Jenton's Journal

This is when I get REALLY down. When I see no reason to go on and I just want life to end. My son Sam and his new wife is in town but where are they? At their Dad's house. And of course so is Matt because he lives there. And I am here all alone in my dark apartment remembering. You asked me if there had ever been a time in my life when I was happy and I told you it was when my kids were little and growing up. Making a home of my own with my kids and family and pets and church and community, all the things that were taken away from me when I was a child. I worked really hard to have those things as an adult. And my home made me happy. But the stress of the loss of my brother and the subsequent affairs of my husband did me in. I could not handle the stress and the way he treated me any more so I had to file for divorce and get out. Even though I could have taken the house and most everything because of his adultery, I just let him have it all because I could not endure the stress of fighting over it. Now I regret it. Because now he has everything and I have nothing. I don't care so much about the "things" but because he has our home, the one our boys grew up in, he got our boys too, that's where they are comfortable. They are not comfortable staying here with me in this apartment in the city so they don't come here much. So I sit here and cry knowing that they are there in what was my home remembering the sounds, the smells, the joy of having them all around. The nice home, the nice furniture and things in the country where I was happy, except for his abuse. His yelling and screaming and throwing things. Walking on egg shells afraid of setting him off without knowing what might do it. The pain is awful. The anger.

And now I sit here in this dark apartment, totally alone with broken down furnishings left here by the previous owners, looking for a part-time job to supplement my full time one due to a furlough, knowing my children are all with him and even worse, with her, in my old home. 30 years gone. And I cry. And I know that life will never be the same. I will never know the joy that I had hoped for. To grow old and be grandparents in the house that we built and rock their babies on the front porch. And I blame myself. If only, if only, if only.....

I was broken and I needed fixed.

You just get to a point that you can not see any reason for your life. An almost never ending cycle of pain. Many years ago I used to see this bumper sticker that I just thought was awful. It said "Life's a B**** and then you die". I hated that sticker. Thought it was a terrible thing. That just happened to be when my boys were babies and I had a ray of hope that life might actually turn out good after one hell of a childhood. Wrong! I totally get it now.