Its Been Awhile

It has been awhile since I had anything to say here...

I guess I am not as dedicated to my self therapy as I had originally hoped to be.

Lately though my past has not been a issue, I have had so much to deal with both personally and at work. But back to me for a little bit...

Life
After

Satan

...

Once I left the devil, with our child in tow, life was crazy.

I went out almost every weekend with my friends. It was on one of those weekends that I met the man I call my true love.

Whether he was or not I have no clue.

But I messed that up because I wasn't ready only it took both of us 3 years to realize it.

I miss him and will never forget him.

Where are my ruby slippers!

About a month ago, maybe a little more, my little sister had what the doctors called a mini stroke.

She is only 28.

This upset me more than you may guess.

I started looking harder for family members.

I called mom and dad more than I had in months or longer.

It scared the shit out of me.

I have always lived my life in the moment. If you remember previous posts, you know why I didn't dwell on the past.

This is also the reason I never looked to the future. Having your self esteem beaten to a pulp will do that to you.

Anyway...

My family has always meant the world to me and many of them may not know it.

I want them to know it now.

For years I have always wondered if anyone missed me after we moved to Texas.

If you have known me for a long time and you know my family, then you know that my family is enormous on both my mom and my dads side.

We used to get together a lot when I was a kid and have holiday parties. We would spend the night at each others houses, mostly me at theirs from what I remember.

I remember always having fun and being happy.

:)

I started last Sunday trying to find some cousins.

[Remember I have not seen most of them in over 20+ years.]

I saw some FB pages and I wasn't sure. Then I finally just typed in the B last name and paged through all of them.

600+ on FB

And there he was! In a profile pic of a woman who's last name started with B. He looked exactly like my Uncles, I sent a message taking a chance and introducing myself.

Then I found another cousin... and another!

The B family was coming out of the woodwork!

I left messages for all of them and went to bed.

The next morning as is my ritual before work I made a cup of coffee, took the dog out, grabbed the laptop and pulled up FB.

1 New Message!

It was from the woman's FB account whom I said had a man in the pic with her who looked like family. I opened it and it was from not her but my cousin K.

Excitement filled me as I read that indeed we are related and he gave me his phone numbers. He said he hoped to hear from me soon.

Quickly I messaged him back and provided my number as well.

I went on to work in a much better mood than I have been in awhile.

When I came home from work there was another message from another cousin! And yes she had missed me too and wondered how me and my brothers and sister were doing.

I went to the search area and popped in the C family name and found more cousins that night. As the week went on I heard from more and more cousins that I had not talked to in forever!

Thursday afternoon my phone rang and it was my cousin K, we talked for almost an hour. It was a pleasure catching up on everyone and everything going on in our large B family.

[Nearly an hour on the phone? Surprising because I do not like talking on the phone. A hazard of working in a call center.]

The moral of this story is:

• Don't ever think you have not put a mark on someones memory.

In one way or another every person you have met will remember you.

• Family is number one and the most important part of who we are, don't ever let them go.

and it's true...

"There's no place like home."

Gardening for the soul

A long time ago in a land far far away...

I had some wonderful grandparents, all of them, whom I thought a lot of this weekend.

This weekend, I spent a lot of time working on my garden, replanting tomatoes I had grown in a pot and re-spacing my herb bed.

My maternal grandparents had a garden when I grew up that was the size of the land I now live on. I fondly remember Grandpa taking us for rides on his John Deere garden tractor while he worked. We loved it!

You name it, they grew it, and Grandma and all my aunts would help harvest, can and freeze the bounty. I used to hate having to go into the garden to help pick the vegetables:

"Uh they sell this stuff in the store why are we doing this?" I thought.

I LOVED helping pick the strawberries; two for me - one for the basket! ha ha!

Then one day, I broke out in a rash while picking these delicious berries.

Yea, I thought, I don't have to stand out here!

Boo, I don't get to eat the berries.

Instead I got a bowl of green beans and got to sit on the porch and snap off the ends.

Later we found I am not allergic to the strawberries the leaves just irritated my skin. YES!!!

Now that I have grown, I find a few things beneficial about gardening:

1. Fresh fruits and veggies are to expensive at the store and for one single dollar I can grow more tomatoes than I will ever need! [I buy seeds.]
2. Getting back to nature is extremely therapeutic! It seemed I thought of nothing while I gardened and felt so refreshed! More so than if I had gotten 8 hours of sleep.

I also find some things about gardening that I don't like:

1. Texas is the hottest place on earth to try to garden! I have finished before 9 every morning and was sweating so much.
2. It's hard to figure out the watering schedule. The ground is moist about 4 inches down but dries so fast above that.
3. I am talking to my plants and explaining to them that I am moving them around for their benefit! [I have seriously lost my mind!]

I miss my Grandparents so much! Grandpa B worked for John Deere as long as I can remember, he was a tall man who was very tender and loving. Grandma B was always a homemaker, she never drove, she was a wonderful baker and gardener.

Truly wonderful people that I hope I take after. I have always had what I call a black thumb, I didn't inherit their green thumbs, but I did hopefully inherit their personalities.

I know this is sounding like random babbling, but I wanted to honor them.

RIP Grandma and Grandpa B.

Young Lady

Today I woke up with the worse pain in the right side of my head. It's only allergies and I will live but seriously! I never had allergy issues like this when I lived in Michigan or North Carolina!

Now I will get back to me:

When I said things came easily to me I did not mean monetary/material items. I didn't get my way all the time and I was not spoiled - despite what my mom says.

I guess what I meant was that my life was not that hard. I passed in school without really trying. I secured jobs that I wanted without actually having a good interview. I dated almost any guy I wanted to and money was not a issue like it is now.

NOW...

I have not been on a date in 2.5 years! I have to work my ass off to get any recognition at work! I have to work my ass of to pay my bills. Rarely do I stay home from work, as I did today, because financially, I cannot afford it. But there was no way in hades I would have been able to deal with Thing 1 and Thing 2 and the "boss".

I want to speak of my childhood but feel it is completely unnecessary at this point. What happened, happened. I have discussed all of the issues with the people who matter and we have rebuilt bridges.

As a teen I was the quiet, geeky looking, stoner girl in the back of the class. At lunch you could catch me and my step sister behind the school with the hottest guy in our class, smoking dope.

No longer do I use street drugs, that all stopped after the birth of my daughter, we will get to her another time.

I graduated middle of the class - yes, that's me AVERAGE. I had no ambition to go to college, I guess I didn't have any ambition period.

A few years later I chose to visit my dad [from whom I had been sort of estranged]. I knew if I were to grow as an individual and hopefully have a successful relationship, I would have to get over my issues with him and his part in our dysfunctional family.

Things went well and he was by far a better dad now, than when I was younger. I chose to stay in NC and met Satan himself, Taylor's dad. [Taylor is my daughter]

We partied like rock stars and he used me like the hotel room that rock stars like to trash. I still to this day have a broken nose that he gave me. As well as many other battle scars and emotional scars.

If you know me then you know my teeth are fucked up! This is thanks to him. His fist loved my face so much it caused hairline fractures in my teeth as well as other bones in my face.

Why don't I get it fixed? You are wondering. Well, I have been a single mother for almost 19 years now, if you have ever been a single parent then you know finances are strained.

I am praying this year I can get approval for a loan through the dentist office to have it fixed. I am sure this alone will make me feel better about myself.

Wow! This really does bother me, so much more than I thought. I am crying my eyes out right now and can barely see the computer.

Anyway, this is a physical thing that can be fixed hopefully sooner than later.

Things got so bad between me and Satan that I attempted suicide. I also pushed back at him so hard that he would hopefully put me out of my misery. He told me several times where he was going to take my body so no one could find it... He choked me until I passed out... He tried to put a huge Rambo style knife through my head....

It was that bad and that's why I attempted suicide.

Then I found out I was pregnant.

There was no way in Hades I was going to let my child grow up in that environment. She gave me the courage to leave [my dumb ass stayed awhile because I thought the baby would change him].

We left eventually and that resulted in a ride in a police car for my safety so I could file a report. My dad coming to my home in the middle of the night to watch Taylor while I was at the police station. A 911 call coming over the police radio, it was my dad! He had Satan at gun point and was not going to take it off him until the police got there. If I remember right, he said he would shoot him if he tried to run! :)

(I love you dad!)

Taylor:

I have always called her my angel for her presence saved my life.

She gave me a reason to live.

FYI:

To this day Satan says everything that happened was all in my head. It never happened....

whatever

Hi My Name Is...

Hi! My name is Kristen, I am a 44 year old woman who works in the executive offices of a major retailer. I am here to help myself get "me" back.

I have never had to work hard for much all my life. Don't get me wrong, I never had everything I ever wanted but things did come easily to me. As a child I lived in a dysfunctional family and had a wonderful mom who pulled us through it without any serious scaring.

As a teen I was a parents nightmare and fondly called myself 'the only hell my momma ever raised'. You name it, I probably did it!

Early twenties I met my daughters 'sperm donor' and spent 4 years in hell - a dysfunctional family of my own.

Mid twenties, I went nuts! I clubbed and partied every weekend. I had a better paying job [in a factory] than I have now. I met the love of my life at this time, but I was to stupid to realize it. Thinking back now, I believe this is where I began my downward spiral.

After I ruined that relationship: I got a part time job on Fridays and Saturdays making double my 40 hr income. I met a lot of people with titles and important positions in life. Most of them not all that great, despite what they and their followers thought.

Then I met nightmare number 2 who ran me from North Carolina - I wanted out so bad I left everything but my daughter and my clothes behind.

I guess I've probably bored you to tears at this point but oh well this is to help me find just a tiny spark of what I was before.

[Names withheld intentionally]