About me and what made me who I am today. I can't sleep, I can't seem to shut my brain off. This is why I have trouble sleeping most nights, scenarios run through my head and I can't seem to make them stop. So now, if you wish you get to read a little about me.
My first memory of life is hiding under a blanket with my little sister in her car seat. My mom had to go get my sister at the bus stop. She was in kindergarten and we had a long gravel driveway. That and there was a supposed to be a tornado coming our way. I'm sure there never was one, we lived in a valley and they skip them. So my father says. My older sister loved school. She came home and taught me what she learned. I pissed of my 3rd grade teacher because I refused to do long-hand division. It made no sense to me why I must do this, since there were no flaws in my short hand. We came to a compromise: she quit getting mad over it and accepted that I was a little ahead of my classmates. More on school later. When I was in 2nd grade, I think, my mom picked us up from school one day. We went to a motel. We were confused. Where was daddy and why can't he come get us? My mom is nuts. She has her own reality life. More on this later also. Fast forward. We start to live in an apartment complex in town. You know the kind, one of those the government pays you to live in. My mother had us so scared of our father, we would refuse to visit him. Never the less, this man showed up to bring us to his house every weekend. Without fail and respecting our decision not to go. I have no idea how this happened, but fast forward to living now at dad's. Get a phone call, it's mom. She said "God spoke to me, I must let you all live with your father." Bullshit! (This is where you'll get an idea of why I hate bible thumpers, the ones who want to force their religion onto me and everyone else.) Years later, I saw those divorce papers. She fought for my older sister. My sister got every weekend, holiday and all summer. The other three of us got the standard every other and 2wks of the summer. I'm not and never was upset with my sister over that, just my mom because she lied yet again. So, here we are the 4 of us moved in with our father and his new girlfriend. First time I met her son, he hit me with a wiffle ball bat. Yeah, he's lucky they saw me chasing him, I got punished. Man, that woman was as good a liar as my mother. We were taught to eat our food, all that's on your plate, and be thankful we had it. One time I remember clearly, I got in trouble for throwing 'my' pbj sandwich on the ground because I didn't want it. Yeah, you know, those 2 in my stomach. What really happend was her spoiled daughter and son threw them on the ground and my dad saw it when he got home. God forbid these children ever do any wrong. This woman actually had 3 kids, but she never paid much attention to the middle one. Let's call her 'Mouse', I still call her that, if she ever reads this she knows who wrote it and who she is. I love her, wish she was here, I miss her. Let me define 'in trouble' for you. Picture in your mind very clearly: shovels, picks, anything that can be construed as a digging implement. (missouri's ground is made of limestone and very little dirt, hence the picks.) We dug a pond. Yes it was pond size until it rained enough to fill it back in after most of us had moved out. We also dug underneath the house when it was cold. It isn't a crawlspace anymore, you can almost stand up straight under there. When you were in trouble, you woke up, had 30 min to eat breakfast and your ass better be done with your chores and started on digging. You were allowed 5 mins there and back for potty breaks. (Good thing she could jump back fast, or I would have broken that woman's nose. She smacked me once cuz I wasn't taking her shit. I know it takes no more than one minute to pee, but I refuse to have to wipe with dirty hands. She never raised her hand to me again.) Guess what your meals were. Oh yes, we had very good reasons not to be in trouble. Yes the 5yr olds were expected to dig too. It was ok, we made sure that when the nosey ones were looking the little ones couldn't be seen. Meals: anything they could think of that a kid wouldn't eat. Like broccoli, brussel sprouts, okra. You had 30 minutes to eat. If you finished your bad meal, you were allowed to eat what was on the table. I still eat 2 plates of food in less than 10 minutes. I got the last laugh on that stupid woman. There was nothing I would not eat. Let me tell you frozen okra heated in the microwave is gross if you don't drain the slimy stuff of it. Guess who figured that one out. Me and my step brother were in trouble a lot. I was no angel, but I did not do even half the stuff I was said to have done. We did go to school and stuff. We were allowed to do our homework after dark. Some scenarios: The woman's Oldest daughter could do no wrong, therefore, whenever she did something it was my, and if it was within the sister's power her little sister Mouse's, fault. 6 girls one bedroom. 1 boy in another. Yeah it sucked. I did so much laundry. I cleaned so much house. Our chores were go outside, feed the animals get back in wash up go to school. Come home, go outside feed the animals clean house do laundry do whatever was on that woman's mind. In summer came the garden. I will never have one. I will not weed. I refuse. To this day I will not clean my bathroom, my husband understands it, he's great about it. Yeah, I wasn't beaten. So what, that is not the only thing that can scar a kid. You should be careful about what you say to your kids. Your kids worship you. Nothing will make me go off faster than somebody saying I'm stupid. I grew up hearing it. I'm smart. I can spell almost any word sight unseen. I took 3rd place in my school spelling bee in 7th grade without ever looking at the list. No, I wasn't the smartest kid in school, I didn't even try out, it was an english assignment and the teacher insisted. I am shy, I do not do well in front of people/large groups. It did get me out of working my ass off that day though. Thank god for sports, I may never have survived. If you tell someone they are stupid long enough, they start to believe. I made life long friends in sports and school. I don't see them much. There weren't many. Like maybe 7. The friends I did make didn't care how much my family didn't make, what clothes I didn't wear, and forgave me for all my stupid moments. Yeah I said stupid moments. I am not stupid but I have done a few stupid things.
Apparently this story isn't gonna be as linear as I thought it was going to be. Back to my mother. Can you guess how many times she ever called us? Just that once to tell us she was giving up. Those were her words. She came by to visit twice. Each time for my older sister. My littlest sister was around 1yr so she didn't really notice. I am very resentful for this as that stepmom was her only mother figure. She could never be good enough. She was really screwed up. She still is. She got so bad she was sent away to live in a home for troubled kids. She wasn't doing drugs or crimes. She just pissed us off so bad, we'd probably would have beat the crap out of her. Many, many times. There's nothing like someone who knows how to push your buttons and delights in doing so. My father has an explosive temper. This is dangerous around him. He never did beat her though. I will give a little background on his quirks later. My sister is now married, but I can see she's still affected, I still remind her she's not stupid. Next sister: She was 4or 5. Kindergarten the next year. She broke my heart. She cried for a year, not understanding why her mommy didn't want her. I don't understand her, she has forgiven my mom and even lets her baby sit. Me: I was around 12 or so. I know it seems like gaps, but I'm unsure about the times. I was just angry. My dad was always calling her the 'c' word. I actually had to be very angry to my husband once to get this point across, you do not say that word. Dad finally figured it out, to this day that word does not come out of his mouth. I am not exposing this woman to my children. There will be enough disappointments in life without her helping. I am relieved she moved back to Minnesota. My oldest sister: this was hardest on her. she was in jr high. Missy, yeah that's her name, is stepmom's oldest daughter(I almost broke her nose, but she turned her head. She knew better than raise her hand to me.) My sister and Missy never liked each other. I guess they had met previously in school. Missy went out of her way to make my sister's life hell in school and everywhere else.
We all had jobs at 14, this was required of us. Great way to get out of the house. I remember one time, when I was due at work by 5pm. Stepmom had no one to bitch at that day, she had done something stupid and pissed my dad off. Yep, it was me I did it, whatever it was. That was the day I mowed the front lawn with a pair of scissors. They left to go do something and the neighbors across the street showed me how to work their weed eater and how to refill the gas. (They had noticed what I was doing and asked me what the hell I was doing.) Boy did I get in trouble for using that weed eater. Hey if it would have kept me out of her hair, I would have been more than happy to use scissors. I had to go to work, I wasn't allowed to go till I was done with the lawn. You can't cut that much grass with a pair of scissors in 2 hours. I was not going to lose my job over this. I'm lucky those people liked me so much. I had to call the restaraunt on a saturday night and tell them I couldn't work. They were already busy and couldn't call anyone else in. When I go to my job I work. I refuse to get paid to stand around. If there's no customers, I clean. People hate me because of this. I have taught each of my employers the value of not paying people to stand around. In that place I went from busser to dishwasher to cook to waitress. I did all of that one Saturday night. I would have made real good money too, but one of those witches that think they know how to wait tables stole my money. Hey, I couldn't keep a close eye on it, when I wasn't taking orders or taking out the food, I was cooking them. Customers have this amazing ability to be patient if you are upfront with them when they are first seated. I have never worked at a restaraunt and worked only one job there. I was paid 6.50 an hour to bus tables. (not that place though) The other bussers got 4.00. We all got tips. I took half the floor, the other 2 took the other half. Hey, when I work, I work. I was no stranger to making 200 on a saturday night when you count the pay and tips. I never did tell those waitresses I was making as much as some of them.
Let's talk a little about Mouse. We got into fights. We got into trouble together. But she was my sister, you do not fuck with my sisters without serious consequences. Case in point: mouse was in special ed for reading. becky was in special ed also. So was mouse's new boyfriend, as much as a 13yr old those days actually had a boyfriend they kissed once or twice I think. Becky decided to intimidate mouse because her ex-boyfriend was now mouse's boyfriend. Mouse was scared. It took some prodding but I got it out of her. Took my happy ass down to the jr high, I was in high school one whole grade ahead, and 'met' with becky. Told her we needed to talk. She ran into the girl's room. I am a girl, I go in there too. She was trying to excuse it, pissed me off. Made me so mad I saw red. When I see red, I have no control, and lots of 'where the hell did that come from' strength. See, she had continued to intimidate mouse that morning refusing to believe I was coming to visit. Next thing I remember seeing, my hand on her neck and her feet were off the floor. Yeah one hand, mouse didn't need anymore trouble at school. She was working hard in all her other classes because she had trouble reading. Needless to say Becky never bullied anyone else at school, my job was done. I had a reputation at school only because of a couple of friends I hung around with. They got into fights, did drugs, etc. all while respecting my wishes to do none of these things. I never did have peer pressure with that, I think that was unique though. That was the first time I had ever earned my 'reputation' and I never did anything like it again. I would have felt ashamed, but it was something I felt was necessary to protect my sister. You know my stepmother never cleaned house, did dishes, laundry, etc. We did it. Mouse and I. Anything missy was told to do mouse and i did. We were not allowed to not listen to missy. I learned that lesson the hard way. Tell me something. Why would you teach your kid to stick up for themselves and then you punish them when they do?
School was my escape. I loved to learn. There was not one book in either of those libraries I had not read, except for the non-fiction. I did however refuse to do homework. This is why I got a c/m in both my science classes with this one teacher. 9th and 10th grade. He still likes me. He was a very understanding man. He knew some kids freeze up on tests. He worked his grading out for 1/3 test 1/3 homework 1/3 end of year project. (Almost no one failed his class.) Anything I did not finish in class, I did not do at home. It was a waste of my time, I had too much work to do. I had 9 people to cook, clean and do chores for with one person helping me. He asked me one day why I didn't finish my homework on a regular basis. (This was after he started a policy on signing your name on a piece of paper and giving a reason why you didn't finish your homework. Some kids lied to their parents and he was tired of getting crap from them about it.) I told him if he could make a test I couldn't ace, I would forever do his homework. I never did homework, but I did still sign that paper. He understood that. I don't know what it is about tests, I have no problem with them. I slept through our whole grass section in landscaping. This amused my teacher. We had a good laugh over it. All because I was never awake for those movies and the boring book stuff but I still aced those tests. We took 3rd place at state FFA that year. We identified grasses, plants and flowers. That was another great teacher who understood kids. We would do the hated book stuff, then go out and identify stuff around town. It was a 3 hour block class. When it was cold, he occasionally bought us hot chocolate and donuts at this little place that had no name in the back streets somewhere. I amazed my accounting teacher. I was through that whole book the first semester. This amused her. She let me work at my own pace. I got to do the cool computer stuff the second semester. The other kids weren't even done with the book at the end of the year. Trigenometry was great. The teacher for that also taught physics. That man was so smart he talked over people's heads. (I will always honor him for teaching us the difference between fission and fusion. He explained in such simple terms everyone understood.) There were two of us in our class that understood what he was saying. I don't know if he noticed or not, but after the lesson the two of us would proceed to interpret for everyone else. Some of the smartest girls in our graduating class did not understand him. This amused me. I hate popular girls. I hate smart girls who pretend they are dumb because they think it will make guys like them. That is not going to get you anywhere in life. Who's gonna hire you if you can't do the work?
About my father. He has an anger problem. I kind of understand it though. He was in vietnam. not by choice. He refuses to talk about it. He says he was a mechanic that worked on radios. From his reactions to some things makes me wonder. He does have a story he tells about that time. The ASFAB, he took it. They all do. I am still unsure exactly what it is, but I think it's a kind of aptitude test. West Point wanted him. In a really bad way. He had 2 very amusing weeks with them, pretending he was interested. He didn't want to be in the Army. He was forced into it. I have no idea what he would have done if it had been a choice for him when he turned 18. You must always make loud noises when entering a room/area well before you actually get there. His reaction is not funny if you forget to do this. If you have to wake him up for something, you must get a broom or something with a long handle. You do not touch his shoulder. Again, the reaction is not funny. It's hard to describe, he's startled, I'd swear his heart races, and I think there may even be a hint of fear in his eyes, that and he would swing at you automatic reflex and all that. Like I said, not funny. This man supported 9 people. As a construction worker. 10/hour does not go far. Squirrel hunting, deer hunting and fishing were food options not hobbies. I am pretty sure of this as now, he only goes fishing, and that only once in while. My husband is not allowed to bring fish into my house. I had to scale, filet and clean 2 5gallon buckets full of fish atleast 2 or 3 times a week. My father worked his ass of to raise/feed us, so I have forgiven him for not noticing what a bad person the stepmom was. We have talked about this. My grandma still hates her. My grandma has never hated anyone and has always given people a chance to change. Stepmom and missy will never have well wishes from her. Remember when I said you don't fuck with my sisters? Dad's new wife, I used to like her, went off on my oldest sister. I will paint the picture for you. Oldest was an MP. She got out about the time she had her first baby, that was last Feb. They wanted to send her to Iraq when he was a month old. She and her husband, also an MP, were and still are stationed in Germany. She had no one to take care of her kid. Her husband is deployed right now in Iraq. One of those places where bombs are daily, not telling you where for a reason. He has been deployed a lot. He would not have been available. He managed to be there for the birth, and has been home a couple of times on leave. My sister flew down from Germany to be with us for Christmas. This was to be her expense, they chose to pay for her plane ticket. She wanted to stay at a friends, they chose to insist she stay at their house. That was obviously not a good idea. New wife went off on her for not using the call waiting. She was on the phone with her husband. She will not use call waiting, if a bomb goes of he has to report. If she had done so and clicked back over and he was not there, she would have freaked. When someone dies, NOONE calls home. She would not know if he was ok until the family knows about the death. This can take significant time. My sister has been for all intents and purposes alone with her baby since his birth. No one to baby sit, take him off her hands, when she is so stressed, she needs time to herself. My sister called me in tears. I was pissed. I called new wife and said she need to be calmed down and if had problem discuss calmly so no misunderstandings. I knew she was still mad so I knew she needed to be calmed down before she pissed my sister off. My sister was first woman ever in SWAT (i know it's not the proper name for it) at Ft. Leavenworth. She's also qualified as a sniper with every gun she was supposed to qualify with. My sister is hard to piss off, but I'm sure that woman could have made her mad enough to atleast break her nose. I didn't get to see my sister for Christmas. I only got to spend a couple of days with her. I have no idea when I'll get to see her again. They are due to come home around april, but stays have been getting extended. It may be a while. That and she's going to live in VA. If I had known, they would not have seen me and my family for christmas either. My father thought it would be smart to ask me what my problem was. Bad mistake, especially when he got that damn condescending tone in his voice. Little misunderstanding my ass. Did everything for her my ass. Yeah, you'll see me when I see her. You don't mess with my sisters. I have a long memory.
Let me tell you about the stupidest thing I have ever done. I had sex. Without a condom, because he didn't want to wear one. STUPID. I don't know why I did it. I didn't really enjoy it. He wasn't even my boyfriend. I was 15, not a virgin though. It ended around late Jan early Feb that year. I turned 16 that April. In june we attended my cousin's graduation. I had never missed a period. Stupid me, I believed my preposterous sex education step mom gave me. (When your are pregnant, you automatically quit having periods. This is not true. I had never missed one.) I was having a heavy period. By heavy I mean lots of blood and cramps. I had never had cramps before. Got some stuff from the store for that. A few hours before we were due to go, I sat at the table. I told grandma I wasn't feeling well. Proceed to throw up. I remember that, I think I passed out too. Apparently I was also very white. Went to the ER. Asked me if I was pregnant. No not possible. Told them it had been at the latest early feb. last time. This of course out of earshot from my dad. Doctors are smart. They made me pee in a cup. Misscarriage. You do not know the pain of this unless you've been through it. I didn't even know. I blamed myself. A lot of things. I took benadryl for my sinuses. I carried bus tubs on the waist of my jeans because it wasn't as heavy that way. Do not ever tell someone you feel their pain unless you know it personally, you don't know. This is different than losing a child that's been born. It's a different kind of pain. I don't claim to know it. Later you wonder can I ever have children? If you get pregnant, you wonder will this one survive? All the way up to delivery it's in the back of your mind. Never have sex without a condom just because it doesn't feel good for him. Fuck him, he don't know shit. I cannot believe the courage of some of the women on the webmd bed rest board. Some are there after losing a baby(some more than 1) to the conditions they are on bed rest for now. I need to go cry now. |