Topsy-Turvy

This is where my story begins to gain momentum.... I got reckless.......My life was drama-filled......Full of disorder....Things began to move quickly in so many different directions. This is when my life began to be turned upside down.

Dean and I never re-gained whatever was lost after the miscarriage. Since we saw less and less of each other, we spent more time with others. We drifted further and further apart. First, we postponed our wedding. We both new what it really meant. There would be no wedding for us.

John, Dean's best friend and roommate, never really liked me. He saw me as the girl that took away his best friend--The "Yoko." He had actually stopped talking to Dean altogether when he found out that we were engaged. So, when Dean moved in with him, John was on a mission to show him how much fun bachelorhood could be. Their apartment was the ultimate bachelor pad. Drugs, girls, alcohol, parties and more were almost a nightly occurrence. Every time I called, there was a party going on, and Dean was either high or drunk. Girls would be talking in the background, which increased my insecurities and worries. The few times that I visited their apartment, John made it clear that I was not welcome. This was before cell phones, so when I called their apartment one day, John answered and after saying some really nasty things, told me never to call his house again....and hung up on me. Dean seemed more comfortable in his "new life" than he did with me. It became obvious that he was not ready for marriage, engagement, or me at all. He wanted to party, not answer to anyone (me), and enjoyed this new found freedom. I felt insecure and was not alright with his lifestyle. So, we talked about our relationship, and decided to call off our wedding altogether. Our relationship was sketchy and almost non-existent. It was clear, but unspoken that we both wanted a break. This was not a clean break, however. Dean and I left things undone....open-ended....Just in case.

I began hanging out with friends from the law firm after work. I had never really drank alcohol in my life. I think I tried a taste of a wine cooler once in high school. Growing up, alcohol was never in our home--Never. I was ignorant to anything alcohol-related. I had never been to a bar, because I was underage. So, it was such a surprise that at nineteen, I could get into any bar or club I wanted to........So long as I was with all the attorneys from my job. The first time I drank while out with them, I got completely wasted. It felt so good not to feel. I didn't have to think about how my heart was breaking over Dean. I didn't have to think about the miscarriage that I had. I didn't have to think about my parent's constant fighting. This was a new world to me. I started going out almost every night after work. The group of people who went out together was a mix of attorneys, secretaries, and file clerks. I started to get to know many people at our firm from our floor (31st), and felt like such a grown up. Because I lived an hour and a half away from work, I started looking at apartments downtown to move into. It is only by the grace of God that I didn't kill myself or someone else driving home every night completely drunk. There are times that I can remember passing out at the wheel, and waking up to the sounds of the bumps on the shoulder of the road. Some mornings, I'd wake up to go to work, and have no recollection of the night before. I am ashamed to admit these things, but it is the truth.

I finally found an apartment in the city that I could afford. It was an efficiency, but it was exactly what I wanted. This made my commute to work half an hour with rush hour traffic, and close enough to drive home late after the bars and clubs. I packed up all of my belongings into my Toyota Celica, and started driving an hour and a half into the city. Upon arriving at my new place, I got a phone call from my mother. She told me that I needed to come back home immediately. She said that it was important.....She had something that she had to tell me. This was the same day that I moved out of my childhood home, and into my very own first place! My mom refused to tell me over the phone. I told her that either someone had died, or that she and my father were getting a divorce. I knew something was really wrong, so I headed back home to my parent's house.

Loss and Change

I miscarried the baby with Dean several weeks into my pregnancy. This would be the first of four miscarriages in my life. It happened at his house on a Sunday. I'll never forget the pain, confusion, and sadness that I felt. At first, we had no idea what was happening.......We were so naive. As the pains got worse, and remnants of a lost life were being released from my body, Dean and I realized what was happening.

When I think back about that day, I am amazed that we didn't seek medical treatment. We didn't seek any advice, for that matter. No one knew. I was weak, in excruciating pain, running fever, had chills, was throwing up, and losing a great deal of blood and tissue from the baby. However, we never went to the hospital until it was all over. (I went to the doctor the next day) Dean would have had to pick me up and put me in the car if he was going to get me there, and that wasn't going to happen. There is one thing above all the pain and sickness that I remember more than anything........The silence. Neither one of us knew what to say. I remember how helpless Dean looked. What could he do? I remember his gentleness as he cared for me......He did the best he could. I laid in his arms on the floor of the bathroom for hours until it was over. Many tears were cried that day.

As the next few weeks passed, things began to change. Dean had to move out of his place, because the owners of his rent house no longer wanted to lease it out. He moved in with his best friend, John. I got a job at the largest law firm in the city as a file clerk. It was an awesome opportunity that I could not pass up. I too stopped attending college during the day, and took night classes after work. As a result, Dean and I saw less of each other. We were still trying to sift through all that had just happened emotionally between us after the miscarriage. It was something that we couldn't put our fingers on....It was just different.

FYI

I just wanted to say that although it has been a long while since my last post, I fully intend on picking back up where I left off very soon. Unfortunately, I have let life get in the way.......So busy....
I promise to be back soon to continue my story.......
~Peace~

Welcome to the Real World

After graduation, Dean and I attended our local junior college. I went so that I could spend time with Dean, not because I had any real plans of getting a degree. You see, college was never stressed, or even talked about in our home growing up. It just wasn't something that mattered. Girls got married and became stay-at-home moms, and boys went to work at nearby chemical plants. That is what my parents did, and most families that I knew. I don't fault my parents for not encouraging something more; it was all they knew.

Dean and I worked out our schedules so that we had all of our classes together. We both got jobs. Mine was in the continuing education department at our school. His was as a carpenter's helper. We began to attend church together, something that Dean had never done. Through that church, we met many friends, and Dean was able to play on the church's basketball league. Things were moving in the direction that we both wanted, and it was only a matter of time before we were married with a family.....I was sure of it.

When Dean asked me to marry him, I was ecstatic! It was a sweet moment that he put a ton of thought and preparation into. Although I wasn't sure at first, it became clear by his nervousness as the night went on, that Dean would be proposing to me........I mean to be honest, I had been hoping for and anticipating it. It was, of course, the next step. He had saved for that engagement ring for so long, and I knew he was now broke. We both were! So, we decided that in order to have enough money for our wedding, and to prepare for our new life together, we needed new jobs.......Higher paying ones.

Through our church, Dean found a good job. He was working for the city. However, it was a full-time job, so he had to quit attending college during the day. Night classes were available for his certificate as an instrument tech at a chemical plant, so that's what he did. I didn't have a clue what I was going to do. One day, on the way to school, I just dropped in an Attorney's office on a whim. After speaking with the attorney, he hired me on the spot as a secretary.

I still lived at home, but my parents' constant fighting kept me at Dean's most of the time. They did start spending more and more time away, however, with their new business. My mom had been going to nursing school too, and was about to graduate. When Dean rented his own place, I was thrilled to stay with him as much as I could. My parents did not approve, but rarely enforced their rule of me not staying the night at his house.

In fact, I began spending most nights with Dean. And although we struggled with having sex before marriage, (something we both felt convicted of since attending church and becoming familiar with the Bible) we continued. Even though I was on birth control, I was still an immature teenager who sometimes missed a pill or two.........and I became pregnant.

Misbegotten

MISBEGOTTEN

Today is the day
on purpose
I walk past
the seeds you tried to plant
on my infertile soil

Clean air fills my lungs
replacing the toxic pain
that you've choked me with

Years of non-existence
explain what words cannot
Your chances have expired
I don't recognize you; Just a foreign face
Your love is a farce

So, I'm taking my blood with me when I go
You can't have it anymore
Just sign your name
and I'm gone

Because you don't know how to love me
All you do is hurt me
and a name is only a name

Today is the day
on purpose
I walk

away from you

I wrote this poem about my father a while back. I know it is harsh, but rest assured.....I have moved forward to a place without bitterness. I'm aware that right now it doesn't make sense as to how I could write such a thing, but as my story unfolds, maybe it will. Don't get me wrong, I am still hurt, confused, and full of sorrow where my father is concerned, but not drenched in the anger. I have called the lack of relationship with him, "the most desperate feeling I know". More on this to come.

I felt it necessary to back up a bit to give a more descriptive back story. Even though I have touched on my estranged relationship with my father, I was general in my explanation.

My father was born to young mother. After only a year of marriage, my grandmother divorced my father's biological father. She quickly remarried the man that adopted and raised my father. However, my grandmother was married four times in her life, and was in the middle of her fourth divorce at the time of her death. When he was eighteen years old, he searched for his biological father whom he never knew, and after locating him, moved out-of-state to live with him. My father had always had a strained relationship with his own mother, I'm guessing due to watching her go through so many different men. I don't think he has ever forgiven her for what she put him through which has caused him to, I believe, have a vendetta against women.

I was raised in a very charismatic church growing up. My father was extremely hypocritical, legalistic, and judgmental.......Holier than thou, if you will. There was no room for grace......To him, everything was black or white. Instead of encouraging me with scriptures from the Bible, he would rather condemn me with them. I felt hopeless in this type of relationship; always falling short of what he wished I was. His love for me has always been conditional. He was never around except for the times that he could be seen.....The times when he could stick his chest out and be proud......When I made him proud..... Like when I won first place in my track meet, made cheerleader for the first time, was on the Homecoming Court, sang in church, scored the winning shots in basketball, and when he got to give me away in my first wedding. (Although, he was quite upset that I was wearing white, as he was adamant that I shouldn't be) At these times, he showed up for me with a smile on his face like the Cheshire Cat. Honestly, other than the times that I mentioned above, I really don't recall him being proud of me. I always felt like a complete disappointment to him.

My mother left my father for another man, ending their 20 year marriage. I'll get to that later, but it just adds to the reasons that my father has something against women.

I could go on, but the point is, women always let my father down.

And all of these are not counting what I contributed to that list as an adult, after graduating from high school. Trust me, as you'll see, I gave my father a plethora of reasons to be bitter towards women as time went by...........

Rebel With a Cause

My mother was a stay-at-home mom for most of my childhood. I really feel fortunate to have had her so involved in my life. She took my brother and I to all of our extra-curricular activities, taught us how to play basketball, baseball, football.....how to tie our shoes, read, drive a car...you get it. My mother never missed a game that I played basketball, track, cheered at, or danced with the drill team; she was devoted to her children. My father, on the other hand, worked shift work at a chemical plant, so he was either working or sleeping......or vegging out on the couch watching t.v. Even when he was off, he was pretty "absent". I grew up knowing that my father loved me because he provided for me, not because he spent time with me. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that he was a hard worker-- I just wish that he would have given us quality time every once in a while. Mostly, I feel as if I grew up not really "knowing" him.

When my parents found out that I was having sex with Dean my senior year of high school, they had two totally different reactions. My mother was disappointed, and immediately made an appointment with an ob/gyn to put me on the pill. My father was utterly disgusted with me. He told me that I would never make anything of myself--That I would end up a single, unwed mother.......just like my aunt. My aunt, his sister, had just become a mother at the age of 19. Be careful of what you speak, you may just speak it into existence. Little did he know, I would soon be just that-- a single unwed mother at 19.

As close as my mother and I had been, things changed my last year of high school. We argued continuously. Because we are so much alike, we butt heads about anything and everything. Not to mention the fact that I thought I knew it all;) For the most part, I was a pretty respectable girl. I didn't go out drinking all the time like so many of my friends, I made good grades, and I always made my curfew. Except for Dean's prom.

Every year for prom, for as far back as I can recall, people would rent beach houses for prom weekend.....It was sort of a rite of passage. Now let me just say, as a parent, I am frightened by this idea. What good can come out of a bunch of unsupervised teenagers partying all weekend at a beach house? Well, at the time, I thought it was a perfect idea. Not only that, but I had been looking forward to it since I was a freshman. So, you can imagine my disappointment when my mother told me that I couldn't go to the beach after prom. Actually, it was more like my life was going to end. I was so upset.....then angry. All I could think about was spending time with Dean for a whole weekend--without parents! I begged and pleaded and fought with my mother up until the day of prom, trying desperately to change her mind. She stood firm. Eventually, I boldly told her that I didn't care what she said; I was going. My mother whipped around and very sternly said that if I knew what was good for me, I better be back home that night when prom ended. I looked straight into her eyes and defiantly told her that when I didn't show up that night, she knew where I'd be. I still don't know where I got the courage to say something like that to my mother, but more importantly why she didn't slap me across the face. At the time, I was clueless that my mother was dealing with other issues in her life. I don't think she had any more "fight" in her, where prom was concerned.

I went to Dean's prom, and then the beach afterward for the weekend. My best friend went as Dean's best friend's date. We all stayed at the same place at the beach. It was definitely all I had hoped it would be and more. We partied like we were rock stars for sure.....sex, drugs, and rock and roll, right? It was more like sex, alcohol, and rock and roll for me, as I hadn't tried drugs yet. I didn't even give one thought to what awaited me when I got home. I didn't care--this was worth it. The consequences fit the crime. Half of the punishment for me was enduring the "lecture" when I got home. The other half was being grounded from time with Dean. It was truly torture.

However, my parent's new business venture kept them away on weekends, so it all worked out for me. I sneaked around to see Dean when they were gone.....I would drive to his place, or he'd come to mine. This brings me to something........

The Birthings of Love

Most of my girlfriends had lost their virginity long before I did. It was known by my peers that I was "the last of the Mohicans", if you will. In fact, I was told on many occasions in high school, that there were bets on who would be the one to take it. So, you can imagine the frustration when I started seriously dating Dean my senior year in high school. He was from a neighboring town--our school's rival. Dean was at six feet five inches tall, his school's star basketball player. He was my first love.
My cousin attended the same school as Dean, and thought it a good idea to show him a photo of me on the Homecoming Court from the previous week. After seeing the photo, Dean convinced my cousin to give him my phone number. He called, and asked me on a date for that Saturday. I remember when he came to my house to pick me up to go to the zoo that Saturday. He was tall, skinny, had an earring in one ear, a tattoo, and shaved his head--except for a small patch of hair in the front that stuck straight up. My parents didn't know what to think....and neither did I. To my surprise, he was kind, intelligent, a complete gentleman, and the funniest person I had ever met.
From that day on, we were inseparable. There are so many wonderful memories that I hold of Dean. I wish I could put into words what your first love is like. The innocence and sheer joy is inexplicable......Never to be captured again. Not that you never have a love deeper....just not the first feeling of love in it's most raw form....a beautiful birth....irrefutable in its infancy.
I shared many firsts with Dean.....My first love, my first time to have sex, first time to be engaged....well, that story is for a different day. The point is, I was in love.....we were.
When he got a scholarship to play basketball for a college out-of-state, I couldn't imagine being without him. He decided he didn't want to be away from me either, and we both made plans to attend a local junior college after graduation. Of course, looking back now, I wish he would have gone. We were young and in love, and didn't care what anyone else thought.......immature and naive.
But, life has a way of taking you in directions that you never expected. Or rather, people make decisions that puts their life on a different path......................