so much nothing

Tags

goodbyes, memories, Miranda Lambert, nostalgia

So ironic that this house of my daddy’s I now live in is more like the “House that Built me” than any other place I lived growing up…even though I didn’t move here til I was 18. My daughter, Lexi loved this song, but she felt it about our house that her  dad took from us “for our own good”.  And regardless of where my children go or whom they choose to love, this house is the only one we have left that “built us”.

He stole that one because he “felt it best” along with all my personal memorabilia…so, we have this one…my dad’s…

I find myself frequently asking for signs… I’ve no clue what that even means, but I ask hourly.  I don’t believe in anything so much anymore, so I don’t even know what I’m asking to send me a sign…

I’m still here.  I have all the ingredients to escape, still feel confident my absence might be best, no one has stepped up to say Oh please don’t, my mind hasn’t changed (if anything it’s more determined and decided)…  Today, I contacted a realtor about listing my dad’s house…this beloved, ancient manor of memories… and immediately after contacting the realtor, the song that most reminds me of my dad started playing on the radio.  It’s a very old song, so I was surprised to hear it play.  And I ask myself, is that my sign?  If it is, is it a sign of yes or a sign of NO DON’T DO IT?  I wouldn’t know.

I have no other safe places.  I belong no where.  I guess I never have.  I only belonged wherever my dad was or where my children were.  None exist anymore for me, so it’s this house.  This house, where my dad helped me learn to walk again at 26, where both my daughters learned to walk for the first time, the place of so many Thanksgivings, so many birthdays, Christmases, family dinners, family giggles…  The only place I ever felt a sigh of relief when I walked in the door, knowing I was safe, knowing I was loved, knowing everything would be always ok no matter how bad it seemed….a real life refuge.

I didn’t actually grow up here. Although, I sort of did.  My daddy bought this house when I was 18.  My first boyfriend beat me here several times.  Two primary doors were replaced by him from when he busted them down.  I moved away to live with my aunt awhile to escape him and came back to be with my real first love/best friend.  And there are so many wonderful memories here of how he loved me, how he was my best friend ever.  There’s an ancient father’s day card, tucked away in a drawer, that he gave to my dad, so sure he was that he and I would be married.  He and my dad got along very well, except for my endless long distance phone calls to him when he went away to college in Chicago.  Long distance!  It’s such a foreign concept now.  In hindsight, I feel so badly for my dad.  It was actually cheaper to drive to Chicago to see him than those 4 hour long distance phone calls were!

My dad had every right to be furious, every right to not even allow me to use the(his!) phone after countless outrageous phone bills I couldn’t pay for!  He did get mad…often…but he never once beat me or shamed me or punished me or kicked me out for being so childishly selfish.

Every single thing inside this house has meaning to me.  The chips in the paint over the hall? Those are from the bouncy swing we got for Lexi when she was only 4 months old. Oh, and how she’d bounce!  Bounce and shriek with laughter…  She was the center of the world right then!  Then, Savannah came and I was so handicapped that I couldn’t hold her as much as I did Lexi…  but we had the bouncy swing and she’d shriek with joy.  And even as I’d watch her, single handicapped mother of two amazing girls, worrying about what our life would be; worried about what they’d need and if I could provide it always, my dad would just laugh watching her bounce and I didn’t know what our lives would be, but I knew it would be okay whatever it was, so I’d laugh with them too, no matter the depth of my uncertainty and fear.

Anyway,  that’s why the center of that entryway has some chipped paint that was never repainted.  In the tiny drawer of the library?  There’s a child’s tiny notepad where my dad must have been helping Savannah when she was learning to write and Savannah first wrote the word “Mommy” and her own beautiful name.

In those fun little drawers, there’s also the first portable Britney Spears playin’ CD players my dad got for my kids when they wanted them but I couldn’t afford to buy them.  One was red and one was yellow.  The yellow one is in there, haphazardly left behind at some point when my daughters transitioned to iPod music.   Those fun sized drawers hold baby sized hair ties and barrettes, some fairy tale storybooks, some 25 cent bubblegum machine jewelry that made their faces light up, tiny little child-sized sparkly nail polishes… they are a virtual nostalgic treasure chest!

A million teeny-tiny worthless, priceless little whatnots that no one on the planet would think a thing of throwing in the trash, but which flood my heart with happy, useless, hurtful memories.

So much nothing that means so much.  I bought this house when my dad died.  I confess it was only because of my dad’s memory and hoping that my children might someday feel happy that it was still in our family, holding all those memories of their childhood and their papa.  They have no need for nostalgia, nor memories…  so I really just wasted the money wishing on a star, hoping to preserve a million happy memories that my children have committed to forgetting.

I still feel like this is my refuge, even while the memories simultaneously refresh my hope and destroy it.

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Trauma Therapy

Tags

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Daddy, depression, desperation, estranged, fear, hopes, loveless, Mother, nostalgia, parent issues, Therapy, trauma, unacceptable

I fell deeper into that pit of despair a few weeks ago when my daughter reached out to me because her boyfriend had roughed her up.  Previously, I had thought I had already hit the bottom of that pitiful pit.  True to my inability to fully accept that it can always get worse (which I never seem able to let penetrate my mind), I’d enjoyed (for lack of a better word) the belief and feeling that at least I had hit the bottom of the misery pit.  That provides some relief in itself.  As I lie there on that cold hard scratchy floor from several different drops lower and lower over the years, I breathed a sigh of relief that although it was miserable and I was confused and terrorized from the various drops, I could breathe that I was, at last, on the actual bottom.  There could be no more sudden shocks as that floor disintegrated and I fell another story or two or twelve down the pit.

What a false sense of desperate relief!  More was to come as my daughter dangled the carrot of hope in my face…inches from my mouth…so close my mouth watered at the thought that I might actually get to taste this carrot of her love again.

As I scrambled, crawled, and begged for the dangling carrot of my daughters love and presence, I stumbled upon a thin part of the floor of my misery which broke it open.  I tumbled further down the Rabbit Hole of despair and confused bewilderment.

For several days, I simply plotted my death.  Desperate for the final solution to end this pain and prevent the possibility of more carrot dangling in the future, I had the answer, but not the sure-proof means and this is one thing in my life I simply cannot allow failure.

Without the means, I reached out for help.  I started taking antidepressants again after nearly a year free of them and I went to a local domestic violence shelter that provides free counseling. It took some pleading and finagling to talk them out of calling an ambulance to have me scurried to the hospital and admitted, but I did it!  In exchange, I agreed to try counseling (sigh….again).

Today will be my 2nd appointment.  My task given at session #1 was to find the one trauma point from which to begin this trauma treatment: a pivotal point, if you will.

In terror as though my life depends on it (no pun intended), my brain has scrambled for a week trying to select the point from which to begin this process.  It’s as though I have one bullet to hit the moving target.

Was it when my daddy went on vacation and only his dead body returned?

Was it when I was gang raped at 17?  Or raped at gunpoint again later at 31?

Was it from the beginning, any number of soul-injustices and spirit-murders I endured at her hand in my first 26 years of life?

Was it when my ex abused me mentally, emotionally and physically while I carried our first child only to add more abuse after she was born?  Or when he cheated over and over and then yelled at me for asking questions?  Was it when he spit on me and our infant daughter when I asked him what a receipt was for when I was reconciling our checking account?  Was it that moment I held her nursing and he looked me cold in the eye and said, “I’m on a downward spiral.  You and Lexi can come along or get the fuck out?”

Was it the moment my beloved oldest child attacked me verbally after my dad died and fabricated the ugliest lies I could imagine to set me up for her plan with my ex and my mother to destroy me once and for all?

Was it when I lost the only man I’d ever loved other than my father and yet he strung me along for years afterward declaring his undying can’t-live-without-you-love until I’d believe him finally and then he’d take it back again?

Was it when I was molested by the janitor at my elementary school? Or when my babysitter Marcy molested me repeatedly a few years later, but I didn’t understand it was molestation because she was a female?

Was it when I trusted my ex enough to move our children across the country to make his life and relationship with his children easier only to watch him break their hearts in the very ways I thought I had protected them from?

Or when he stole our home and tried to make us homeless by threatening my dad not to help us to punish me for not accepting him breaking our children’s hearts every day?  Was it when I listened to my children sob in depths I had never before had to sit helplessly and watch over this cruelty from their dad?  My heart ripping and the first time I felt rage in my life?

Was it when I was 2 months pregnant with my youngest daughter and suffered a massive stroke and told I’d never walk or work a job again on my own or be able to raise my babies on our own?  Being too ashamed to take a shit because I was mortified at the thought of someone having to wipe my ass for me at 28 years old?  Or that the prognosis given at the time destroyed my every idea of being a momma as well as lynched my independence and autonomy?

Was it two years ago when I spent 40 thousand dollars in court pleading my ex for a visit with the children I had raised alone for 15 years only to be granted the right , fly across the country, and was told (in so many words) by my oldest and youngest to fuck off because they changed their mind when I brought up a promise Lexi had made to my dad, her papa, about piercing her face?

When was the pivotal point of trauma from which I haven’t returned or recovered?

 

 

 

 

RIP… and Fuck You!

Tags

adapting, childhood, Daddy, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, invisible, jealousy, life, nostalgia, sadness, trust, unacceptable

Death comes in so many forms and wears many different disguises.  I just lost another dear friend.  That’s five in only two years.  I really can’t wrap my head around this, much less my broken, tender heart.  It seems I can’t catch my breath from one til the next. I know people die and that’s a part of life.  I know, I know, I know….  I guess I just never imagined that it would start at this age.  I really always figured maybe around 60 or so, I would have to start dealing with multiple and/or possible frequent deaths. Wrong.

At the same time as this, I was fortunate that my first love who first introduced me 27 years ago to this man who passed happened to be in town when Andy passed.  Or, so I thought it was fortunate at first, when I found out Wednesday morning…

I can’t figure out if it’s just me or if I happen to be surrounded somehow by non-sentimental people.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging them for that.  If anything, I am deeply jealous of their disconnection from emotion or maybe it’s just that they have a “healthy” disconnection/connection to their emotions while mine is not?

Death makes me cling almost fervently to the people I love: those I once loved, those I currently love, those I love as friends, loved as lovers, even those I love as good acquaintances for who they are in this world.  It has hit me like a vehement sucker punch to the heart that beyond the distance life creates naturally as people grow up, mature, and develop lives totally separate from the people who were once a daily piece of your life – which feels like a death when you reconnect with them and you experience that awkwardness that distance, time, and change has inevitably created…that canyon between you that formed while you were just going about life.  I mean, the friendship is still there… sort of…  Or, is it not really friendship?  Maybe it’s just that space you once shared together of memories and good will?  More like a mutual honoring of the past that’s gone and dead and stands in the exact spot where the actual friendship, as a living, breathing, growing thing of its own once stood?

Several phrases have grabbed me through these past two years and feel particularly poignant to me with this loss I experienced while also reconnecting with my first best friend ever who also happened to be my first lover as well:  “Not friends – just strangers with memories.”

 

And the other I can’t recall or find because although I posted to Facebook to remember and use for later (which is now), Facebook’s new idiotic “selective” post recollection is freakin preventing me from finding it unless I want to spend all day hunting for it through the “hidden” areas of my timeline. FUCK YOU FACEBOOK!  YOU STUPID IDIOTS…WTF?! Good Lord, that is frustrating as hell!

Anyway…  I feel like a freak because losing my daddy really made me realize that I don’t have forever with the people I love.  It made me want to cherish them more and commit to making more efforts to keep in touch and keep communication ongoing and regular.  Strangely, it apparently did the opposite to every other person in my life and in my daddy’s life.  The other people closest to him withdrew from me(my children) or shit on me (my children and the rest of my blood relatives).

And now, again, I feel like I want to hold close to these friends from my past whom I’m reconnecting with on George’s visit here.  I feel sentimental and enthusiastic to institute a new, solid bond like we once had.  I realize that we all have separate lives now as adults so it can’t be the same…but you know, just establish that the connection, history, emotion, and experience is significant and matters enough to not want to resume the disconnection with this person, but to establish that it’s too important to let it slip back into the borders of oblivion (infrequent and rather formal texts now and then saying “how are things” or the yearly “happy birthday” contact).

So, in my little ways, I have tried to do this and met with an apathy which really hurts.  Hurts like a death.  Like it says to me, our bond as a primary, living, and cherished thing is dead.  I’m content with our surface contacts and will wait til you die to think of making an effort to cherish what we share(d) between us.

Is there something wrong with me?  Am I the only person who feels the pang of regret at allowing distance from those whom were once so important to maintain and grow bigger?  The only one who feels the overwhelming bigger picture of loss and thus, the deep desire to at least make an effort to express the importance, the love that lingers, and hope to reestablish something less fleeting with this once so-important relationship?

I recognize that I’m typically more sentimental than the average person.  I know that’s a fact…but I’m just surprised at a deep level that I seem to be the only one I know whom feels this when a death occurs.  That, to me, feels like apathy for the relationship – past, present and future.    And then, I can’t help but think to myself if the relationship and the connection is NOT worth that….then was it ever really of the importance it once seemed to hold at all?  I mean, I’ve come to realize that if you are willing to dismiss a person you once loved so completely, then it’s most likely you never really loved them at all.  Of course, I’m not talking about the toxic people you must remove yourself and emotions from for self-preservation, sanity, and mental health; I mean, the ones you loved so dearly and you parted or separated just due to life and circumstance.  I’m talking about those people who once said things to you like, I would die for you…you’re the best friend I ever had…or, you showed me what love/friendship/happiness really is.

Does this not remain for most people?  Do pieces of that – important pieces- not remain in the hearts of most people?  Am I truly just a sentimental, freak of nostalgia?

As the numbers of those whom I love, past and present, continue to stack up in this, I’m really reflecting on has anything ever mattered?  Does it just die in all ways for most people?  Like, yeah, I’ll feel sad when they pass away, but not sad enough to hold onto the bonds we share or give them a little more time and attention than I have been prior to losing this most recent friend or loved one…?

Does anyone in this world really mean it when they say they love you?  Do those words carry any depth beyond just that moment in time anymore?  For anyone but me?

RIP Andy.  I regret letting our lives distance as it did.  I’m sad you are gone and I hadn’t made an effort to stay better in contact with you over the past few years.  You were a bright spot of encouragement and genuine friendship in my world so many times.  A friendship I cherished enough that I wish I could go back a week ago and make an effort to reconnect and catch up with you and your world…and be sure to let you know exactly what you meant to me. And that you meant enough to me to not let life keep growing the divide without making an effort to bridge it. You were my friend. Thank you.

I hope you can read this from wherever one goes after death…and I hope that place is the Heaven I believe in.

And, I guess…to all those whom are still alive that I cherish and hate to think of you passing away…those who seem apathetic toward this concept.  If this isn’t important now, then I don’t know why we’d bother to reconnect here and there anyway.  What’s that even for?  And maybe, just fuck you.  if I don’t matter much at all now, not even in the wake of losing a childhood friend , then I couldn’t have mattered much back when you told me so often I did.  That makes me sad and it hurts, so yeah, fuck you.

The scariest of all to me in this sad realization, is that if none (and I mean none) of the past relationship ever had any real importance, then how do I not filter every new and blossoming relationship or friendship through that knowledge? I mean, if I already know nothing lasts forever for other people …not even love or friendship…then what is any of it worth as people say the words “I love you” or “you matter to me” important even as they speak and claim they feel them?

Ain’t no sunshine

Tags

adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, DENIAL, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, invisible, life, loss, loveless, manipulation, mean mothers, Mother, nightmares, nostalgia, parent issues, rape, sadness, sexual abuse, sociopath, suicidal, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable, unforgiven

http://shadowness.com/maria-amore/between-faith-and-doubt-2

Loss – true, deep, profound, crippling loss – is a loss beyond imagination and to a great degree, that loss is more profound and crippling when it’s an unnatural loss. The loss is exponentially pervasive into one’s life when it’s a loss brought on by betrayal, deceit, hatred, or brought on with the sheer intent to punish you for some unknown and/or unintentional “misdeed” of sorts, even sometimes a “misdeed” that’s merely fictional – a fabrication created solely from the dark billowing folds of a sick and twisted mind of a sociopath. I mean, there just ain’t no sunshine after this kind of loss.

People say; move on with your life. Let go of the pain. Recreate yourself. Recreate a life for you that you love. Have faith.  Everything happens for a reason.

(Which by the way, I could now happily punch myself in the throat repeatedly for EVER thinking “everything happens for a reason” is EVER appropriate to say to ANY one!  Except maybe (big maybe here) in the case of divorce or breaking up with a sociopathic narcissist.  In THOSE cases of using the term “loss” so loosely, then yes, it really does happen “for a reason” and you are truly better off.  Other than that, then everyone who falls back on that phrase (myself included), can fuck off!)

So, you look in every hidden corner of your life, your heart, and your mind…stretching your limbs and your definitions to find that possibility. You become a detective of possibilities, looking for them anywhere and in anything:

Maybe this book will help. Maybe that book will release my mind from its torment for a moment…or this movie…or a conversation with this person about the struggle….or a conversation with that person about anything but the struggle? Maybe art, perhaps painting or coloring or creating a DIY project will provide a moment of relief?
Maybe God? Worshipping Him, being grateful for the many wonderful things you know are there but no longer bring any joy, forcing yourself to look for that joy and insist it is there?  Maybe singing to Him, or listening to music praising Him?

Maybe a new pet, a colorful squawking bird or an innocent playful puppy or a soft fluffy cuddly kitten?
Maybe reminiscing? Or not allowing yourself to reminisce, removing as many painful reminders of all the places joy once stood? Maybe cleaning until your skin is raw, bleeding, and cracked and looks like your heart feels? Maybe not cleaning? Living in squalor, letting everything get and stay as messy and unkempt as your life and your thoughts feel?
Maybe music? Country music? Classic rock? Reggae? Heavy metal? Classical? Gospel? Hard rock? Really loud music? Really soft, subtle background music?

Maybe gardening? Putting your time into cultivating a beautiful plant which signifies life? Or growing tomatoes to remind you to survive, you must eat? Maybe plotting the revenge you don’t believe in and would never seek?  Maybe imagining karma or refusing to allow yourself to believe you “don’t deserve” this kind of pain?  Or forcing yourself to think you deserve this and much worse?  If “much worse” exists?  Maybe fantasizing about how “much worse” might be or feel?

Maybe too much time on Facebook or Twitter or blogging or Pinterest? Maybe joining support groups and reaching out to help others who are hurting? Maybe volunteering for a domestic violence shelter or the humane society? Maybe do daily affirmations in the mirror? Or practicing the Law of Attraction?

Maybe drinking too much wine? Or not allowing yourself to have any alcohol? Maybe writing letters? Or emails? Or joining causes you believe in? Laughing foolishly about the silliest stuff your brain can think of?

Maybe planning your suicide? Writing your will? Organizing vast piles of paperwork? Maybe dancing like no one is watching? Playing in the rain? Hand writing letters to lonely souls in prison? Reaching out to long-lost friends? Reconnecting with friends you’ve grown distant from? Maybe having sex with an old boyfriend? Or going on a date with someone new? Maybe drinking more tea? Making infused waters? Maybe browsing through hundreds of old photos? Or hiding every reminiscent photo?

Maybe living in another state? Or another state again? Or the same state where you lost everything? Maybe changing your name? maybe writing of the abuse you’ve never spoken of? Maybe writing of anything but your grief, sorrow, pain, or past abuse? Maybe writing the stories of your multiple rapes? Your mounting dealings with injustices? Maybe giving compassion to others who’ve endured similar experiences and not even speaking of your own?

Maybe get a tattoo? Alter your flesh somehow to tell yourself you are now officially and physically not the exact same body who experienced these things at all?

After a while, you listen to everyone tell you how to move on, let go, live again.  And you are a detective of joy survival; madly and frantically searching for brief any flashing moment of joy happiness serenity peace relief to alleviate the pain and sorrow that has somehow infused itself into every recess of your brain.

Maybe beg for a lobotomy?

Daddy’s hand

Tags

adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, life, loss, mean mothers, nostalgia, parent issues, sadness, safety, sociopath, trust, unforgivable

Dad let go of her hand but she never let go of dad’s hand.

Humans of New York (http://www.humansofnewyork.com) posted this photo with the caption “Dad let go of her hand, but she never let go of Dad’s hand.”

My earliest and perhaps most innocently poignant memory is of having to let go of my dad’s hand. I guess myself at around three. My mother and father were viciously arguing. My sister and I were hiding on the stairway. My heart was racing; scared of the fighting and petrified I’d get caught for sitting on those steps listening to all the loud yelling I didn’t understand and be punished for my curiosity. Two policemen showed up. They appeared larger than life and what frightened me most was the Billy club each had dangling from his belt. Menacing, baseball bat looking clubs as big as my leg, which I knew were there to be used. In my confusion for sitting on the stairway…or maybe it was the automatic assumption I’d carry with me for the rest of my life that as usual, I’D done something wrong …whatever it was, somehow I knew instantly that Billy club was to beat me with. The minute I saw it, I ran as fast as my legs could fumble themselves up those stairs in my panic, too scared now to even worry about being quiet!

I ran straight to the top of the stairs and turned into the first door on the left, my parent’s bedroom. My bedroom was straight ahead and the same distance to run, but somehow I felt sure that Billy club would come looking for me in MY room. So, I thought I was quite clever to hide in my parent’s room where they at least wouldn’t come first looking for me, maybe buying myself a few precious seconds before the beating.

The yelling downstairs had ceased. I could still hear talking; the policemen and my parents’ voices, but no more yelling. I wanted so much to hear what they were saying…to know what I had done this time…and get a clue as to how bad the Billy club beating might be….ohhhhh, how I wanted to know! Sheer terror kept me hiding behind the leather rocking chair in the corner of my parents’ bedroom, though. I didn’t DARE peek out and be nosy with the Billy club policeman man there, no matter how overwhelming my curiosity was!

My sister had gone under their bed. I stayed behind the chair for what felt like my last eternal moments before my inevitable death, making myself as small as I could to hide completely and occasionally putting my head sideways against the floor to peek under it and see my sister under the bed.

That lasted forever and I must be missing some time in there because the next thing I recall is my mother standing in front of my dad by the big wooden front door downstairs. My mother facing my dad directly, his face looked sad and hurt, not angry and mean like my mother’s and I knew something was horribly awfully wrong. My dad smiled and laughed perpetually. I’d never seen this look on his face ever. Not once on my entire three years! My mother held mine and my sister’s hands on either side of her, facing him and saying to us, who do you want to go with? This was a hard question. I didn’t want to hurt either of my parents’ feelings and I didn’t know what the right answer was. I love my mommy so much and I love my daddy too! And forever without one of them seemed an impossible choice. At that moment, I really believed this was the most final and permanent decision I’d ever have to make in my lifetime. My sister immediately piped up with, I’m going with you, Mommy. She either knew the right answer because she was an older, wiser five years old or it simply wasn’t the dilemma for her that it was for me? I didn’t know. I was looking at my dad’s face right that moment, still that sad look that was hauntingly unknown to me and I knew I couldn’t leave my daddy alone no matter what. My sister had already picked mother. I couldn’t leave my daddy alone with that expression on his face and I could feel the hot anger seething off my mother, while my dad felt quietly just hurt and defeated maybe…somehow seeming much safer than the alternative. I stepped over to my obviously wounded gigantic daddy and said, I’ll stay with you, Daddy.

It was decided. My sister left with our raging, seething mother and I stayed with our wounded, broken hearted Daddy, just knowing I could love on him enough with hugs and kisses to chase that sad look away and bring back his usual jolly smile. Strange that the few seconds it took me to make that choice feeling afraid because I believed it would be forever and I’d answer wrong, was immediately replaced with as much confidence as any three-year-old could have after answering such a question. I knew I belonged with my daddy. I loved and adored my mommy like crazy as any child does, but I knew the minute I took those few steps over to stand by my daddy’s side, that that was exactly where I belonged in this world, even if it DID mean I’d never see my beloved mother’s face again. I felt sad, but I was no longer afraid that I’d answered the question wrong. Yes, I belonged with Daddy; my happy, laughing, loving daddy with the smile that lifted my heart high in the air full of joy every day.

I didn’t understand this was only for the night…or a few days…or whatever it ended up being. I can’t recall. The last thing I remember is feeling that odd confidence that I’d made the right choice and knowing I would be safe forever right next to my daddy, holding tight to his great big warm hand.

But it wasn’t forever. Not too long after this painful choice…a night…or two or three days…my mother returned and took me with her and my sister far away from our house any my dad (to be with another wealthy much older man whom I’d later in life discover she had already been seeing and cheating on my dad with way back then). And, my daddy had to let go of my hand. I never let go of his though. Over the next 14 years, I held onto my daddy’s hand once in a while in person when I was allowed to see him, but every day and night I held onto his hand in my prayers, in my dreams, in my thoughts when I was scared, and in my heart when I felt unloved and unwanted or confused and beaten. And I continued to hold it the 27 years following that as I trudged my way through life, love, rape, abuse, and many scary choices.

Forty-one years later from the year I made that first great big life choice to hold my dad’s hand, I’m still holding that big warm hand in my mind and my heart. My daddy is gone. He let go of my hand again to go to heaven but I haven’t let go of Daddy’s hand.

Complete culpability

Tags

adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, generosity, grief, hopes, invisible, Mother, nightmares, nostalgia, parent issues, rape, sadness, safety, sexual abuse, sister, sociopath, suicidal, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable, unforgiven

I miss you, Daddy.

It’s pity party time… I’ve officially spent my second birthday and the second anniversary of my dad’s death alone. Without one single phone call on either day…not a “checking in to see how you are”, not a “hey, I’m thinkin of you”…not a single friend or family member thought of me on the two most significant days of my life.
After 44 years of life, millions of friends, several boyfriends, one husband, and two children of my own, I now realize what I feared most from my earliest days is literally true. My mother, my sister and all those other people over 44 years couldn’t ALL be wrong about me; I’m not someone who can be loved. I’m just not…
I suppose I could write of how it’s my mother’s fault. How being raised by a narcissistic sociopathic woman damaged me so cruelly, left me with huge holes in my soul that can’t be filled, making me so desperate and needy for the one thing that scared me most, love. I found it crazy ironic to discover at 26 that I have a flap in my heart which doesn’t close properly. What a perfect description of me…it was almost an explanation at last for what I am that I can’t seem to help or change. The pieces of me that are so just wrong that they’ll never be right finally made literal, physical sense when the doctors told me that back when I was pregnant with Savannah Grace.
I suppose I could write how it’s other people’s fault, as well. How being so painfully insecure and desperately needy for love and approval for as long as I can remember being alive led me directly to the kinds of people who would manipulate and abuse that…furthering the unlovable clause I was born with. Seriously, WHO gets molested as a 6 year old by a teacher and a babysitter? And WHO is ridiculous enough to get raped *three* times in 44 years? And WHO is blessed enough to have had so many wonderful men profess the most beautiful depths of undying love and still ends up alone? What kind of idiot runs so fast and so often over a lifetime from the very thing she has been praying for since the tender age of 4? I certainly could never convince myself that it was all THEM…that there was something inadequate with every one of THEM. No, the common denominator there is me…and only me. I chased, pushed, argued, and crazied every one of them away from me, even the most tenacious of them. I could try to blame any one of a hundred girlfriends who shit on me, stabbed me in the back, devastated and used me…..but again, who’s the common denominator there? Me.
And what about my daddy? I was fortunate that my mother kicked me out with just a trash bag full of clothes at 16 for lying about smoking a cigarette. Thus, I spent the majority of my life, from 16 to 42, with a most amazing parent who demonstrated love, acceptance, kindness, honesty, integrity, and joy. So many children don’t have that kind of example or love in their life from ANY where growing up, at ANY age. Hell, I was fortunate that my daddy somehow always found the strength and ability to love me at all. Why didn’t that fix those fucking holes I was born and raised with? Not everyone who is unloved by her mother is blessed enough to be unconditionally loved by her father. If the cause of this unending and irreparable unlovability issue isn’t ME, at my very core, then that shower of my daddy’s true blessings would have repaired that. It should have, right?
Yes, it should have. It would have. If it wasn’t me, my fault, my issue, my fault, my inadequacy…mine, mine, MINE.
I’ve never felt good trying to blame any of this on other people anyway. Contrary to many people’s beliefs, I’ve just never been the person who could blame someone for anything at all really and feel confident it wasn’t really my fault. When the teacher molested me at 6, I even felt guilty when he got in trouble…even at that tender age; I felt it was me, my fault. After all, I had actually appreciated the special attention he had always given me, hadn’t I? I had looked forward to his smiles in the elementary school hallways that made his face beam whenever he saw me….it actually made me think of my daddy’s huge grin whenever I got to see HIM! And my favorite was the day he lifted me up to drink from the big drinking fountain. I had appreciated feeling special to a grown-up who saw me every day and still seemed to think I was someone special in this world. I would have never told on him intentionally. Not EVER! And I really didn’t want him to get in so much trouble either. Somehow, even way back then, at such a young and innocent age, I just knew it was my fault. Everything was my fault, so that had to be too. All three times I was raped, no matter how cruelly, I still felt deep down it was my fault…that I HAD gotten what I deserved. And I think I was always afraid to tell my mother because I knew she would be sure to bring that to my attention immediately and then all doubt of me “not deserving” to be raped would be totally eliminated. Hell, somehow I’ve been “asking for it” since the age of 6! I’m sure at 17 and older, I was REALLY asking for it. I just wanted to blame them because I never figured out HOW I “asked for it” and thus, couldn’t figure out how to stop “asking for it”. I only blamed them in my own mind out of frustration that I couldn’t fix what had always been wrong with me.
I’ve never minded taking the blame for things, actually I usually prefer it. After all, if it’s MY fault, then I can fix it. If it’s not, then I’m powerless to ever get it right. And yet, in spite of years of therapy, and so many wonderful years with a loving father, a zillion self-help books and strategies, I’ve never been successful at fixing it. And I still don’t feel satisfied trying to put the blame on other people for anything really… It’s been my life problem as long as I can remember; therefore, it’s still MY problem. My ex-husband even said to me once, “NO one in this world has such chronic shitty luck as you. The shit that happens to you regularly, just doesn’t happen to anyone…not even one of then usually, much less a lifetime of them!?” He was so right. I’ve always known that deep inside too. It’s me…it’s GOT to be. There is no other logical explanation. Hell, my mother abused the hell out of me physically, mentally, and verbally for 26 years and I was STILL desperate for her to love me. I’ve counseled so many children whose parents were fiercely abusive and still, they loved them and would do anything for their love. Me? I have two children who tossed me AND my love in the garbage without a second thought or one single look back to just wave good-bye….just threw me in the trash like the worthless garbage I’ve always been. And in spite of all my mistakes and failings as a mother and a human being, I gave those two children the very best of anything good I have ever had inside me to give, which was still apparently utterly worthless.
And since it seems to get worse the harder I’ve tried to repair whatever this is I was born with, what does that even really mean? If I own it all, I still can’t fix it; if I blame everyone else, I can’t fix it either.
I have so many of my daddy’s amazing qualities…deep down I think, where most can’t see them, but I have them damnit! So, why don’t they make me and my life even a fraction as valuable as my daddy was in this world to almost everyone who ever met him? Why can’t I fix what’s wrong with me?
Why?
I realized recently that I’ve never really been afraid to die… Well, as a mom I was because I felt my children deserved to know the love and nurturing of a mother…the love I never knew and started my desperate journey toward a life of failure lacking. Other than that, I never was afraid to die though. Obviously, my greatest fear is living. And figuring out why I’ve been forced to do something for 44 years that I’m just not able to do well. I’d rather not do something at all, than try for 44 years just to get worse and worse at the effort.
I did always hope that someday, before he passed or I did, I’d have the opportunity to deserve to matter in this world by giving back to my daddy somehow. I always told him, “someday Daddy, I’m going to get myself together and do something REALLY amazing for you to repay all you’ve ben and done for me over my life time”. It still wouldn’t have ever been enough, but I really always hoped I’d have that opportunity and ability someday. I didn’t. He is gone and I’m still fucking alive and every bit as unworthy, useless, and unlovable as I was born.
I’m sorry Daddy. I’m sorry I didn’t get it together in time to return your wonderfulness to you even a little bit. I’m really sorry. I know it made no difference to you whatsoever, but it really would have made the world of difference to me.
It seems so cruel. So much death all around me over the last two years since my daddy passed. All these beloved people and children dying and leaving behind heartbroken masses of hurting folks who loved and admired them. Yet, on and on and on I go…. 44 years of nothing but worthless efforts to somehow give the world what I always dreamed of. A life of nothing; worth nothing, for nothing, meaning nothing. No one notices or cares I’m alive and who can blame them? I don’t. So, why does God take the cherished ones and leave the insignificant failures to continue being a burden.
Yet, on I go…

Velvet Validity

Tags

adapting, black sheep, childhood, children, Daddy, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, life, loss, loveless, mean mothers, Mother, nostalgia, the ex, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable

It felt like his innocence was gone. I saw that in him in glimpses before of his cruel apathy, but this time was different. And not just an age thing either, it was a sexual thing… I think any time you go back to someone you had before, it’s never the same. And it’s certainly never exactly the way you have formed the memories in your mind over the absent time. For me, it’s always a bit of a disappointment; it’s somehow just less than it was before…or maybe than it had been in your rose colored hindsight.

And yet, not exactly; not with him. No, my every moment with him, comical, serious, sexual, friendly is all blanketed with the velvet validity of everything I remember. All my time with him is though. He is my exception. My exception to every rule. I said to him, “I do want to be friends…and I get sad when I think we can’t be. I mean, I love you…I love you either way, you know?” He responded, “I know you do.” Yes, he does know.

I’m playing Rose Colored Glasses – the song that in my mind always defined my dad’s unconditional and enduring love for my mother. How strange that even as a child with no comprehension of my parents’ marriage or romantic love at all really, I always felt that song was my daddy’s song for my mother. Maybe it’s the conversation we had one day while riding in his red Bonneville with the pin striped velour seats I thought were so soft and pretty. I was maybe 10 or 11 and this song came on the radio and he turned it up and said in his deep joyously loud voice, “Oh baby, your daddy sure burned this one up!” I didn’t know what that meant, so I asked him what he meant by that and he laughed and said, “I used to play that one on the jukebox over and over and over again until people would tell me to knock it off!” Wise beyond my years even then about lost or unrequited love, Daddy didn’t even have to actually say the words, I knew he meant this happened during the worst of his heartbreak era after my mother left him.

I am undoubtedly my father’s daughter. My mother never suffered from silly nostalgic memories or wasted time wallowing in a broken heart from lost love. My sister surely doesn’t suffer that affliction either. Neither of them would ever be such ridiculously silly romantics. Just me. Just me…and my daddy. So maybe it’s my family legacy that I uphold with this unconditional and enduring love I have for D? Maybe this kind of everlasting depth of devotion just runs in my veins?

Perhaps the only love that could have forever kept me from accepting my love for D again is my daughter’s… Her beautiful heart was the only thing which gave me the strength to at least minimize the depth of emotion I have for this man and place it on that tiny back burner. …And as life’s cruel steel-fisted irony would have it, I now no longer have hers.

For the love of Pete, will my life ever cease to fully represent the sappiest of country songs? Having been born into a situation of unrequited maternal love, chronic loss, regular betrayal, a thick aura of unrequited love surrounds me as I live my silly old Lifetime Movie life. And I don’t fool myself anymore into believing my happy ending might come. I think this is just what my life was meant to be for some reason: a cautionary tale about love and loss – the kind where you cry at the end because your heart aches, not tears of joy that it all turned around and the heroine overcame at the end. Hell, maybe I’m not even the heroine? Maybe I’m just the sideline story going on in the background, as the good guy gets the girl and rides into the sunset hand in hand with the love of his life? Maybe my daddy was the star of the show and it ended bittersweet…or maybe it’s one of my daughters’ show? And the happy ending will come for her life?

Oh well, I just love him. And just as I feel some sense of resentment at that blasted stubborn truth I can’t seem to change no matter what I do(ugh!), I hear another song which perfectly identifies my daddy as well, Here For a Good Time.
Daddy enjoyed life to its fullest all the way to his very last second. He may have felt the acute sting of lost love just like I do, but he never let it stop him from laughing, loving, and living to the fullest for very long. He had hiccups from it and he kept right on going. Unlike him, I have full-on break downs.

So, in his honor, I’m not going to beat myself up today for loving this man the way I do. I’m just not. It isn’t going to change anything, so I may as well just embrace it. After all, the unconditional love of my daddy is gone now and my daughters don’t care either way anymore. And even brief moments with D give me the bittersweet glimpses of joy my daddy miraculously maintained with his rose-colored love for my mother till the very end of his life. Bittersweet was good enough for my daddy till his dying day, so it’s surely good enough for me to appreciate and not resent or fight.

After all, it really just is exactly what it is.

Outrageous audacity and gratitude lists

Tags

adapting, Audacity, black sheep, children, DENIAL, depression, desperation, Disability, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, Gratitude, grief, history, life, loss, loveless, manipulation, mean mothers, nostalgia, parent issues, sadness, the ex, Tragedy, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable

The outrageous audacity of some just sets my throat into gag-mode and it’s no exaggeration to say, I’ve just thrown up a little in my mouth.
And when a person or event has successfully forced bile to rise in my throat, well, it’s goodbye Grace. I simply can’t balance grace with horrifically disgusting audacity. I just can’t. Or perhaps I just won’t. Who knows? At any rate, Grace who prefers not to pass judgment; Grace who wants to spread peace and love around with tiny bubble decanters to provoke joyous giggles in others; Grace who smiles through her pain and has become an expert in never letting the depth of her pain show; Grace who feels her mission on earth is to practices radical kindness and unconditional acceptance…Grace jumps out the window tossing maniacal laughter out as she flies, and bellows, FUCK YOU!
Narcissistic sociopaths should be burned like witches from the Salem era. First though, they must be strung up by meat hooks, whipped and taunted while their long line of soundproof ear-plug wearing victims take precious spray bottles filled with rubbing alcohol and lightly mist their wounds. La-dee-da-dee-daaaa…. Frolicking nonchalantly among the hanging perpetrators of gross injustice and catastrophic cruelty…mist…mist…tsk…tsk…absolutely unaware of the piercing shrieks of pain they’re inducing. What was that I heard? Ahhh…sweet would be the blissful silence among the filthy bastards as they take a spoonful or two of their own cruel and inhumane medicine.
This would be akin to the depth of absolute uncaring, unconcerned, audacity these mother fuckers maintain as they rip your world into tiny pieces, piss on those pieces, set them on fire, and then go bitch about how ungrateful their victim is…what an incessant whiner their little sacrificial lamb is. For God’s sake, why can’t their victims suck it up, burn alive and be grateful for the experience. WHY? After all, this experience couldn’t possibly be any worse than the irritating hangnail the Narc had just last week! Right?! The betrayal and emotional torture the Narc has imposed upon their victim(s) was nothing near the depth of hut the narc felt that one time he was 6 and got vanilla frosting on his surprise birthday cake rather than the chocolate he’d preferred. Now, that was pain….pain to cry about for years to come; pain great enough to hold the blame for every slander of reputation, slice of innocence, and pound of flesh he took from others over his next 40 years. No one else’s “pain” could possibly compare to these delicate infractions the Narc was put through all his life. No, the only acceptable complaining or whining is the Narc’s. After all, his pain is just so much more intense and unbearable than anything any one else has endured…ever…ever before or ever since. In fact, I suppose a Narc can’t even comprehend that other’s feel pain at all since they can’t grasp existence outside of himself. And a sociopath might have the emotional intelligence to understand others do in fact feel pain, but hasn’t the conscience or soul to care one whit. The Soc is way too busy frantically feeding off power he gets from inflicting pain on another against their will.
Oh yeah….bile in the mouth. I got sidetracked for a moment there trying to wrap an adequate description around these two earth roaming, life demolishing monsters.
Can you imagine for a moment this scenario:
Your dear, dear long distance partner/significant other has been involved in a tragic accident. Due to no fault of their own, he or she has abruptly and absolutely lost the ability to walk, talk, feed themselves, go to the bathroom alone or wipe their ass. He/she is alive though, and is successfully regaining the ability to talk and breathe again without outside help. It’s slow going, but it’s going. The prognosis is long term paralysis and a high unlikelihood that they’ll ever live independently again. Your friend also is the single parent of a 20 month old child and has another child on the way.
In addition, this dear friend of yours, has a sociopathic narcissistic mother who flew several states in “grave concern” to arrive at the hospital just shortly after being moved from the ER into a private room. This delightful, loving mother arrives as you are holding your SO’s hand…maybe you’re grateful they are alive, maybe you’re feigning concern, maybe you’re grateful that you get to leave this antiseptic hospital after you’ve done your duty and get back to your life, having others to take care of your 20 month old as you continue frolicking through your own life, just as before…I don’t know why you’re holding their hand, but you are.
Arrive Sociopathic mother on the scene, who coldly says to you, I’d like a few moments alone with my child. You happen to know your SO has a strained, at best, somewhat abusive relationship with this woman, but you’re just grateful you get an excuse to get out of this duty-filled environment for a moment. You release the hand and exit the room.
Sociopathic mother then sets her handbag down on the hospital bed, and leans in somewhat close to whisper in a satanic tone of voice, “You deserve what you fucking get”, grabs her bag, looks to her third husband sitting in the corner chair and says, “Let’s go”.
Fast forward a few weeks later. You’ve made the three hour drive to visit again. It’s perfect in that it’s close enough that you can do this duty on your day off from your job and not have to inconvenience your schedule much at all. This time, you know your SO is struggling with depression, fear, anger, and frustration. You know this. So, you thoughtfully decide to set about helping them with a gratitude exercise. Yeah, they’re still struggling a little with their ability to speak, but this is still an appropriate exercise, right? I mean really, it’s a thoughtful and kind thing to do!
You enter after driving your car, from your house, and off for a day from your job. After you leave here today, you’ll go visit your 20 month old daughter, hold her, maybe play with her a bit…you know, those things you might do with your very young child when you only see her a few weeks a months…
Your SO is painfully aware that they may not ever drive a car again, work a job again, live independently again, or God forbid, even play normally with or care for their daughter ever again. But, you’ve got this covered. You’re going to take these precious moments hereto assist with a gratitude list! That’s exactly what they need…to count their blessings and remember to be grateful! And gosh, aren’t you, in all your health and problem-free normal life, just the person to remind them of this blessings, no matter how disguised or buried…?!
And you are just pissed off to no end to find that this cranky, angry, partner of yours is pissed off and has no interest at this time in doing a gratitude list. Ahhh the nerve of such ingrates! This is, in fact, such an outrageous travesty of character, that 13 years later, you’re still telling the story to your new “significant other(s)” about the audacious ingratitude of your former SO.
There’s just nothing at all wrong with this little scenario, is there? Well, except for that ungrateful bastard.

Stuck…sometimes

Tags

adapting, black sheep, childhood, DENIAL, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, history, hopes, invisible, Just sometimes, life, loss, mean mothers, Mother, nostalgia, sadness, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable

Get it flowing….

Do you ever feel there’s just so much to say that you can’t even begin? Yet simultaneously feel desperate to get it out? Ahhhh…stuck. Just stuck. Like the kitten who bravely climbs the tree and then vociferously bellows sad meows of desperate fear, not realizing that since he found his way up, he has the power to get back down the same way.

I get stuck there so often. This is where my “crazy” starts. Writing is my primary therapeutic tool to process feelings and events and safe method by which to allow my feelings to flow. I was trained very early to deny or hide my feelings. That has become my automatic response. Hide, deny, belittle, any feelings which aren’t “appropriate” to express. So when I’m unable to write, the feelings seem to stagnate and sit still inside me, festering into an un-climb-able mountain to be silently feared as it slowly takes over my mind, growing larger, more shameful, and impossible to overcome each day.

Sometimes I want to list my regrets so I can look at them in black and white…mourn them appropriately and move on. I abhor people who refuse to acknowledge their mistakes and subsequently will never grow or learn from them.

Sometimes I want to list all my blessings to simply keep my mind focused on the positive. Yes, I do buy into the theory of positive thinking. Why focus on the negatives? Simply focus on the blessings and allow those sensations to build within!

Sometimes I want to be like everyone else. Why have I always felt so different from the majority? Am I narcissistic? Am I really so entirely different from others as I’ve felt all my life? Is this a disguised and distorted vision of myself as being so incredibly different, when maybe in fact I’m merely ordinary and just not all that different after all?

Sometimes I want to embrace my differences and put them on that gratitude list. Some of these “differences” are beautiful. Well, at least on good days, I try to convince myself they are…

Sometimes I want to tell my story. This feels like a necessity to define and understand myself…as though I question my very existence and my own truth without putting it in black and white and hopefully hearing some validation for my struggles.

Sometimes I’m too ashamed to tell the whole sordid story – afraid it’s pathetic and will merely present myself as a “victim”….so NOT what I want to be or be seen as! My inner need to always find my blame and my responsibility in every rough event in my life (after all, the only person I can change is myself, right?) often conquers the healthy ability to place blame where it truly lies (yes, sometimes others really just are responsible for their actions which have affected your life, right?).

Sometimes I’m afraid if I don’t finally tell my whole truth, that somehow it will mutate into something else, the perspective of those around me. I fear it will become so saturated into my desperate need to find my blame in everything (out of the terrible dread of accidentally placing blame on the wrong shoulders), that not telling it will perpetuate my depression. After all, carrying the weight of everyone’s choices is not any healthier than chronically blaming others for your life challenges.

Hmmm……

Sometimes I just get stuck and I have to think of these “sometimes” to get my thoughts flowing.

And sometimes I have to write them down as evidence that I actually exist at all.

Futile thoughts & senseless prayers

Tags

adapting, children, Daddy, DENIAL, depression, desperation, dysfunctional family, estranged, fear, frustration, grief, hopes, life, loss, loveless, manipulation, nostalgia, parent issues, sociopath, trust, unacceptable, unforgivable

April, 14, 2013

Hi Mark,

I’m really missing my dad today. At church this morning, I prayed so hard for him to communicate my love to him and to feel his for me and I remembered when my church did a huge renovation in 2010/2011 right after the girls and I came home from Nevada. When the floor was stripped, they invited people up during the service to take a marker and write the name of a person you wanted to bless and wrap in the grace and love of God. I debated and prayed for a while on whose name I most wanted to write since there wouldn’t be time to include my entire list…and I wrote your name. I was so hurt and angry at you during that time in our lives, watching my girls hurt so badly over the choices you’d recently made, but I knew those were choices you made from your own hurt…so I forgave you and gave you entirely to God. Your name is still written on that huge devotion of blessings to hundreds, maybe thousands of people. I hope that might bring you some comfort and peace.

The strangest thing came to me immediately after my prayer and the subsequent memory of that Sunday morning at church with my dad and the girls and I all taking our turn writing on that space… I suddenly knew what my dad would say to me. So, I lighted a candle of blessing and healing for you. I’ve kept you in my prayers for years, as did my dad and we often prayed together for your well-being. I know he was grinning at me as I blessed you. I know God was smiling at me as well. It was a powerful moment and I hope you sensed the love and grace I sent your way.

I know maybe more than anyone how you struggle with your own demons. I’ve always tried to give you my full support and compassion in that fight. I suppose that’s why it hurts so much more to have you so cruelly and unmercifully engage in this vicious attack on me in my weakest point and at my most vulnerable time ever. No matter how painful your choices sometimes were or how deeply they hurt me, I never used your personal pain or personal challenges to hurt you in vulnerable moments. It seems like another lifetime ago when I felt any kind of personal love for you as a man, but I’ve never once stopped caring deeply about the man who is the father of my children; or praying for you in your endeavors to become the man of integrity you once told me you wanted to be. You may have hurt me in a billion ways when I was still quite young and naïve and directed my life far from the path I desired and dreamed of…but I always redirected my perspective to the human being you were when you were doing everything in your power to overcome your painful challenges and prepare yourself to be a father to our children and a good partner for me.

I was young and naïve of many things you and I went through together while we were going through it all, but I know I truly did everything in my heart to love and support you through the pain of all that you carried around with you from your life, even when you hurt me personally. Not one of the choices I have made even once since that fateful day you first asked me out were ever with the intention of hurting you or causing you any additional sadness.

Although I am absolutely devastated at your choices over the past few years and how deeply they’ve damaged my life and the lives of the people who mean the most to me, I still pray for your personal struggles and maintain hope that you’ll someday be free from the pain those things bring to your life.

Anyway, today is nostalgic for me… and within that, along with these thoughts and memories, I recalled that tape I made for you when I was pregnant with Savannah and how you called me when you listened to it and we were laughing because I had included that song by Paul Anka, “Having My Baby”. Also the night before Savannah was born when you got here around midnight and I couldn’t sleep because I was so deathly afraid for her safety during the birth…and you rubbed lotion on my huge belly because it was so sore and ugly covered entirely with bruises on top of bruises from all those months of injections I had to give myself to keep her safe…and afterward, you just lied next to me with your hand on my head until I fell asleep.

Those have been valuable memories of you and glimpses of why I believed in you in the first place and they are precious moments for me from our relationship. Thank you for those.

I’ve considered you along with our children as my primary family for many years now. Although the hurt I feel right now is far worse than any pain I could have ever imagined I could survive, I remembered you today when I prayed for those who have meant the most to me throughout my life, and I wanted you to know that you were still one of the first to come to mind. No matter how much you hurt or attack me, I will still always care about your personal struggles and continue to pray for peace in your soul and healing for your heart.

God bless you,

~chloe