This is probably a good reference point for everyone, even myself.
For a brief explanation:
Mom and dad never married
Dad had my brother, then got married and had a boy, two girls and another boy
Divorced after 21 years
Mom got married, had a boy and girl
Divorced after 3 years
Married a man with two sons the age of my brother and sister
Divorced after 4 years
Married a man with twin autistic boys
Still married
My Paternal grandparents had 11 kids, I have one aunt that passed away, Total they have 50 grandkids
>>Fun Fact, THIS grandpa had a twin brother, they lived next door and he also had 11 kids
My Maternal grandmother, she has one other daughter. My mom and aunt have different dads, neither of their fathers are the man my grandma was married to at the time. I have never met my grandfather. I asked once when I was little why I didn't have a grandpa there, and the answer was "because we just don't."
If your head isn't spinning, then you can carry on...
Monday, August 17, 2015
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
The things you just can't explain
I was always a straight A student.
As a child, I am told that I loved pickles- today, the sight and smell makes me want to vomit. Pickle juice is the product of the devil.
My hands and feet are always cold, always.
Adding up long math problems on paper with a mechanical pencil is soothing to me.
Certain moments and conversations in your life you just never forget, no matter how hard you try.
Ryan was a young guy. He saw a young, good looking gal in my mother. She just came with some baggage, three children. While the youngest was cute and became pretty attached to him, she was less than a year when we moved in, my brother was more than a handful and I can't imagine I was a batch of roses. Throw the three of us into the fact that my mother and Ryan worked separate shifts and he was responsible for three children (while he himself was well under the age of thirty), and you can come to see how his temper and tolerance for us wasn't exactly perfect.
Discipline wasn't consistent or anything you would read abut in a Parents magazine- at either of my parents houses. My mother either wouldn't stick to her threats or would go too far with them. Ryan, who shouldn't have had much authority over us, went a little too far, and then was encouraged by my mother. A common reason for discipline was not cleaning, keeping in mind that my brother and I would have been in third and first grade. I can't remember when it started, I don't recall how often it happened, and I don't remember who found out first- but I do remember the belt, and all the marks it left one me.
I know my mom knew about it, and she didn't stop Ryan. My brother was hit as well, and to this day I don't know if his father did anything about it. Somehow my father found out, for years I think my mother assumed it was her mother, my grandmother who basically raised me, that told. I know that it wasn't her because until recent years she wasn't even aware of what had gone on.
It was the end of third grade, maybe even the summer after third grade. My father, my stepmother and my fathers youngest daughter and I all went to Children's hospital. I didn't know why until we got there. No one explained anything to me, I don't recall the ride, just the room I was in with my dad and some strange man with a large camera that had a big hot flash. He was documenting the bruises across my back and butt. After all the court arguments and cases that my parents had brought against one another, I think at this point in time, even at this age, I wondered if I had given one of my parents another pawn. As we walked across the glass bridge over the road, my father and stepmother tried to whisper a conversation and make lighthearted jokes about sending pictures of my butt to people. To this day, every time I make that trip across the bridge that conversation plays in my head and I am that same third grader. I can see the cars below me and it is summer, my dads shadow is behind me and I can feel my world changing with every little step I take. The power struggle of my parents is just beginning to take root.
As a child, I am told that I loved pickles- today, the sight and smell makes me want to vomit. Pickle juice is the product of the devil.
My hands and feet are always cold, always.
Adding up long math problems on paper with a mechanical pencil is soothing to me.
Certain moments and conversations in your life you just never forget, no matter how hard you try.
Ryan was a young guy. He saw a young, good looking gal in my mother. She just came with some baggage, three children. While the youngest was cute and became pretty attached to him, she was less than a year when we moved in, my brother was more than a handful and I can't imagine I was a batch of roses. Throw the three of us into the fact that my mother and Ryan worked separate shifts and he was responsible for three children (while he himself was well under the age of thirty), and you can come to see how his temper and tolerance for us wasn't exactly perfect.
Discipline wasn't consistent or anything you would read abut in a Parents magazine- at either of my parents houses. My mother either wouldn't stick to her threats or would go too far with them. Ryan, who shouldn't have had much authority over us, went a little too far, and then was encouraged by my mother. A common reason for discipline was not cleaning, keeping in mind that my brother and I would have been in third and first grade. I can't remember when it started, I don't recall how often it happened, and I don't remember who found out first- but I do remember the belt, and all the marks it left one me.
I know my mom knew about it, and she didn't stop Ryan. My brother was hit as well, and to this day I don't know if his father did anything about it. Somehow my father found out, for years I think my mother assumed it was her mother, my grandmother who basically raised me, that told. I know that it wasn't her because until recent years she wasn't even aware of what had gone on.
It was the end of third grade, maybe even the summer after third grade. My father, my stepmother and my fathers youngest daughter and I all went to Children's hospital. I didn't know why until we got there. No one explained anything to me, I don't recall the ride, just the room I was in with my dad and some strange man with a large camera that had a big hot flash. He was documenting the bruises across my back and butt. After all the court arguments and cases that my parents had brought against one another, I think at this point in time, even at this age, I wondered if I had given one of my parents another pawn. As we walked across the glass bridge over the road, my father and stepmother tried to whisper a conversation and make lighthearted jokes about sending pictures of my butt to people. To this day, every time I make that trip across the bridge that conversation plays in my head and I am that same third grader. I can see the cars below me and it is summer, my dads shadow is behind me and I can feel my world changing with every little step I take. The power struggle of my parents is just beginning to take root.
When Life Started to Really Change
We moved to an actual house! Each of us had our own rooms, there was a garage, a backyard and our street was paved and not busy so we could ride our bikes! It was also a shady neighborhood and we couldn't be out near nighttime. We had a neighbor, Big Chris, who lived with his mom in an apartment complex next to us, who played with us all the time. He had to be quite a few years older than us, and bless his heart for entertaining our bratty little selves. His mother was a very mean lady- she was constantly yelling at him and screaming, she was also a very large woman. I used to wonder why he didn't just run when he took a swing at her- there was no way that she could catch him.
We had quite a few characters around us at this house. A very nice old lady across the street- Mrs. Buzelli, her neighbor, Dale (who to this day I am sure was a child molester), a foster house down the street, and our neighbors Larry & Molly. Back then I didn't understand Larry & Molly, I only knew that Molly had four kids- one of them was Larry's, two of them were from another man and the oldest was from another man. I understood how this worked, since my brother and sister had a different father than me. What I didn't know was what else went on next door, Larry and Molly were very "friendly" people, and they liked to experiment in not only the bedroom but with various drugs. Obviously they hid it pretty well, because I didn't know anything until I was much older.
Molly's kids were right about the age of the three of us (my siblings and I). Brandi was the oldest and a year older than me, Brit was a year younger than me, Bradley was the same age as my brother and Courtney was a year younger than my sister. It was just meant to be!
This house is probably the most memorable of all the houses that I lived in with my mother, it is also the last house I lived in with my mother.
My brother and I attended a small Catholic school a few blocks away. We walked to school each morning. There was a woman at school that would pick us up in the morning after she found out we were walking the streets that we were walking. My mother worked the day shift and Ryan worked the night shift at Little Tykes, so in the mornings there wasn't always someone home when we left for school. Our first day of school, my mom and Ryan picked us up with two new rottweiler puppies- Just what a Kindergartener and a Second grader need, right? We named them Sasha and Conan, they were sisters.
There are endless memories in this house- sleepovers, our first trampoline, our pool in the back yard, roller skating in the street, and all the times I was the victim of being scared. It seems through my life I am always in the wrong place at the wrong time and people scare me instead of who they intend.
We each had our own room at this house- Kate had a Winnie the Pooh themed room (and a playroom next to mine), Chris had a paint splattered room, and I had a Mickey Mouse theme. My brother recalls that my sister had a ball pit that I apparently hated- I don't remember hating the ball pit exactly, but I must have. I do remember that we had to clean my sisters play room an awful lot and would get in trouble if we didn't.
This is also the house where our puppies had their own puppies. We eventually got a third Rotty, Zues, he was trained in German and was an outside dog. He knocked up the girls and taught my brother and I that the dogs could get stuck to one another, even through the fence! My dog had nine puppies and my brothers had two fat puppies. Our dining room was a nasty poop filled puppy area. Considering I can count on my hands how many times I remember eating in that room the entire time we lived there, I suppose it could have been worse.
The kitchen of the house was also used more as a storage area of sorts than an actual kitchen. The walls were notorious for containing leftovers of whatever food my mother threw (yes threw) either into the kitchen in anger, or at whomever was standing in the kitchen. Hamburgers from Hamburger Station were known to be hanging out on the ceiling. The irony being that we really didn't eat big meals at home, so I don't know where the mess was coming from.
I've stated that my mother is not a clean person, by any stretch of the imagination. Food that has been prepared tends to get furry before it finds its way to a garbage bag. Main staples are: Spaghetti and Hamburger helper. Looking back, this is a big reason for my hoarding now- I make sure that I have anything I could want to eat. I keep snacks on hand- just in case. I have the opposite problem of most people. If I know it is available then I don't want it, but if I don't have it, I will go out, buy it and devour it.
This house really was the turning point for many changes in my life...
We had quite a few characters around us at this house. A very nice old lady across the street- Mrs. Buzelli, her neighbor, Dale (who to this day I am sure was a child molester), a foster house down the street, and our neighbors Larry & Molly. Back then I didn't understand Larry & Molly, I only knew that Molly had four kids- one of them was Larry's, two of them were from another man and the oldest was from another man. I understood how this worked, since my brother and sister had a different father than me. What I didn't know was what else went on next door, Larry and Molly were very "friendly" people, and they liked to experiment in not only the bedroom but with various drugs. Obviously they hid it pretty well, because I didn't know anything until I was much older.
Molly's kids were right about the age of the three of us (my siblings and I). Brandi was the oldest and a year older than me, Brit was a year younger than me, Bradley was the same age as my brother and Courtney was a year younger than my sister. It was just meant to be!
This house is probably the most memorable of all the houses that I lived in with my mother, it is also the last house I lived in with my mother.
My brother and I attended a small Catholic school a few blocks away. We walked to school each morning. There was a woman at school that would pick us up in the morning after she found out we were walking the streets that we were walking. My mother worked the day shift and Ryan worked the night shift at Little Tykes, so in the mornings there wasn't always someone home when we left for school. Our first day of school, my mom and Ryan picked us up with two new rottweiler puppies- Just what a Kindergartener and a Second grader need, right? We named them Sasha and Conan, they were sisters.
There are endless memories in this house- sleepovers, our first trampoline, our pool in the back yard, roller skating in the street, and all the times I was the victim of being scared. It seems through my life I am always in the wrong place at the wrong time and people scare me instead of who they intend.
We each had our own room at this house- Kate had a Winnie the Pooh themed room (and a playroom next to mine), Chris had a paint splattered room, and I had a Mickey Mouse theme. My brother recalls that my sister had a ball pit that I apparently hated- I don't remember hating the ball pit exactly, but I must have. I do remember that we had to clean my sisters play room an awful lot and would get in trouble if we didn't.
This is also the house where our puppies had their own puppies. We eventually got a third Rotty, Zues, he was trained in German and was an outside dog. He knocked up the girls and taught my brother and I that the dogs could get stuck to one another, even through the fence! My dog had nine puppies and my brothers had two fat puppies. Our dining room was a nasty poop filled puppy area. Considering I can count on my hands how many times I remember eating in that room the entire time we lived there, I suppose it could have been worse.
The kitchen of the house was also used more as a storage area of sorts than an actual kitchen. The walls were notorious for containing leftovers of whatever food my mother threw (yes threw) either into the kitchen in anger, or at whomever was standing in the kitchen. Hamburgers from Hamburger Station were known to be hanging out on the ceiling. The irony being that we really didn't eat big meals at home, so I don't know where the mess was coming from.
I've stated that my mother is not a clean person, by any stretch of the imagination. Food that has been prepared tends to get furry before it finds its way to a garbage bag. Main staples are: Spaghetti and Hamburger helper. Looking back, this is a big reason for my hoarding now- I make sure that I have anything I could want to eat. I keep snacks on hand- just in case. I have the opposite problem of most people. If I know it is available then I don't want it, but if I don't have it, I will go out, buy it and devour it.
This house really was the turning point for many changes in my life...
Thursday, January 2, 2014
The first end in history
The turning point I remember is coming downstairs to y stepfather holding my mother down. He had her pinned to the ground. I don't know if either of them saw me there on the stairs, they were so consumed in their argument and physical battle. After that, the divorce came. On moving day, the police sat in the house while the belongings were boxed up. I remember my stepfather telling the cop that he "gave her everything she wanted and they had sex all the time", how could things go wrong? I didn't know at the time that a big cause of the problem was infidelity. His confusion is something that I later saw in my own marriage, but that is for a later story.
After the dust settled, we moved into a shabby teeny little apartment in a shady neighborhood. We also had a new frequent house guest, Ryan. Ryan was a bit younger than my mother, and had no children of his own, he worked with my mother and lived in an apartment a few blocks away below his aunt. I don't remember much from this apartment. I remember that there was a girl named Clarissa down the street that played some weird games with me, and a little girl named Ariel whose mother gave her lingerie as dress up clothes. There was also a woman, who would have been college aged that would sometimes take my brother and I down the street to get an ice cream cone. Looking back at the location of that apartment, I can't imagine why on earth we were allowed to roam alone. It was at this "house" that my mother became a part of Ryan's family and started hanging out with his sister. His sister had a daughter that was my sisters age, and she did pageants, and here starts a whole new world of opportunities! As if there were any more reasons needed to dote on the youngest child, she was now a little beauty queen. The little blonde haired, blue eyed, pig tailed princess.
At some point while in this house, my mother had surgery on her leg to remove cancerous melanoma, I recall her being in crutches and trying to walk up the stairs to our front door. I saw my first scary movie- Tommy Knockers, and then had a nightmare about things coming out of the walls to get me, and my mother yelled at me when I cried about sleeping in the top bunk. We got government assistance and King Vitamin cereal that got delivered in an orange crate was my favorite! I also acquired a dislike for milk after several bouts with drinking sour (and clumpy) milk from the fridge.
Our time spent in this house was brief, we moved in with Ryan pretty quick, that was the way of my mother- on to the next. She wouldn't have been divorced if there wasn't a new one lined up. This may sound like a rash, mean or harsh judgement- but before you start jumping to conclusions, let the history tell its story and then see if it is a judgement or simply an observation.
Ryan's place was less than ideal. Single guy living below his aunt that raised him. My brother and I found his stockpile of adult magazines... everywhere. I had a mattress below a big picture window in what would have been a dining room. My little sister had a crib in the same room and my brother had his own batman decorated room with a door.
I remember my "bed" very vividly because at one of my mothers Halloween parties I was jumping on my bed with another girl and I fell and caught the edge of the window. I ripped my nose open. I went to tell my mom that I fell, she had her back to me and was ignoring me, Ryan told her to turn around and the second she freaked out, so did I. I got eight stitches- most of which were UP my nose.
Somepoint after that my bedroom was moved to the front porch- very little insulation and un-heated. So a kerosene heater was out there with me as well. My sister and brother were both in pagents frequently at this time, as they were much cuter than I was with their blue eyes and blonde hair. We got kittens around easter time, one of them ate my goldfish. This house also had my first memorable birthday party. There is a video somewhere of my friends and I discussing kissing our pillows pretending that it is the "famous" Carl Cistone from our class. Those little Catholic girls, scandelous even at a young age!
Like most of the houses my mother lived, I don't recall how long we were here, but soon we moved to another house.
After the dust settled, we moved into a shabby teeny little apartment in a shady neighborhood. We also had a new frequent house guest, Ryan. Ryan was a bit younger than my mother, and had no children of his own, he worked with my mother and lived in an apartment a few blocks away below his aunt. I don't remember much from this apartment. I remember that there was a girl named Clarissa down the street that played some weird games with me, and a little girl named Ariel whose mother gave her lingerie as dress up clothes. There was also a woman, who would have been college aged that would sometimes take my brother and I down the street to get an ice cream cone. Looking back at the location of that apartment, I can't imagine why on earth we were allowed to roam alone. It was at this "house" that my mother became a part of Ryan's family and started hanging out with his sister. His sister had a daughter that was my sisters age, and she did pageants, and here starts a whole new world of opportunities! As if there were any more reasons needed to dote on the youngest child, she was now a little beauty queen. The little blonde haired, blue eyed, pig tailed princess.
At some point while in this house, my mother had surgery on her leg to remove cancerous melanoma, I recall her being in crutches and trying to walk up the stairs to our front door. I saw my first scary movie- Tommy Knockers, and then had a nightmare about things coming out of the walls to get me, and my mother yelled at me when I cried about sleeping in the top bunk. We got government assistance and King Vitamin cereal that got delivered in an orange crate was my favorite! I also acquired a dislike for milk after several bouts with drinking sour (and clumpy) milk from the fridge.
Our time spent in this house was brief, we moved in with Ryan pretty quick, that was the way of my mother- on to the next. She wouldn't have been divorced if there wasn't a new one lined up. This may sound like a rash, mean or harsh judgement- but before you start jumping to conclusions, let the history tell its story and then see if it is a judgement or simply an observation.
Ryan's place was less than ideal. Single guy living below his aunt that raised him. My brother and I found his stockpile of adult magazines... everywhere. I had a mattress below a big picture window in what would have been a dining room. My little sister had a crib in the same room and my brother had his own batman decorated room with a door.
I remember my "bed" very vividly because at one of my mothers Halloween parties I was jumping on my bed with another girl and I fell and caught the edge of the window. I ripped my nose open. I went to tell my mom that I fell, she had her back to me and was ignoring me, Ryan told her to turn around and the second she freaked out, so did I. I got eight stitches- most of which were UP my nose.
Somepoint after that my bedroom was moved to the front porch- very little insulation and un-heated. So a kerosene heater was out there with me as well. My sister and brother were both in pagents frequently at this time, as they were much cuter than I was with their blue eyes and blonde hair. We got kittens around easter time, one of them ate my goldfish. This house also had my first memorable birthday party. There is a video somewhere of my friends and I discussing kissing our pillows pretending that it is the "famous" Carl Cistone from our class. Those little Catholic girls, scandelous even at a young age!
Like most of the houses my mother lived, I don't recall how long we were here, but soon we moved to another house.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Start with her
My mother, isn't this the start of every woman's deep rooted issues?
My mother had me at a very young age, barely 17, she was a child herself. I consider this to be a big reason for many of the on-goings of my childhood, but those are stories for later, let's start where the beginning is. My mother was the first born, she was my center of my grandmothers world. My grandmother married a man that was not my grandfather and seven years after my mother came my aunt. This is when the story gets dicey. My aunts father is not the man that my grandmother was married to, nor is he the man that was my mothers father. My mother and my great grandmother seem to think these are important facts in the story of my mothers life, I don't but you make up your own mind.
My mother claims that after the arrival of the cute child, she was abused and hated by her mother. I have heard that my aunt was favored, and that she was also a much more introverted child- she was also seven years younger than my mother. I have seen the pictures of the toys at birthdays and Christmas and know that the two girls had everything they could want- my grandmother worked her butt off to put herself through college without the need for a man to support her and her daughters.
Supplying everything that a child could need seemed to come at a cost. While the children had what they needed, and wanted- there was little "love" in the house. The women on that side of the family are not the lovey dovey type. It seems that the essential need for affection was replaced with monetary things.
So somewhere along the way, my mother fell off the train. My aunt grew up, went off to college ( a few years longer than most), graduated, got married, bought a house and has two children some pets and a slew of extracurricular activities. My mother is a horse of a different color. Since my birth, she struggled with finishing high school. In her words, she finished with honors and was offered a full ride to several colleges (conveniently ones that I applied to), in other stories, she barely passed and some question whether she ever did receive a degree.
After high school, I assume she did in fact receive a degree after finishing her classes post-graduation ceremony. I would have been too young to recall, but through pictures and vague memories, I can see faces and places. I remember various small apartments and some boyfriends. My stepfather and her got married and soon after I had a brother. We are three years apart, my mother wasn't even old enough to have a legal drink and she had two children under the age of three and a husband.
The first house I remember, I had a mural in my bedroom. Hand painted by my mom, if she was nothing, she was creative and skilled. Always with a new project or artsy endeavor. In this house I can recall a bat getting trapped in my room, my brother and all of his epic tantrums and the start of the endless battle between my father and my mother.
I am too young to know what my mom did for work at this period in her life, I know that I walked to school, across the street and down a block in my little plaid uniform. I discovered later on that we moved out of this house for repossession reasons. A vivid memory is when I was young, probably five, I was sick at night and I went to tell my stepfather that I didn't feel well.
The pre-cursor to this story is that I do not like confrontation, thinking back to my childhood, this is something that I have carried my entire life. So remembering the feeling of lying in bed and being so sick that I though my belly would explode only to walk down the hall and not make it to the bathroom, I was not only physically sick but anxious to tell anyone that anything was wrong. When my mother came upstairs, she was furious. I was put in the bathtub and my soiled clothes were rubbed in my face for my punishment. At this point I lived with my mother, stepfather and brother, I didn't know any different.
I also knew at this point that despite what went on at my mothers at the worst if times, I didn't want to be left at my fathers house. the weekends there were the longest days of my life. I would often call home in the middle of the night crying. One night my mother (or stepfather) made the mistake of calling my father and stepmother to ask about me or rat me out for calling and as you can imagine it did not bode well for me. But my father is for a later time.
My Little Mermaid room would be the last true place I would consider home in regards to anything or anyplace. Over the next few years we moved so much and so much happened that every residence was simply a house or a residence and "home" was a state of mind and less a physical thing. House #2 I got a hamster, I think I named her Debbie, and I think she had babies, so I would have had to have had a mate for Debbie and I know when Debbie had babies she bit me, for a while I held that against her, but now that I have my own child, I get where she was coming from.
I also had a cat named Pete. Pete was the world's greatest cat. A giant orange and white tabby, he was laid back and perfect. When my sister came along, three years after my brothers debut, Pete was banned from my room when I developed allergies to him. It was a sign of the problems that would come with my sister, I should have known. At 6-7 years old, I was old enough to start realizing what was going on around me, and some things you just won't ever forget.
It was the first year that my brother traveled to North Carolina with my aunt and my grandmother- we went in the summer. I had a growth spurt that summer and I can remember that my mother was HUGE- my sister was an August baby, though for the life of me I can't seem to find any large prego pictures of her. To this day, I still have the black and yellow sandals I got on that vacation, I can remember the white t-shirt I wore everyday and my very first two piece that was lime green and black. That vacation seemed perfect. My grandmother and my aunt were my family- without them, I would not have survived.
My mother and grandma fought before we left for vacation, my stepfather and mother had started fighting, and there was a creepy boy that lived behind us that was always trying to play the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" game. It was an awkward time in life. I still had my own bedroom, I think it was small, I know I had bunk beds, I know it was never clean- partly because I was a seven year old and partly because my mom is allergic to cleanliness. My brother had his own room that I am positive was in a constant state of destruction. He was a classic case of I will scream, break and throw things. When my little princess sister came along, she took up residence in my mothers room. I remember playing mommy alot. I would get her up, I could make bottles, and all of this became pretty normal later on.
My mother and stepfather, who I loved as my own father, and never referred to him as anything but "dad," started fighting. They would argue, and sometimes even get physical. I can remember having to call the police on several occasions and then corralling my two young siblings into my room to distract them with my Mr. Mic tape player to drown out the yelling and throwing of stuff downstairs until someone arrived to make it stop. Sometimes my mother would leave, sometimes my stepdad would leave, sometimes his parents would show up, or his sisters, and sometimes it was the police. No matter who it was- they all gave me the same face- you don't ever forget that look of pity- and even at a young age, I knew I didn't ever want to be the recipient of THAT look again.
My mother had me at a very young age, barely 17, she was a child herself. I consider this to be a big reason for many of the on-goings of my childhood, but those are stories for later, let's start where the beginning is. My mother was the first born, she was my center of my grandmothers world. My grandmother married a man that was not my grandfather and seven years after my mother came my aunt. This is when the story gets dicey. My aunts father is not the man that my grandmother was married to, nor is he the man that was my mothers father. My mother and my great grandmother seem to think these are important facts in the story of my mothers life, I don't but you make up your own mind.
My mother claims that after the arrival of the cute child, she was abused and hated by her mother. I have heard that my aunt was favored, and that she was also a much more introverted child- she was also seven years younger than my mother. I have seen the pictures of the toys at birthdays and Christmas and know that the two girls had everything they could want- my grandmother worked her butt off to put herself through college without the need for a man to support her and her daughters.
Supplying everything that a child could need seemed to come at a cost. While the children had what they needed, and wanted- there was little "love" in the house. The women on that side of the family are not the lovey dovey type. It seems that the essential need for affection was replaced with monetary things.
So somewhere along the way, my mother fell off the train. My aunt grew up, went off to college ( a few years longer than most), graduated, got married, bought a house and has two children some pets and a slew of extracurricular activities. My mother is a horse of a different color. Since my birth, she struggled with finishing high school. In her words, she finished with honors and was offered a full ride to several colleges (conveniently ones that I applied to), in other stories, she barely passed and some question whether she ever did receive a degree.
After high school, I assume she did in fact receive a degree after finishing her classes post-graduation ceremony. I would have been too young to recall, but through pictures and vague memories, I can see faces and places. I remember various small apartments and some boyfriends. My stepfather and her got married and soon after I had a brother. We are three years apart, my mother wasn't even old enough to have a legal drink and she had two children under the age of three and a husband.
The first house I remember, I had a mural in my bedroom. Hand painted by my mom, if she was nothing, she was creative and skilled. Always with a new project or artsy endeavor. In this house I can recall a bat getting trapped in my room, my brother and all of his epic tantrums and the start of the endless battle between my father and my mother.
I am too young to know what my mom did for work at this period in her life, I know that I walked to school, across the street and down a block in my little plaid uniform. I discovered later on that we moved out of this house for repossession reasons. A vivid memory is when I was young, probably five, I was sick at night and I went to tell my stepfather that I didn't feel well.
The pre-cursor to this story is that I do not like confrontation, thinking back to my childhood, this is something that I have carried my entire life. So remembering the feeling of lying in bed and being so sick that I though my belly would explode only to walk down the hall and not make it to the bathroom, I was not only physically sick but anxious to tell anyone that anything was wrong. When my mother came upstairs, she was furious. I was put in the bathtub and my soiled clothes were rubbed in my face for my punishment. At this point I lived with my mother, stepfather and brother, I didn't know any different.
I also knew at this point that despite what went on at my mothers at the worst if times, I didn't want to be left at my fathers house. the weekends there were the longest days of my life. I would often call home in the middle of the night crying. One night my mother (or stepfather) made the mistake of calling my father and stepmother to ask about me or rat me out for calling and as you can imagine it did not bode well for me. But my father is for a later time.
My Little Mermaid room would be the last true place I would consider home in regards to anything or anyplace. Over the next few years we moved so much and so much happened that every residence was simply a house or a residence and "home" was a state of mind and less a physical thing. House #2 I got a hamster, I think I named her Debbie, and I think she had babies, so I would have had to have had a mate for Debbie and I know when Debbie had babies she bit me, for a while I held that against her, but now that I have my own child, I get where she was coming from.
I also had a cat named Pete. Pete was the world's greatest cat. A giant orange and white tabby, he was laid back and perfect. When my sister came along, three years after my brothers debut, Pete was banned from my room when I developed allergies to him. It was a sign of the problems that would come with my sister, I should have known. At 6-7 years old, I was old enough to start realizing what was going on around me, and some things you just won't ever forget.
It was the first year that my brother traveled to North Carolina with my aunt and my grandmother- we went in the summer. I had a growth spurt that summer and I can remember that my mother was HUGE- my sister was an August baby, though for the life of me I can't seem to find any large prego pictures of her. To this day, I still have the black and yellow sandals I got on that vacation, I can remember the white t-shirt I wore everyday and my very first two piece that was lime green and black. That vacation seemed perfect. My grandmother and my aunt were my family- without them, I would not have survived.
My mother and grandma fought before we left for vacation, my stepfather and mother had started fighting, and there was a creepy boy that lived behind us that was always trying to play the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" game. It was an awkward time in life. I still had my own bedroom, I think it was small, I know I had bunk beds, I know it was never clean- partly because I was a seven year old and partly because my mom is allergic to cleanliness. My brother had his own room that I am positive was in a constant state of destruction. He was a classic case of I will scream, break and throw things. When my little princess sister came along, she took up residence in my mothers room. I remember playing mommy alot. I would get her up, I could make bottles, and all of this became pretty normal later on.
My mother and stepfather, who I loved as my own father, and never referred to him as anything but "dad," started fighting. They would argue, and sometimes even get physical. I can remember having to call the police on several occasions and then corralling my two young siblings into my room to distract them with my Mr. Mic tape player to drown out the yelling and throwing of stuff downstairs until someone arrived to make it stop. Sometimes my mother would leave, sometimes my stepdad would leave, sometimes his parents would show up, or his sisters, and sometimes it was the police. No matter who it was- they all gave me the same face- you don't ever forget that look of pity- and even at a young age, I knew I didn't ever want to be the recipient of THAT look again.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Start at the Beginning
Every story starts at the beginning....
Every person starts with a man and a woman- well, I am not every person, I didn't start with a man and a woman. I started with a girl and a boy. A girl that was desperate to fit in and a boy that was lost in the sea of family. This girl and boy thought they loved one another, this love left them with a life.
Back then, there were few decisions on what to do with this life. The decisions were not as acceptable or open as they are today. Still being in high school this new life wasn't just a life, but a death- a death of youth and innocence. This life was proof of what they had done, proof that the Catholic boy had broken one of the many Golden rules in the household, gone against the teachings of his church, his family and his parents. Proof that the girl was loved by someone, even if only for a few fleeting minutes. Once this life was created, nothing would be the same.
The thing about life, is that it can't be kept a secret forever. Anyone that has seen, or carried a child, knows that at some point, it shows. For every person this is different. As you have determined by now, I am this life, so you know the end result of the decision that needed to be made, but the things that have happened between my first breath and the breath I take now are a journey that you have to partake in to believe, even then you will not believe. My parents each have their own versions- and their own parents and siblings have a version. This is my version- my life. This is how I have become the person I am today, this is my life, through my eyes and through the eyes and ears of my many family members. The thing with the past is that everyone remembers things differently- the emotions and feelings effect people in different ways. They say that in every story there are two sides, well, in my story, this is the third side.
Every person starts with a man and a woman- well, I am not every person, I didn't start with a man and a woman. I started with a girl and a boy. A girl that was desperate to fit in and a boy that was lost in the sea of family. This girl and boy thought they loved one another, this love left them with a life.
Back then, there were few decisions on what to do with this life. The decisions were not as acceptable or open as they are today. Still being in high school this new life wasn't just a life, but a death- a death of youth and innocence. This life was proof of what they had done, proof that the Catholic boy had broken one of the many Golden rules in the household, gone against the teachings of his church, his family and his parents. Proof that the girl was loved by someone, even if only for a few fleeting minutes. Once this life was created, nothing would be the same.
The thing about life, is that it can't be kept a secret forever. Anyone that has seen, or carried a child, knows that at some point, it shows. For every person this is different. As you have determined by now, I am this life, so you know the end result of the decision that needed to be made, but the things that have happened between my first breath and the breath I take now are a journey that you have to partake in to believe, even then you will not believe. My parents each have their own versions- and their own parents and siblings have a version. This is my version- my life. This is how I have become the person I am today, this is my life, through my eyes and through the eyes and ears of my many family members. The thing with the past is that everyone remembers things differently- the emotions and feelings effect people in different ways. They say that in every story there are two sides, well, in my story, this is the third side.
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