the time I got to high school, or where I was Regional High School, I was into art, travel, languages, reading, writing, and anything that my parents said I couldn't make a living at. They called it rebellion. I called it being me. They wanted me to settle down and have kids.  By the time I went to Regional, I'd figured out that they wanted me to continue the family business and continue to live in some kind of sick communal family situation where everyone could share the benefits and sit around all day, or go fishing. Mabel had already joined the family business of producing children as had Matthew and Caleb. I was berated for being different. I wanted something besides children and benefits.

I continued to hang out with Kenya and Emery through school. We graduated together. Kenya had a scholarship to Yale, where she intended to become a lawyer. Emery had applied to and was accepted at Texas A & M where she wished to become a physicist. I took the hard road as I would spend the rest of my life doing and joined the Army. Bear with me. The Army saw that I scored a near perfect score on the ASVAB and offered me a special program in the intelligence sphere where I would learn several foreign languages. Having always been my passion, I couldn't pass it up. Not to mention, I was in great shape and they would pay me instead of the other way around for my education.

I was out of Connecticut. I went to boot camp, graduated and then went to foreign language school for weeks and weeks. It was the greatest time of my life, at least so far. I loved every minute of learning all those languages. They continually warned me that I may end up in some uncomfortable situations in my chosen field, which was basically being a spy; but I didn't care. I couldn't get enough of the adventure. The intrigue, the languages, the list of countries that I might be sent to while in the service. All I could think about was how great it would be to travel and to be able to talk to everyone everywhere I went.

Fast forward to a year later, and I had discovered that the languages and intelligence community was work. I still didn't mind, however, because I was living and working in Germany. I was out of the country. I didn't have my family in my way. I'd long since dropped any boyfriend I had in high school. I had no one to answer to in my personal life. My work was fulfilling, so I was good to go. Everywhere I went across Europe, from Germany to Belgium to France to England; I was an odd duck. I had little to no interest in being in a relationship. I was busy and didn't have time to answer to a man. I was experiencing the world.

Six years later, I got lucky enough to be offered a job at the United Nations. I could interpret so many languages that they offered me a ton of money to come and do it for them. I had a higher security clearance that a lot of diplomats, so I could hear whatever they talked about. I worked with the members of the European Union. I did speak most of the languages. It was the greatest job in the world to me. I'd gotten a master's degree in foreign languages and I hadn't paid a dime. It was the best decision I ever made.

Twenty five years old and living in Manhattan. I was living my best life and enjoying every minute of it. I ran along the river every day. I took the green lines up and down the island. I lived near NYU. Life was good. I never really heard from my parents or my siblings. That didn't bother me. I had a good life, and I didn't owe that to anyone. I did it myself. I didn't drink, particularly not Bourbon. I didn't smoke or do drugs. I enjoyed life, perfectly sober. I was proud of myself, because I hadn't become my parents. That was the goal, and that was my biggest achievement.

What I didn't realize was that I had emotions and feelings, and that once I let my guard down to let a man in, I would have more trouble than I would ever know what to do with. I thought, naively, that I would be able to find a man that appreciated me for the intelligent, capable, adventurous, self confident, independent, world traveling, educated, artistic woman that I was. I lived in New York City. How hard could that be?