Freedom

Where did patriotism go? Were all those flags and ribbons just a few years ago just a fad? With no real meaning behind them?

It bothers me to see people talking during the National Anthem, who don't know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance. But then I realize something, they fought for that freedom. That freedom to choose not to take part in the traditions of the Star Spangled Banner and Pledge. I realize that the decision to be disrespectful to those who chose to give their lives for ours, and their families, is one of the freedoms fought for and to protect. But does it make it okay?

Does Having the freedom mean it's acceptable. We have the freedom to own firearms, not every country does, but it doesn't make it okay to shoot people.

I think patriotism is very important.

Perception

I'd never really thought about how other people perceive the outcome of a child raised in a chaotic and violent environment. How they expect that such a child inevitably grows up to repeat the cycle. But does it have to be that way?

Does a child exposed to abuse and domestic violence, childhood rape and repeated betrayal, and ultimately domestic violence within one of their own relationships really have no choice but to follow the same path? Is it beyond reality to consider such a child can grow up despite their environment and become a regular person?

Or can the nature of the child determine a more positive outcome? Can personality protect from reality, act as a buffer of sorts between environment and the most obvious outcome? In nature versus nurture, can nature take a child beyond the limited experience of nurture and create a person who knows to be aware of their past and to consciously move past it?

I sat there listening to them determining that environment produces society's troubling figures. I wanted to ask what they thought would happen when a child was raised through some of the worst environmental factors and how they figured the child would turn out as an adult. How they would react if they knew someone they worked with or lived near has had such a tumultuous childhood. In knowing, would they tend to avoid the person out of fear for what could possibly happen?

Back to the days of forced sterilization, would they recommend that such a person not have and raise children of their own in an attempt to stop the cycle?

Would knowing change how they viewed a person?

weddings and other such joys

Nine weeks already. Finally got our marriage license taken care of so I am now officially married, yay. Of course celebrating was a bit out of the questioni as I'm still sick more days than not. Oh well, we'll get there.

mothering

The mothering is getting old. I get it at work, in the neighborhood, from people who don't even have kids. Some act like they have every right to tell me what to do, which they don't, and the one person I figured would do it the most, hasn't.

My MIL pretty much doesn't offer up anything unless asked, which is nice. But a friend(ish) went all control freak when I mentioned looking into a place that offers alternative birthing options. Because it is so her place to have any say-so whatsoever.

A neighbor who has no kids felt the urge to give me all of her opinions on what I should do and those at work really have only gotten onto me for lifting anything heavier than like, my finger. Moved an empty suitcase the other day (did not lift, pushed) and got an ear full. Was all like really? If I can't do this then pretty much everything else is out of the question.

6w3d

Still can't believe it's true. Also can't believe that the doctor's office first sat me down with a list (before insurance mind you) of the total cost. On top of that, I called said insurance to see what coverage I actually got for what I'm paying and apparently it's some big secret because the woman wouldn't tell me. Just to have the doctors office call and they'd explain it to them. So I yelled at her. Didn't accomplish much in doing so, but I felt better.
The last couple days I've felt fine, but today seems to be making up for it. Still haven't spoken to my mother.

So very not the flu

I believed it was the flu, people everywhere are sick with it. Dropping like flies. Of course, people at work are dropping as well with something different. The girls are anyway. And it's not swine flu or regular flu. It's babies. And apparently I've caught it too.

He want's a girl. I want a boy. Think it'll be a girl. But we have a long wait before finding out.

Until then we'll settle for healthy.

Not Sleeping

I keep hearing that sound. The sound of fist meeting face and I keep seeing him fall to the ground, blood gushing like a gyser almost instantly.

I haven't slept well the past few nights, it keeps replaying in my mind.

Silently.

I know there was plenty of shouting, I may have even been shouting too, but I don't remember. I remember the crash. It seemed such a foreign sound and we all froze. Then movement.

It was both slow motion and fast forward at once. I don't remember running to the door, just being outside. Then everything seemed to hesitate, like the earth was deciding whether to move again.

And then that sound.

I remember looking over my shoulder as I ran down the path, seeing her face in...anguish. Like she was screaming and crying and disbelieving all at once. That face keeps coming back to me in sleep. That look of... something without a word.

I've never been prone to nightmares, scary movies or a scary life have never brought them on, but this has.

Labels.

Sissy, Blondy, Shorty, Mighty Mouse, Trouble, Munchkin, Panda, Bulldog, Crazy, Tante Panda, Witch, Bitch, Chihuahua.......

We are a culture of labels. We like everything to have a name so we can know what to expect from it. I could keep going for days on the list above, the list of labels I've been given at one time or another. Some of them were from friends or loved ones, others from sworn enemies, but they all describe one of two things; my appearance or my personality, with one exception.

Sissy was my first label, given to me by my little brother despite out mother's objections. It's the only label that makes me feel connected to another person. Above all else, I am his Big Sissy.

Some of the labels came from my childhood; pet names that were fun (and true) and were meant to be affectionate.

Other labels came about as I entered adulthood. Those labels run the gauntlet from loving and not particularly original to hateful...and still not particularly original.

On occasion a name will stick out of function, young children sometimes have a hard time with my name, so something simpler needed to be chosen; or humor, as a poking-fun warning to others that I am not often intimidated. But in six weeks and a couple days' time I will be getting a new label, one that will stand out among the others. Wife.

Laying it all out

I miss Septembers. And Octobers as well. I know it sounds a little crazy because it IS September, but it's not the Florida Septembers and Octobers I miss, it's the Midwestern ones.

Pretty soon leaves will start turning and the corn and wheat will be getting tall. Soon driving down a country road will mean being in a sea of golden fields and blue skies that go on for miles with little interruption except the occasional farm house.

I'm a country girl really, never have been one for crowded roads and busy places. There's something almost reverent in the sounds of trees, animals, and silence. I miss the space and freedom of fields and streams and small town streets that were safe to prowl from morning till the streetlamps came on.

I watch roads around here being repaved. Blacktop, concrete. There was a kind of excitement as a kid when the roads were oiled. Running across the surface as soon as the workers moved on, shoe soles melting just a bit as we did. The flecks of gravel and oil that stuck to bicycles as we rode over it. I don't think they do that much anymore.

I remember being barefoot. Everywhere. I remember being barefoot at church, shoes safely tucked away in the corner. I remember playing up and down the neighborhood, shoes were for babies. Up in trees, in Kmart, along railroad tracks, no shoes anywhere.

There weren't cell phones either, so everyone knew their own mother's voice calling from the front door. And we knew just how far we could venture and still hear her. We were allowed outside then too. In fact, we weren't allowed INside much. Only during heavy rain or when it was really, really, really cold. We had raincoats and snowcoats for all the other times.

Helmets, seatbelts and sunscreen. If you were wearing one, your parents became known as the weird crazy people.

We walked to the park, walked to the Dairy Queen (that wasn't even a brazier, if anyone knows the difference), walked everywhere we needed to go. It wasn't that we didn't have a car, we just didn't use it.

Not my wedding

So my little (if you can call 6'4" little) brother is getting married. He's getting married in September. He has known for nearly a year that our wedding was scheduled for October. So when he and his sweety that I'd never heard of before got engaged a month or so ago, they chose September.

Granted, he is my step-brother so we only share certain relatives, but they wouldn't want to travel twice in as many months for weddings. Nevermind mine has now been, shall we say, rearranged. He didn't know that then. Dude. I'm happy and all, he's a great guy and whoever gets him is lucky, butyou just don't do that to people.

On the flip side, all of those deposits my parents put down and are wigging out about us paying back, most of them are willing to transfer the money to this wedding. Which is nice.

What wedding?

As of this morning we have officially cancelled all wedding plans. We didn't have a fight or a difference of opinion. My mother happened.

I originally had three bridemaids and three groomsmen until I felt the urge to eject one of the girls from my wedding party (very long other story). Despite months of my insistance that I did not need to replace her, my mother called last week to say she had found me another bridesmaid, a person I didn't even know. So I said thanks, but no.

So she said, well, then we're not going to pay for anything else to do with your wedding and if you cancel, you will have to pay us back the deposits we've lost.

No.

You see, for as often as I stand my ground with pretty much everyone else on earth, I've never stood up to her. So now she's bad-mouthing my fiancee, because this 'sudden personality change' is 'entirely due to him'.

Again, no.

The ball is now rolling... straight into pandora's box...

So the hothead in me got an alert from the kind little company who charges me twenty bucks a month to tell me if my credit information gets any worse. This time it was a new address in Virginia I supposedly lived at, which I have so obviously not. I started doing some research and finally got fed up with all of this 'they're military so we won't help' but 'it's a civilian matter and not our problem' bs and typed up a letter. I'm good at letters.

In this delightful little (page long) letter I have listed the family's names, approximate birth years, children's specific medical issues, his enlisment and where he was stationed last, and in what deparment, along with an outline of why I will not rest until they are in jail.

I then sent it to every email and fax number I could find related to the US Navy on the eastern seaboard.

Nope, not obsessed. Want some !^*&ing justice once and for all. Am tired of not being able to get jobs, bank accounts, basic utilites or other services, and loans in my name. Am pissed that I can't get a credit card if I wanted to because of them. Hope the Navy took my hint that newspapers and public forums online will be next to get that letter.

They are so going down, don't care how long it takes and who else has to go down with them. And god willing, those children will be put in foster care.

A rambling start

Seven years. A lifetime. Had someone told me then that my life would lead me here someday, I doubt I would have believed them. Back then I was a small town girl, everything beyond the city limits was imaginary. Places such as Florida and England were just beyond comprehension.

I'd like to think I was happy as a child. I had peers and family that kept me busy. I was in all of the typical activities of a girl my age. Our lives revolved around things typical of a small town; church, school, family, and neighbors. In times of need it would be these institutions we would turn to and more often than not, it would be these that left us out in the cold.

I was raised fairly religious, in the same narrow-minded church my mother had grown up in and as much as it hurt, I learned that in the end, they simply could not be trusted. Schools were no better. Their disinterest left me floundering within myself, unable to communicate or relate to others.

Family and friends quickly faded instead of rising up and helping us out. People I had been taught to trust as a child soon proved to be unwilling or unable to provide the security that had been promised.

I'm not sure when the world changed. When parents could not be trusted and home was no longer safe. When the order of everything became inverted and the innocent child became the one who everyone else began leaning on. The one that was supposed to have it all together. It's not meant to be that way.

Nothing used to bother me, I was ready to take on the world, and I do still have some of that in me. Now it's a different story, the thought of placing a simple phone call or initiating a conversation has become stressful. It has become easier to simply not ask questions or speak up at all.

Real Education

“When the student is ready, the master appears." ~ Buddhist Proverb

I have learned much about who I am and what I am capable of through education. It seems that we as a society have moved to a place where education, especially higher education, is something to be gotten over with, a means to an end, instead of a journey and an experience in its own right. For me, when the time came to continue my education, I was doing it to please others, but by the time I finished, I was doing it to please me.

From start to finish, I have been under the instruction of over six dozen teachers. Most of which were burnt out school-marmish women who had long since tired of their professions and were holding out for retirement. This was not the reflection of a certain particular school or area, by my high school graduation I had attended eight different schools in four different school districts and with each move it became easier to just slip through the cracks and give a minimal performance.

Early on, teachers seemed to be aware of my potential. I was given various tests and provided with outside resources meant for gifted children and that was all fun until I was booted out of the program in middle school. After that it became comfortable being able to exert little to no effort and make a minimally passing grade.

I left the mandatory public education system lost. I didn't know who I was or where my life was going. I had managed to leave school without having any friends or any form of network to rely on. Which left me very much alone.

Four years after leaving high school, I entered college. On paper it doesn't sound like a great length of time, but in reality, I was being sized up against my peers from high school who were at the same time graduating with their bachelor degrees. I was, according to my mother, behind the game and needed to put in the extra effort to catch back up. I started with all of the normal classes and continued my tradition of just doing enough to get by and most of the time it seemed to work. I also continued with making as little contact with everyone else as possible.

It was at this point in my education I began to learn about myself. I began to discover who I really was and how unhappy I had been.

Danish

I come from a large extended family. Each generation before mine had a half dozen kids or more and shared a similarity in heritage. I am both fourth and fifth generation Danish-American which doesn't sound like much really, but to me it's something. From Denmark, each family settled in Wisconsin and Minnesota which is still predominantly Danish. I have been there once or twice and it seems so natural to be in these areas where I blend in and people share a certain culture even if they don't understand why.

On Her Birthday

It's my mother's birthday today. I know because she texted me earlier reminding me. I'm not a horrible daughter, I did send a card as I do every year, mailed it with my brother's two weeks ago.

I saw a picture of her recently, in the new church directory and realized that it's the first time there has been a formal picture taken of her with no kids in very nearly 25 years. The two boys were off at work or doing whatever it is they do and S and I were in our own picture on another page. At first I totally missed the picture. I had to go back through and search for it. It seemed a bit odd like that, just the two of them.

And then it began to sink in that maybe she noticed too and just maybe this is some of the problem recently. In a couple months time I will turn 25 and 4 months after that I'll be married. It's a bit scary to think about.

Then reality hits...

I got a call today after school from my mother, which was a bit weird because I knew she was at work, and at first felt it was a bit of an intrusion because I was studying and enjoying the nice weather. At first she wondered why I was still at school if my classes were over for the day and seemed a bit upset that I wasn't home where I could talk but eventually she got around to the reason for her call.
Last year my (step)dad spent nearly ten months over in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This wasn't his first deployment over there, but the last one was in the 80s and he did suffer minor PTSD after that. Apparently he is having a very hard time this time around and it's affecting his job among other things, but he doesn't think he needs help. She apparently has contacted the VA to get him the help she thinks he needs, but I hate to tell her that it's only any good if he's receptive to it. She said something about because she's been through major depression (and is apparently the only one who has that matters), she knows it'll help him, I just hate to tell her that as someone who had that forced upon them, it may only push him away.
I don't think there's enough of me left to deal with more 'stuff' from everyone else. Some part of me feels that this is just one more thing that will separate me from everyone else. I know that must be pretty selfish of me to say, but I'm feeling a bit selfish right now. I spend so much time helping everyone else with homework, transportation, work, life, etc that I just need some time to myself. The last day I had to myself was at the beginning of the year, and even then it wasn't really on my own.

I Digress

I had a very long conversation the other day about this book, or the idea of it. What I hoped to get out of it, how I thought I would accomplish my goals, why I picked the title I did. It took a while but I think I've started to figure out why writing it has become so important. It is both an explination of who I am and why I've become that person.
I think each part of my life set me up to be able to make it through the next part. If I'd had nothing but pleasant experiences, then finding myself alone in Florida would have been much more traumatic. However, by the time I made it here, it was more or less a non-event.
Down the road, I hope this story is about the trip. That decade in my teen years that was truely the trip to the beginning of my life.
This discussion we had lasted most of the evening and eventually he asked, as he has before, if he is going to be mentioned in it. I explained that he is the ending, my knight, who closed that chapter of my life for good.

Then he asked if the next book would be about everything since.

A Stone's Throw

I first got an email from this family in early December, I remember because it was just before finals. They lived nearby and needed someone to watch two young kids in the afternoons and evenings 4-5 days a week. Again, the father was in the Navy, but stationed in Djibouti rather indefinately.

My first meeting with the family was right at the end of the semester, the mother was a student by day and worked full time at night while her sister, who lived with them, stayed home during the day and worked at the same place at night.

The children, both boys, were absolutely wonderful. Intelligent, cheerful, and sweet, the little one "Dan", only about 18 months old, took right to me and we were forever inseperable. The older one "Cris", about two and a half, did not warm up to me quite as quickly.

The first few weeks we spent just getting to know one another. Dan didn't talk, just smiles and action; Cris cried. Cris sat, up to eight hours at a time, under a blanket from his mother's bed and cried.

As I began to get him to interact, I began to notice that he wasn't like other kids his age, for one, he was very close to smarter than myself. (Okay, I'm not a genius, not quite anyway, but there should be more difference between an two year old and a twenty-two year old.) Cris also did not communicate normally. Most notable was this interaction; I would ask him, "Do you want juice?" His response was never yes or no, but "Do you want juice." as affermative or "No do you want juice." as dissent. Red flags went up in the back of my mind. I dug around on the internet, looking at medical texts and information from other parents, and sent off an email to someone I knew long ago and came to a startling conclusion. Cris was autistic.

It just so happened that about the time I came to this conclusion on my own, their grandparents happened to be visiting and I brought the topic of Cris up to the grandmother. She said, yes, he most likely was autistic and their other daughter (who works in a profession with such children) pointed it out long ago. She also said the parents were in denial and said if something was wrong the schools would catch it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe my ears. By the time he made it to school, most likely it would be too late. If he was lucky enough that the school caught it the first couple years, he would get shoved into special ed, a place from which few students ever returned. So I returned to my books and journals and began devising a plan to help him get over this obsticle.

The first step was getting him to accept me. This actually turned out to be fairly difficult. I ignored him unless him came to me. I never looked directly at him and set about creating an ironclad routine that anyone who had him in their care could follow. Since he wasnt old enough to really tell time, I used the television. I programmed the TV each day to switch to each channel at the correct time and in no time at all the crying began to lessen. Shortly after that he would come sit with me to play or watch a show and he began to show that he really liked to help in the kitchen.

This routine became key to everything else we did. It became my way to get him potty trained and my way to actually get him to do other activities. The mother and aunt pointed out on different occasions, "The boys cry and run to the door when you leave."



One entire day got devoted to yes and no. We tried flashcards, word recognition, and a host of other things and by bedtime, he pretty much had it figured out.

Once we had basic communication down we starting disposing of bad habits. The list was simple enough if it had just been the mother and I; binkies, bottles, eating inthe livingroom, and diapers primarily, along with allowing Cris to echo speech instead of answer as he had learned. But the aunt had the children most of the time and liked having little fuss from them. So we got rid of everything. I pointed out that while they were with me, which was most of the day, these things were not done so it wouldn't be much of a transition.

By early summer we had it down pat. I arrived at 2 in the afternoon just as the kids were getting up from their naps and we had a couple hours of somewhat structured playtime. We would paint or use playdough, if it was warm we would play in the little pool out back. Four o'clock was our first target time, Reba was on at four for an hour. In that hour we cleaned up whatever we had been doing and went for a walk around the neighborhood. Walking took quite a bit of time and usually by the time we got back it was nearing 5.
At five o'clock Gilmore Girls came on and that was dinner preparation. Sometimes Cris would help me and sometimes he would play with his brother. Usually by half past they were at the table eating.
Six o'clock meant Reba was back on and we had more playtime or read books, slightly calmer activities than earlier in the day.
Seven was Still Standing and that was bath time. Bath time took a bit longer because Dan had a bath but Cris took a shower.
Eight o'clock was time for snuggling, watching the final round of Reba, and preparing for bed. After we settled, occasionally I would get on messanger and Cris with talk to my mom online.

Over time we bagan to venture further away from home. They liked to go visit my dog so we did that often, we would go to children's museums or just to a different environment. Much of what we did was to stimulate both boys, but especially Cris. He had aversions to certain sensations like sitting in water (like a tub or kiddie pool), walking barefoot through grass, or sitting on a swing. Finger paint and playdough gave him trouble at first as well. Because of his general aversion to water, I was very surprised the first time we took him swimming in a big pool and he didn't want to get out.
He formed a very unusual bond with my mother (whom he saw all of like twice ever) and liked to talk to her and visit with her if she was down.

Dan was just Dan, not very talkative, very much the observer. During the time I watched them he did finally begin to talk, but with an unexpected twist. Having listened to my fast way of talking, he spoke very fast.
Mid summer brought a traumatic event to the house, their aunt was hospitalized for MS, something she had been battling for a long time, and the household was thrown into turmoil. The first night the boys came and stayed at my house and as we drove away in the dark, Cris was in the backseat crying to himself "Mommy will come later" over and over again. It was a demonstration that some of the coping techniques we had been working on, he understood.
After a year of caring for them I pointed out that while I had helped the boys quite a bit they needed professional help, it was met with resistance. Finally I had to just end working for them because seeing those boys and knowing that without help, Cris wouldn't ever reach his full potential was tearing me apart.

Painting Pictures

Since I have gotten the basis of these events down, perhaps I need to go back and fill in some details. Paint some pictures. I'll start with some positive ones, some that I carry with me and pull up when needed.

The best book I have ever read is The Giver. It is a fairly remedial book for me, even when it was assigned in school the first time, but I like the idea behind it. I like the idea of being able to pull up memories to get you through a situation. Simple and a bit silly, I know, but I like simple and silly.

My mother can sew. Which makes me feel a bit less of a woman because for the most part I can't. She used to make some of my clothes; not just basic shirts, but dresses and other such things. Part of the reason, I learned later in life, was that because I was always so small, it was hard to find age-appropriate clothes that fit and when she could find clothes that nearly fit, they needed to be taken in in one place or another. The other reason was that store bought clothes were very expensive.

My mother also is full of life. Despite her own life, she has pulled through and become a very outgoing and active person. Some of my earliest memories with her are at the carnival when it came to town. We would ride the tilt-a-whirl. Just us, no one else in the car. She taught me how to sit in the very middle and lean one way or the other to get it spinning as fast as it would go. If it wasn't particularly busy, we would ride again and again trying to go faster each time.

After my transition to Florida and while I was working at Disney she came to visit and we rode the Teacups at Magic Kingdom. My Dad and Brit, having learned their lesson before, chose to ride in their own teacup while she and I worked in tandem to spin the cup as fast as we could.

She and I are, not surprisingly, very much alike despite our very different lives. I know she wants nothing but the best for me, but any less than a thousand miles between us makes that very hard to swallow. Now that we have begun to live our own lives, we do talk on a regular basis. My favorite new memory was last year standing to watch her run across the finish line of a half-marathon. Running is her new activity since I left.

My Dad, actually my Step-Dad, plays the referee quite often when the topic of school and wedding (something new) comes up. He believes college should be on my terms and no amount of force will get me to change what I want. Which would be okay if I knew what that was.

He loves his jobs, both of them. He works as an RN in the cardiac wing of their local hospital. A slight bit of irony in itself. He is passionate about helping people. He is also very passionate about his service in the military. He has always taken the stance that young kids should not be sent to war. He was chomping at the bit for a long time before they finally sent him overseas last year. He was stationed both in Afghanistan and Iraq and was gone for almost the entire year.

His son, my step-brother never lived with us and as we got older, came over less and less. Barley a year younger than me, he also has chosen to take some of the harder roads through life.

Bubby, who I've already introduced, is my favorite person. Sure, we fight and argue, but when it comes down to it, we have quite a bit in common. His view of life and the world is much different than mine. He has a much stronger connection to our hometown and the people in it, occasionally (so it seems) resigning himself to a fate of following in our biological father's footsteps. On the other hand, he knows me better than anyone else; which is not to say that he knows everything about me, because he doesn't. He can voice for anyone exactly how I would feel about something (and most likely with quite a bit more tact).

These people, these personalities make up my family. With other people coming and going from time to time, influencing or affecting us as they pass by.

Three

My third year was marked by my return to school. An endeavor that proved to be both exciting and much harder than I anticipated. My first semester was a flop. Trying to work all day and attend classes at night as well as online proved to be a big feat after a four year hiatus in formal education.

The following spring was better, however, with day classes and a much more flexible job as a nanny. My school life was very basic. I came and went with very little interaction with anyone else. Teachers generally left me alone and I carried on with my assignments on my own. It was a good system.

I had taken a job locally as a live-out nanny for a family with two adorable little boys. On the surface, this family was a vast improvement from the first one. Loving parents and a balanced, stable household. Unfortunately, they were very much in denial about their son's autism and the help he needed. I worked every day with him, teaching him communication and potty training as well as other tasks.

As time progressed, they started paying me late, then a relative would pay me. Finally, a year after starting, I had to leave because I needed a steady check.

In the fall I was once again enrolled in classes and once again I kept to myself.

Two Years

Nearly a decade of bad coping skills don't just go away overnight. All of my preconceived ideas about how the world was and what to expect soon proved to be off base. Way off base. I was certain that my fight was only beginning, that everything could only get worse, and for good reason.
Up until that point I had always been in an environment where I knew my surroundings and always had a way around. Even during the most horrifying experiences, I always knew there was somewhere I could go. Now I was alone.
Now I had no family, no home, no life, no identity. And for the first time in my life I really and truly felt afraid.
My first impression of this family I found myself temporarily living with wasn't exactly positive (and perhaps not particularly fair). What I saw was a rather old-school couple who always had to have the last say and resisted change and their along-for-the-ride son. To be fair, they seemed old school because they were. These were people who had the better part of forty years on me and from an entirely different country to boot. Their son, 'Brit' was somewhat along for the ride, but did have quite a bit of responsibility and say-so in the business.
I was swiftly put to work, much to the chagrin of his father. I first learned how to treat and clean swimming pools, how to brush and vacuum them and clean filters. Five days a week I cleaned pools.
Up until this point Brit and I had been living at his parents' house. An arrangement that only made tensions worse. I was thought of (and it was often vocalized) as ungrateful and immature and, depending on the done-wrong, American (which I learned stood for rude).
Four months after coming to live with them, I moved into Brit's house and stayed there full-time and walked to a nearby job. This doesn't mean that Brit also moved there, he still stayed at his parents from Monday morning until Friday evening. I spent most of my time alone.
One perspective on my plight at the time was that I was living in this wonderful, big house rent-free and should be thankful. That wasn't how I saw it.
In May I managed to get my car down from Illinois and shortly thereafter I got a job with 'The Mouse' and.... dare I say it.... moved back in with his parents. (In my defense, they live like ten miles from the place.)
All of this time I was also either pitching in with the business cleaning houses, handling clients, or doing random other stuff, or being bitched at because I wasn't contributing. The advantage to staying there was that I got to see Brit every day.
I had one other temporary and short-lived job after that and then spent the entire next summer unemployed. And my debt to the business grew.
If I didn't help, then I was lazy and if I did, then I was a controlling bitch. There were many times where I reached my boiling point with his dad and told him off. I got enlisted to travel up to Daytona three days a week (where our other office is) in a car with no air to babysit an employee I would have just fired. Oh, and that vehicle didn't have air either.
By the time fall rolled around and I started another job and re-moved out of his parents' house, it dawned on me I had been in Florida two years. Of which I had lived all but about four months in his parents' house.

To be absolutely fair to them, their feelings toward me were a bit justifiable. Brit hadn't discussed anything with them before moving me in. They hadn't had a good track record with being able to trust Americans and I was only nineteen.
After I moved out of their house for the second time, things began to improve. My relationship with his mother changed drastically, to one a bit more civil, and his dad began to ease up just a bit. At the same time, I also began to attend college. (That's another story.)

Nightmares

I didn't know the obstacles when I met them. At the time it was merely my life, my journey. Looking back, the trip to my beginning was long and rough. In the moment though, I thought only of acheiving a balance.
In recounting my life, the stories I would rather forget, the memories have begun to resurface. Not just fleeting, in the back of my mind, but in my nights, in my dreams.
My life, for all new people I meet has only lasted the past 52 months. Just shy of four and a half years. The trials and hurdles in that time are enough, the kinds of things I have found that most people understand. A disagreement with a family member, job changes, school. I have protected myself from the pity. From people wanting to treat me differently because of some perceived injustice. I believe life happens for a reason. Many times over, the worry over my life ending had been put before my eyes, making all else seem rather insignificant. If people asked about the me before Florida, I gave them some tiny, sugar-coated bit condensed into a couple breaths. No more. Never any more.
No one other person knows the whole story. It is only together on these pages.
Exposure is scary. When it exists beyond just my mind, then it becomes real, I can't pretend that it didn't happen to me. I must acknowledge my own past.
Thankfully. The months and years after my chaotic arrival to Florida have steadily improved and have generally made up for my past. I have begun to learn trust and being open. Lessons that had to be taught to me. I had to begin to realize that not everyone was a threat and I could relax around others. Let my guard down. Let people in. I have found a safe place, a place where everything seems to be balanced and no trouble is really all that big.

Florida

I did say I always wanted to move to Florida.

With a psycho and her four wild and almost feral children wasn't in the picture though. I learned that she had done this whole surrogacy thing before and a lawsuit, over what I never did figure out, followed.

She also had taken her boss's credit card and had been living off of it, explaining the endless money, which was why we were on the run. I had been sucked into becoming a fugative.

When we arrived at the house she had rented, it sudden;y didn't meet her approval. It wasn't that there was no furniture, I seriously believe it was that it faced down a road and so people could see the commings and goings.

The kids weren't enrolled in school right away, also something I found out to be the norm. By asking questions and doing the math, I found out they attended eleven schools in one year alone. Explained a lot.

It didn't take her long to find us another house, two doors down and this time with furniture. It was managed by a sweet English couple and their son whom also did all of the maintenance.

That house was due to have guests in, so after a couple nights we packed up once again and moved to a bigger house up the street the other way.

We were in that house three weeks.

October

When I flip through a calander and look at dates, I am amazed to find I only really spent about two and a half weeks in Virginia. It felt like several months.

Right away the mother went to work frantically signing the kids up for karate, and the little one dance. She went out and bought everyone season passes to Busch Gardens and seemed to always have tons of expendable money. This was the first odd thing.

I remember how it was living at home and how sometimes things were a little tight, and that was on an officer's pay so I figured than enlisted had to be less. Just a guess.

She began to go on and on about taking the kids to Disney for Christmas and how great it was going to be. She would by stuff in preperation, toys and goodies. Then I met the couple she was providing a child for, they too were from Florida. The beginning of that third week, things started to unravel. She became irrational and paraniod, talking about people trying to arrest her. Ducking as a cop would go by on the road.

She and I took a couple day trip to Orlando, first class, to scope out a possible place to stay near the couple so they could be a part of the experience. We went to Universal, where she bought more annual passes, and looked at rental houses.

When we got back to Virginia her paranoia escalated, prompting a late night load up and decision to drive all of the kids to Orlando. Her husband stayed behind, having to work. And it was after that point I began to learn the truth.

Journey

There was a hiatus between moving out of that apartment and moving on. I spent a few short weeks living back with my parents and finding out again why I had been so desperate to leave. My mom had a very college-or-else attitude, oh, but I had to foot the bill myself.

Yeah, okay.

So those few weeks back at home brought up all the old issues and feelings of anger and perhaps regret between us and I began to look for something else.

Choosing to be a nanny wasn't something I rushed into. I had been working with kids since I was about ten and had been a nanny once before. I spent much of my time while back at home pouring over websites and resources to figure out just how to get to be a live-in nanny.

Some sites were more helpful than others and I listed a profile of sorts on many, searching the databases for available families. Generally, when I tell this story in person it gets left off that I really did do some research before going ahead. I researched what would be expected of me and what I should be able to expect of the family.

I weighed the pros and cons of each family; proximately to home, family background, their expectations, etc. One Saturday evening I came across a family that seemed perfect. I remember it was October second, that weekend and the six that would follow it are permanently ingrained in my memory.

The family boasted about being a church-going family with four kids, two girls and two boys. Mom was apparently a secretary and dad was enlisted, in the Navy. One of the kids, it said, had some health problems but all of them were great and reasonably well behaved. I shot off an email to the family through the website and later that night the mother called me up.

It seemed like an okay gig, they lived on the east coast in a little suburb where the kids went to local schools. They weren't that far from the base really, so I figured as I had a military I.D., if there were any problems, I could just go on base. No biggie.

The next morning I spoke to the mother again and she agreed to go ahead and get me a plane ticket out to Virginia. I spent the rest of Sunday frantically packing and sorting, deciding what to take and what to pack up and leave behind. Decisions that would later both haunt me and make me thankful.

By eight a.m. Monday morning, October 4, I was at the airport waiting for my first flight. Roughly thirty-six hours from first contact and I was on my way.

Some have said I should have done more research, taken more time, but this wasn't about clear thought or reason, it was about flight.

I had two different layovers and was in five different airports that day. I enjoy airports, there is something inherently unique about the experiences you get and see there. Travelling through international airports are the best, you can learn so much in such a short amount of time.

(A side note to how I view the world around me. I am a people watcher, partially out of necessity and partially because my mother is a historian, more or less.)

By nightfall I had arrived on the east coast, had seen the Atlantic Ocean, from the plane, for the first time in my life. I thought to myself, this is where my new life will begin, a fresh start.

The parents met me at the airport. A young, happy looking couple who sang praises about their children and how excited they were to have me. Apparently they were going to need a nanny because the mother hoped to be a surrogate for an out-of-state couple and would shortly be beginning treatments.

They drove a modest car, well exposed to a brood of four kids, and lived in a rather average sized house on a quiet cul-de-sac. The house was small on the inside, but obviously well loved; four bedroom and two bathrooms filled with noise, activity, and stuff.

The kitchen was small, made even smaller by the oversized refridgerator against one wall. The boys shared one room and the girls, another. I was surprised that while I figured the boys were okay sharing, being about six and seven, that the oldest girl, a young teen, would be okay sharing with a sister a decade younger.

That first week I spent simply learning the family dynamics.

The Italian

He was what I thought I deserved in a guy. Oh, and my mother hated him.

In a late coming attempt at a bit of rebellion, I started dating some guy I had known from a seasonal job I had held. He wasn't a great guy, nothing special to look at either, but none of that was important.

I would come home from work at night and he would be gone. Out with some people, most likely girls, at some bar. He would come home and either pass out on the bed or force me to have sex with him, I assumed that it was normal. He never hit me, but would scream, threaten, and terrorize me in other ways.

Often he would drive us out into the country and threaten to leave me on the side of the road, miles and miles from anywhere. It was psychological warfare, something I hadn't encountered before. He also owned several guns, mostly shotguns and other larger items, but he also had a revolver that was kept under his side of the bed. After some time, I convinced him to take me to the firing range and teach me to shoot.

I was only with him about six months or so, but I quickly learned how to anticipate his moods and how to avoid conflict. He kept me very isolated, not permitting me to speak to anyone he didn't know. I had no cell phone and he checked the phone bill each month. If I arrived home late, he would meet me at the door with a barrage of questions.

He began to drink more and more. Dragging me out of bed when he came home to complete bizarre tasks that he thought I should have done for him earlier in the day. He became more and more irrational. One night near the end, I awoke on the couch to his sour beer breath inches from my face as he hiss how much of a worthless piece of shit I was. How no one wanted me and he was going to just solve the problem once and for all. As I sat up, I realised that the revolver had been moved from under the bed to the coffee table mere feet away. It wasn't the first time he had made any sort of general threat with one of the guns, but it was the first time he'd done so drunk.

All I could keep thinking was that after everything else, this was how it was going to end. Instead, he dragged me to the bed and forced himslef upon me while my mind wandered off like it usually did, blocking his actions out by thinking of a better place, somewhere warm with palm trees. I knew that usually when he was done he passed out and then I could go move the gun till morning. As I always did, I checked to see whether he had been coherent enough to load it and discovered that that night, he had.

The next morning, I left.

Intermezzo

My life can be summed up into six time periods; my beginning, chaos, depression, rebellion, flight, and discovery. This is a very retrospective view. And very typical, putting everything in its box.

The people closest to me did not see the freight train around the bend. Did not anticipate that the previous seventeen years of my life were about to come to a very dangerous and life-altering head.

I had graduated high school, but I don't remember how long before. It wasn't really cold yet, and since it's cold usually by about October and stays that way until April, it had to be probably summer.

I do remember I was driving my first car, I think, so I had to be eighteen. I remember being parked in an empty parking lot and having the bottle of pills. I remember taking the first few of them and then my memory fades.

I remember waking up in the hospital on a 72 hour hold. Medicines were prescribed and lectures were given by strangers who had no real idea why I had done it. I had no idea why I chickened out and apparently had called for help. I knew that the world I was living in wasn't for me and that that I couldn't go on the way I had been. I began seeing a shrink on a regualr basis.

A person I didn't trust, always beliving that my mother would find out, so I told her nothing. Barely allowing her into even my fantasy world. The medicine made my numb, unable to feel at all and I figured pain was better than the nothing and so I stopped taking them. I discovered that if I complained the meds (that I wasn't taking) wouldn't let me sleep, she would prescribe so sleeping medicine. By nature, it doesn't take much of any medicine to be effective on me and a bottle of sleeping pills (given to someone after attempting suicide???) were wonderful in helping me block out the realities of my life.

Relationships were intentionally a bit rough. I had no idea how to relate to any guy, let alone how to have an intimate relationship. I started to gravitate toward guys who really only wanted me to lays there, guys who didn't want an emotional connection. I had not kept in touch with anyone from high school and though I was being forced to attend college, I wasn't going. So I drifted around town aimlessly. No purpose or desire in life except the lingering wish that I had succeeded that night in ending it all.

Land of Lincoln and Isolation

My remaining three years of high school were in a brand spankin' new town, even farther away. Somewhere in the process I learned to compartmentalize my experiences. It sort of helped with the coping, made it seem a bit more like it had all happened to someone else. There was a false show of involvement with my peers, I was only connected as I absolutely had to be, never more. I spent much of my time in my own world, daydreaming about being anywhere else. I don't really remember many of my peers and fewer of my teachers.

I believed that life was one big horrible event after another and that the more connections someone had, the more they would be hurt in the long run. I struggled trying to figure out just how to make it through each day and an even bigger struggle with how to relate to men.

One year, the band made a trip to Florida to march in a parade at Magic Kingdom. We spent three or four days in Orlando in the middle of February and it was wonderful. It seemed so magical, palm trees and sand, sunshine and a blue sky that went on forever. I knew that one day I would have to move there.

It is, I suppose, a bit sad that three years of school, work and life in general can be summed up in such a short amount of space.

Daddy

A father is available to help his daughter balance both her love and her anger toward her mother, to moderate the inevitable emotional extremes in the intense mother-daughter equation. With Daddy's steadying influence daughters can learn to be comfortable with healthy anger, rather than feeling that they must be eternal good girls who must at all costs conceal it. ~Victoria Secunda

My mother remarried the summer before I started high school to a wonderful man who had a son just ten months younger than me. This one was a bit more of a rushed marriage and we spent a long time afterwards learning about one another.
He would eventually become my confidant and the referee between my mother and I, truly my father.
He was, is, an R.N. and held an officer's title in the Air Force. It wasn't always pretty, this new blended family, but family life isn't always pretty.
During my school years, I fairly considered him to be a nuseance, a bit of an intruder. It would take many years and a war for us to develop that special father-daughter bond. Fathers tend not to want to know about the done-wrongs, wanting to preserve the belief of an innocent child. At times both Bubby and his own son were punished more harshly than I was, occasionally taking the fall for me.

Along the Mighty Mississippi

Eighth grade was, not surprisingly, horrible. After my mother's divorce, we moved out of that small town and in with her new boyfriend, a great guy who would later prove to be truly my father.
The school was horrible. I had been lucky enough before that to never have been bullied, but my peers there were determined to make up for it. If it wasn't them, it was the teachers who seemed to think it harmless and perhaps funny.
I was failing and had no friends; I felt utterly alone.

Freshman year wasn't much better. I was one in a school of a couple thousand and wandered, half in fear and half in indifference, from class to class. The campus was large and laid out much like a college, I never did find places like the library or the theatre and never really knew what all the cafeteria offered. I found comfort in following a strict routine and keeping to myself.
It was during freshman year I came upon my first lifelong health issue. I found out I has chronic asthma, complete with more than several trips to the hospital for treatments. Asthma would put me in the back of a couple ambulances and cause me to pass out on difference occasions.

R (Contains subject matter not suitable for all viewers)

Just to keep from ruffling any feathers I will give a quick warning. If certain subject matter makes you uncomfortable, skip this. Having said that, I did put the adult content warning on this blog. Anyway....

For the sake of easing through this part of my life, I will clarify a few things. This was concurrent to my parent's divorce, so no one ever really noticed my own little break from normal.

M- At the time he had just turned 16 and gotten his license.
T & K- I believe they were still about 15, so not yet driving, but still several years older than me.

It wasn't really an unusual request. I had gotten a call from T or K inviting me to go to a movie since M had just gotten his license. These were kids from families my mother had known forever. We all grew up in the same church and did many things together, so an invitation to the moving, in that tiny town, wasn't odd. He drove his mom's minivan to pick us up, it was that dodge blue color, the one that looks a bit faded. He had picked the other two up on his way to my house and off we went.
I had begged my mother to allow me a later curfew so I wouldn't look like a baby. She granted me a ten o'clock limit and sent me on my way. I don't remember what movie we went to see and I think we grabbed a snack afterwards and just cruised around for a while. T & K had to be home by like nine or nine thirty, so we dropped them off.
M wanted to cruise around a bit longer and since I had said earlier what time I needed to be home, he left no room for question. We did drive for what seemed like ever and I had a blast being out, on a school night, with a guy, even though he was practically family.
Eventually we ended up in the park. In that tiny town, the sex ed program was abstinence-only and just showed us scare-tactic slides of all the diseases we could get. Nothing more.
When he mentioned sitting in the back, I didn't think anything of it, this was a guy I'd known all my life, someone who was active in the church as was his family. I suppose he had turned up the heater because it became warm enough to make it uncomfortable to keep my coat on.
In retrospect, he knew exactly what he was doing.
A child doesn't understand the warning signs before something terrible like this happens and I happened to be a child who's family life was falling apart.
Time seemed to slow down and I remember watching the green numbers of the clock in the dark as ten arrived... and then passed by.
Depending on which jurisdiction you are in and what time period, what he proceeded to do has a different name. Assault, molestation, rape.
In that town, it was nothing.
When I became withdrawn and my grades dropped, everyone attributed it to the divorce. I knew nothing about shrinks or therapy. There was never anything done about it.
I learned that night, that no one could be trusted. Even other youth at the church that I did tell, older kids who I also had known my whole life, believed that he was capable of it. The rumor was that I wasn't the first. But no one ever suggested talking to an adult and the adults that had to overhear the heated arguments we had in the church halls about it simply ignored us, never asking any questions.

In the span of a couple short years, in one little town, I lived through the horrors of watching a man nearly kill my mother and another rape me and both walked away with not even as much as a reprimand. This is why I loathe that little town. When we needed them most, they simply shut the door.
One can see, by my school records, just when all of this took place. I did have friends when I was young, but for the rest of middle and high school, I avoided making any connections lest they turn out the same way. I became isolated and chronically depressed.

The First Most Pivotal Moment, Part 1

The three years I spent in middle school were some of the most volatile, and gut wrenching moments of my life. In the span of a few short years I lost my family, my world, and my childhood. For a long time, to tell these would have required a few drinks and a big box of Kleenex; but a decade, a few bad shrinks, and some decent psychology classes have helped move to the point where they become just things in my past. Some of these things still haunt me in subtle ways and pop up when I least expect them.



When I was in middle school my parents got divorced. There was no big custody battle, no trips to the courthouse; by then the fireworks were over. The divorce itself was a non event, I found out about it from someone at school who felt the need to rub it in, but it neither worried nor surprised me.



Some time before the divorce, my mother went back to school. This in and of itself sounds absolutely harmless except for the small minded husband who saw college as a waste of time and money who the only way he'd been taught to show his emotions was with his fists.



Even though I know that this was the chain of events, I don't blame her. In fact, it may have been the best thing she ever did.



I know there was much more fighting than I recall. Several times she was admitted to the hospital. He caused her to have a breakdown and then tried to use it to tell the world she was crazy. I remember leaving the house at all hours, grabbing absolute necessities and jumping in the car. There were also long amounts of time spent at other people's homes; sometimes relatives others, friends.



There was one especially bad night where I happened into the kitchen and He had her pinned into the corner, up off the ground, with a knife to her throat. I can still see it in my mind. I can see the refrigerator, the door, and the knife.



We went on a regular basis to file reports against Him a the police station. He was never arrested. We would turn to the church for help, they pushed us away and slammed the door in our faces. Friends and relatives eventually turned their backs on us as well. The small-town, small-minded view was that it was a family thing and family business should be kept at home.



While I watched Him beat her endlessly, Bubby spent many nights in his closet or sent away to someone else's house. He never actually laid a hand on Bubby, but to a six or seven year old kid, seeing and hearing it was more than enough.



He did hit me as well, but once, during visitation. I had promised that while he may have gotten away with hitting my mother, if he ever hit me, every cop in town would be there. Brave words for a tiny twelve year old.



In some twisted joke, the Court granted him weekend visitation in which we were in his care for two whole days. Eventually the hit did come, he knocked me clear across the living room. And true to my word, most every cop on duty that night was soon on the doorstep and we never had to see Him again.

Bubby

I love my brother. Really. Now, I may bitch about the things he's done and decisions he's made, but if he were ever in any real trouble I'd come a runnin'. Five years my junior and dangerously smart, he is, most of the time, a dear friend.

When we were little we would play with piles of either Hot Wheels cars or Legos for hours; helping one another do cool things. We built forts and tents and occasionally fought in true sibling style. He suffered much more than I did and from a much earlier age. In about second grade, he was diagnosed with ADD, something it would take him into adulthood to get a handle on.

Bubby seems strangly absent in some of my memories. I realize that most likely this is because he was hiding in a closet or simply had been sent somewhere else.

Centralia

I Hate Centralia. Granted, it is technically my hometown and it was where I was born, but, it is the type of place that I wouldn't even send my worst enemies to.

Being different, even good different, was frowned upon. It was the type of little place where everyone's family had lived there for generations and people rarely moved in or out except from the very near surrounding area. Leading, in my personal opinion, to a certain degree of inbreeding.

As a child, I felt safe there; able to roam all over town on my bike or on foot. Small and familiar, an everyone knows everyone place.

Later on I would come to realize the dark side to it, how much they still lived very far in the past. How people who should have been the pillar of the town would simply turn their backs in our hour of need and bid us fairwell to leave the town. Had anything worse come from what would be my last few years living there, I would have forever held them responsible.

I don't really have much positive to say about that place or most of the people in it. Therefore, I will let the stories of my early teen years living there do it for me.

Mother Dear

My Mother has, as any good mother does, played a very large role in my life. She made sure we had every opportunity there was available, even if it meant taking on more work for herself. When I was young, she took me to dance classes as well as performances and made sure I had all of the tu-tus and other things I needed.

Later on, it was driving the both of us to Scouts, helping us with popcorn and cookie sales, and hauling us to camps every summer. We never heard about what cost or burden it would be for the family for us to do these things.

She worked at Woolworth, which was one of the primary shopping places in town, and made sure she was there for us at every event. She was room mother for both of us, making treats for all of the holidays, as well as our seamstress. Both Bubby and I were (and still are) fairly hard to shop for, so she spent time making sure our clothes fit properly. This was long before the days of half sizes; short, medium, or long lengths; and widespread manufacturing of size zero pants.

By the time I was in middle school, she had started taking clesses at the community college. An event that would turn out to be more pivotal than it should have been. She took her classes while we were in school so we never really noticed any change in our routine.

Before The Big Bad Wolf

Him. My biological father. I don't think he was really a horrible person. Small minded animals tend to lash out in fear when confronted with the unknown. There was little else that town could have done but to produce him, and others just like him. When I was young, he worked in a potato chip factory and even to this day I have a penchant for Kettle Cooked Barbeque Potato Chips. I remember the little red chip bags, shiny foil so the seasoning stayed on the chips. My mouth waters at the thought of them.

No matter how much I hate what he became, to hate someone, you must first have feelings for them, otherwise, it's just indifference. Bubby doesn't remember the chip factory and he wouldn't, he is to young, it is my memory only.

Later, when we were in school, he worked for a candy company. Not just any candy company but Sunline who makes Sweettarts. Bubby remembers Him working there, remembers the candy brought home and the popularity at the holidays.

I remember the year the Mississippi River flodded and we worried every night if He would be able to get across the bridge to come home. Watching the scrolling list of deceased at the end of the local news and hoping and praying we never recognised any names.

These are the few memories I have of the Before. Memories of fun Christmas's and friends in the house. Memories of being an all-American average family.

I am glad that I have those memories.

Where To Start...

I suppose the correct place to start would be with me. As far as which part of me, that is the difficult part. I am a 24 year old engaged college student who attends school full time while working full time in customer service and helping run a family business. My family consists of an endless list of bodies, whom you will meet as we go on, some of which are actually related.

In telling this story, I will try to make it as true to life as possible. Unfortunately, however, memories can be sprinkled with fiction to protect oneself from pain. Having said that, I have decided that truth is more important than perception and hope that everyone involved understands that this is not intended to trample on their feelings.

All of the names have been changed to protect the innocent, wonderful, and crazy. I will let the readers decide who falls into which category.

To begin, I should do some background, or at least what I know of it. My story starts many years before I was born.

My Mother was raised by a woman we refer to as the Wicked Witch (of the West obviously). WW was her maternal grandmother. My mom and her sister were adopted by WW when they were fairly young, a burden my mother felt all of her life. WW ruled a very strict religious household in which my mother could do no right and my aunt could do no wrong. The two girls were never allowed to attend functions like school dances or to spend time with friends, something that would cause my mother great strife later in life. Trips beyond the house were for school, church, or sometimes grocery shopping.

I don't know much at all about WW's husband, other than he was a Danish immigrant and she was his second wife. The fact that my great-grandfather was Danish has little importance in my life other than a really good explanation as to my looks.

On my biological father's side, there is little to know. From what I can remember they were con artists, people who scammed other people for a living. Again, they died when I was very young, but their mere existence and choice of lifestyle would later play a big part in the irony of my life.

My mom married Him (my biological father) when she was 19, not at all uncommon back in the mid 1970's, and settled into a happy life with Him in their small town in middle America. Again, I don't know a whole lot about their life exactly, just that they were happy. Nine years after they got married, they had me and my mother set out to make sure I did not have the childhood she did.

I don't really remember any of my childhood, some of it I can figure out, matching photos with stories, but no actual memories of my own.

My brother, Bubby, was born the year I turned five and I was excited. I was a very social and outgoing child, never knowing an unkind person and having this new person in the house to play with was wonderful. As a side note, our mother never wanted to use the "Bubby" "Sissy" names, but it happened anyway.

My childhood was a happy one, unlike Bubby's. I got the joy of having just over a decade of normalcy. I got to enjoy peace and tranquility in my youth, something that he doesn't remember. We were active in the church and in scouts, were in dance and sports groups and had many friends who came over often. In the warm months we spent all of our time outdoors, biking and skating, climbing trees and fences, and running through corn fields near the loony bin.

To be fair, I should stop and elaborate on that last statement. We. Lived by the loony bin. Okay, it was a residential facility for the mentally handicapped, but to a bunch of elementary and middle school kids... It was the loony bin.

When I hear people talk about arranged marriages and how great they are, I always think of my mother's first marriage. Essentially both sets of parents thought it was a good idea. It was not a joyous occasion for my mother, rather something to which she was expected to attend. There was no bridal gown, no celebration.

Except.

My mother's marriage came crashing down around us. This hadn't been some quick relationship where the guy turned out to be a creep, by the time Bubby was born, they had been together roughly 13 years and no one could have predicted what would come next. In fact, it would be another seven years before everything came grinding to an ear-shattering, mind-numbing halt.