2012 has arrived...........

Wow, another year has come and gone...I can't believe it!


In 2011 I realized that it was time for me to move forward. I began to feel better about life, about my past and about my future. I looked beyond where I was and saw what I could possibly become. I realized that I needed to do this for my son, because he needs a mother who is strong and can overcome. He needs a mother who is not stuck in the past, not stuck in her memories of living nightmares. I then realized that I was feeling less angry and that was a good thing.

2011 was  year of emotional growth and I owe it all to my wonderful Cousin Candy! I reconnected with Candy through Facebook and then we started texting and messaging a lot. Candy is the one who thought I was a weird kid....then she read my blog and started to understand why. We "talked" a lot and I found myself drawn to her whenever I was feeling a need for a friend. She became not just my cousin, but also a friend. I had always liked Candy, always thought she had the most beautiful smile, it was one you could see in her eyes as well as on her face. Candy, through her words, began to make me feel good about myself. I had heard from others what a strong person I am, but until I heard it from Candy, I don't think I ever truly believed it. I felt small and powerless (understandable I guess given my history) but she saw me as someone who was strong and amazing. She saw me as I had never seen myself and when I was feeling down, she brought me back up. I can only hope that I have been as much of a help to her as she has been to me.

2011 was a good year...thanks Candy for being a part of it!

In 2012 I plan to grow more, to move even further away from the life I lived. I also plan on using this year to show my son that hardship can be overcome. He's getting older now, turning into a man, and I think it's time that I can start being honest with him about a few things. Don't worry, I'm not going to give him all the details yet, I don't think he ever needs to know all the details, but some I think he'll be able to handle and maybe it will help him understand his mother a bit better.

A week or so ago,  the Wild Child was being punished for talking back. I had him sitting down for a few minutes to think about his words. He yelled at me that putting him in a time out at 11 was "Child Abuse" I'll admit it, I was hurt! My son, calling me a child abuser because I was putting him in a time out....yep I yelled! I know I shouldn't have, but I know child abuse and I know he doesn't and so that's exactly what I told him! I yelled that he had no idea what child abuse was and that he could call me every name in the book but he was never, EVER, to call me a child abuser!  He quieted down, apparently struck by my words and my tears. Yes, he could have called me an F****ing B**ch and it would not have stung as bad!

A few days later, he had obviously been thinking about that day because he asked me about my egg donor. He simply asked if she was truly all that bad. He wanted to know what she had done to me and why I felt that I was abused. I tried to keep it simple...she was so bad that the state came in and took us away from her. She was so bad, she wasn't allowed to raise us anymore. Being the inquisitive child that he is, he wanted details. I took a deep breath and told him a brief summary.....she yelled, she hit, she didn't feed us right or treat us right. He wanted to know more...like what? Why did she hit? Why did she yell? Why was it so bad considering people spank their kids and yell at kids all the time....what exactly made her so much worse than other parents? I realized that I was not going to get away with brief summaries or soft answers anymore, he was growing up and wanted to know more. So I told him a few things...like the fact that instead of a spanking I was struck with a leather belt, a metal yardstick, hairbrushes, anything she could get her hands on. He wanted to know how no one saw anything? Why didn't someone notice? I had no answer to that and I was honest about it. All I knew was that she was good at making sure she only hit where clothing would cover, never let a bruise be seen. He asked me if I ever worried that she would kill me...I was honest there too. Yes, I was worried every single day! Every morning when I woke up I tried to be quiet enough to not be noticed. I tried to get off to school as quickly as possible. All day at school I wondered and worried about what I would get into trouble for, what would get me hit today? I tried to think about any mistakes I might have made that she would notice....it was never a matter of IF i would be beat, it was more a question of when, why, and how bad would it be. I think he could tell I was growing uncomfortable...he let it go at that point. He changed the subject and life went on.

A day or so after that he asked about her again....something tells me he isn't going to stop asking questions any time soon.

Halloween, the happiest and scariest time of year. A time to be scared for the fun of it, a time for haunted scary houses and thoughts of dead people coming to suck your blood or eat your brains. Halloween is the one time of year where it's ok to be scared of everything.

When I was a kid, I was scared of everything every single day of my life. I was scared of getting the beating that I knew I would get. I was scared of the boogie man who was actually the sperm donor. I was scared of the dark, I was scared of the light. I spent every waking moment scared of something. On Halloween night we would dress up as scary things like ghosts or pretty things like fairy princess'. Then  we would grab a pillow case and our little orange box from school, the UNICEF box that we received every year at school. People would have bowls of candy and another of pennies to put into the UNICEF box. It was a tradition that we did every single year, we would take the box of pennies to school the next day and hand it in. The teachers would send the money off to help poor children who had no food to eat or the opportunity to get an education. Anyway, we would head out trick or treating....the egg donor often driving the car and letting us out here and there to run around through the streets pretending to be something we weren't begging for candy and pennies. 

Before walking out the door we were always warned "No funny rhymes like "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat" and no eating the candy! We were warned not to touch a single piece, never open a wrapper, never eat anything given to us because someone might have put a razor blade in it and it would cut off our tongues and we would bleed to death and die! 

OH THE TEMPTATION!

As we rode in the back seat we would try to sneak candy into our pockets so that she wouldn't know. We knew what was going to happen once we got home, we knew that once we entered that house with that candy we would never see that candy again. See the egg donor had to "test" the candy to make sure it wasn't poisoned or that it didn't have razor blades in it. If it looked tampered with (aka it was a piece of candy she didn't like) then it was thrown into the trash. If it looked like it might be ok, she would take a bite to be sure and then she would have to be 100% so she would eat the rest. She would sit there and eat the candy in front of us, torturing us by eating our candy and not letting us have a single piece. Sometimes I would sneak to the trash barrel after she went to bed and steal pieces of candy out of it. I had a spot in the back of my bureau where I stashed my candy, in my underwear where she wouldn't look or find it.....and I knew my siblings wouldn't go there either. The candy was safe from all. 

Perhaps she meant well, trying to protect us from harm. Perhaps she really did, in some sick weird way, think she was doing the right thing. Perhaps she thought it was good to keep us feeling helpless and under her control...I really don't know. All I do know is that my son will never experience that kind of Halloween night! Oh he'll get to go out trick or treating with his pillowcase and zombie costume, but he won't carry that UNICEF box (because the schools don't do that here) and he will not have his mother eating all his candy in front of him. I do go through the candy looking for anything that might be tampered with, I am smart enough to know  that there are people out there who would find it funny to drug kids or whatever. So I check, anything that looks iffy I toss. I take one candy bar for myself and all the dark chocolate goes to Hubby because he's the only one in the house who will eat it. I put all the rest in a bucket and it gets given out one or two pieces at a time when earned. I do have to limit him, I just don't have to take it away. 

This year, as in years past, I look forward to carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, I look forward to going out with the boy as he trick or treats around the neighborhood, watching him be a child and gather candy from his neighbors. I look forward to hanging out with him afterward handing out candy to the stragglers and pumping up on sugar bombs. I don't really look forward to the sugar bomb battle (since it will be a school night he is going to need to go to bed at a descent hour regardless) and I don't look forward to the battle of the bulge as the candy sits in the house calling my name and teasing me lol. 

Personally, I think the egg donor, in her own way, thought she was doing right by us. I think she thought she was making good decisions regardless of how we felt about it. She could often be heard saying "Spare the rod, spoil the child". I guess she didn't want us to be spoiled, she just took it too far. I can now see these things because I have let the anger go, I have decided to not live in fear and to move forward in my life. For me, this is like the day after Halloween. I don't have to be scared anymore because the monster has been revealed as the sad and pathetic person she was. She's not so scary anymore, the sperm donor isn't even scary anymore, I now fully realize that the only way they can hurt me now is if I choose to allow them to haunt me. I am choosing to know in my heart that it's all just a memory.

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Happy Halloween Folks and please.....be safe out there. Have some fun trick or treating, going to parties, whatever you do to celebrate this fun holiday. Just be sure not to eat the candy in front of your kids.....cause that's just plain mean!

New look

I decided I needed a new look in here for the fall so I sat here at the computer with my Paint Shop Pro and created a new banner that would match this fallish background that I like. I love the fall, it's a beautiful time of year. Even though it is technically the beginning of an end, it's also a time of color and beauty. I feel that it shows that endings can be beautiful things that lead to new beginnings.

As I watch the leaves die and fall off the branches I am finding myself looking at it from a different perspective. As I heal from my past I am finding that a lot of things are taking on a new view and I kinda like it. This year fall resembles me....or maybe I resemble fall...I'm not sure but either way, this is how I see things.

In the fall we spend hours and hours looking at the beautiful colors amazed in their beauty even though they are dying. Then those leaves fall off the trees and we spend many more hours cleaning up the debris. We pile up those leaves and carrying them away to the edge of the woods where they can decay in a compost pile and return to the earth. By the end of fall everything is cold and frozen but the debris is cleared out of our lives.  We know that it's still there but we also know that now that we have cleared up those leaves the grass will be able to grow back in come springtime with a vibrancy and beauty that will bring us much happiness. There will be new growth of young leaves and the sun will shine once again.

As for me, I have watched my own life in amazement and awe. I survived a lot of crap, a lot of which I have put here in this blog. I have watched myself, like those leaves, change and turn into something beautiful. I shook my branches and knocked all the dead leaves off and then spent time piling them up and removing them from my life. Much like the old oak tree in the back yard, I still have some leaves that are hanging on trying not to fall but the majority have fallen to the ground. I have spent a lot of time piling those up and putting them away where they can decay and become the fertilizer of my future. I know they are there, sitting in the dark edges of my life, but they are no longer attached to me like they used to be. Occasionally I may go back to those edges and  scoop something up, but it will just be to fertilize and feed something beautiful. I will never be able to forget, these things in my life will never fully biodegrade, but they will remain and be the soil to live my life by. I will use them to make something beautiful, I will use them for something good. As the remaining leaves fall, as I am positive they will, I will put them in the pile with the others and let my new leaves grow in their place. I will someday be the mighty oak that stands tall and strong, surrounded by green grass and sunshine.

Thoughtful Monday...because I feel the need

I saw on Facebook a message from Big Sis, it said that she had just had lunch at a restaurant back in our old home town. So I asked her what made her go back to the old stompin' grounds, afterall there is nothing there but bad memories. Her response threw me for a loop.

She had gone back to face the demons, to deal with the things that had happened so long ago. She went back to the old house where we grew up and asked the people living there if she could have a look around. She found herself standing in the very same rooms where we had been beaten, where we had been raped, where we had our childhood stolen from us. She stood there with the memories flooding back and it was then that she realized that she WAS standing there, she had survived! I asked her if she had vanquished any demons and this was her response:

"sure did... it seems smaller than I remember and being there brought on some flashbacks bu its ok because there I was right where I had been beaten so many times and assaulted and it hit me that I was still breathing and didnt turn out to be a psycho killer.... so ultimately... Though I was beat down at a young age, I dont have to let the memories hold me down there. Time to wash the scars clean and stand tall."

Her words are an inspiration to me! I hope that someday I can do what she did....go back there, face the demons head on and walk away feeling like a new woman! She says the house is exactly the same as when we lived there, but the garage is gone and the old weeping willow tree was chopped down (I sure did love that tree, so many memories hiding under its loving branches). She says that someday she wants to save up enough money to buy the old place and turn it into a home for abused children! I, for one, believe she will do just that! She also said that when I am ready to face the demons she will go with me so that I won't have to face them alone! I don't think I'm ready just yet, someday maybe I'm just not sure when someday will come. Writing about it is one thing....seeing the old place is a whole different story!

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