Memories.....
I guess I have too much time on my hands today. I seem to be doing a lot of wallowing in the past. I am going to write it out because apparently, even though I thought this was over and done for me, it isn't.
My parents were incredibly young when they married because mom was pregnant with me--she was 15, he was only 16. I was born 5 months after their marriage--their first child, and the first granddaughter on both sides (okay so on my dad's side I have an older female cousin, but I lived closer so was treated as the only). From the beginning I was daddy's little princess. He expected me to be the smartest, most beautiful, most athletic, best behaved little girl that ever walked the face of the earth--and I did my best to be just that (sometimes at great cost to myself). My childhood was good much of the time, and bad much of the time--as I'm sure most people could say. My mom and I never had a great relationship. My earliest memories of my mother go like this: I have always gotten motion sick and every weekend when I was young, we would travel 4 hours to another state to visit her stepfather in prison. I threw up in the backseat on EVERY single trip. I remember being yanked from the car by my arm and screamed at repeatedly about what a horrible child and pain in the ass I was. Occasionally, my grandmother would step in and would yell at my mom that I was only a child while she cuddled me (my grandma is not the cuddly type) and tried to calm me down. Mostly though, my mom was just indifferent to me. I thought she didn't like me, maybe she didn't. I spent most of my time with grandparents anyway who would spoil me rotten and parade me around to their friends. I wasn't lacking for love that's for sure (or in self confidence as I was constantly being told I was the most beautiful little girl in the world and the smartest as well!)
For as long as I can remember, my parents fought horribly. I remember being about 4 or 5 and sitting in a little chair in a corner of my room, crying and rocking back and forth as my dad punched holes in walls and screamed obscenities at my mother as she would sob and plead with him to stop. Afterwards, he would scoop me up on his lap and tell me I was the only good thing in his life and demand that I tell him which of my parents I loved the most. He would tell me that he and my mom were going to split up and I needed to choose who I wanted to live with forever. I would just cry and refuse to choose because in my little mind it was inconceivable to me. I would silently vow to be better so that maybe my mom would like me more and stop picking fights with my dad so they could stay together (I now know that she was being horribly abused, but at the time I just thought she started the fights with him).
Brothers and sisters came along (I was the only for 5 years and 18 days) and I adored them wholeheartedly. I would have died for these little people and I had finally found someone I could love completely that wouldn't hurt me. From the get go, my mom was very close to all of my younger siblings, although she remained indifferent to me. My dad was the exact opposite, I was still his princess and his golden child, but he really didn't have much to do with the next four to come along. Perhaps this was why my mom catered to them so much. Anyway, life continued on much as it had for many years.
When I was 15, I went to work at my dad's office for the summer. Strange things occurred while I was there, but I blew them off. Like the time we went to dinner with my uncle's much younger sister-in-law and the way she and my dad acted toward one another seemed a little "off" to me. Or when I was cleaning the office one day and had written on the desk calendar "I love you dad" and saw feminine handwriting that had written back "I love you too dad", or the locked drawer I had pried open and found literally dozens of love cards written from Sheri (my soon to be stepmother and the woman we had gone to dinner with--although I knew none of these things at this time). I was so angry with my dad and so frustrated with my mom--he had been abusing her physically for some time and it was escalating so I was confused why she stayed with him--although I honestly thought he hung the sun, the moon, and the stars still), I told a friend of mine what I had found and cried. I guess I was being even more distant to my mother at this point because he called one day and relayed that this was what was wrong with me and that I was feeling guilty for knowing and not telling. She then confronted my dad and everything went downhill from there. He screamed at me and accused me of breaking up the marriage--it was all my fault. He left and many nights we spent sleeping in front of the oven huddled together because there was no oil for heat, or eating cheap lunch meat for breakfast lunch and dinner because there was no food. I got a job to help with expenses and school started to suffer. I had always been an Honors student with straight As, but the stress was getting to me.
My mom and I still did not have a strong relationship, I swear we just tolerated one another. She would leave me home to babysit my younger siblings while she went partying with my friends. When I would express frustration over this I would hear from my grandmother that my mom had given up her youth for me, now it was my turn to repay the favor. (Like I asked for this!!) We moved in with a succession of her boyfriends so we could be taken care of; all of whom abused her--some with words, some with might, she even broke her collar bone. In the midst of all this, I heard things from her about my father and his new girlfriend that no 16 year old should ever have to be privy to about her parents. I was a mess. Then, one morning, about a year after they separated, my mom told us that we were going to stay with my dad and the slut (the way she referred to his girlfriend) because she was leaving the next day to move to Florida with my grandmother. We were packed off to live with this 29 year old, childless woman and my dad who hadn't really seen us in a year because it was "his" turn to take care of us for a change. I actually almost felt sorry for his girlfriend--after all she had gone from a carefree relationship to having 5 children ranging in age from 16 to 3. Because she was an alcoholic and had never been around children, I ended up quitting school to take care of my 3 year old brother and 5 year old sister. My mom came back after a little over 6 months and one by one began to take us back to live with her and her new alcoholic boyfriend--who actually was a really nice guy when he wasn't drinking which unfortunately wasn't often. Shortly after that, I met my son's father, my first boyfriend, and moved in with him. Not much to say about that relationship--it was a doozy, but at least I felt safe and cherished with him (he cheated on me horribly, but that I could deal with I thought).
That didn't last long and I was back with my mom, one baby and pregnant with another. She refused to let me bring another child into her house (her words, not mine) and when I wouldn't have an abortion, I ended up giving him to my aunt (who lived in AZ, we lived in MD) to raise. Unfortunately, she couldn't get there until 3 days after I brought him home and this was literally the hardest experience of my life. I didn't eat, didn't sleep, and couldn't even bring myself to take care of my 1 year old son because I literally felt like I was going to die. It got so bad that at about the 3 month period my aunt told my mother that she thought they needed to bring him back to me. My mom's response was that after all the money my aunt and uncle had spent that would be selfish of me and that I wouldn't have any place to live because she wasn't letting me live there. That I would get over it and see it was for the best eventually. I did. And honestly, it was the best thing for Nathan as he has been loved and cherished so much over the past 17 years and had a life that I never could have given him. I just can't pretend that this still doesn't hurt on my darkest days. Most days I just don't think (too much) about it and I am able to move on, some days are just hell.
Enough traveling down memory lane. My point is that I thought I had forgotten all of this and let it go. I don't blame my parents for my life--I made the choices that got me here, and I honestly believe they did the best they could with what they were/are. It still bothers me though on some days that my mom is so wrapped up in herself, and that she does everything for my other siblings and their kids, but me and mine are used when she wants to complain about her life or regale me with tales about how awful my brother or sister have it. Whenever I try to talk about something, I am immediately cut off and told about something that happened to her or my sister or something funny my nephew (who is 1 and cute as hell) or one of her birds did. I thought I wasn't bothered by this, but I am. Maybe getting it out there will make me feel a little better and allow me to finally let it go for good.
My parents were incredibly young when they married because mom was pregnant with me--she was 15, he was only 16. I was born 5 months after their marriage--their first child, and the first granddaughter on both sides (okay so on my dad's side I have an older female cousin, but I lived closer so was treated as the only). From the beginning I was daddy's little princess. He expected me to be the smartest, most beautiful, most athletic, best behaved little girl that ever walked the face of the earth--and I did my best to be just that (sometimes at great cost to myself). My childhood was good much of the time, and bad much of the time--as I'm sure most people could say. My mom and I never had a great relationship. My earliest memories of my mother go like this: I have always gotten motion sick and every weekend when I was young, we would travel 4 hours to another state to visit her stepfather in prison. I threw up in the backseat on EVERY single trip. I remember being yanked from the car by my arm and screamed at repeatedly about what a horrible child and pain in the ass I was. Occasionally, my grandmother would step in and would yell at my mom that I was only a child while she cuddled me (my grandma is not the cuddly type) and tried to calm me down. Mostly though, my mom was just indifferent to me. I thought she didn't like me, maybe she didn't. I spent most of my time with grandparents anyway who would spoil me rotten and parade me around to their friends. I wasn't lacking for love that's for sure (or in self confidence as I was constantly being told I was the most beautiful little girl in the world and the smartest as well!)
For as long as I can remember, my parents fought horribly. I remember being about 4 or 5 and sitting in a little chair in a corner of my room, crying and rocking back and forth as my dad punched holes in walls and screamed obscenities at my mother as she would sob and plead with him to stop. Afterwards, he would scoop me up on his lap and tell me I was the only good thing in his life and demand that I tell him which of my parents I loved the most. He would tell me that he and my mom were going to split up and I needed to choose who I wanted to live with forever. I would just cry and refuse to choose because in my little mind it was inconceivable to me. I would silently vow to be better so that maybe my mom would like me more and stop picking fights with my dad so they could stay together (I now know that she was being horribly abused, but at the time I just thought she started the fights with him).
Brothers and sisters came along (I was the only for 5 years and 18 days) and I adored them wholeheartedly. I would have died for these little people and I had finally found someone I could love completely that wouldn't hurt me. From the get go, my mom was very close to all of my younger siblings, although she remained indifferent to me. My dad was the exact opposite, I was still his princess and his golden child, but he really didn't have much to do with the next four to come along. Perhaps this was why my mom catered to them so much. Anyway, life continued on much as it had for many years.
When I was 15, I went to work at my dad's office for the summer. Strange things occurred while I was there, but I blew them off. Like the time we went to dinner with my uncle's much younger sister-in-law and the way she and my dad acted toward one another seemed a little "off" to me. Or when I was cleaning the office one day and had written on the desk calendar "I love you dad" and saw feminine handwriting that had written back "I love you too dad", or the locked drawer I had pried open and found literally dozens of love cards written from Sheri (my soon to be stepmother and the woman we had gone to dinner with--although I knew none of these things at this time). I was so angry with my dad and so frustrated with my mom--he had been abusing her physically for some time and it was escalating so I was confused why she stayed with him--although I honestly thought he hung the sun, the moon, and the stars still), I told a friend of mine what I had found and cried. I guess I was being even more distant to my mother at this point because he called one day and relayed that this was what was wrong with me and that I was feeling guilty for knowing and not telling. She then confronted my dad and everything went downhill from there. He screamed at me and accused me of breaking up the marriage--it was all my fault. He left and many nights we spent sleeping in front of the oven huddled together because there was no oil for heat, or eating cheap lunch meat for breakfast lunch and dinner because there was no food. I got a job to help with expenses and school started to suffer. I had always been an Honors student with straight As, but the stress was getting to me.
My mom and I still did not have a strong relationship, I swear we just tolerated one another. She would leave me home to babysit my younger siblings while she went partying with my friends. When I would express frustration over this I would hear from my grandmother that my mom had given up her youth for me, now it was my turn to repay the favor. (Like I asked for this!!) We moved in with a succession of her boyfriends so we could be taken care of; all of whom abused her--some with words, some with might, she even broke her collar bone. In the midst of all this, I heard things from her about my father and his new girlfriend that no 16 year old should ever have to be privy to about her parents. I was a mess. Then, one morning, about a year after they separated, my mom told us that we were going to stay with my dad and the slut (the way she referred to his girlfriend) because she was leaving the next day to move to Florida with my grandmother. We were packed off to live with this 29 year old, childless woman and my dad who hadn't really seen us in a year because it was "his" turn to take care of us for a change. I actually almost felt sorry for his girlfriend--after all she had gone from a carefree relationship to having 5 children ranging in age from 16 to 3. Because she was an alcoholic and had never been around children, I ended up quitting school to take care of my 3 year old brother and 5 year old sister. My mom came back after a little over 6 months and one by one began to take us back to live with her and her new alcoholic boyfriend--who actually was a really nice guy when he wasn't drinking which unfortunately wasn't often. Shortly after that, I met my son's father, my first boyfriend, and moved in with him. Not much to say about that relationship--it was a doozy, but at least I felt safe and cherished with him (he cheated on me horribly, but that I could deal with I thought).
That didn't last long and I was back with my mom, one baby and pregnant with another. She refused to let me bring another child into her house (her words, not mine) and when I wouldn't have an abortion, I ended up giving him to my aunt (who lived in AZ, we lived in MD) to raise. Unfortunately, she couldn't get there until 3 days after I brought him home and this was literally the hardest experience of my life. I didn't eat, didn't sleep, and couldn't even bring myself to take care of my 1 year old son because I literally felt like I was going to die. It got so bad that at about the 3 month period my aunt told my mother that she thought they needed to bring him back to me. My mom's response was that after all the money my aunt and uncle had spent that would be selfish of me and that I wouldn't have any place to live because she wasn't letting me live there. That I would get over it and see it was for the best eventually. I did. And honestly, it was the best thing for Nathan as he has been loved and cherished so much over the past 17 years and had a life that I never could have given him. I just can't pretend that this still doesn't hurt on my darkest days. Most days I just don't think (too much) about it and I am able to move on, some days are just hell.
Enough traveling down memory lane. My point is that I thought I had forgotten all of this and let it go. I don't blame my parents for my life--I made the choices that got me here, and I honestly believe they did the best they could with what they were/are. It still bothers me though on some days that my mom is so wrapped up in herself, and that she does everything for my other siblings and their kids, but me and mine are used when she wants to complain about her life or regale me with tales about how awful my brother or sister have it. Whenever I try to talk about something, I am immediately cut off and told about something that happened to her or my sister or something funny my nephew (who is 1 and cute as hell) or one of her birds did. I thought I wasn't bothered by this, but I am. Maybe getting it out there will make me feel a little better and allow me to finally let it go for good.
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