The story I never expected to tell

So I had a conversation the other day with Geraldo Rivera.

Like a REAL conversation. On the radio. For a whole, like, six and half minutes.

The reason I had a conversation with Geraldo Rivera is because I worked in Uganda for about eighteen months on a war that, honestly, not too many people cared about for twenty years.

Well, until now, that is.

And the reason I was there in Uganda was because I was all burned out from working on two wars that I had a feeling that most Americans didn't really care about too much anymore either.

But the war I was talking about the other day was getting attention because of an organization called Invisible Children and a cause that I very much support: apprehending one of this and the last century's worst serial killers. I was attracted to this war, and to this country, in the beginning because I thought it must be complete bullshit that something like this was really going on somewhere and no one cared. No one was paying attention.

Well, they were and they weren't. And now they are but not necessarily for all the right reasons. And I was too although I feel differently now. And I do and I don't feel differently now sometimes for all the same reasons.

And there's a lot of things you can read about if you now Google either "Joseph Kony" or "Kony2012" or the "Lord's Resistance Army" or any combination of those themes.

And you should. Because you should care.

But what amazes me is that I do still care.

Here's why:

Those years, those years of escape to a new war, a new cause, opened up such a mortal wound in my soul that for a long time I wished I were dead.

You see, I was essentially fired from my job of caring and knowing about Uganda in early 2010 for no reason other than some vague reference to "my performance."

We all made nice about it, and I basically resigned under threat of being thrown out of the country with no compensation or resources to get home. Even after I resigned, it cost me upwards of $15,000 in bills and things that I was forced to leave behind because I was not given an allowance to get my things out of the country in a timely fashion and my computer and cell phone were confiscated, making me reliant upon my own Blackberry (at the tune of $5.99/minute) to get myself out of there.

To this day, I still do not have a clue what I did wrong. My boss, and the head of the organization that I was working for, was one of my best friends and had been my mentor for the near decade I had been in DC.

He never even called me to fire me himself. He dispatched two women who were hateful and refused to give me an indication as to what had prompted this sudden firing.

We had done all of my books...there were no financial irregularities. We had gone over my past performance reviews, I was one of the top employees two months before and had just scored a renewed 1.5 million dollar U.S. government contract. I had cards and letters and emails from the folks providing the funding attesting to the fact that I was of both service and benefit.

I embarrassed myself the morning of my termination by begging, literally, flat out begging, to know what I had done wrong. I wrote frantic emails to my boss imploring him to please, please at least tell me what he "thought" I had done wrong. To please, please, please just tell me...I could handle anything and I could certainly show him that whatever he thought I had done wrong, I could show him I didn't. Or didn't intend to...or wasn't aware of...or, whatever, just an explanation of some sort, please!!

I got nothing in return. Silence.

This might be the very worst part about being fired. It is easier when you are told something that you did wrong directly. Or something that someone suspected that you did wrong. Or, well, something, anything.

I was told nothing.

It was crushing. Because if I have done nothing right whatseover in my life, I am professional. I have always been serious about my work and serious about who and what it affects.

I am an expert, a professional, at fucking up relationships of the intimate variety, but I am anal and scrupulous about my job. Nuts, actually, I would even go so far to declare that I am nuts about being a professional.

In an odd twist of karma, though, nothing hurt or fucked me up as badly as that forced resignation. Not all my crash-and-burn attempts at love or even the untimely suicide of my father when I twenty years old.

The reason why is because I could chart the course of destruction with those events. I could remember the fights and the infidelities, in the case of the former, and I could remember the harrowing insanity that eventually had only one ultimate outlet even if I didn't want to see at that way, in the case of the latter.

In all of those other instances, I was numb for a few weeks, a few months, maybe even a year.

In this case I was nearly dead on the inside for a year and just numb for another six months after that.

I could still love, and I thank God/the Universe/Whatever, for never taking that away. But it wasn't my kind of love. It was the "I love you because you are the only thing sane around that is keeping me from pouring vodka into my coffee mug this morning instead of coffee." It was the "I love you because you knew me BEFORE this whole thing and still remember me from something else I did that might have been worthwhile before I became so worthless."

But no, that's kind of wrong too, because I did fall in love with someone during that time period. I still am in love with someone from that time period. Actually, I am in love with a whole town's worth of people from that time period. And this time period, because they're still here.

And so am I.

When I got fired/forced-to-resign, something broke. Really broke.

And like all bad fractures, the recovery time could not be measured so much in weeks and months as in minor obstacles overcome slowly over time as the break mends.

At first, the mention of Uganda or Africa or law or war crimes or child soldiers or...any number of related topics...would literally send me lurching into the nearest bathroom to either be sick or sit down next to the toilet and sweat it out until the feeling passed. Usually with my head between my legs on the floor until someone came to rescue me from my head and my living nighmares.

A few months later, working at a greenhouse in southern New Jersey making $10/hour but finally out of the house and out of my head, the owner tapped me on the shoulder:

"I hate to bother you but I just have to ask you something. I Googled your name out of curiosity and found someone with your name had lived in Uganda and Washington, DC and had written quite a lot on war and...."

He said other things. He recounted all of my employment history according to Google.

Which made him rightfully wonder why I was watering plants and picking weeds in the burning July sun in Jersey.

"I needed a change," I remember spitting up.

To his credit, he just nodded, thanked me for my hard work at the greenhouse, and then walked away.

That night, I went home and collapsed on the couch in a panic attack. I was somewhere in-between biting the throw pillow to keep from gagging and rubbing my hands up and down my arms to stop feeling so cold although it was a 90 degree night in the dead of summer.

My boyfriend (the one who I fell in love with during that time) came in from his job, saw the somewhat familiar sight of his girlfriend in the midst of (yet another) panic attack, and said, "Now what?"

Not unkindly, not unreasonably. But just exasperated.

Now. What.

As I spilled out the details of having been "found out," he just sighed.

"Why are YOU acting like you did something wrong? Why are you acting like a fugitive? Why are you letting some fucked up narrative that they didn't even bother to consult you about you affect your life?"

And: "When do you think you're going to reclaim your own story and your own destiny again?"

"Cause, shit, Patti, everything does have a shelf life..."

Oddly, that hit me.


"Everything does have a shelf life."

When I went back to work in December of 2010, I still was a long way off from reclaiming my destiny.

It was that way for about ten months until a major news item started breaking on Uganda and the U.S. military decision to send in (new but additional) troops to hunt down Joseph Kony, the subject of the most recent viral video, #KONY2012.

I was suddenly burning all over on the inside. I knew what was going on, I had very strong opinons about it, and I wanted to say something.

Fuck, this had been MY LIFE for nearly two years.

So I did nothing.

Until my colleague who has also logged many hours in Uganda came busting in to my office and said, "We HAVE to write something about this. An opinion editorial, something, we know this shit, we know the inside of the story. We HAVE TO!!"

I turned him down, pleaded ignorance, and went home that night with a heavy heart.

Then, at about 2am the next morning, I got up and started to write.

Fuck that, I thought. I can write my thoughts and screw the non-disclosure agreement and all the other mountains of legal nonsense I had signed to ensure that no one ever knew that I existed in my capacity as a legal advisor to the government and the very citizens being affected by some of these changes.

Fuck them. This experiment had cost me money and friendships. A lot of money and a lot of friendships that were terminated by the mere fact that I suddenly wasn't wanted anymore and no one told me (or them) why. Let them sue me, I wasn't mentioning any names or involved parties but I sure as hell could give a pretty decent account of the situation on the ground which was being grossly distorted by the media and others. And, besides, it was my experience, no buy-offs can attempt to own someone's experience. You just can't buy that part.

By the next morning, I had at least four different versions of opinion pieces written that I put down on my colleagues' desk.

"Use one, use bits of one, use all of them...but here's how I feel about the whole thing..." I told him.

I was tempted to add, "But just leave my name out of it," but I didn't. It WAS my experience.

And, combined with his, it proved to be a winning combination. The article was picked up by a major paper immediately.

And how did I celebrate? I sat in my house for three nights convinced that the equivalent of the "Legal Men in Black" were coming to get me and sue my ass.

None of that ended up happening, of course. Because there was no reason for that to happen.

But when you get paranoid...well, trust me, you get paranoid.

The next time someone asked me about Uganda and my experiences, I stopped hesitating.

Yeah, I prefaced it with all the "this is only my personal experience based on my personal exposure based on my personal time, based on my..."

But, by then, no one cared. They had checked me out. They knew that I had done what I had said I had done.

And then, slowly but surely, I stopped worrying.

When I got invited to speak on panels in DC about Uganda, I went. When someone called me from the press or from another think tank to see if I could offer a perspective, I did.

Was the scary, "Holy shit they are going to hunt me down and arrest me for ever speaking" ghost in my mind? Of course. Still is, to some extent. But not so much anymore.

Because the thing is that they can't take your experiences away from you.

And, even if they could try, they are still mine.

My boyfriend used to say, back in the days when I was still into getting sick when someone mentioned the words "Africa," "Uganda," and "war," that they couldn't 'take my birthday away.'

I used to think of that in literal terms.

As in: Someone named me was born on December 14 in Connecticut, moved to Philadelphia, went to college, wanted to be a veterinarian, failed miserably at that, was resurrected, moved to DC....

Blah, blah, blah.

But that is not what it meant.

It meant that no one could take my experiences away from me. Or my perceptions. Or, really, who and what I chose to love, legally or not.

So when Geraldo called, I thought, why not?

The interview went OK. Well, even.

But it was a story I never expected to tell.

I am telling it.

And I will again and again.

Everyone deserves their own story.

And that was mine.

It is not mine any longer.

Now it's ours, because you read it.

And I thank you for doing that.