Warning: This is long.

This blog post is going to most likely be fairly jumbled and confusing and annoying and I can't promise that I won't swear during it. In fact, one can almost put money on the fact there is going to be swearing. Sadly I don't have words strong enough to express my complete disgust and irritation and pissed-offness that has prompted this post...I'm not even terribly sure such words even exist, so I'll see what I can do to create one or two.

So anyways...you may want to grab a piece of paper and create your own timeline and see if you can make any sort of sense of it all with me.

I was pulled over for speeding on Saturday. Legitimately speeding...I was irritated at an idiot driver, sped up to avoid a collision, didn't pay attention 1/2 a mile down the road that I was well over the speed limit, until it was a hair too late. Not the biggest big deal....I'd thought. Annoying & upsetting, for sure, but I was in the wrong and I'm a big girl who wears her big girl panties, I know when I'm in the wrong and can accept the consequences of my actions. It sucks, but it is what it is...

Onto the "I'd thought" part...I was informed that my license has been revoked.

WHAT THE BLOODY HELL!

This is where you're going to need your thinking cap and a pen and piece of paper.

I have not been pulled over since October of 2005. Not for ANYTHING. It is currently August of 2011. So that's almost SIX years without a single moving violation of any sort.

I had originally lost my license in June of 2001. I was 19 years old. Got drunk for the first time in my life. While in the process of getting very drunk I was assaulted by a couple of guys, I left the party in a hurry, walked 3 blocks to where my car was. Unlocked my car, from the passenger side because my driver's door lock mechanism was broke, and it wasn't a fancy enough car for button unlocky thingys. After unlocking the car I hit the power unlock button, shut the door, walked around, and discovered I did not unlock my car...in fact I'd hit lock instead. The awesome part about that is I'd thrown my purse & keys into my car prior to shutting the door. So there I was, at 4am, drunk, for the first time ever, upset over being assaulted, and now my keys are locked in my car and I have no clue if I was still being followed or not - so was freaking out. I start wailing on my car windows with my pretty strappy heeled shoes when a cop rolls through the parking lot and asks me if everything was alright. I gave him the story about locking my keys in my car...left out the part about the assault, etc because I was upset in that moment about my car..and I was drunk. Drunk people are NOT rational, AT ALL. At least I'm not when I'm drunk. Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda, but didn't...yea... Anyways...the cop gets out of his car, looks in the window & sees my keys & purse laying right there, pulls out a slim jim from the trunk of his car & unlocks my car for me. I AM FUCKING DRUNK AND 19, PEOPLE! THERE IS SOMETHING SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH THIS! I get in my car and drive off. Two blocks down the road Mr. Nice Cop pulls me over, asks me if I've been drinking, because he said I was driving with my bright lights on, through town. Do understand at this point my bright lights did not even work on that car, a fuse had gone out or the switch had, can't remember now...but I was drunk & had only had the used car for almost a week, and I am not rational when drunk. Of course I admit to having been drinking, etc...he calls my grandma to come pick me up & take me to her house, I was to stay in her care for at least 10 hours to sober up. Oh, and my breathalizer test showed that I blew a .095, which at the time was just .005 below the legal limit...the next month the new law went into effect that the legal limit was only 0.08. Anyways, several court hearings later I convince the judge that I'm not going to pay a lawyer $1500 in addition to my fines & such, she accepts my guilty verdict and life went on.

I was also a very stupid 19 year old. VERY FUCKING STUPID 19 year old! I LOVED to race cars back then, especially on the highway...yea, add those tickets in on a suspended license. So I racked up some points on my own. By the time I was 6 months past my 19th birthday I was newly married to my ex-husband AND newly pregnant AND getting ready to move 600 miles away AND this was all during that period of time that my folks both ended up in jail over my sister's lies AND the rest of my family thought I was being petty and selfish for not bending over backwards to take in my 17 year old sister and 14 year old brother to finish raising. I was FUCKING 19 years old! If my almost 40 year old parents couldn't keep a handle on their 17 year old child what in God's green earth makes anyone think I can? But whatever...I was pregnant, married, and moving far away...most of my biological family thinks I'm utterly selfish and in need of serious psychological help (although my psychiatrist thinks I just need to talk to someone more often than just once every few months).

Ok...so some time goes by, I work to pay off/down all my fines, yada yada...life went on. My ex & I moved back to Arkansas about a year after moving away, my dad was sentenced to 30 years, my mom got out of jail, my sister was living with her now husband, and my baby brother was back with mom...My license was still suspended - thanks to my racing on a suspended license I'd lost my license until I was 21. Not quite the biggest of deals since my ex never allowed me to do much of anything anyways without him, so whatever. The times I did have to drive I was careful enough to not get caught nor in a wreck, so whatever, what's done is done.

Then it got a bit dicey.

In December of 2002, just 4 months after Mikeal was born and 6 months before my 21st birthday, my ex was arrested. He was charged with attempting to sexually assault a 5 year old little girl...and I won't go into all the details of that right now because I don't need to REALLY make my blood boil more than it is already, but it ended with him being thrown in jail for a while, in Missouri...we were still living in Arkansas, he'd crossed state lines to do this... I ended up needing to move back in with my mom, in Oklahoma. A month later my ex's adopted father bailed him out, yada yada, I was convinced at that time that he'd just been urinating & she walked in on him...I wasn't a terribly bright 20 year old either, but I was in a dark depression then, physically & emotionally exhausted from the abuse, etc. My family (aunts, uncles, cousins) of course wouldn't believe my husband would ever do such things I accused him of, I was just making things up for attention and I needed serious psychological help still for wanting to leave this great man that my ex was and whom I had a child with.

What's really fucked up is my mom witnessed firsthand the abuse of my exhusband...he'd come in, drunk & cranked out, one night & hit the wall of the bedroom where Mikeal & I were sleeping because I was asleep....that resulted in a fist fight between my mom, my brothers, and my ex husband. The oldest of my brothers, who was there because he'd broken his back a few months before and was finally at the end of his recovery...and living at mom's during this time period with his (ex) girlfriend and their oldest child (who was 6 months old at the time)...was the first to jump up and respond violently towards my ex for having DARED to even act like he was raising his hand at me! Then mom got involved because not only did he act like a threat towards me but he then was involved in a first fight with another of her children...and my mom is NOT a force to be reckoned with. My ex ended up with a bloody nose & some scars. Mom had a bloody toe. Daniel ended up thrown/falling off the deck and had a concussion. I was on the phone with the cops. I WAS DONE! I was so far past done with having anything at all to do with my ex that I was just D.O.N.E. - DONE! The cop showed, put my ex in the back of his car, then came to talk to us. He thought it'd be best to just not provoke him and let him sleep off his drunk. WTF! Daniel agreed not to press charges since he'd just finished his own stint in prison not but a few months before that and wouldn't wish it on anyone...Mom then left it up to me to press charges, since he was my husband. I said yes. Then was talked out of it by either my mom or the cop, the rest of that night is a bit fuzzy to me, I just remember ANGER and disbelief. Here I am, with a not even 6 month old crying child, abused for over a year by this man, my mom is bleeding, my brother is puking & convulsing, and no one wants to press charges, in fact I think it even got turned around on me that I'd somehow provoked this violent rage.

Mom kicked us out and we ended up moving 100 miles deeper into Oklahoma, into a camper, at my ex-adopted father-in-law's house (Charlie). I felt slightly safer about being there because Charlie was not only a long time foster father to teenage boys but he was also the newly retired police Lieutenant. Fuck was I wrong. Anyone that ever wonders why a woman stays in an abusive relationship...this is the exact reason why. They're shunned by family members or made out to look like they're the ones in the utter wrong...that they'd somehow provoked the abuser into being abusive...because to everyone else they're the greatest piece of shit to ever grace the Earth with their presence. I was finally 21 but because of everything we never did finish paying off my fines and I was never taken to get my license reinstated.

In September of 2003, Mikeal was only 13 months old, my ex was given a four MONTH sentence with four years PROBATION for attempting to rape this 5 year old. His lawyer had been able to get him a plea bargain where it was reduced to just indecent exposure. And people really wonder why sex offenders run the streets. You can look for yourself even...Here's the national sex offender registry listings. My ex's name is Bryan Gilliam..you'll have to agree to the terms of use & then enter a captcha to search his name, but he's there. Last known address = moved out of state, to Arkansas...and that's all they know, as of about 2 years ago. Maybe he's in Arkansas. I suspect he's working under the table for his old boss, who lives in Missouri, but has contracts all over the country, selling newspaper subscriptions with a crew of young teenagers, door to door...somewhere.

But the most important thing about him going to jail is I was finally free of him. I did not take his family, nor their influence, into consideration. In October, less than a month after he was sentenced & booked, I wrote him a letter telling him that I was leaving him, I wanted a divorce, and that there was no way in any sort of Hell that I would ever take him back.

Within a week I started getting pulled over on my way too and from work. I had a toddler to take care of and couldn't do it if I just sat at home because my license wasn't reinstated yet. I spent a great many days in and out of that courthouse, sometimes my name was found on the docket other times it was like the ticket I was holding was something I'd dreamed up...On December 22nd my neighbor had gone with Mikeal and myself to Arkansas to take care of some of my license stuff...a good 3 hour drive, one way. We stopped at a nice place to eat, my neighbor got smashingly drunk, even though she was supposed to be driving me there and back because I wasn't able to get my license totally reinstated that day afterall. But my lovely neighbor was also kind enough to cause the waitress to spill a pitcher of beer on me.

I drove for 3 hours..it's nearly 2am when we finally get into the home stretch of the trip. Less than 3 miles from my apartment I was pulled over. I was charged with a DUI. Damnest thing about that is despite the fact I REEKED of beer I was sober...and the breathalyzer test proved that I was sober. I blew a 0.00. But because I REEKED and because this was my ex's hometown, where I was the horrible evil wife who was leaving her husband while he sat in a jail 500 miles away, they booked me anyways. Told me that I was somehow cheating the test. Now, if you remember back to the beginning, I'm a big girl and I know how to wear my panties...I'm not above accepting consequences for my actual actions. I was put in jail anyways. I did get to make a phone call to a buddy of mine, told him what was up, he agreed to call a few other folks and they'd have my bailed out within the next day or two, in time at least for Christmas morning with my 15 month old son. On the 1st of January (10 days later) at 2:45am I was released from the jail. Who in their bloody right mind puts a 21 year old girl out, on the most dangerous night/morning of the year to either a) find someone sober to come to the jail and pick her up at that horrendous hour or b) walk the 10 miles home at this house, along the highway. It was also freaking cold, snowy, I had a sleeveless shirt on, that I'd been wearing for 10 days already, and no coat. I walked those miles home and thankfully made it there alive. I never did see the judge...she was out on vacation I was told. When I did finally get home I called my buddy who'd told me he was going to bail me out...he told me he was told that I was being released the next morning and when he showed up the next morning to see if I needed a ride he was told that I was already gone. The 50 some odd voicemail messages on my machine over those 10 days I was locked away basically confirmed his story.

I was continuously harassed though. First by the cops, then by my neighbor lady, then by my landlady (who's son was best friends with my ex while they were in high school), then over time learned the rest of my ex-in-laws were also set to make my life absolute hell while I lived near them. I lost job after job because of them, I sank into a darker depression, I lost vehicles, my family were under the impression that I'd brought this all on myself. I started drinking HEAVILY. I will admit now that I'm utterly shocked that I did not get arrested a few times for ACTUALLY being drunk while driving, but by then the harassment had slowed from law enforcement, since it'd picked up with everyone else..and Charlie also passed away around this time. Coincidence? Yea, you can judge that one for yourself.

In February I had a 3 week work conference to attend in Austin, Texas. Of course I made arrangements with my mom, my sister, and a few friends of mine to watch Mikeal for me while I was down there because I wasn't going to be reimbursed for the $10 an hour childcare during any seminars, etc I had to attend on a daily basis. I went down there, a week into it my baby brother was thrown off the back of a car (car surfing in the high school parking lot, less than 20mph) ended up in ICU for a week. No one was willing/able to get Mikeal, so I had to make an emergency dash to Joplin, MO, from Austin, TX, in less than 24hrs round trip. I'd made some awesome friends during my time there who were more than willing to accommodate Mikeal & myself during the duration of my conference. Mikeal ended up with coffee burns at the hospital while I was en route. A nurse had left her scalding cup of coffee at the edge of the counter & what does any 18 month old child do when they want a drink & see a cup? They grab it. Burnt the right half of his face & his neck - 2nd & 3rd degree burns. Mostly just 2nd degree. He wasn't hospitalized for it, they treated him and he was back to mostly normal Mikeal by the time I got there. I didn't do anything about it at the time because I was on a tight schedule, my mom was already distraught over Duke still not being awake, and it was just not the time to get into it.

Over the course of the next week Mikeal's neck started showing signs of severe infection, my conferences all wrapped up, and we went back to Oklahoma...I didn't have the funds to pay for the out of network charges if I was to take him to a hospital there in Texas. We get back to our apartment only to find that my landlady had removed all of my appliances...said that the appliances were only on loan to me because a previous tennant had left them there when she'd moved out and had come to get them...umm, they were sitting there in her garage. But whatever, I was just done. Completely utterly distraught and just done. Packed up what I could, put the rest into a storage unit and left. I went to visit my mom to spend a night there or so and help her out with Duke who'd just been released from the hospital. Later that evening Mikeal started running a fever, I took him to the ER (weekend, small town, only thing available). Found out that the burn blisters on his neck were infected with MRSA and to make the trip even more fun I'd been bitten by a brown recluse as I was packing everything in my apartment and that was a nasty site as well. I wasn't allowed to leave his bedside because they were short staffed and didn't have someone available to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't fall out of his bed. During the initial first week there at the hospital I only left the actual hospital room three times to go smoke. Yes I smoked then. I also quit then. Not even my mom would come up and sit with him/us and she just lived 10 miles down the road more than once or twice...she was too busy with her new boyfriend. My car was stolen from the hospital parking lot, with a lot of my stuff thrown out into the ditch by the parking lot. I don't know, no explanation, car was never found, or no one gave enough of a fuck to find it, whatever...

After Mikeal was released from the care of the hospital and we spent a week at my mom's for more IV antibiotics my boss in Tulsa paid for me to stay in a place there in Tulsa. A few months into that I moved to Austin, TX. I couldn't stand the constant harassment anymore. Lots of shit happened, the harassment never did fully cease, but I was far enough away from it that I was able to feel safe living again. Eventually though I had to move back to Oklahoma to get my divorce taken care of 100% as well as take care of my other legal stuff...namely all the harassment tickets I'd accumulated and said FUCK IT to.

During my quest to get everything taken care of I spent time in and out of jail because of warrants that had accumulated...sometimes being 'forgotten' resulting in not seeing the judge even for the first time for weeks. One judge, whom I didn't see until after I'd been sitting in that jail for 29 days chewed out the jailer that had brought me up there. She'd had several previous traffic courts and I should have been before her during the first one after I was booked. Other tickets that I KNEW I had been given during that time just seemed to 'disappear' when I'd go to take care of them...only to show back up in the system some time later...I really wish I would have been better about keeping records of everything then. I did learn from all of that though. I keep EVERYTHING. All utility payment receipts, all court papers, all pay stubs, all tax forms, all my calendars where I right things down during the year. ALL of it. I can't afford not to anymore...not after all the hell I went through then.

I not only was harassed incessently but one of my ex-sister-in-laws, who was constantly in trouble with the law, started using my information when she'd get pulled over, arrested, etc. At one point in time *I* was booked on meth charges and had a felony charge against me for it - I'd found that out during my first trip to this particular county jail - I had to then prove that I was who I said I was, complete with fingerprint cards that dated from the time I was in Kindergarten. (My record was cleaned of MANY things at that time, but not until after I'd paid a lawyer almost $10,000 to hunt down everything to be able to do so.) There were car loans, repossessions, house loans & foreclosures, credit cards, utility bills, checking accounts, I don't know but it amounted to almost $700,000 of debt on my credit report. If you're new reading my blog I'm surprise you're still reading, but I'll let you know now I have NEVER had a credit card, etc...the ONLY thing I have EVER bought on credit was a kitchen stove a few years ago from a Rent to Own place and that was mainly just because it was an emergency and we expected to be able to find a decent working one quick enough to not have to pay on the 'new' one for too long...such isn't the case, we've since moved, and now that stove sits in my basement collecting dust, since about a month after I paid it off. I LOATHE interest payments. Loans are the biggest waste of money a person can ever come across!

Anyways...It took me a while and several tens of thousands of dollars but I got nearly all of it taken care of. Once in a while something will pop up, but the number has slowed DRASTICALLY! Do keep in mind that this was all around 2003-5 so things like identity theft were still 'newish' and when you're a single mom just trying to raise your child, while going through a horrid divorce and being harassed not only by your ex-in-laws but also by law enforcement that's supposed to be on the side of right and truth it's all QUITE overwhelming and the only thing you want to do is just move on with your life so you can breath for a moment...and that screwed my ass. I got to where instead of just fighting and fighting and paying lawyers I'd just pay things off, hang my head, plea no contest, and let it be. I was so screwed, I felt, anyways, and alone in fighting all of it and trying to support Mikeal I just wanted to be done with it.

I ran off a few times for a while. I was pretty good at not getting caught...my last ticket/run-in was in 2005.

In September of 2008 I was involved in an accident, a teenager saw the light was green, but didn't take notice of the fact that I had just barely taken my foot off the brake, because I had been stopped at the JUST previously red light. At that time I still had a few outstanding tickets etc to take care of but the judge told me, when I showed up for my court hearing for not having a license, after the wreck, that if I got everything taken care of and showed him a new reinstated license he'd drop the charges against me. My next court date was November 22nd...I had everything 100% taken care of, by just paying it all off and retaking my driver's test, etc by my court date. I had my new shiny Driver's license in hand on November 15th or so.

I've not been pulled over since. At least not until Saturday, as previously mentioned.

I've ran out of steam on writing this blog post...and if you're still reading, I'm shocked. But the end result is I still am fighting crap that I was ASSURED was taken care of, by court officials, 3 years ago. I have all the paperwork to prove I've paid everything. When my insurance agency ran my license, when we got insurance here, 18 months ago it came back clean...or at least nothing of the last 3 years. Then they do another check every 6 months. Our insurance just renewed in May. So as of May, as in three months ago, my license was still good by insurance company records. Here it is August, I've not been to Oklahoma in 18 months, and Oklahoma has revoked my license.

Fuck me running with a splintered bat anally. I'm TIRED of this BULLSHIT!

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Great Memories

So I posted a day or so ago about those 'You know you're from..." groups on Facebook.

I'm a member of three different groups - one for my high school town, one for my dad's and one for my mom's. I grew up in the areas that my folks went to school & still have family out there, we didn't move to Oklahoma until I was 12 and I've been back to the Arkansas area many times over the years...even met my ex husband there.

Anyways, my folks went to school at rival high schools - which at least back in the 80s was absolutely taboo! I remember running across old cards given to them at their wedding where folks had placed bets on how long their relationship with last because she was from Town A & he was from Town B. For the record they didn't divorce until after their 22nd anniversary & that was only after Dad had been given a 30 year sentence to sit behind bars - I absolutely believe that had all the bullshit and lies not been told that year they would still be married and enjoying their grandkids.

But I digress.

It has been quite interesting to hear about the old towns and compare the stories, even add in some of my own or catch up some folks on their old classmates (my folks). Times have changed quite a bit!

It's also quite hilarious to compare my folks' hometowns to my high school town.

I remember when we first moved to Oklahoma, from Arkansas, Bill Clinton was still President (1994) and I was teased mercilessly by the Oklahoma Native Americans about being a backwoods hillbilly from Arkansas who was likely the offspring of brother & sister pair - I'm not, I assure you. I was teased for being a know-it-all, even though, according to the Okies folks from Arkansas were uneducated and very backwoods. Except anyone can compare the two groups NW Arkansas to NE Oklahoma and understand when I say if I was to be considered uneducated based on being from Arkansas it was only because Oklahomans only knew how to almost spell based on phonetics, not by way of a dictionary. ((Do they even use dictionaries in Oklahoma schools?)) They're, there, & their are all the same word, each used interchangeably. Proper nouns are ...now what are proper nouns? Goodness! I'm SOOO happy I received my early education in a backwoods Arkansas elementary school (the same one my mom & her siblings went to even)!

Again, I digress. No real point in going into the details of it all. Oklahomans will still think they're all that because they have a great football team and everyone they know speak, spell, and write the same way, so they will never really learn the differences. Yes, I know I don't always seem to have spectacular grammar, especially here on my blog, but as I've mentioned a dozen times at least I write my rough draft here & submit it & rarely go back to edit it...unless I actually go back and read the post, then I'll edit it a few dozen times.


Today was a very great day for me where these groups were concerned. That is my purpose of this post.

In the group that centered around the town that my dad grew up in and went to high school at they'd started a thread asking everyone to list their graduation year. I never went to any schools in that district, but felt that it was important for me to comment on the thread anyways. I posted that my dad had graduated there in 1980 RIP Don Pierson <3.

From that post I was given feedback from a few folks who knew my dad. All of which mentioned they remember him as a 'great man'. Upon speaking with a few of them off the main board and in private messages back and forth I really didn't learn anything about my dad I didn't already know or believe about him...I did have a few things confirmed about the stories he'd tell that I never really knew for sure if they were true or if he just embellished for the sake of embellishing - you know those old stories your dad would tell about things he'd done as a teenager - yea, those kind of doubts.

Of course all the stories involved a party, hay, horses, beer, fast cars...a bit similar to what you saw in the old Dukes of Hazzard shows, except instead of the stories starring Bo & Luke Duke they starred Don Pierson & his buddy (different names for different stories or purposely omitted to protect the presumed innocent).

I herd a few that referred to my dad as the Horse Whisperer, something I'd mentioned here, Story #6. They'd tell me that he used to tell awesome stories and they can still think back and remember him sitting back on a hay bale, drinking beer from a Dixie cup, and hear his stories. I loved those stories! The only differences would be my dad drank unsweetened tea and sat in a recliner or on the couch when telling his stories to us kids. It wasn't until I was an older teenager that he went into the stories of keg parties and teenage reckless abandon. I didn't get to hear many of those stories. I did remember the story he told me about my conception...about it occurring in a briar patch in a valley...but didn't remember it until someone else had mentioned something to the tune of "Remember going out to the sticker bushes in The Valley to have sex with your girl". Of course I had to add my tidbit to that thread about my conception - the older generation got a kick out of it.

Of course there were also stories about the skating rink and how they'd have skate sessions where the boys all had to line up on one side of the rink & the girls on the other and how mortifying that was. I know that story from my childhood as well because it was one of those nights that my folks met for the first time. My mom had asked her best friend at the time to ask that 'cute guy' across the rink if he'd dance with her, because she was terrified of being turned down...then upon realizing that her friend went to some 'ugly dude' and had wanted to ask the 'cute guy' for herself my mom raced across the floor to ask him herself before she got stuck with the ugly guy! They dated for four years after that before getting married and having my siblings & myself. I found out my mom's friend still holds a slight grudge against her to this day over that.

Then of course there were stories my dad had told about he & a group of his buddies streaking through the town square - buck naked...but he was never caught by the police, some of his buddies were and were handcuffed, with their hands behind their back, for all the town to see that had gathered for the show. I don't know if my dad was ever actually a part of that group, but I did see a post in reference to the story...but I kinda believe it, it did take place around that same time period.

I never really believed the stories about the KKK holding meetings and chasing non-white folks out of town, but sadly, after reading the posts on the pages I'm left believing it was still going on as recently as the late 80s/early 90s. I know when we left, in 1994 there were only a VERY few Mexicans in the area, can't recall if there was more than one African American family in the area. I know there was one family in the next town over prior to the 90s, but they seemed to be quite well liked by everyone - one of the brothers taught the skating lessons at the roller rink & had since the 60s, up until his death, just a year or two ago, on the skating rink floor even, the other brother taught swim lessons. Of course since then it's been quite diversified thanks to Sam Walton and what started as just a Nickle & Dime store. One also can't forget all the tax breaks that Clinton gave to the businesses that were interested in starting up or moving to the state when he was governor. It was like the area just exploded from a rinky farm community of about 15,000 people to probably a million folks by now, in just 25 years.

But it was great. I'm sure there are stories I may never get a confirmation about, I've asked a few times, so we'll see what becomes of it.

This line that I received as a private message to me about my dad was the best one:
"I believe that there are a lot of people who thought highly of your father... I stand by your dad being one of the best ones."


...yes this post is slightly all over the place, I know this.

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Depression

...sucks.

That's really all I have to say, but I'll likely ramble anyways about whatever escapes from my fingers onto this post by use of the keyboard.

In no particular order:

I miss my dad. He's been dead now for just over four years, but I've not gotten to hang out with him in 10. Sure we talked on the phone a few times & wrote a few letters back and forth, but it wasn't the same. See, my dad spent the last 6 years of his life sitting behind bars. He was given a 30 year sentence for a crime I don't believe he committed. Of course the argument stands that if he didn't commit it then he wouldn't have been given a 30 year sentence, not in this day & age...yea, our judicial system is so upright where innocent folks aren't locked away & the guilty are that - guilty. I mean, just look at the whole Casey Anthony or O.J. Simpson things, right?

I rest my case.

I've tried really hard over the last 10 years to wrap my brain around it to the point that it's so wrapped I think it's just warped instead. I really don't want to believe either side. If I take my dad's side of things and defend him, well, I've lost a great deal of close relationships because I did take his side. If I take his accuser's side then I am compelled to be completely disgusted with my father, but also betray what my heart & mind tells me. The most fucked up part of all that is I may not be quite so conflicted about it had some folks not been so adamant that my dad was completely innocent...until my grandparents both died. It was almost immediately upon their deaths that all these folks, who'd supported my dad, bailed on him, trash talked him, and to this day paint him as the worst kind of scum to walk the planet. Of course his accuser went from just a spoiled little brat trying to get what she wanted to the patron saint of all that's right but wrong in the world, a poor innocent victim. Fuck her.

I miss the children that I birthed that were born with barely a fighting chance at life. Dear Alonna was a victim of doctors not putting all the pieces together & me being so utterly depressed I barely made it through the last half of my senior year of high school. Her father, my first husband, was killed in a car wreck days after we'd gotten married. During our short marriage, because I was a FIRM "virgin until marriage" person, I conceived her. Between severe depression, ulcers, stress, school, work, family life, God only knows what all ailed me at that time, doctors had me on a nice little cocktail of medications to treat each and every ailment. No heed was paid to the notion I could have been pregnant. Hell, I didn't even think anything of it. I still had bleeding from time to time, I didn't pay that close attention to timing and all that because I wasn't having sex...had only had sex twice, and it was in wedlock. Teenage pregnancy doesn't happen except out of wedlock, right? OH, YES, I was a naive one back then. She was born in December...in fact she, Mikaila & my Grandpa all share the same birthday, December 13th. My pregnancy wasn't confirmed until after I'd fallen down a flight of stairs just a few weeks before. The fall down the stairs wasn't detrimental to her, even though I'd like to blame something so innocent on the loss of her life. No. She was born with very underdeveloped organs or holes in the organs that did develop due to all the different medications I had been on during the majority of my pregnancy. I was given the option to have a late-term abortion, but I wouldn't hear of it! What kind of fucking moron suggests such a thing to an 18 year old gal who's not only lost her husband & best friend since preschool, but is now finding out she's PREGNANT and VERY near her due date, just mere weeks after her parents told her to "Get your dog, your computer, don't forget your hamster & the rest of your shit & get lost?!" Simply because she wasn't paying enough of the bills anymore because she was trying to move out into her own place... Then of course I had her, without the first drop of pain medication, because I was scared out of my fucking gourd after learning about all the medications I had been on for the previous 9+ months. I still, to this day, have issues with taking medications & hesitate going down stairs... I PLEADED with the doctors & nursing staff to pull a miracle out of their asses. I don't blame them. They tried. For 14 hours they worked to sustain her. Reflecting on it 11 years later now, pieces of me wish I would have saved them each that grief. It's not the loss of Alonna that haunts me so much as the looks on the doctors' and nurses' faces as they not only tried to console me but also make my miracle come true. Thing that haunts me further is the stigma that "we don't talk about that".

Then there was Bridgett. I got pregnant with her almost immediately after Mikeal was born. Ok, not completely immediately, but I'd gotten my first depo shot after he was born, then my ex husband was thrown in jail for attempting to rape a 5 year old...I was given a lame story about how this little girl had walked in on him while he was peeing in a laundry room and it was just some messed up misunderstanding & all he was guilty of, from the early stories I was told, was indecent exposure. I did what any scared, almost 21 year old girl who's been horribly abused by her husband & no one there to support her, except him, with a 4 month old...I believed him & by my upbringing I stood by him. During the early hoopla of all that I missed my appointment to get my next depo shot, was pregnant when I finally did get a chance to make-up that appointment. I hid that pregnancy for as long as I could during the court proceedings. On our anniversary, in June, I was 23 wks along I shared the news with my ex. He responded by beating the shit out of me & throwing a 27" TV at me...back before they were just 10lb pieces of plastic. Then he left to go smoke some meth with his cousins down the road. ((My naive ass didn't know a thing about any of that until well after the fact.)) I carried my 10 month old son & drug my bleeding ass to a neighbor's house, where the lights were on...it was only about 2am...and they called an ambulance for me. All I really remember was about 24 hours later I was being released from the hospital & that my baby girl had died. I did file a police report. All that got me was a rap for being a troublemaker & liar by the police department. Afterall, the Lieutenant's adopted son would NEVER do such a thing! I made the whole thing up!

I'm proud of the fact that I went to the meeting with his lawyer not long after that...I heard the confession tape for myself & learned the whole truth behind the charges. He'd picked a 5 year old girl up from an apartment complex, took her into a laundry room there, & considered having sex with her before some of the effects of the meth & alcohol he was on wore off just enough for him to let her go. I then spent the next few weeks charming my ex. I'd swear up and down how I'd be there for him & I'd never screw him over, yada yada yada yada yada. He was given a 4 MONTH sentence with only 4 years probation. On September 22nd he was booked on the charges...I left from the courthouse, with his ATM & credit cards in hand, & wiped those suckers clean, including the overdraft privileges. I sold what clothes of his that were left over from my brothers picking through them, I didn't make the first one of his vehicle payments, then I broke every fucking rule that bastard had laid upon me of what I wasn't allowed to do while he was incarcerated. I'd then write him letters telling him about how I started smoking, was going out to the bars, sleeping with whatever I felt like, doing whatever I liked. That $900 wedding ring set he'd bought me & still had a nice balance on - sold them for $175...then had a GRAND time at the bar....at least I think it was grand. I woke up in the bed of the truck, somewhere. ((Mikeal was safe at a babysitter's, who knew/understood/something to that effect my mental state of mind at that time.))

A few months later, on Mother's Day, I called Child Services on myself. I was in a desperate state of mind and was under the impression that they'd at least help me. I was suffering from alcohol addiction, was basically homeless, and well...it was bad. Know what child services did for me? Nada. Told me that because I had the presence of mind to call them that it meant that I was a good mother and could figure it out & didn't see Mikeal as being in any real danger. I BEGGED and PLEADED with them to PLEASE place him in a safe home & to help me get into a treatment program. They didn't. The next day I left Mikeal in the care of my 'less than fit roommate'...while he was passed out drunk (not Mikeal, the roommate) and got a job a few blocks away, working graveyard shift at Waffle House. Thankfully I had some awesome coworkers that let Mikeal & I move into their one bedroom apartment...then instead of going out to the bars I joined a chatroom.

I met a TON of very wonderful folks in that chatroom, and minus a few details, I moved from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Austin, TX, to move into a house with a complete stranger. Folks down there would drive an hour one direction to help me get out and look for a job, others would watch Mikeal for me, one guy gave me a car...I met Brian during all of that...yada yada...I sobered up, mostly, and my mother grew up a bit. I went back and lived with her for a while so I could get my divorce taken care of 100%, then moved back to Texas, eventually reconnected with Brian again, he proposed at my dad's funeral dinner, we went back home, in Texas, pregnant, yada yada...we've been married almost 4 years now with a Mikaila added to our family.

My ex is still a complete asshole.

My current marriage, like any other, has it low points, but overall it's awesome. I love where I live now, I love my friends, & tolerate most of my family, but I'm completely in admiration of my children and husband! But yet I still feel depressed. The logical side of me says I have no reason to be depressed. There's nothing I can do about the death of these loved ones, I know that having another child isn't going to replace any of the ones I've lost. I can't pinpoint a reason behind my depression. I'm mostly 'at peace' with the trauma my past inflicted upon me, but then every once in a while it just completely blindsides me and throws me for a complete loop and I don't even know what to think. The littlest thing can set it off and big things won't even phase me. I constantly feel like I'm swimming in a black hole that is devoid of everything, but yet I can see that I'm surrounded by all these folks that I know love & care about me and I just feel empty, withdrawn, and sad. But mostly angry.

The anger bothers me the most.

I'm absolutely justified to feel the anger. I can't think of many folks who wouldn't blame me for completely lashing out at some folks who have caused this anger. But at the same time I'm better than that. I feel guilty for having this anger. I want to just let go of the anger but I can't. I can for short periods. Most of the time I don't even notice it lingering. I don't want to be angry. I don't like feeling this way. This in turn makes me not like myself. And the cycle starts again. I've done decent, in my mind, with coping with it. I've gotten better. Stronger. But it's still there, haunting me. I know it's effected persons around me, I try to keep it hidden, to keep it a secret...because it's just not one of those things we talk about... I don't even know how to talk about it. I don't know how to fix it. Sure I can repress it and pretend it doesn't exist...for a while. But I'm not comfortable with that and that fuels my anger, just in more directions.

I don't know what to do at this point. I'm not even sure I even know what I WANT to do. I just know that my head isn't always healthy & it may never be fully healthy...but I also don't want to go through the rest of my life with this anger hoovering over me.

This grown-up shit is hard.


~*~Then of course I'm searching for info that I need, again, for my assignment, that was erased by Windows' need to fucking update without warning and restart without allowing me to save any work I'd worked SOO fucking hard on...and I run across this blog post. I needed it. I'm going to start working on setting the tone to my own happiness & fulfillment...by starting on #3, especially.~*~

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Tribute to my Father, on Father's Day

July 4, 1962 - March 26, 2007 .... The span of my Father's life....warning you'll cry, laugh, and bawl - or at least I have while typing this out.

He was born, and died, Donald Linn Pierson. He was the 3rd child of my grandparents, Alma Jean Lake (Granny)& Edwin Lee Pierson(PaPa), out of 5, being preceded in death by a younger sister who passed during birth, as well as his parents who respectively died in Jan 2002 and Dec 2002.

He was born in Storm Lake, Iowa, where he lived as a young child, before moving to Bentonville, Arkansas, where he met my mother. He joined the Navy in early 1981. Married my mother, in October of 1981...I was born 7 months later, in May 1982. My siblings followed suit in the years 1983, 1984, & 1987.

I don't remember a lot about my daddy from those days. I remember being completely enamored with him and truly lived up to being a "Daddy's Girl"...even to this day. I remember clearest the times after we moved into our "first, real" house, I was not quite 5, my mom was pregnant with my baby brother, and the house was still under construction, just down the hill from my grandmother, on my mother's side, in Rogers, Arkansas.

It has been incredibly difficult for me to write this blog post. In all honesty I started this particular post on July 3, 2009, I've come back to it a number of times, fully intending on finishing it and then publishing it. This is all the further I have gotten so far.

I loved my father. He was a great man, now I'm not so wrapped up in my opinion of him to not see his faults, but he did try. We never had the latest or greatest of anything; rarely did we even have anything that was new. We never had the money to go to fancy places like Disney or Six Flags; most of our vacations were taken only a few hours from home, often paired with a family reunion in Iowa, just north of Kansas City and we'd go to the amusement park there - Worlds of Fun to be exact. We'd spend weeks in a tent on the river down the mountain from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, just two hours from where we lived. I looked forward to those trips every year. I finally did have an opportunity, that I took, when I was 18 to go to DisneyLand - it wasn't what I thought it was cracked up to be. My folks weren't there, neither were my siblings, and frankly I felt like it sucked simply for those reasons. Later that summer I also went to Italy, Greece, the Philippines, India, New Zealand, and Australia - the sites were great, I wholly appreciated the experience, don't get me wrong, but I'd had a falling out with my folks not long before then and it sucked. My dad had always wanted to go to Australia and never got the opportunity.

My dad had wonderful stories he'd tell about his life growing up. One of my favorite ones was of when he and his brother found a pair of abandoned baby raccoons, took them home, and then raised them. He'd tell about how when they'd get ready to leave for school in the morning they'd climb on the roof of the house & then drop down on his & his brother's shoulders when they walked out the door to catch the bus. They said that the raccoons pleaded in such a way that'd make you think they didn't want them to go to school, they were lonely on school days & would cause trouble on their own. My Granny & Papa confirmed the stories, so I'm confident there's no father falsities there. Granny wouldn't allow the raccoons in the house due to the mess they'd create so they were basically wild, but tame.

I still get a giggle out of remembering a story he and my uncle told about the time they'd raced up a HUGE tree that they'd been forbidden from climbing...only for one of the branches to break under the weight of my father, causing him to go crashing down the tree towards the ground. The only thing that saved his neck then was mere feet from the ground a forked branch broke his fall, hanging him there by his knees. My uncle then raced down the tree, then doctored his scratches and scrapes up, in the barn, because Granny was home. I was roughly 10 years old when I heard that story. My dad & his brother were telling the story - so they were 30 & 33 years old - we were all sitting in Granny's living room and the look on her face said she was going to beat the fire out of both of them with a belt, right then and there. One for lying to her almost 20 years ago about all those scrapes & scratches, two for climbing that tree, repeatedly, by admission, after being forbidden, and my uncle was bound to get an extra beating for putting his younger brother in harm's way, since he should have known better, being the older sibling. The looks on my dad's & my uncle's faces at that particular moment also said that they knew they were in TROUBLE. It was like watching the faces of two young kids immediately upon realizing that they just told on themselves for doing something seriously wrong that they'd lied about - pride in bragging about the conquest, immediately followed by the horror of realizing that their mother was sitting right there, listening to them brag about their conquest. Nearly 15 years later I did the same thing with my mother, when recounting the details of a car wreck I'd had, when I was 16, that she never knew about until I was telling the story of it. I'm a lot like my father - it may take me a while to come clean, but I really can't keep my secrets or lies for too long....I often forget that I'd lied or kept something secret at some point and tell on myself.

My favorite thing about my father is he always insisted on us playing board & card games. At an early age I learned how to play games like Risk, Monopoly, Cribbage, Chess, and countless different card games. My dad wasn't the type of father though that 'let' his kids win. You had to beat him at his own games through practice (and sheer luck); I have his competitive edge when it comes to such. I'm quite the shark when it comes to each of these games, but I also suck at them. I never fully paid attention to some of the moves he'd play in chess, so I still haven't completely mastered how to put a person out in less than three moves, nor how to block that particular set of moves. But it was countless hours of fun. Absolutely NOTHING got in the way of playing games when he wanted to play; homework could wait until later, same thing for chores. But heaven forbid you didn't have your chores & homework done before dinner was served!

Every meal was to be ate at the dinner table, unless of course there was a show on that dad wanted to watch or we were watching a movie, together. We were rarely - to the point of almost never - allowed to go to friends' houses for sleepovers. We weren't allowed to go to friends' houses if their parents and my parents didn't get along. At the time I thought it to be wholly unfair - as a parent I find it to be a great idea - Mikeal has only spent the night at friends' houses where I know, trust, & love the parents of his friends - it helps me sleep easy those nights.

We, meaning Brian, the kids, and myself, just got back from our first 'family vacation' the other day. We went out to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. All I could think about was how my dad would have LOVED spending the week out there in a cabin in the woods - ok, truth be told he likely would have preferred a leaky tent - but surrounded by the mountains, varmints that'd knock over the trash cans - because apparently some city folks don't understand that there IS a reason the trash cans all had locking lids - the hiking through the woods, hanging out on the deck just talking, watching the sunset, the moonrise, and getting up early enough to watch the sun then rise through the trees.

The whole week we were there I could feel my daddy smiling, laughing occasionally, and just having a blast. I miss him.

I won't go in depth with all the details of the last few years of his life, but I will say this: PLEASE don't be a bullheaded man about seeing a doctor and getting your check-ups! My daddy wasn't yet 45 when he passed away. To say he was stubborn about seeing a doctor is a complete understatement. He had a massive heart attack and heat stroke when he was 32, there was evidence of him having a heart condition when he had his physicals for the Navy, but he passed the physical the second time around, so never looked further into it. He was in great health where his cholesterol, etc was concerned, wasn't overweight, nada, to look at him & his blood work you'd think he was in perfect health. After his heart attack all his tests came back clean...until my mom insisted that the doc put him under the stress test until it acted up. It took 3 hours of him being hooked up to machines, laying on his back, pedaling a stationary bike before they saw his heart hiccup, cutting off the blood supply to his brain, causing him to have what seemed to be a sudden burst of complete anger then a mild stroke, before his heart would restart and he go back to everything being normal. I do give credit to my dad for changing his diet - removing all caffeine from his diet, he was QUITE the AVID Mountain Dew & unsweetened tea drinker. He cut back on the type of manual labor he'd always done, to a job less physically demanding, etc. He had his first open heart surgery at age 40 to repair the defective valve. After the surgery he backslid on his caffeine free diet, feeling like he was 'cured' and really wanted to enjoy his Mountain Dew & caffeinated tea again. The surgery did leave his immune system a bit compromised for a little while. Three years later he had to have another open heart surgery. His health went quickly downhill after that. A man who never got sick, never had the flu, man colds, nothing, was losing weight at an alarming rate, had a chronic sore/raspy throat, and stomach issues, all the time. Almost a year of this went by before he agreed to see the doctor for it and mention these extra 'annoyances'. His doctor assumed it to be something related to the heart surgeries and sent him back to the cardiologist. The scans done by the cardiologist showed some severe abnormalities, they ended up decided to go with opening him up again...and that's when it was found. See, my dad had been a tobacco chewer since he was a teenager, anytime anyone would say something to him about it he'd defend his choice to chew tobacco by saying that if he's really poisoning anyone's body it's just his own, he's not poisoning folks with secondhand smoke, yada yada.

He'd quit the chewing tobacco before his first heart surgery and hadn't picked it back up, but between 20 years of chewing and refusing to get check-ups or seeing the doctor when he was sick he was screwed. When the cardiologist opened him up for his 4th and final heart surgery they found the cause of the abnormalities that showed on the scan - cancerous tumors, large ones. After a complete, thorough work-up, from head to toe, it was discovered that he had cancerous tumors from his mouth to his colon & every digestive organ in between. Later it was determined that he had a severely aggressive form of cancer that in combination with the repeated heart surgeries his body had become too weak to even attempt to fight it and the early warning signs of cancer were overlooked as being symptoms of his heart condition. Less than 3 weeks after telling me of the diagnosis I was given the news that he had passed away of a heart attack....I was really counting on him being around for at least another 6 months as I hadn't gotten to physically see him since I was newly pregnant with Mikeal, who was almost 5 at the time of his death. He never got to meet any of his grandchildren, yes, I'd send pictures & updates about Mikeal & my siblings & their kids, but he never did get to touch a single one of them. They never got to hear his stories, play games with him, nothing.

As I previously mentioned it's taken me almost two years to write out this post without becoming extremely angry over the details of the last decade of his life by rehashing them, maybe sometime in the future I'll be able to tell the whole story here, but not at this time. Those emotions are much too raw, even now, for me to even begin to attempt to tell, but I really needed this post to be posted, so that I can start moving forward.

I love you Daddy and if fate deems it to be so I look forward to seeing you again in the future. ♥ Happy Father's Day!!!

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It Started as just a Comment...

I started to write a comment on A Daddy Blog's blog post about Disney Princesses & the messages conveyed by the Princesses of the various stories. I highly recommend reading the post before reading too far into this post of mine, simply because my post may not make a great deal of sense otherwise. *maybe* I could be wrong, but he wrote a great post, so either way you should still check it out, as well as the comments posted.

*~*Disclaimer: I've been drinking tonight, a lot. My mind is in rambling mode...or my drunk fingers are, I can't tell.*~*

I agree with your sentiment posted, Michael, as well as the points highlighted by the previous commentors.

Both my ex husband & my current husband can be likened to 'The Beast" and myself to Belle - strong willed, intelligent gal, of Beauty & the Beast...the difference is with my ex-husband I thought I could change him over to being a prince charming when he was nothing more than a beast at the core, even still - abusive, controlling, manipulative, you name it...except he was quite the charmer to everyone else, but me, after I was 'sucked in'. Current husband, where he wasn't abusive he did take quite a bit of time & patience to learn what honest love was & that he was worthy of being loved, despite not being 'perfect' by others' standards.

I agree we can't shelter our children from the negative influences...my parents tried, with everything...and from personal experiences, it doesn't matter how well we're taught by our parents, peers, etc we're still going to make some pretty stupid mistakes along the way...its how we learn from those mistakes & grow from said mistakes that shapes us into adults. Some young folks will never experience things like peer pressure to try things like drugs, or wind up in an abusive relationship, etc the list is miles long...I never expected to wind up in any such situation because I was smart, I knew better, I was intelligent, had a straight upbringing, etc...I didn't have the first ounce of street smarts though & that was a hard road to walk after I moved out as a single woman at 18. Then another hard road as a single mom with a toddler before I was 22.

My opinion is - to teach the good, the bad, & the ugly and how to avoid/react to each...then be there for them when/if they fall. That was where I got snared in-my folks weren't there to help me out of a dark situation because they'd taught me better, I went against what I was taught, I had to find my own way out of my own mess. I got the same story from the church I had been attending, other family members, and a random multitude of persons I'd basically grown up with as role models for me. My life was FULL of ideal positive role models. I think I knew MAYBE five whole people who even smoked cigarettes - my grandpa quit when I was 10, he's 78 now, still as feisty as ever, my stepgrandpa smoked what seemed like a carton of cigarettes a day, until the day he died, at 84 years old, from 'old age', and my PaPa smoked until he died 3 days before his 70th birthday - his death was attributed more to just a broken heart from losing my Granny less than a year before after they'd been married almost 50 years. She died of a combination of stress, diabetes complications, and a weak heart, never smoked a day in her life...my Papa was an over the road truck driver & smoked outside, she was barely exposed to any secondhand smoke.

Anyways, my point is - I didn't grow up around alcoholics, those that did have a drinking problem had quit their addictions years before I was old enough to even know they'd drank, ever. I don't think a single person I grew up around ever did any illegal drugs - I wasn't exposed to potheads, meth addicts, coke or heroin junkies...I seriously grew up thinking such things only occurred in bigger cities, like Los Angeles, New York City, & Miami. Of course, now, as an almost 29 year old adult I know better.

I've been exposed to a number of different substances, even ones that I'd never even heard of in my drug awareness classes. I know the street slang for 90% of it too. It is really scary to me to think of what I knew when I moved out of my parents' home, at 18, compared to what I learned within the first 3 years of being out of their home. By the time I turned 19 I was hooked on drinking & smoking pot - to EXTREMES. I sobered up for a while when I found out I was pregnant & then breast feeding, but within two months of leaving my ex, stopping breastfeeding, etc when Mikeal was 13 months old I was back into that party scene....I was also 21, so no longer had to sneak around or fake IDs in order to get into bars and the like. A few months before I turned 22 I found myself homeless with an 18 month old because no one was willing to help me get out of this bad rut I'd found myself in - between the depression, the lack of self-esteem, the complete worthlessness I felt I turned harder towards the "party" lifestyle.

I became the gal that everyone liked, everyone 'trusted', and I was subsequently exposed to more and more substances - I was the go to gal, if anyone ran out of anything I knew who to contact to get more...of course because I didn't do anything more than smoke a bit of weed once in a while and drink like a fish out of water I was a great pack horse to transport *whatever*. Ironically one of my 'contact' persons to get stuff from was/is the lead prosecuting attorney of the city, she guided me as to how to go about getting by with not getting caught, how to get out of having my vehicle searched if I ever was pulled over, the like.

On Mother's Day, right after my 22nd birthday, Mikeal wasn't but 21 months old, I called Child Protective Services on myself. I wanted help, I needed help, I needed motivation or something to get out of this lifestyle I'd gotten myself into. I love Mikeal more than life itself-it was my love for him that prompted me to make that phone call. I PLEADED with the social workers. I BEGGED them to help me, and if they couldn't help me then to at least take Mikeal away from me so he wouldn't be exposed to it all anymore. I was a disgusting excuse of a mother, where my opinion is concerned, frankly that's the only opinion that matters.

Imagine my shock and horror when I was told that because I asked for the help, etc that they saw no reason to intervene and take Mikeal from me. Apparently because I wasn't denying the fact that I was a fairly shitty excuse of a mother and I wanted to protect Mikeal, that he wasn't in any immediate danger, but the living situation was quite dire, (no food, no running water, living with a meth head, & 3 alcoholic adults) then they didn't see the need to take him or do anything at all about my case. They gave me a list of addresses of places I could go to get help, etc during the week. Later that evening, I called again, this time though I told them that I was on the brink of just ending both our lives so that we'd no longer be a burden on society - that worked.

I had to fucking threaten to kill my own child and myself before anyone even glanced in my direction. Two social workers & a police officer came out. In person I told them my first story, of needing Mikeal to be put in a safe home, where he'd be taken care of properly, and I needed help to get my life straightened out. After what seemed like an eternity of pleading they took Mikeal to a group home...the next day they took him to my ex-mother-in-law because she'd seen this as an opportunity to milk the system even further. I wasn't given any restrictions to Mikeal, I was told to get my life straightened out and at any time that I decided I wanted him back to just go get him and bring him back home to myself. And was left at that. It didn't seem to matter that I was needing to turn my alcohol system back into a blood system, or that I was in a dark mental place, etc. I did land myself a fair job, working graveyard shifts at the Waffle House that was within walking distance & then later I got a job at the Denny's just down the road too. I didn't have a vehicle. I tried meth during this time during a particularly horrible week where I was ready to really end it all - it didn't work, I saw no effect from smoking, snorting, or just eating the stuff...and I did a LOT of it that week. The 'professionals' were shocked that I didn't seem to be effected by it. I was over it nearly as soon as I'd started it.

I moved into a slightly better roommate situation - there was at least running water & the power wasn't constantly being turned off. Oh, and they had internet. I turned my 'need' to go out to get drunk into a chatroom obsession. I sobered up because of that chatroom - it was full of great folks, in Texas...I was in Oklahoma, an 8hr drive from the majority of the folks I'd chatted with, including Brian.

By the end of July I was nearly over my obsession to drink & go out, I was also making a fair income, and had someone nearby who was clean & sober & willing to watch Mikeal for me. That's when more problems started. My ex-mother-in-law decided that she didn't want to give Mikeal over to me...after all during those two months the state put her in a housing unit where she only had to pay $25 a month in rent, $25 a month in utilities, got almost $300 a month in food stamps, was awarded her disability for her fake back injury that she'd been working on getting for a while and had been denied several times, her life was GREAT! There was no way in any sort of fucking hell she'd part with her cash cow! She could lock him in a closet and run around all she wanted now. Heck, she even used him to help her in her shoplifting schemes - schemes where she could walk into ANY store empty handed and walk out with a few hundred dollars in cash & merchandise that she'd later sell on the streets.

I digress. After I learned that the ex-hag wasn't going to give me my son back without a fight that I didn't have a leg to stand on to fight one of my dear friends (I've known them all for now almost 8 years) worked a plan with me. He offered to let me live in his house, site unseen, for a few weeks, until I was able to get on my feet there in Austin....I just simply had to get down there with Mikeal. I worked my tail off to make more money...of course the more I earned the more often it seemed that my roommates expected me to pay towards rent, etc, leaving me no further ahead than when I'd started.

I finally was able to get about $500 in my pocket - my grandmother sent me a couple hundred of that, in the mail. I bought myself a Greyhound bus ticket, I was to be leaving out on the 14th of August. I talked my mom into coming up to take me to get Mikeal & drive me to the bus station - we told my ex-hag that I was going to be spending the weekend with my mother & Mikeal, I'd be back on Sunday or Monday, this was a Friday evening. She sent 2 changes of clothes for Mikeal, that was it, and one diaper, although he'd been out of diapers for months when he went to go stay with her in the first place. He'd regressed that much in less than 2 months.

Anyways...my bus left out at 6pm, 12 hrs later it pulled into the Austin terminal. A different chat buddy picked me up at the bus terminal & took me out to where I'd be staying - a GORGEOUS $300K house (for those of you not familiar with what that means in Austin - it meant 4 bathrooms, full entry way, 3 car garage, 4 bedrooms, a huge master suite, formal dining room, HUGE kitchen, HUGE living room, beautiful fenced in private yard, etc...I felt completely out of place. Here I was with every worldly item I owned at that point in two duffle bags, a carry on suitcase, and a normal sized suitcase...I also had a car seat. That was it....well, I did have a few things that my mom took back to her place-enough to almost fill the trunk of her 2door car, but even that didn't amount to much at all.

Over the course of a week complete strangers would drive all the way out there, some from as far as an hour away, to pick me up and take me around town to look for a job. Within a week I landed a job, the next day I was given a car by a different 'complete stranger'. Within a month I met Brian face to face, falling instantly head over heels so fast it still takes my breath away. A week or two later I moved in with him & his roommate.

Of course that wasn't the end of fairy tale. My ex-hag hunted me down & started sending out subpenas that would beckon me to make regular trips back to Oklahoma, she felt completely entitled to Mikeal. I won each and every hearing, simply based on the fact that 1)I'm his mother & 2) she's a convicted felon. She pulled every dirty trick in the book and I was still gullible and naive, we'd work out a 'custody' plan between the two of us...and then she'd run off with Mikeal for a few months with the help of her family. I put a stop to all dealings with her after that incident. She of course hired a lawyer and a few court hearings again the judge finally told her to get over herself and let me care for my child...that was 7 years ago. I've only heard from her once since, and that was about 18 months ago. She told me about how she loved her grandson and yada yada yada yada bullshit until her own son went back to jail for failure to pay child support for a little while. I've not heard from her since, and I don't believe my mom has either (seeing as she has my mother's number, but not my new one). For all I know she's dead from a drug overdose or was caught shoplifting and is now sitting behind bars for the rest of her life, per the terms of her probation from her previous arrest. Either way, GOOD RIDDANCE!

I've only heard twice from the deadbeat sperm donor since I left him in Sept 2003. The first time was in Oct 2005, just a few weeks after I moved back to Oklahoma so I could file for the divorce, then again in February of 2010, where he told the judge he wanted 50/50 custody of Mikeal & to never have to pay child support or he wanted his rights terminated and to never pay child support again. The judge denied him on both accounts and he's still spotty in making child support payments and hasn't bothered with anything else related to Mikeal, the son he loves so much.

Brian on the otherhand, he's been great. We've had some pretty low points, as a couple, broke it off on SEVERAL occasions, but he's always been a daddy to Mikeal. Even when he and I weren't seeing eye to eye there was no denying his relationship with Mikeal, for that reason alone I never completely broke off contact with him...sure we'd gone over a year without seeing/talking to each other, but we had some things individually to get taken care of both legally and personally.

Well, at this point I'm out of alcohol in my juice bottle and out of juice to put in my alcohol bottle, and it's 2am and I should be doing some of my homework assignments, instead writing this entry...but my point is you can give your children the best upbringing in the world, mine was far from 'the best' or even mediocre for that matter, but it was VERY sheltered - I'd never even watched MTV until I was in my mid-20s, and don't care a lick for it - and my young adulthood turned out to be less than stellar. The MOST important thing a parent can EVER teach their child is that they will be there for them to HELP them when they need it and are willing to work for it....and sometimes you have to let them have the opportunities to make some mistakes so that they'll learn from said mistakes so that they can grow away from making deeper mistakes. I'm seriously lucky to have survived those few years with no more scars than what I have now. By all rights I should be dead or sitting in prison for someone else's death or something equally life damning. I can't say I've been given a 2nd chance to make my life awesome...I think I'm pushing the ranks of being on my 20th chance at life, but I can say that the LAST thing I want to do is lie to my children about the reality of life. I don't sugar coat, or make my kids think they don't have to worry about such things because 'we live in a good area'. Because frankly, it doesn't matter in the slightest how nice of an area you think you live in. The crap is everywhere - ALL of it. Right now you have at least one neighbor who beats their spouse, another neighbor that tortures their children, and another neighbor that spends 90% of their time completely strung out on *something*. And maybe that someone is you.

My family and friends, even the ones that saw me on a near daily basis, never knew or admitted that I was being beaten, burned with cigarettes, raped, cut with knives, verbally attacked, etc...yea, sure, I'd tried going to them in the beginning, I tried getting out early...did me absolutely no good to a bunch of folks who preached about how an honorable wife sticks with her husband or the husband had everyone charmed and just thinking that I just had a flare for the dramatic, since I was only 19/20 and he was almost 10 years older than me. After being shot down about it I just got better at hiding it, to the point that I became the things everyone believed me to be - a drunken whore to put it lightly.

I still work on a daily basis to be the woman that I know myself to be before all the bullshit swallowed me, but it's hard. I've only recently gotten to where I trust myself to have an occasional drink or three even, such as I think I've had tonight...I didn't measure out the shots of vodka, I just took a few sips out of the bottle of juice, filled it up with the shot or to I had in my little bottle from a few months ago, then when I drank that down some I poured in a few more shots worth of vodka from the new little bottle Brian brought home for me....But I still can't stomach the smell of whiskey or tequila.

One can make Disney out to be the villain, or MTV, or classmates, or any number of things...the reality of it is it all rests on the shoulders of the parents, caretakers, and role models in a child's life. The lessons taught and learned don't stop when the child becomes a legal adult and moves out of the home. The teaching and molding influence you have over your child doesn't stop until your child has died, at that moment they're no longer able to learn from you. Until that time comes though, they will still continue to learn from you, even after you've passed on before them.

My PaPa's favorite saying all my life was: A day is only wasted if you learn nothing and you teach nothing. Never let a day go wasted. There is always something to learn, even while teaching. He wasn't a scholar, he dropped out of school when he was 8 years old to join the circus, didn't learn to read past that level until he was nearly 60 years old, when he started having to use a computer to drive a semi. However, he was also one of the wisest men I knew. He only passed away about 8 years ago, when I was 20, I saw him on nearly a daily basis for the last 10 years of his life, with the except of the very last year, when I had moved far off to pursue a life with my ex-husband, and I still learn things from the way he lived his life, treated my Granny, their kids, and nearly 20 grandkids and four great-grandbabies (Mikeal was the youngest one born when he passed, Mikeal was 4 months old).

As far as my opinion goes, and it's the only one that matters, my PaPa was a great man. He makes all the Prince Charmings of the Disney franchise look lame. Dads - be the type of man you'd want your daughters to marry. Moms - lighten up and just enjoy...the dishes and laundry will never be caught up and a little dirt behind the furniture never hurt anyone. Money, looks, things, etc mean jack squat. I grew up dirt poor, but I was happy. I married a man with a lot of money (in comparison, at least), who made a lot of money and I was absolutely miserable and mistreated. Now, our family income counts as below poverty level for a family of 4 and I'm happier. I'm still working on some demons & hang-ups I have from my past, but outside of that I have everything I want in my broke, slightly overweight, balding, covered in body hair, Prince Charming. He's kind, honest, trustworthy, loving, and my best friend. That is all I know that matters. The stuff & looks can be gone without even a moment's notice - integrity lives for generations.

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Joey

I met the love of my childhood when I was merely four years old; my best friend, my confidant, the first man I married. I didn't start off thinking I would ever date, much less marry him, but in the end I did, and in looking back I'm happy that I did.

I was raised by a mother who was raised during the time of the race riots, by parents who were/are staunchly pro-white, that anyone of any other color were beneath them and interracial marriages and bi-racial children were even worse.

I kept my friendship, dating, engagement, and marriage a deep secret from my parents, especially my mother. See, my late husband was the product of a white woman and black man. He didn't stand out exactly as being bi-racial, he looked white for all intents and purposes, but for the racist area of the backwoods we lived in he wasn't white enough. I feared/respected my mother, but not necessarily in the most healthy of ways.

My family moved away from the town I essentially grew up in when I was 12, to Oklahoma, to a community where looking predominately white was scorned upon, and heaven forbid you did not even have a drop of Native American blood in you, while looking white.

I continued to keep my "dirty little secret" from my mother about my childhood friend, because I feared the wrath of my mother if she was to find out about my friend being bi-racial. I didn't talk about him, I erased the phone number off of the caller ID if he called, I didn't dare call him because we were charged for long distance phone calls and my folks kept SHARP tabs on that. He'd warn me if he was going to send me a letter, often disguising the letter as being one from a female friend of mine whom my parents were close with her parents - they were, after all, white, even though they had moved to Arkansas from California - just in case my parents got to the mail before I did. I burned each of the letters after I had read them as a sure effort to make sure my parents, my mother especially, did not happen to stumble upon them.

We kept up this type of long distance relationship until I was a Junior in high school. He was a year older than myself and due to his advanced studies, had even graduated high school a year early. He moved to a town not far from me, in Oklahoma, where he blended in a bit better, with his darker complexion and dark hair. We still secretly met, between the religious meetings I attended three times a week, my 30-40+ hour work weeks, and going to school full time, both high school and a vocational school, we'd be able to work in an hour here and an hour there. Despite never once being with a chaperon we were both very strong in our moral convictions and never once gave into hormonal urges. Our first kiss was shared at the end of our wedding ceremony, February 5, 2000, a ceremony that was held, in secret, with only a congregation elder, his oldest brother and his brother's wife in attendance.

We had no intentions of keeping our marriage a secret forever. The only reason we did get married when we did, in secret, was because we did not wish to cross any moral lines and the temptation to cross that line was becoming very strong. He had asked me to marry him over a year before, we had already crossed so many obstacles in the twelve years we had known each other up to that point that we were without any doubts in our love and devotion to one another and to our shared faith in the Bible, a key factor in our ability to remain completely pure until we were united in marriage. Of course temptation is strong and we made the decision to not tempt fate any longer, so we married.

I did not move in with him upon our marital union. We had decided it would be most peaceable for me to finish living at home, with my parents, until I had turned 18 and ten days later graduate high school. The plan was to have a lavish wedding ceremony the summer after I graduated and invite everyone who cared about either one of us and let the cards lay where they landed afterward in regards to the racial smears that were bound to occur, after all I was going to be announcing to the world that the only man I had ever loved and had ever planned on loving was in fact, bi-racial.

One would almost think I actually was going to enter this marriage in the 1960s while living in Atlanta, GA, having the ceremony on the capital steps, and I was the daughter of the white Governor...it was that bad.

We did what any newlywed does on their "honeymoon". But, wow, was that a wake-up call for me. I had absolutely no clue what to expect and neither did he. We fumbled quite a bit the one time we actually had intercourse.

Of course, in addition to being subjected to a prejudicial mother, all things sexual in nature were taboo. If you didn't talk about sex with you children, they didn't have sex, right? I also wasn't well educated about my menstrual cycle, I just knew to expect it roughly once a month, I honestly was fairly clueless as to what missing a cycle actually meant. Yes, I was a straight A, honors student, I had many classmates who were pregnant, but I mentally judged them harshly for being unwed mothers...I was no where near 'best buds' with any of them...and never sought out to find out details about how they came to find out/realize they were pregnant. I had judged most of them to be sluts anyways, who'd likely had sex numerous times, out of wedlock, and they were finally caught. The proof was like a black fly in the banana pudding.

I was different because I was married before I took that plunge. I also didn't fit any of the stereotypes of being a teenage mother. I was intelligent, I was fat, no one knew me to be dating anyone we went to school with, I didn't attend many school functions, wasn't involved in any real extracurricular activities, so there was no real opportunity for my classmates that I didn't hang out with to meet him, so he didn't exist to most of them. The classmates I did hang out with outside of school hours I hung out with on nights that he was at work, so even they never met him.

February 17, 2000 he was involved in a fatal car wreck. We had been married less than 10 days. Just three months shy of my 18th birthday, high school graduation, and our eternal life together.

In the end the secrecy nearly killed me and it did kill our daughter.

I proved to be stronger than the desire to die, but it has taken me eleven years to tell this story, and even now I am still having a hard time completely 'coming out'. But I've made progress. I promised myself that this was going to be the year I let the dirt out of my sails and that I wasn't going to do it anonymously, nor in complete vagueness. I still can't say or type his name without getting completely choked up and losing my nerve, the wounds are still raw, but I'm working on trying to heal.

I have to start healing so that I can fully embrace what I have now: a wonderful husband, two wonderful children, and a slew of the most awesome friends, online and in real life; things that any girl would be undoubtedly grateful to have in her corner.

Fourteen years of my life with him were held in secrecy...and eleven years of my life without him have been spent working up the courage to unveil that secret and the secrets that I have kept since then.

My next phase of this unveiling will be of Alonna.

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