The joys of journaling

When I was a young girl I would walk up and down the streets of town collecting bottles that were discarded on the side of the road. Cans were 5 cents and the big 2 liter bottles were 10 cents, so of course the goal was to find as many of those big bottles as possible. It was like finding gold treasure since most people didn't toss big bottles onto the side of the road. I would gather as many cans and bottles as I could find and then take all of them down to the local store to redeem them. It was always fun counting up those nickels and dimes, hoping against hope that I would collect enough to buy that little diary with a lock and maybe a piece of candy afterward.

I remember the excitement I felt once I finally collected enough to actually buy that diary. It was purple with the word "diary" written across the front in cursive. It had a little silver key that fit the lock to keep it private (little did I realize that all those keys were the same and one could open any lock)  I remember running home with my new diary thinking of all the things I could put into it, stuff that no one needed to know about  and Sissy would surely tease me about if I tried to talk to her about. Stuff like boys that I thought were cute and wished beyond measure that I could talk to or how I wished I could somehow get smart enough to get through algebra. I wanted to write about my feelings, I wanted to write about life, I wanted to just write. I wanted to write stories of my life the way V. C. Andrews could write. I dreamed all the way home.

Of course one day Sissy found my beautiful diary and, as I had suspected she would, she teased me about the things that were in there. She laughed at me and even worse, she told her best friend about the things I had written in there and the two of them laughed about it together. I guess I wasn't quite as good as V.C. Andrews and she was a typical big sister who had found her little sister's weakness.

Those days are long gone, and I journal here now on this blog. I sometimes still worry about what others might think of me or that they might laugh at what I have to say, so I filter more than I ever did in that tiny diary. I find no need to hide it under my mattress nor do I lock it up with a key. My words are here for anyone who might stumble upon them and all I can do is hope that for every one that laughs there is also one who might be helped by reading my words. Of course I also am trying to help myself as well, I write to feel better, to release the yucky stuff that's inside so that I can fill those places with happy thoughts, happy memories, happy feelings for others. It is my hope that week by week, post by post, I replace all that bad with good. If I do not release it, it stays inside me and lingers there in the dark places created by my youth. If I do release it, I can illuminate that dark spot with the joy and happiness that my new world creates. My small diary did that when I was young, my blog does it now. I feel as if, since I began blogging about my life, that I have become a better and happier person on the whole.  Don't get me wrong, I still have my bad days, times where I don't even want to be around me and I feel sorry for those who have to live with me. That's called menopause and there's not much I can do about it until it's over. I work hard to overcome it, I apologize when I am being "evil", and I journal in my blog because blogging makes me feel better.
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I wanted to post Thoughtful Thursday this past week, but for some reason I could not access the site to post. I kept trying all day Thursday and Friday, but alas the screen sat there doing nothing and then timed out. I was glad to get on today and share some thoughts. I hope everyone has a nice Memorial Day weekend and has some nice weather to go with it. Don't forget to Thank A Soldier, they are the reason you are here and free to have things like blogs and Facebook. If you don't know a soldier personally, just be thankful in your heart that there are those out there who are willing to fight for your rights, for your freedom, for you!

There comes a time in your life when you think to yourself...Wow I'm really lucky...and this week I have found myself thinking just that. All over the news I see the photos of that poor little boy, found dead, wrapped up on a blanket and left in the dirt like a common piece of trash. The killer....his egg donor! From what I have read and heard, she admits to overdosing the kid on cough syrup. What a sick piece of crap she is! She doesn't even deserve to be called his mother as they keep calling her on the news. She is no mother, she is an egg donor, a nasty evil person who killed her own child. This isn't some case of  getting pregnant and deciding to have an abortion, that I can handle because (in my opinion) abortions are a matter of personal choice and if the fetus can not survive outside the womb then it's not really murder. But to carry a child inside your body for 9 months, then raise him and let him see 6 or 7 years of life before you give him a bottle of cough syrup and leave him in the dirt, that truly is murder of the worst kind! So I do feel lucky because at least I survived! My egg donor did her best to keep me down, came close to killing me and my siblings, if it weren't for her boyfriend who was raping us pulling her off of us she would have done so. As she held pillows over faces and screamed things like "You should never have been born" she tried to do it, she tried to take our precious lives away....luckily she did not succeed. Indeed, I am lucky!


I don't normally think of my life as lucky, I remember thinking in high school and college that I would have rather been an abortion, that I did not feel it fair to have to survive that life. Now that I am older and have my own child, I do feel differently. Although I do not understand nor comprehend the why's of my life, I am still thankful that I was at least born and that I had somehow found the strength to survive. I am thankful for one simple reason....my son! He makes my life complete, he makes me smile, he makes me laugh and above all, he makes me feel loved. Don't get me wrong, I felt loved before he came along, my hubby is an amazing man who has done just that, but this is different. Hubby is not my flesh and blood, he is not an actual part of me and so that familiar love, that sense of being unconditionally loved, is different. With your hubby there is always that small chance that you can do or say something really stupid that can not be forgiven. The love and attachment between mother and child is different, it is what I needed to feel with my egg donor but did not have. Although I am not the child loving and feeling that depth of affection, it is the very thing that helped heal the wounds and helped make me move forward. Now I have that sense of permanency, that knowledge deep down inside that no matter what I will have at least one person in this world who truly loves me. I feel sorry for my egg donor, she probably never felt that....or if she did it was some kind of illusion. I suppose it's possible that she felt that with the siblings who turned to god and "forgave her". I suppose they could have somehow found it inside them to treat her with that love that they claim god gives them, but a successful mother would feel that from every single one of her children and she certainly never got it from me. In reality what she got from me was a phone message on her answering machine telling her exactly how angry I was with her, exactly what she had done to me and how she was dead to me forever more. I am sure that as she listened to that message she cried, it must have hurt her greatly to hear the venom that I was sure was in my voice, but I truly did not (and still do not) care about her feelings. She hurt me enough that she deserved to feel that pain, she deserved to go to her grave knowing that before she got there she was already dead in the eyes of her child.

Luck is something that not everyone finds, that poor little boy didn't have enough of it. He was not one of the lucky ones. I wonder how much that poor boy suffered at his egg donors hand before she decided she had enough and killed him. Why didn't she just drop him off at a hospital or a police station and drive away? She could have given him up to the state and handed over her parental rights forever. She could have given that responsibility to someone else to deal with. She had plenty of outs, but she chose the most evil, she chose to kill her own child. Did she think she was being kind by giving him too much cough syrup? Did she think he would just go to sleep and never awake and that was merciful? I just can not fathom what she was thinking, let alone how she could think it was ok to do. How could she possibly live with herself after doing such a horrible thing? If she thought her child was in such a bad situation, why didn't she drink some cough syrup too and kill herself as well? What made her think she deserved to live but that poor child did not? I hope she gets justice, I hope she doesn't get off on some "temporary insanity" plea. I hope she justly pays for her evil crime.

Today I feel lucky, today I feel saddened for a little boy who lost his life at the hand of the one person who was supposed to love him beyond reason, the one person who is supposed to die so that you might live. I would do anything for my child, I would die for my child, If I could not provide for him or felt I was not able to deal with his ADHD anymore I would get help. I would find someone who could help him, a doctor, a neighbor, a grandparent, a friend. I would do anything for my child......why couldn't she do the same? Why couldn't mine do the same? Why would you choose to kill them or hurt them? Why would you make them suffer for your misery?

I may feel lucky, but I would still like to know why!

I know it's late, but I haven't been feeling the greatest with my allergies and I just kinda let things get away from me yet again....I totally am my own worst enemy lol


Mean...that's the song I posted the video for, it's by Taylor Swift and if it had been around say 30 or 35 years ago it TOTALLY would have been my theme song! I love the verse....

Someday I'll be living in a big ole city
and all you're ever gonna be is mean
someday I'll be big enough so you can't hit me
and all you're ever gonna be is mean
why you gotta be so mean?

It's totally what I felt and thought as a kid!  If I survived to adulthood I would get the hell out of dodge and I would be far far away from that evil woman and she would still be mean! If I survived I would be big enough so she couldn't hit me anymore but she would still be mean! The song may be written to take a stand against bullying in schools and to help those who are bullied to feel empowered...but abused children are nothing but victims of grown up bullies! My egg donor was just that, a big bully! She felt badly about herself, someone hurt her and turned her into the evil person she was. She chose to simply repeat the cycle, to treat her children the way she was treated herself by someone else. She felt small so she decided to hurt those who were smaller than her. She was pathetic, she did not have to repeat the cycle. She could have (like myself) chosen to be a better person. She could have said to herself that she was not going to treat her kids that way. But she chose not to do that, she was weak and did not have the strength to choose a different path.

I've always looked back on my life and asked "Why would she do it?" Personally I knew how if felt to be beaten physically and emotionally and I did not like it at all. So why on earth would I ever subject anyone (much less my own child) to that same misery?? It does not make sense, I simply can not comprehend! I realize how hard it must have been for her by the time I came along, she was 38 years old when that happened. At 38 I was in the beginning stages of menopause, my doctor says generally we follow our mothers paths and so therefore she probably was in the beginning stages at that time too. By the time I was 2 years old she would have been my age right now. 40 years old fighting the mood swings, insomnia, hot flashes, night sweats etc. I can fully comprehend how hard it must have been because I am sure I tested her patience every single day just as my son tests mine. Some days I don't even want to be around myself and I feel sorry for anyone who has to be around me...and I try so hard not to snap at my son as my moods go all haywire. But even still, I could never lay a hand on my child. I may yell, I may speak out of line and say things that I shouldn't. I may be meaner than I should with my words but always I feel horrible afterward and I always apologize, I always make sure I try to make it better for him. I just don't understand why she couldn't understand that I was simply a child and I did not deserve what I got. I never did anything so bad that it deserved being beaten, I never deserved to be punched or whipped with a belt. I was just a kid and she was just plain mean! I just don't know why!

So that's my song for her, my childhood song that came 30 years too late...but today I do live in a big ole city (ok it's not a real city but compared to the boondocks we grew up in it is lol) and today I am big enough that she can't hit me...and all she'll ever be is mean!

All over facebook I see my friends changing their profile photos to photos of their mothers in honor of mother's day that is coming up in a few days and all I can feel is deep hurt, anger, and envy. One friend changed her photo and posted

"To all my Facebook friends: in honor of mothers day I'm trying to see how many of you are willing to change your profile picture to your mom and leave it there until May 9th.I did and so have a few others. If you will and like this idea ,please repost this as your status so everyone gets the word and see how many beautiful Moms we can get on FB! Happy Mother's Day ♥" 

To which I responded  

" I think it's a great idea for those of you who were lucky enough to have a good mother worth honoring :)"

Although I am a mother, I hate Mother's Day! It makes me angry to see all those wonderful mothers in commercials on tv, it angers me to hear people tell wonderful stories about their mothers when they were growing up, and  it saddens me deeply to know that I can never have that kind of feeling for my own mother. If I were to share stories of my egg donor I would only depress those around me, and so I get to sit quietly and listen to their stories and feel completely out of place. 

I am so happy to know that my son will never feel this way about his mother or Mother's Day. I am sure that I will grow to enjoy Mother's Day as my son makes it special for me, but he doesn't need a special day on the calendar because he makes every day special. His smile lights up a room and his laughter erases every dark cloud, his hugs makes everything all better.

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Another down side to this week, our 15 year old cat Rex has passed away. Sadly he passed away on our wedding anniversary and so our special day was tainted with heartache. He was our "Happy Fat Cat" and we will miss him deeply. RIP Old Friend