Opportunity knocked.....

My daughters, husband and I have been living with my two aunts, uncle and three cousins for about one year now.   We were basically shut off from all of our friends because my aunts felt all of my friends were bad influences and drug dealers so they couldn't visit and since I had no vehicle to call my own and use at will, I never got to see my friends and therefore rarely got a reprieve from the insane ruling over my life by my aunts.  It made for me and my husband and our girls to be cranky, moody, uneasy and dying to get away from it all at whatever cost I could afford.

Abruptly after an argument with my eldest and forever single aunt, DM we'll call her, I received a message from my youngest and married with two of her own children and one adopted daughter whom they were basically given by my only uncle on my mother's side, their own brother when she was still a baby, aunt whom we shall call AJ.

In this message I had been informed that I was a "lying and selfish little bitch" who was leaving her mother in her time of need (my mom is having total left hip replacement and I'm moving my family up to the Sheboygan area right around the beginning of April for both things).  I was an unfit parent who could barely bathe, clean up after, feed or take care of my two daughters and should just let my aunts take them now so I don't fuck things up and get them taken away from me....

I have no history of this kind of negligence in any sense....this is entirely made up bullshit by DM just to get a rise out of me and my aunt AJ and therefore cause enough strife for me to be forcibly evicted from my home.

All of this began because my aunts asked if I had a place to move to and I informed them that my husband's parents had bought a home they were willing to rent out to us because in the last 18 months I was evicted, forced to live with my aunts, moved out of there and got all excited about moving back to Sheboygan, only to have my friend whom we moved to help out, bleed us dry of our entire savings which forced us to move back in with my aunts and wait for my husband's tax returns again because obviously my best friend had no intention of ever repaying us.

They were furious that I could not provide an address to said home.  I was told I was a terrible parent for telling my children that we had a home to move into but it wasn't "real" yet and I was getting their hopes up and hurting them.

In the end, they "packed up" all of our belongings from our room the four of us shared in their basement into plastic garbage bags with no sense of organization or respect for our belongings.  I had received one bag with nothing but glass objects all thrown into the bottom of the bag and then a collection of my books and other heavy things were put on top.

I have most of my belongings in a storage unit.  I'm being told by my own family, my own blood, that I have a responsibility to take care of my disabled mother and be there for her every need now that she's having hip replacement surgery. This includes paying her back rent so she doesn't get evicted and affording whatever other things she may need be it food or whatever.  I have to pay to have her bathroom redone, despite her having more than an adequate amount of money to do so on her own last December but instead of taking care of her bills she decided to go on a shopping spree for needless materialistic items.  She also let my autistic sister go on an insane Yule shopping spree for my daughters and literally, spoil them to pieces with trinkets and other meaningless crap.

I can't do it.  I won't do it.  I can't sacrifice my entire family, the daughters I made with the husband I will always love just so my mom doesn't have to figure out how to budget her money right.  Just so my aunt doesn't have to pay a little extra to take care of her nearly 12 year older sister who took care of her and her other younger sisters in a motherly way as soon as she was capable of it because her own mother, my grandmother, didn't want to have to "deal" with her children.

My mother was a live in caretaker and babysitter to her younger siblings from the time she was eight to the time she finally moved out of the house at 22 years old.

Explain to me how any of those women could possibly think it is my sole responsibility to care for my mother when I'm still trying to get a consistent life down for my OWN family?!

Why do they think that they have no reason for inputting any financial interest in taking care of their elderly and disabled sister?  My mother has loved and cared for her sisters for years and suffered their terrible treatment and abuse for years....before she finally moved out and started her own life.

I have found....I have a need to do the same.  With a heavy heart I must admit, I haven't spoken to my mother in nearly four days.....

this is very unusual and hurts me to say.  But what pain should I suffer?  Which pain is worse? That of my daughters not being raised in a stable home environment?  Or allowing my blood relatives to hate me and use me as their negative scapegoat for all their worries and woes because I moved my family one hour away to a stable environment and life?

I can be hated......but seeing my girls and husband this happy makes me see the silver lining of this entire experience.

Freedom.  Freedom to live.  To flourish and to thrive.   

I Couldn't Ask For More....

I have encountered so many people of different creed, color, religion, sexual orientation and whatnot throughout my life and so many of them have put themselves so deeply into my heart that I can't NOT feel for them to some degree regardless of the ways they have loved me...and wronged me. 

I have a deep seeded need to help people.  I have worked as a CNA, a medical receptionist, a medical transcriptionist, a customer service representative, an administrative assistant at a nursing home...the want I feel to help people in any way I possibly can runs deep in my veins and I feel as though it is hardwired into my genetics.

I would, literally, give someone the shirt off my back if I felt they absolutely needed it...without thinking twice about the consequences I would endure after. 

Self preservation is something I lack.  It is something I know very little of and have been working on with my therapist as of late.

It comes from my background, my upbringing, the way I was raised and the need I had to adapt to my surroundings as a young child so my sister and I could thrive, to some degree, in the hellish, nightmare of a world we grew up in.

Everyone comes before myself...the needs of my family and those I surrounded myself with as a younger adult always came before my own.  And those around me saw this in me, saw this raw need to be a pure human being who cared for others to such a degree I worried about myself almost never, and exploited it.

Used, abused, lied to by my own family, my own friends, my own blood only to have them throw back the remnants of what they could not use of me as though I was a carcass on the savanna left for the carrion birds....useless as a living organism but enough to sustain another user....another abuser.

This vicious cycle repeated itself over the course of the last 20 years or so and then, I met my husband.  He saw in me what everyone else saw, a love for helping people, a want to be needed, a desire to make people happy and heart so big and so full of love still....despite the heavy footprints set across it by the numerous takers I had had run through my life.

Instead of using me...he has nurtured me.  He has helped me grow and shown me how useful and loved and wanted and important my "self" really is.  He has loved me and accepted me fully and completely from day one.

Six years later, despite my trepidation but amid the excitement, I have moved one hour away from all the users and abusers I used to call family....some of whom actually are family. 

This move has been years in the making, the reality of it has set in, I have seen my new home, I have cleansed it and filled it with light, love and positive energy.  The pantry is stocked, the fridge and freezer are, too.  Our beds are in place, set up and have sheets.  The windows have curtains, the walls are the colors I would choose for myself, the yard is small but delightful. 

And tomorrow, we are moving in. 

My daughters have been anxiously awaiting this day, we have talked about it for weeks and the time is finally here. 

I have surrounded myself with people who love me, people who want nothing more than to see me succeed in life and support me with helpful encouragement and even difficult to give advice.  My mother-in-law is teaching me how to appropriately budget so we can actually have savings, my father-in-law refuses to let me help move because of the ever decreasing physical ability I have.

I have two brother-in-laws who are helping my husband and my father-in-law to move all my things after they drive nearly two hours to get my things and one hour to get to our new home and then another hour back home...and they offered their assistance out of sheer kindness and love.

I have said thank you to my "Dad" (we'll get more into why he deserves that title in a different post) so many times he has asked me to stop because he knows....he says so jokingly but the depth of my gratitude is hard for him to grasp.

This house they have rented to us is a once in a lifetime opportunity for myself, my husband and our daughters.  The details of this rental are so unique....I can't even begin to describe them.  I will have a home for my children, a place to feel safe again, an altar for my religious needs and a kitchen, living room, bathroom, nearly finished basement complete with art room for yours truly for the first time in my 34 years of existence.

I will finally have safety and comfort, again.

My family, my blood would never have done this for me.  Not in a million years.  No one ever taught me how to properly budget, no one ever showed me how to balance a meal plan for two weeks at a time, shop the ads for great deals, by store brand whenever I possibly can....these are all things I've had to learn for myself and my learning curve has been great.

My husband and girls are the most important reasons for me to begin this new chapter in my life.  They are the reasons I had no trouble saying goodbye to my hometown of 20+ years and moving into a city I barely know but have grown to love.

At this point in my existence I really honestly and truly can say....there is nothing more I could ask for right now....

except maybe world peace.  LOL

Love truly does conquer all.....even my chemically imbalanced brain can see that love really is something that should not cost you a dime....and if it does, it's not real love.  Blood relative or no, I had people in my life I wouldn't trust with my new Van sneakers, let alone my or my husband or my girls lives and emotions. 



I could not ask for more right now...and I never would.  

The End is the Beginning and the Beginning is the End

I won't deny that every now and again, a thought pops into my mind such as, what would it be like if I could just start all over?

Throw out this version of myself and all the shit I've been through and all the crap I grew up with and everything that's "wrong" with me and just start over...

Blank canvas, clean slate...whatever you call it, I have the need for it every now and again...just reinvent myself.  Go somewhere, where no one knows me, knows where I'm from or what kind of past I have, so I can be me, no questions asked.

The strange, yet beautiful, side of my life that people here (meaning the state I live in, basically) aren't really wanting to understand or try to be open minded about it and it's a very precious piece of who I am.  It holds a spot in my heart that no one has ever touched and is always there in my personality, hiding in the undertones of my sarcastic sweetness.

Sunk into the abyss of my adulthood and emotional baggage from years of verbal and mental abuse by people whom I am actually blood related to, there's a sweet little woman who wants a house to decorate with cute skulls and crossbones and fancy window treatments made of black and red, a family to call her own which includes dressing my baby girls in goth lolita outfits, a place to be herself, a place where being who I really, truly, am inside won't scare away half the population and cause my family members to jump on my already painful back.

I want people to see ME. 

I am 34-years-old and this is the first time, in my entire life, I have moved away from my family to do things and be things they refuse to accept or be part of.

One hour, one hour north and I have been told it is too far.  They won't visit.  They won't accept it.  They want nothing of it.

They have accused my husband of spousal and child abuse, which brings tears to his eyes to think about.  It hurts him deep to have my family think such terrible thoughts about him.

My mom and sister, they love Adam.  They accept him for who and what he is and adore how he dotes on and shows love and affection towards our two daughters and myself.

He is my partner in crime, my best friend, my most trusted confidant, the love of my life, the father to our beautiful little girls and the rationality in my crazy chaotic bipolar world.  He is the reason I have not yet left this world.  

My husband has given me so much strength, support, love and guidance over the past six years we have been together, so much more than even my own family have provided. He has accepted me wholly and completely for who I am.  He has taken the time to get to know every little nuance and detail that makes up the entirety of my self.   He loves every curve, every imperfection, every freckle, stretch mark and scar both inside and out...he truly loves me.

Adam is the first person I have met who accepts my whole self and respects my whole self and loves my whole self, crazy and all, he loves me. 

And, as I remind him daily, I love him so much more than he could ever know. 

Our daughters are little versions of each of us, wrapped up in deceitful cuteness and unabashed curiosity, they are the reasons we get up and keep going every single day. 

I want my girls to know all of this, to know my past, my husband's past, our families and their pasts...I almost need them to know this, so they can be better people, better human beings for this world and all of its inhabitants.

My eldest shows a love for animals that can border on obsessive and often be painful if she isn't reminded to be careful and gentle, which one day she will remember all on her own.

My youngest requires constant engagement, supervision and reminders to be patient with not just the people around her but herself, as well.  And I know, she too, will one day remember this on her own.

We teach them manners on a daily basis, remind them to share, redirect their curious little brains from danger to safety. 

We teach them to love the Earth, love their fellow human beings, love the animals and plants the gods and goddesses have provided us with, love the weather we are blessed with, even the nasty kind because each in their own right, has a purpose and in our religion, respecting that purpose is the best thing you can teach someone.

Respecting anyone and anything for their purpose is something more people should be taught at a young age.

I have caught flack for teaching my children our religion, Paganism, from my own blood.

All of this lack of respect, this lack of acceptance for difference, is the main reason leaving my hometown was not a big issue for me.

Leaving my mom and sister, starting something completely new and different with my husband and children is both exciting and downright terrifying.  My comfort zone is gone.  I know very little of the layout of this city and it has been years since I have been a part of it...

But my want for returning here is still so much stronger than I ever expected.

I know now, looking back at all the strife my blood relatives have caused me over the years and deciphering their nonsensical psychotic ramblings, they will never change, they will never accept me and nothing I do will ever be enough.

So it is time to close this chapter of my life and start a new one. 

And maybe, just maybe, I won't need to end a chapter of my life like this, ever again. 

I know this is a whole new start for us and I want to take full advantage of that fact.

To new beginnings.....