Today

I woke up so many times last night wondering if I had done the right thing. I poured my heart out and was virtually naked and parading around in front of everyone. I made myself completely vulnerable. I am/was also worried about being judged. I hate that I care so much about what other people think. I wish I was more like my husband. He could care less about what you think of him and who he is.

I wanted to delete my post on facebook that shared my blog address with most of the world. I wanted to restrict access in case someone that I didn't want to read this would. What if they found out I wasn't as strong as I portray? What if they judge me?

I also wanted to clear up a couple of things about my mother and my biological father (I will refer to him as bf). My bf did re-appear in my life a few years after he disappeared. He took my brothers on trips to the U.P. that I wasn't interested in. He had a pretty tough life himself. His father was a drunk and his mother died when he was very young. He was an only child. I don't really know much about him because we really do not speak much about his life. His father died of cirrhosis of the liver (can you guess what caused it?) sometime in my early teens, I believe. I really didn't know the man. He was more interested in a beer bottle than his own son and grandchildren. My dad did receive help for his alcoholism and was sober for many years. Unfortunately, alcoholism is a tough habit to break and he fell in and out of addiction. He still struggles with it today. He never hit us after the divorce. Although, he was never fully engaged as a parent and only paid child support. I learned to forgive him for the physical abuse and I try to forget but those memories have a strange way of popping up sometimes. Thankfully, it happens a lot less now.

My mother is the second youngest in a family of 6 children. My grandpa died before I was born. I heard that he was an amazing man. He was in the service and then served on the police force in town. My grandma was a mother to me. I was always over at her house. There are numerous pictures in which she is holding and feeding me. She made sure that I was well taken care of. She helped my mom. She was an amazing person. I will speak more about her later since I realized that this paragraph is about my mom and not her :). My mom told me that her parents used what I will call physical parenting. You were beat when you did something wrong. She says that her mom verbally abused her. She stated that was why she resorted to these tactics for punishment with us. The strange thing is this never happened until after my grandma died. Yes, we were slapped on the hand or spanked when we did something wrong. My mom never verbally abused me while my grandma was still alive. Overall, she was a good mom. I also find it strange that (unless I am not aware) none of her other siblings with children resorted to these methods with their children. Maybe I am wrong.

Then the bottom fell out for both of us. At 10 years old I had just lost a parent. She had lost a parent and her support net. She had 5 children, survived an abusive relationship, was remarried and all of 30 years old. I am beyond 30 now and I cannot imagine that level of responsibility. Now that I am where she was I have a better understanding. By no means am I excusing her for what she did but I have better insight now. I have forgiven her but that process has been a struggle for me. I don't think our relationship will ever be normal. I cannot say the words, "I love you" to her because I'm not really sure how I feel. I do talk to her on the phone and ask her advice for things. I thank her for her help and invite her over for holidays, etc. I do not exclude her. I just am not sure what I feel for her. I hope to figure it out someday. I watch other people with their mom and I long for a relationship like that but I just don't think that will happen. Unfortunately, it is not that easy.

My dad (not my bf) is an amazing man and one of the only reasons why I am not in the nuthouse today. I have so much respect for him. I did not make it easy on him when he first joined our family. I was a huge pain in the ass. He didn't give up though. He is not an overly affectionate man. He doesn't use words like I love you. He really is not a hugger. What he does do is listen. He shows. He jokes and teases. He shows up to your extracurricular activities. He works at minimum wage jobs to make sure you have insurance and put food on the table. That is how he shows love and I love him tremendously for it. We also inherited his family. His mom (now only referred to as my grandma), his siblings (my uncles and aunt), and his nieces and nephews (my cousins). This was the family I wanted to fit into so bad when I was 9-10 years old. They were/are beautiful. They cared for each other so much. I remembered music shows and games at Christmas at grandma's house. At dinner the children would be banned to the living room to occupy ourselves while the parents ate. It was never a problem. There was always a new gadget or something to keep us occupied. I love this family very much and I hope that now I am a full-fledged member, even if not by blood. It was thought of disappointing my grandma the fueled me to go to college and do well. She is another reason why I turned into the person that I am today. She helped to create a drive in me to not settle for living paycheck to paycheck. I cannot thank her enough for that.