When i look back on my child hood, I am thankful for what i had and have. I have a loving family, a little crazy at times. But who doesnt have that? To make a long story as short as possible, I was born in may of 1988, to 2 wild, but madly in love teenagers. Theres no way of knowing, but im sure i wasnt planned. but who knows.. maybe they thought having a baby would be fun, something to prove their love and keep them together.. i dont know. anyways, i was born and thats that. My mom had me when she was 17. My father Craig and her were both highschool drop out and from what ive been told my grandmother helped out alot. I really cant say too much about my birth father. From what i know now, he is great person but i dont really remember him ever being a part of my everyday life. Which sometimes is really hard when i think about it. I have been told that they had a trailor together where i lived with them. They were both alcoholics and fought a lot. My father was a construction worker and im not sure when my mother went back to school to become a phlebotomist. anyhow~ one thing led to another and they split up, my mother moved back in with her parents taking me with me and my father got married to another woman. I remember visiting him twice. im sure i did more, but i vividly remember 2 times seeing him and going with him alone when i was very young before he signed over his rights to me. Which breaks my heart now, im sure at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. but now that im a parent, i just couldnt do that. Theres no way.
Anyways, my mother took me to my grandmas and thats pretty much when my grandma took over. Like i said, its impossible to remember this far back when all the chaos started but this is what ive been told.
My mother started at Dmacc and recieved her phlebotomy license. She worked at braudlawns hospital overnights and would leave me at home with grandma. My mother told me that she would freqently go to prairie meadows when she got off work and developed a slight gambling problem and would spend a lot of her time there and across the street at the hotel. when i asked her where i was, she would sadly say, " welll, at home with grandma." My mom has always an addiction problem, as long as i can remember.
My mom got remarried to the man i call dad today, They got married in 1991 i think, and had my baby sister in 1992, my mom worked 3 jobs and was a raging alcoholic by this time (so ive been told) My new dad worked at my uncles part store, My sister and I were often left home with our teenage babysitter, who i later found out was the reason for my parents divorce. My dad began having an affair with her, which sent my mother into a downword spiral and you could say ruined her life.
After the divorce i moved in with my grandma, my sister was back and forth between my parents. I always prefered to be there anyway, my grandma was always more of a mother to me than my real mom. which is so hard to admit, but the truth hurts. I remember my mom quickly met a new man, and moved frequently with him telling me there just wasnt room for me at her new place. I moved in with my mom and her new husband when i was probably 6 i think, they lived in a big farm house in the country. Niether of them either had a job and it never occured to me how they paid their bills. My stepdad Ron was always in and out of the house with people and my mom was constantly in her bedroom, always sleeping or just wanting to be alone. It broke my heart. I just wanted my mom to take me somewhere, even if it was just the store to go grocery shopping, we never did that. I remember my grandma bringing over groceries and my mom and stepdads loser, dirty friends eating it all the next day, I remember her not waking up to take me to school and being late so many times that i would get into trouble.
I remember having a field trip and my mom didnt have a sack lunch to send with me, i had to take a sippy cup with water in it and kids made fun of me. wow... to think back to that now, it literally breaks my heart. I could never let that happen to my child.
I remember my mom telling me she was making flower vases out of bent glass.... WOW.... i didnt realize till i was an adult that she was making meth pipes and bongs. I even asked her about it and she couldnt believe she had done that either. I guess she would sell them for money. That floors me.
Nonetheless, i loved my mother more than anything. My adoptive dad doug would come and get me and my little sister for visitation on tues, thurs and every other weekend. I loved it. My dad was so cool, always taking us to Discovery Zone or somewhere cool to play, or taking me Snow Plowing with him in the middle of the night,he was always to fun, he would play loud music in the truck with the windows down and we would sing and have a blast, he always played with us and put us first, always.
My mom lost whatever she had left when we went to live with him. He was remarried by now to a woman with 2 children. He wasnt as awesome as he had been when he was single, but he was still dad. He didnt lay in bed all day and ignore me and my sister jossie.
I remember when we left my mom, she was crying so hard, so hard. I did love her. She said my dad was stealing us from her, that he just didnt want to pay child support and that he wanted money from her, he was only doing fun stuff with us to get us away from her and he would stop when he got us. which he did lol but it was still probably for the best that we went.
After we went i experienced a depression no child should ever have. My stepmom was a good person, and a good mother. But she wasnt my mom, nor did she want to be. I would consider her more a friend and a caretaker at the time. I do understand now looking back, but at the time, i just wanted a mom. My mother was sopose to get us for visitation but she never did. She would call and say she would be there at 6 oclock and me and jossie would wait staring out the window, and she would never come... we wouldnt see her for months at a time. When she would show up, she would take us to some random house where she had a mattress in their basement, or was renting a spare bedroom, always a different place though, always an extremely dirty, scurvy messy house where a child shouldnt be. I remember she and my stepdad did rent their own homes from time to time and always had tons of room mates, for some reason it was always a lot of gay people. which i have absolutly no problem with, i just still dont understand the link. I remember on several different occasions finding gay porn and dildos and other gross adult stuff that i had no clue about when i was that age, but realize now what it was i was looking at. I remember finding fake boobs that my moms transvestite roomate had. that was disturbing for an 8 year old.
Once my mom and stepdad left us home alone with a man we were to call "Uncle larry" I remember he got really drunk and put in a gay porn video and instructed us to sit down and watch it. Once i realized what it was i took my little sister who was probably about 4 at the time and ran her into the bedroom where i locked the door so he couldnt get in. He pounded and kicked the door but luckily didnt get in.
That was one of scariest things i remember. wow..
I remember my stepdad and mom freaking out when they got home and my stepdad beat him up and kicked him out.
Since ive grown up ive found out alot about my moms past that i didnt know about and probably wouldnt have understood as a child. My mom was severely beaten and controlled by her second husband ron, She was addicted to meth and became very skinny, They made meth and were later busted for it. They were drug dealers, i dont know what all they dealt, but i do know my mom recieved a felony charge for having 9 pounds of marijauna taped up in the roof of our dog house (that my sister and i played around very often) I already mentioned she made and sold drug paraphenalia. My stepdad once locked my mother in a basement for a week, and she got out through a window. I couldnt imagine going through that.
And all this was happening while i sat at my adopted dads house in my room, most nights crying over my mom, just wanting her with me. I remember listening to the same songs over and over again on cds that my mom had given me. treasuring any gifts she had given me. I had stickers that said mommy loves me that i was crazy over. god... it kills me to think about the nights i spent crying and screaming into my pillow wanting her so badly. My step sister had their mom, why didnt I have mine? why did i live with my adopted dad and my step mom through adoption? where the hell were my birth parents and why werent they there to tuck me in at night and take me to school in the morning, to help me with my home work and make me dinner? why the hell was i feeling so alone and depressed and suicidal at age 9? I tried strangling myself with my belt once... but i couldnt do it. i knew i was just a stupid kid, but a part of me wanted to do it, it was all i thought about. If my own parents didnt love me why would anyone else? I always said that when i had a child that child would be my only reason for living and breathing, i would put them before anyone and anything and their happiness was all that would ever matter to me. I NEVER wanted my children to feel the way i felt.
My mom wasnt there to show me how to dress cute, to put on makeup, to manage my curly hair i inherited from her, i looked like tomboy for the first 15 years of my life, an overweight, awkward teen with crooked teeth and crazy hair and unmatched clothes. It took friends and my stepsister to show me those things when i reached my teen years and i just had to experiment myself.
My Mom finally got away from ron when i was in 7th grade i think, she moved in with her parents again and went from one piece of shit guy to another, she married another guy named bob who was living at the fort and just out of prison, (sounds like a winner huh) shortly after she suffered a brain anyrsm and was left paralyzed on the right side of her body. She was retaught how to do everything again, but will never be the same person. In a sense it saved her life, She is now with a wonderful man that loves her for who she is, shes a wonderful grandmother to my daughter and a good hearted person, she has a beautiful flower garden and and an immaculate home. She grows her own vegetables and herbs and is an amazing cook. Shes now that person that i needed so badly 20 years ago. where was this person then? Obviously somewhere inside that drugged up depressed woman i knew as i my mother as a child, when i needed her the most. It took me along time to forgive her, as much as i dearly loved her as a child, i grew to dispise her during my teen years. Once i began to piece together the puzzle and figure out what she had been putting before her children i couldnt believe it. Her actions disgusted me and I didnt even want to call her my mother. I would say my grandma was more a mom to me and she was more of a sister. All i ever wanted from her was an apology. She always had excuses, "i was sick, i was depressed, your dad ruined my life when he cheated"
Bullshit mother, I dont care what your excuses were or are, when you have children its not about you anymore, you suck it up and tough it out for them, you NEVER give up on your children. NEVER. My childhood is over, i will never get those years back with my mother.
I recieved my apology when i was 20 years old. Thats all i wanted from her, i was satisfied.
I love my mother dearly.
