I thought I would take a moment to write about someone whom I have learned so much from, yet I want to be nothing like. My mother.
Honestly, I don't even call her my mother in informal conversation. To my friends and family she is known as ann. I
have always, used to be a very positive person. The world does a number on you once you move out into the real world and deal with real world problems.
With that said, I used to be a very positive person. I had such amazing goals such as traveling the world, meeting a man with an interesting accent and traveling all over with him and our four children, he would be an writer and a artist and write novels with our family as the characters. It would be amazing! {Did you read that in an annoying magical voice? Good.}
Instead I found my perfect match with an Upstate NY accent, a love for the beach, and a member of our armed forces. Well two out of... Ah whatever. He's awesome and that's all that really matters.
Okay getting back to the real world like I outlined above. I learned a lot from ann. I learned that AA isn't someplace I want to be attending for the rest of my life so I should drink responsibly or not drink at all, unlike her. I learned that I needed to be honest with those around me and be loving and caring unlike her. I learned that I need to try my hardest and love my children, unlike her. I learned that even though I unwillingly learned behaviors like yelling, having anger issues, and being depressed; I could and can overcome those issues, once again... unlike her.
Ann never wanted me. I could hear the emptiness when my father told me that in early 2013.
"I begged her to keep the baby. She had stopped drinking the moment she found out and had not been doing drugs for a while."
I was in awe.
"I told her we could get married. That after she had you she would just have to clean up her act and we could have a big wedding. I lied to her to keep you alive."
Wow. This person who hated me so much and who didn't want anything to do with her unborn child had so many issues herself that her only reason for keeping me was because my father, whom was in no way ready for a child either, who promised to marry her if she had the baby.
I asked my father about this after a year of therapy. My therapist wanted to know if there had been any physical abuse from my mother. From what my father knew, I had not been physically abused but I had been mentally abused, I had been exposed to things that I really shouldn't of been and so much more.
"She left you in your crib at 2 months old and left for work." My father tells me the story of my mother leaving me alone in the trailer my grandfather had bought for his only child... my mother. And how my father received a call from work from my mother who had to drive over a half an hour to work to call him to let him know that I was alone in my crib. He called my mother's father and step mom to go and pick me up from the trailer and then called the cops on her.
Wow how times have changed. The cops did nothing but give her a slap on the wrist, a stern warning.
This isn't a pity party. I am writing this to remind myself of the monster that gave birth to me did to me. A reminder of what I DO NOT want to be like. A blatant reminder that when I get upset and yell, I am doing the same thing as she did.
Keep your cool.
It's not that bad.
Breathe deep.
Hug him.
Love him.
Snuggle him.
He's still little.
Read him books.
Kiss his toes.
Teach him.
Do you get it?
My first memory that I can ever remember is living in that trailer. My bedroom door is locked, my mattress is on the floor, I have a dresser, and a small bin of toys. It's summer and it's so pretty outside, but I'm in my room and hungry.
I later found out that the first memory I can recall, my mother was getting high in the living room with her boyfriends and my dad wasn't allowed in the house. I was so hungry that I remember when my mother was passed out on the couch I would eat the butter from the butter dish on the kitchen table. Only a week or so would pass and I would be taken out of my mother's custody.
Thank you Lord for protecting me!!
Next memory I have of ann took place when she was in recovery. I spent my birthday in a hospital with my grandparents holding on to me while she stayed in her bed. What a mess. What a scary person. She looked evil to me. How could this person be my mother?
I blew out my candles and the memory disappears.
I must have been 6/7? That's when your memories start to become more vivid I believe. I can remember the smell of incense burning. It always made me sick. She had put a small bed in a closet with a window. It was my "room" even though I only stayed overnight that one time there. He was there. That vile man whom she wanted me to start calling dad because she was going to marry him. Sorry, no way was that going to happen.
I woke up to them yelling. He beat her and threw her down the stairs and dragged her out by her hair. I remember she was bleeding and once they were outside I ran down the stairs to her neighbor with the birds. I was shaking and crying. I called my Nanna and Poppa because I couldn't remember my phone number. I waited with the bird lady. I didn't see my mother for a long while after that.
Our brains are so very amazing. We remember the tiny details of our memories but can not remember the bigger picture. As a child I feel that it is a coping mechanism that allows us to feel secure about what we have experienced.
Living with ann was a horrible experience. The situation that occurred that forced me to live with her was quite simple. My father was getting married and he was moving away, and guess who didn't want to move with him? That's right. Me.
I moved in with ann my sophomore year of high school. She acted as though she had the one up on my father. She didn't. She had no idea what she was in for because I was NOTHING like her. I had boyfriends, some of which I wish I hadn't, I was very active in church but I was not doing good with school. The reason? I had no space to do anything. Ann moved us into a one bedroom apartment on the scary side of town on the one main road on that side also.
I got the bedroom and she slept on the couch. Our neighbors could see INTO our bathroom window when they walked down their outside stairs, so I wore a robe everywhere. Behind our crappy apartment was a drunk who's friends were always calling 911 because he was passed out in his chair.
I was always being locked out of the apartment, told to go find someplace else to stay for the night and constantly on my tiptoes around her. I look at the house my husband and I rent today and I am in tears thinking how much better our son has it than I did a short 12 years ago.
After a year of living in a tiny cramped apartment we moved into a weird work trailer turned apartment. I had my own bedroom and bathroom all to myself, for the most part anyways. In that apartment she started accusing me of smoking pot, and doing drugs while she was away at work. She worked 3pm-11pm every night. My grandmother said it perfectly, "It was as though she wanted to you around just so she could claim you on her taxes. That's the only reason she wanted you." She meant that kindly believe me. She was right though. Every tax season we would go and I would have to sit there so she could claim me on her taxes. Happy for the tax break and extra money.
My senior year, my grandfather (her father) passed away. My world was turned upside-down. I was a wreck and so lost and confused. I skipped classes, I just didn't go to school some days. So it happened, I was called into the principles office and was given in school suspension for two weeks. I gave up. All I wanted was for someone to help me. That was the most depressing time in my life. I wanted to end it but I didn't.
I didn't walk the stage for graduation. Even the three girls who where pregnant walked the stage. Not me. I sat at the structure I called my home and sobbed for hours while my mother was at work.
I lived with her from 2003-2006. Summer of 2006 I left her apartment because of a confrontation that occurred about money. Go figure. I moved in with my father, whom had moved back to NY after his separation from his now ex-wife.
I went from living in a smoke filled run down apartment with no food and no support system, back to a home. My father didn't have much so I paid him rent and went to college. I paid my bills and did the right thing. I stayed out of trouble and I'm so glad I did. Because my father allowed me to move in with him even after I had chosen ann way back when, I married the man of my dreams (even though he can be a little jerky here and there) and I am working my way to becoming the woman I want to be.
she can't hold me down anymore. she has no control over me or my life. she will NEVER meet my children and will NEVER be allowed to hurt me EVER again!!!
Ephesians 6:2
"Honor thy mother and father."
I am honoring her by implementing what she has unknowingly taught me. she has taught ME to not be afraid of her. To be ME and to be better than I could ever imagine. That I don't need to flaunt my body to get what I want. That drugs, alcohol and anything else that impairs ones judgment is wrong. That God is the only one that can get you through everything and that even though she said I would never amount to anything, I have done more in my short life than she has in her 50+years.
I will treat my child with respect, teach him well, love him, care for him and work on yelling and being angry. I will spend more time with him and look at things from his perspective. I will continue to work on me, and remember that the issues I have are all learned and it will take time to unlearn them.
And most of all, I will love my husband with all of my heart.
I will show my children what a Godly, functioning marriage looks like. <
