Both of my children are back in my nest……
My home. Both daughters.
I don’t have to wonder whether they are living in fear anymore. Because they are safe and protected now.
Now, I get to move on in my life. Move on from the divorce. Move on and build a life for my children. This chapter can be closed. Five years of hell….is over.
Home. A beautiful four letter word.
You can run from your problems. Your past. Stress.
You can run, but it all catches up to you at some point.
I miss having someone to wrap me in their arms. I miss being able to be weak for 5 minutes. Long enough to fall apart and put myself back together.
I miss being truly loved.
I miss being valued.
I miss love.
I don’t understand vindictive divorced parents. I don’t.
IT IS YOUR CHILD
DO NOT take your problems out on your child!!!!!!
Don’t put all of their belongings in a garbage bag and tell them ‘you have until Saturday to get your shit’………the fuck is wrong with you????????
That is your daughter, YOUR daughter. OUR daughter. My daughter, you hurt my daughter. How dare you minimize her to a bag of belongings and threaten to throw her out with the garbage.
How can you do that to your child???
I knew.
I knew when he interviewed that he seemed high.
I knew when I started seeing skin lesions, that he had a high probability of being an addict.
I knew he was withdrawn. Unsocial.
I knew when he called in sick, that he probably wasn’t.
Yet, his productivity was phenomenal. His attention to detail was above average. He was fantastic.
When he passed out at his desk, I knew that all those other times had been telling me something that I had dismissed.
He was an addict.
I should have seen the signs as a huge red flag. But I ignored them.
Heroin. Meth. Cocaine. He had done all of them in the last few months apparently. And I could have intervened sooner.
But I didn’t.
I haven’t ever had much experience with runaways.
But the day after Christmas, my youngest daughter ran away after she had been confronted about the fact that she had had alcohol at her Dad’s family event.
(Let me preface this by saying that I am not against letting teens taste and consume small quantities of alcohol. I believe it is important that they taste it before being in an outside environment with other influences present.)
That all being said, I have always had issues with my in-laws flagrant and reckless use of alcohol at all ages, during all functions.
Anyway, my argument should have been had with her father and not her. But, I reacted as I am prone to do when I am horrified. And she blew up and then bolted.
I can tell you, there is no worse feeling then knowing that your 14 year old is out walking the streets of a rough neighborhood after 11pm at night.
My oldest daughter came through in a big way to protect and secure her sister. Idk how she did it, but it was an amazing thing to see now that I think of it.
My heart broke so many times that night and the following days.
How much have I failed as a parent trying to do what I could for her while still keeping up with everything else?
How awful is it, that she felt so alone that her best option was to run?
How much have I let her down through this divorce? I thought I was doing what was best for her. But really, I was more afraid of finding her dead one day when I came home.
Parenting isn’t a spectator sport. Its hard. Really, Really hard.
This week started as any other- I hate my job. I don’t hate the job itself, its some of the people that I work for.
Then things took a turn. My best friends husband suffered a stroke. I stayed with her for 24 hours as the doctors raced to figure out what happened. He hates medical professionals in general so he had to be heavily sedated or he would rip out tubes keeping him alive.
It was too much for me. Without knowing it, I smacked myself in the face with all of my old fears. Her husband was placed in a room next to my ex-husband’s old room where he spent 58 days in the hospital. Many of the nurses are still there. The Dr.s are still there.
Friday night, I hit the wall of emotions. Sobs wracked my body. I couldn’t be here anymore. I chose not to see my friend that night. This whole week being so traumatic, I was broken inside.
I haven’t felt this alone in a long time.
Sometimes running from your past catches up to you.
Most people from my childhood do not recognize me and I would like to keep it that way.
But a week ago, someone from my high-school years resurfaced. Someone that I wrote many many many letters to (yeah that makes me old AF). I never got any letters back. I assumed that after all this time that it had become some stupid high-school puppy love that I was only too embarrassed about to even talk about.
I have tried to track him down for the last 20 years, as I have the rest of our original group. I have found 95% of the group with three being deceased. Anyway, I never expected to hear from him. Ever.
I was a foolish teenager much like the person that I am today. Anyway.
He saved all my letters. I found out. He never got the nerve up to ever write me back.
My best friend wants to make it a love story but it isn’t like that. We are states apart and have two very different lives. What really means something to me is that at that part in my life, I mattered to someone.
Thats all I ever wanted.
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