Childhood friends….

I have many friends from my childhood, I have many I had lost contact with and I have been very lucky that due to Facebook I have been able to reconnect with many of these friends. I have one friend when we were younger I would write her several letters and she would be busy and not write back, so I would be funny and write saying I guess the friendship is over and I would get a letter back saying yeah I know I am bad….it was a running joke with us. To this day we still do it a little, email or texts she doesn’t answer and I will make some comment.

Then there are the friends that have been like family. Some I lost contact with and others we wrote at Christmas and went to wedding and showers but didn’t hang out. Now we are doing more things because we are on FB and can easily contact via FB or text. Then there are the ones that I lost contact with because I was embarrassed I think. Embarrassed due to the situations with my mom and my sister. Even embarrassed by my ex husband. I didn’t want to have to answer the question about my mom or my sister. I sort of just drifted away from these people. Having grown up and moved on with my life I have reconnected again with these people and yes we have talked about my mom and my sister and it has been fine.

Then there is my buddy, my big brother, ok my little girl school crush, Mike. He with his family….two brothers, lived by me, Mike was two years older, his brother Sam was my age and their little brother Brian was much younger, I think about 6 years younger. Not only were we neighbors but our fathers had the same first name and they worked for the same company. He had older siblings that each of his parents had brought to the marriage but they were hardly there and I really didn’t know them. Mike…well Mike was my buddy…they moved out of state after Mike finished 9th grade. Then a year later they moved back to California but to Camarillo. Over the years I had only seen Mike one other time, at his brother Sam’s wedding, otherwise I lost touch with them. I know for years my father and his parents exchanged Christmas cards but that stopped after a while. I have tried to find him or his brothers over the years. I have googled them, I have gone onto the high school websites looking for them, and I have looked on FB to no avail.

Well last week I decided to look on FB again and low and behold Mike was there, so was Sam and their mother. Well I put in an add request for all of them. I was so excited. Now, you know what friends you can tease and what friends you can’t. I got on line the next day and he hadn’t added me…what he had been on line…so I sent him a quick email…giving him a hard time, teasing him. He added me right away. We were talking on pictures and posts and …I had to open a chat. I think that was Friday night and I think we chatted for about an hr but it seemed like much longer. Saturday we chatted for I think almost 2 maybe 3 hrs and Sunday about an hr. We had lost of catching up and lots of reminiscing to do. We talked about my sister, we talked just a little about my mom but not a lot, we mostly talked about what we have been doing and what we remember. Man if his GI Joe and my Barbie could talk about all the fun we had together (get your minds out of the gutter…). We talked and talked. The trips to the corner store for snacks, the company picnics, the neighbors we remember, the trouble he and his brothers would get into, and the good they did…when Mike organized the whole neighborhood to clean up the house across the street where a man had hung himself and the house was for sale but no one took care of it.

He told me he told a co-worker he reconnected with a friend that he had known since 4th grade and the co-worker didn’t believe him. I told him that I had a crush on him growing up, he said he figured, he told me when he was in 6th grade he told one of his friends I was his girl friend, never knew that. This has been a blast this weekend catching up. I have had a huge grin just feeling so good about this.

Mike was always there for my sister and I. His freshman year of high school before they moved there was a huge riot at the school. I remember my sister telling the story about how she was in and area and running towards the fence but knew she would not be able to make it and out of no where she was over the fence, Mike had thrown her over the fence to safety. He was like the big brother watching out for us.

We talked about my house and things that happened there; he kept saying that I was the caretaker that Amy was the caretaker of it all. I had to tell him that my sister went around telling people that she did it all and that I sat in my room all the time. Mike’s comment….those that were truly there everyday so close…like him…knew the truth. That makes me feel so good.

Mike made the comment that he sometimes wonders what would have happened if they never moved. I knew what he meant by that and I had wondered a few times over the years. One thing I know for sure, Mike would have tried to rescue me, in some way shape or form he would have tried to rescue me from what was going on. The other thing was times when I felt like the ugly duckling that no one wanted, he would have made sure I didn’t feel that way. That’s what would have happened. I am sure Mike would have had a run in or two with my mother for things that were said or done being direct towards me, not that is would have made a difference, because it didn’t matter when my dad said anything.

Have I had other friends I have been excited about reconnecting with of course. Did I have other crushes on male friends growing up…of course. Mike however it just seemed different and special, maybe because even though he moved away it confirmed what I always knew he was always in my corner cheering me on. We will keep talking, we will keep catching up, and one of these days I will find my missing stack of pictures where I have a few of him and his brothers I can post. Eventually we will visit in person, either up here or I will drive down and meet his wonderful family, amazingly his wife says she remembers me from Sam’s wedding, wow I don’t know if I made a good or bad impression…hahaha…I do remember Mike being excited to introduce me to her.

You never know where life takes you and if you had asked me when Mike and his family moved away if I thought we would reconnect on some thing called the internet and some thing called Facebook, I would have told you, you were crazy. I mean really, Pong was high tech then.

Phobia's and Fears....

Fears and Phobia’s

So we all have them. A friend recently said to me wow all of yours you know where they come from and they all stem from your childhood.

This is so true, I have a few and I can explain them all…. Doberman pinchers, crickets/grasshoppers and stairs that have open slats (or gaps in something like gaps in a pier).

Stairs with openings between them or gaps in the pier, when I was in preschool, we had a collie Gypsy. Loved that dog. One day she came with my mom to pick me up from school as she ran up the stair to me she lost her footing and slipped through the stairs she was hurt. I don’t remember seeing Gypsy much after that, I remember seeing her limp around. After that when we came or went from school I made my mom go through the back where we climbed the hill and walked directly in with no stairs. To this day I hate stairs with gaps and piers with gaps.

Doberman pinchers, well again when I was little, I think now in kindergarten, we had the new puppy, Peggy, our Irish setter. My dad took her to obedience school, every Saturday I would go with them. I would sit on the open end of the station wagon and play and watch. Peggy was good in obedience school, until the final test when she got up and followed the instructor and failed. But anyway, there was one day when one of the instructors was out so they combined two classes, one of the dogs was a Doberman and he for some reason decided he did not like the Collie in front of him and proceeded to wrap his teeth around the rear end of the Collie. It took 6 adult men to get the Doberman off the Collie, the women were running around trying to get the kids to where they couldn’t see but I could still see, and to this day it is the ONLY dog I am afraid of.

Lastly…the crickets/grasshoppers. Well again, I was young, I think about 2nd grade heading to a friends house, which lived across Gonzales road. I was had just turned off my street onto Patricia to cross the street when something jumped on me, it was either a cricket or a grasshopper, not sure, but either way, I froze, I just stood there. I was terrified until I ran off and it was off of me. Now when I hear the sound of one I am terrified.

Anyway, these are my phobia’s and fears….I know they sound silly but they are mine.

Money makes the world go around

Money

Money…we all need it, we all want it, and some say it is the root of all evil….oh no that’s right I forgot I am the root of all evil….hahaha

Recently I was speaking with an old friend and mentioned that I needed to find a way to make more money, his comment was why do people think money will make them happy….well it isn’t that I want it to make me happy, I want it to feel secure. Let me back up here,

I grew up in a middle class home, where we never really needed for anything and never thought we didn’t have money for stuff, yet we were far from rich and far from getting everything we thought we wanted. If you asked dad for money for the movies, for jeans or anything else he gave it to you. I babysat quite often for extra money. Dad would say we don’t have money for stuff, but it wasn’t obvious stuff. We went on family vacations, nothing extravagant; we decorated the house, made upgrades and always had running cars. I always knew there were some money problems, but nothing to where we were always robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Then I moved out on my own, well sort of, moved in with my boyfriend, it was fine, I never worried I made enough to live, I made a decent living and always made sure I had enough to pay rent, utilities and food before having fun. Then I got engaged, well dad didn’t have a lot of money so I sold Tupperware to save for the wedding, even took out a small loan for it. We will still fine, the man I married worked as a mechanic, and we did just fine. Then it all started, the changing of the jobs the losing of the jobs. Here I was the main breadwinner. Then he had to have an emergency appendectomy on Christmas day with no insurance. The county would NOT work with us so we end up filing for bankruptcy. Then we had my daughter a few years later. It seemed it slowly got worse. All the promises of making big money never seemed to happen. The credit cards, buying, behind on the rent because he lost another job and no unemployment was starting to get to me, but I handled it. During that the way I handled things was working a second job. I worked a second job a few times.

I hesitated leaving my husband because of the money, then one day I realized what does it matter, he is the money with no money, not me. But by this time I had been laid off from my high paying job and now working for the school district making about 13.00 an hr and ONLY being paid once a month. But I could do this; I could move out on my own and take my daughter. So I make a budget and figure out how much I can afford. Now by this time we are behind on bills, because he has been unemployed with no disability or unemployment for over a year. We decide that I will not walk away with his bills and I will not be forced to cover all our bills on my own so we file bankruptcy AGAIN.

So I find a small one bedroom for my daughter, and me it is very near to her school, however not the best place, but it is only 850.00 a month. But it will do, we deal with the roaches and the wonderfully classy people in the complex. Then I find a job where I make more money, Jenna has changed schools and I can afford a bigger place. Now I am making 48k a year and I can afford a two bedroom for 1200.00 a month. It is cute, I like it, we can now afford and have a place where we can have a cat, actually two cats now.

So things are going good, I am now comfortable, I am actually saving a little money, I am not stressed over things, my daughter still doesn’t get everything she wants but it isn’t the constant no we can’t afford it. I am feeling secure…..then the bottom falls out. I get laid off. Well I am not too worried and not too stressed, I do it, I can make it work, I go through my savings and just at the end I find a job. GREAT. However it is less money. Now I am making 19.00 an hr, about 200.00 less a week. I make too much money to keep my daughter on healthy families and not enough to be able to afford to put her on mine at work. Someone at work says it is only 60.00 a pay period….OMG 60.00 a pay period. At the first of the month I only have about 200.00 for groceries, gas and meds till the middle of the month, yeah lets take 60.00 out of that, and in the middle of the month an average of 650.00, which is not a lot when you add in doctor visits, clothing (and with me losing weight I have bought more then normal), school books, school fees, any other expected costs…..like flee stuff for the cats, shots for the cats, all this stuff, oh and it is almost November, my car tags over almost 150.00. Plus lets not forget that at the end of this year my student loans will come due, the cheapest so far that I have been able to find to refi them and condense them is about 150.00 a month. Oh and add the fact that I am not taking enough out in taxes, just to survive. I will pay for that in the end. Have a friend ask you if you want to go out, to a movie, to dinner and you spend 20 minutes looking to see if you have any money left, if you have any money on the credit card, because you don’t want to say you can’t afford it, they will try to pay and that makes you feel terrible. My daughter spends all her waking time trying to find a job to relieve some of the stress from mom, but she is too young, no one will hire her till she is 18, two more months.

Does my ex help….yeah once in a blue moon, I almost had to pay him spousal support when we divorced, but then I would have ended up in jail for murder…hahaha….

So here I am to the conversation I had with my friend, where I say I love my job, I love the people I work with, the members of the club are fantastic, however I need to find a way to make more money. He says why do people equate money with happiness, no I equate money with security. I now have no savings, no retirement, and no security. Here I am trying to rebuild my life, to date, I have told the guy I am seeing that money is tight and he keeps encouraging me to find a new job that pays more. He doesn’t want me to be stressed over it. I don’t have many stressors anymore, but this is one. So there it is, money won’t buy me happiness it will buy me security. I just want to be able to go to the grocery store and not have to put stuff back…. usually the stuff I want for myself because I hate telling my daughter I couldn’t afford it. It is 2 months before Christmas and I am already stressing over it.

I am not writing this for people to feel sorry for me, I am writing this so that people sometimes can understand where I am coming from. I am proud of how I have survived, how I made it through unemployment, a divorce, two bankruptcies, and now getting back on my feet. I decided I would try to open a business on the side to make extra money but don’t know if that will take off. I just need to find a way to feel secure when it comes to finances. I am making less money, but the same if not more amount of bills as before.

Somedays it just hits you....

Lately I have been thinking about and talking about my sister, Carol a lot. Everything from searching on Linken for her husband to talking to a friend who asked me what she was like and what happened. I have had a lot of women in my life who have been those sisters or mothers to me, but some days it just isn't the same. One minute I want to scream why was she brought into our lives, it would have been so much better without her. The next the good memories and I want to drive down to where she lives and tell her she missed out, she missed out on me getting married, having my daughter and even getting divorced, that I could have used a sister...and a mother for that matter when all these things happened. That she missed out on so much, and that she is selfish for the way she acted. She blamed me, she blamed me for all her problems. I was the reason for all her problems is what her husband told me when he called our house, when he called to say she and he wanted nothing to do with our family anymore.

The questions, was she always mentally ill? Did she act like part of your family? NO she wasn't always mentally ill, however we always knew there was something about her, the big joke was if you took a picture her smile would disappear. But yes she was part of the family, until I would say she was about 15 or 16 I would say. Then she started to pull away, and it got MUCH worse after she got married.

The big question I get is how did you been able to deal with this. I was hurt, I was hurt when he she disowned our family, but not as much as I would have expected. Maybe because by this time I had been so hurt by her and my mom that I couldn't hurt anymore. I had already been blamed by my mother for all her missery in her life, and now here I was on the phone with my brother-in-law being blamed for all of Carol's problems in her life. So whats new....Amy is blamed for everything. I joke about this now, some don't think it is funny, like my boss, I have a habit of saying to joke "what did I do now".

So how did I deal with it, who knows, I just did. I was so angry when they did that I just was too angry and worried about my life, where it was going, and my dad to even think too much about it or be hurt about it at that time. I don't think about it too much unless something hits me. What hit me today....it is real silly, a friend posted one of those "its sister week" on facebook, and it hit me. The person that posted it, her and her sisters are like sisters to me, and it made me laugh at first, laugh a LOT, then I started to cry....and it hit me, the sadness? the anger? not sure what hit me....just that how dare she had done this to all of us, to me. Was this like a death....sort of, but unexpected unlike my moms, well moms was expected for a very long time.

My sister, is she my sister, or someone that just lived in our house, she wasn't a sister by blood, but she was my sister. We took pictures together on santa's lap, even as teenagers we did it. We had slumber parties together, mostly because it was mom's idea. This was because Carols birthday was on Christmas eve and she was cheated of a real birthday, so I had to share my birthday parties several times with Carol. Do I love her? Did I lover her? Yes I loved her, but I don't know what I feel now. Indifferent is the best thing I can come up with. Carol was the person that everyone felt sorry for, the person that people always worried about. Who does she have now? I presume only her husband. Is she mentally unstable? I believe so.

So here I sit, no longer crying over the loss of Carol or the sister I no longer have. I realized tonight that I haven't cried often for Carol, mostly just felt either anger or indifference.

Therapy....

First off I had a friend tell me that a therapist once told her that the mentally healthy people are the ones getting the therapy...yeah I think so...

Well I decided to go to therapy...why...well, when I encouraged, push, coaxed, whats his face to go to therapy after a while I said well I guess if I am going to make you go I should go also, so I am . Jewish Family Services is where I found myself with a great therapist who is an intern that I love, she is great and has a great sense of humor.

She asks me if I have ever been to therapy...oh yeah...are you kidding...well not that much but enough.

My first stint in therapy was when I was a teenager...I didn't just go to a therapist, a psychologist...I went to my moms psychiatrist...yeah an MD... SHRINK....why the shrink, well because it was my mom's dr and the dr had suggested to my dad that maybe it would be good for me to go see him. Dr. Sheilds, I am sure he is long retired by now. So I agree with dad that this could be good for me.

Well I start seeing him and I like him, he gives me some good insights on my mom, and reminds me that my mom's problems are her problems and not mine, and no matter what she says I did not cause them. However, I think back and I believe the Dr. Sheilds got just as much out of our session as I did, it gave him the other side, the other side of the story. She took the pills because Amy didn't love her...OMG...I was cleaning the windows and I needed to get them done and couldn't wait on her hand and foot. So I think it was beneficial to both of us. I remember one day when I knew I had an appointment after school, I was walking home with some friends, it was early in my freshman year because I was still hanging out after school with the middle school friends that we later went our separate ways, and I think the two boys in the group walking home started making fun of me for something, the way boys do, however at this point I was real sensitive about certain subjects, and I really don't remember what it was about, however I remember it hurt, and instead of taking my time to get to the dr's office, I yelled something at them and took off...I took off running to the dr's office, I was there early and sat outside his office crying by myself for about 10 minutes. I don't know why I remember that incident but I do.

I also remember very clearly when the first bill came with a diagnosis...wow...I don't know if he just figured he needed to make sure there was something for the insurance to cover it or if he truly thought this was me....Paranoid Schizophrenic....wow...I had to look the schizophrenic up, and will always remember that meaning. My sister saw the bill and she loved it...she teased me about it for days. Later in life I figured out where he might have gotten this from, I admit I can be paranoid at time, and still am sometimes, but not to a far extreme, and it only comes up in when certain things happen that push me to be that way. Not paranoid in the sense that you walk through a store and everyone is talking about you, paranoid in the sense that you got stood up for a date and I think he is sitting home making fun of me with his friends. As far as the schizophrenic I can remember telling the dr that anytime I go to do certain things I hear my mom's voice telling me not to try, not smart enough, or my dad's voice of disappointment for not doing it right. I really didn't hear their voice, it was just my thoughts of what they would say. I don't think he really thought I was Schizophrenic, just that the insurance company needed a diagnosis to pay. This part did bug me because I have an uncle who is Schizophrenic.

I saw Dr. Shields I think for about a year or so. It was a good experience for me. Sitting in the dark room, with the dark furniture and all the books, and this older man who I respected telling me that I am ok, that I am not the cause for all my mom's problems. It was a good experience.

I went to a few sessions, nothing formal here and there with the minister at our church through high school years and I think a few times after my mom passed, but nothing unusual about these. Just making sure things were ok.

I did not see anyone for a long time, until my best friend Linda passed away. She was my neighbor and best friend for over 15 years I think. We did everything together, we sewed, shopped, walked, bbq'd....all sorts of great fun stuff. I don't think it was her death as much as it was the way things were handled by her huband Mike. He did not handle it well and some of the stuff he was doing was not allowing me to grieve properly. He immidetely hooked up with a woman from our street who Linda didn't like and many others didn't. Then he did not tell me when they placed Linda in her crypt, OMG I lived next door how hard was it, I had to find out from his girl friends daughter, that is when I decided I needed to see someone, someone to help me take the knife out of my back.

I liked this woman, she was nice, saw her for a while till I couldn't afford it anymore, I laugh because I never paid the last bill, however I loaned her a book and never got it back so I figured we were even. She helped me deal with all the crap and stuff going on next door, she me through the grieving process I was having problems dealing with.

So here I am back in therapy, why, well not sure, not sure how much I need even though it is great to have someone to talk to, thinking my friends get tired of hearing it all from me all the time. One of the reasons for therapy again is to deal with the break up of whats his name (I am sort of enjoying calling him that...hahaha), and just to deal with life. Getting back into the dating grove, dealing with my teenager; who I love to death but she is a teenager.

The therapist I have now in an intern, and I just love her, he has a great sense of humor, I think I have only ended up crying twice in her office, once this week as a matter of fact, and she knew I had been crying before I got there. She says the great thing about me is I process things real well, that by the time I have gone through it and see her I have processed through the situation and we are just talking it out.

Dating seems to be the thing we talk about the most. But we do talk about family, growing up and all the other things that life throws at you. Dating because some of these things are so new to me. Never really dated in high school, then married the first guy that I was with, and have never really dated since divorce, mostly because of school and kid.

Would I recommend therapy to everyone, actually yes, I think everyone should go at least once in their lives, it is something we should all experience. Will I keep going right now, yeah for a little while.

Reality Bites

Well tonight...tonight has been a night of reality and stress.
Had a small paper cut on my finger, hit it on a metal fastener
earlier at work today and then
all of a sudden I am trying to figure out why there is blood
all over my paperwork that i am working on....crap, the stupid
fastener ripped my paper cut open and it will not stop bleeding.
Help from my co-workers and band aids and finally stops, but now to type...
yeah that isn't going to be easy, and go figure it is the middle finger.

So day is almost done and I get a frantic call from my daughter,
her fish tank is leaking...crap....rush home, well the fish are
now in Tupperware....I knew I bought them for something...
she has most of it cleaned up and we have to now take back the
one tank she has and get a glass one....fine as long at it doesn't cost
me anything more....well it was just a little more.

Get her home, she is going to set it up, as I go over to a friends to help
her move some furniture, another call from my daughter, not enough
gravel and need the light bulbs for the tank....ok I am on my way home.

Back to the pet store, now let me say that I have this little short cut I always
take to the pet store through this one neighborhood,
it is a nice little quiet neighborhood with a park you drive past
it has this condo complex where I have had some friends live, love these condos.
So we get the gravel and the light bulbs and we leave the pet store
so I head back through my little short cut....oh crap reality hits me...this
is the condo complex that whats his face his moving to....reality hits me
I need to stop day dreaming of a romantic reunion...reality hits me....
he is never coming back...he doesn't love you...he doesn't want to be with you...
or that fact anyone...he wants to grow old alone...I know he has told me this
several times and I have tried to convince myself to accept but, but we all know
how that goes, I am a female...we can't do that easily....reality hit me...crap...

So here I am driving through this neighborhood holding back the tears
trying not to let my daughter know I am crying as I drive home...
because reality hits me....and reality bites...bites the big one....

So what else can happen, my daughter sets up the new fish tank and starts
putting the fish into it....one keep floating and another is sinking....crap
well out of four fish two are now dead....reality bites....

Fish number one is flushed....and she is watching fish number two....
well now we flush that one...she is so stressed she takes off with her
boyfriend to get some fresh air.

So I sit here with the tip of my middle finger hurting,
hoping I am all cried out...I can't do this anymore....
and thinking whats his face has the right idea
grow old alone and you don't have to worry about being hurt.

I head to bed, I am going to read, well now I really don't want to read
the book I had just started, Men are from Mars Women are from Venus
Why read that one....I am going to take a cue from whats his face and
grow old alone...so I look for a new book and fine Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs
I will read that, that sounds good....

I read for a while, then go to sleep, I wake up and go to the bath room
for some reason I decide I need to go check on the fish tank in
daughters room, she still isn't home yet....oh crap...reality bites...
Her favorite fish is now dead....I guess we will have to go shopping
for new fish tomorrow...so I text her and she texts me back she is
almost home....I hear her come into the house, and hear the sound
of the favorite fish being flushed....

My friend told me recently her theory about fish is
that god created fish to teach us about death....

REALITY BITES SOMETIMES.

whirl wind evening...

What a whirl wind evening....texting with a friend and I decide to check craigslist for some stupid reason to look at the men out there.....well one catches my eye for some weird reason, he says he is in his 40's and retired early and the woman he was with had moved away for a job and alone again now.....I never answer these things, and craigslist sort of scares me....I registered on one of those sites until I found it it cost and I am too cheap and too broke to pay...

So I reply....and figure I won't hear back for a few days, well as I am texing her and emailing at the same time, because my friend decides I should look at more on craigslist and she is emailing me all sorts of links to ad's....I look up and there is an email in my in box...not from her, not from a family member but from him the "friend" that i am no longer friends with because he was hesitant...my heart stops, I am afraid to read this, I text her OMG I just got a email from your son, I am afraid, she says read it....you will be fine....and just as I go to open it, my other email says I have a reply from the craigslist guy....

so the I read the craigslist one first, he says he is in Camarillo and would love to meet at a starbucks but wonders if we should exchange pictures first...so i reply that would be fine sometime I am in Ventura and included my picture.

The subject line is "for what its worth", I am thinking...did he send me something serious or some sort of joke he forwarded....so now I open it....he says he doesn't know if he should be writing this, he doesnt know if anything he says will make things better, but they can't make anything worse....this is true.

He apologies, he never meant to hurt me and he did things that hurt me and he is sorry, he never meant to lie, but looking back he did say things count as lies, and he is sorry....OMG he said he was sorry...he said he believed his own lies, if you believed them then how are they lies, because you have always told yourself you can't feel this way, maybe they weren't lies and he just needs to realize this. But either way he said he was sorry. He says he isn't looking for forgiveness he just wants me to know he didn't play me he believed things he said also, and now he has a lot of stuff to learn about himself....

Wow this means a lot, I do question it, is it sincere, did someone tell him to write this, I have to believe it is sincere, he is a good guy, I have known him for ever and he isn't this way, he wouldn't do that again to me....and I think the first email was his way of trying to let me know he did things he wasn't proud of, it was just the way he worded it that wasn't good.

I ask myself did he read my blog....OMG you are being stupid, he always says he does NOT look at your FB page ever and he doesn't read blogs, he never would do this just because he read your blog, and even it he read your blog maybe it just opened his eyes to how much this whole thing hurt you....accept the apology and realize he never would have done it if he didn't mean it...and just because he is telling you he lied in the past that is not him, he doesn't lie about stuff that matters, and that is how you know he really felt something, he is just lying to himself now.

I have to respond to my former friend or what ever we are now, as much as I want to make him sit and wait i am sitting here in front of my computer and want to respond....in the mean time the Camarillo craigslist guy has emailed me back his picture...his email is signed Bob...and OMG he is NOT 40's he looks more like mid 50's and he looks like my dad's old friend from 20 years ago that was an old navy male chauvinist who I just wanted to smack every time I saw him...I can't respond to this guys now, OMG he wants to meet like this minute at a starbuck, just ignore him, maybe he will realize I am not interested.

I tell him thank you, thank you as long as this is sincere and not what you just think I need to hear even though it is what I want to hear, thank you, and forgiveness, well it will happen eventually. It take a lot for me not to forgive someone...of course I never forget, I only forgive. I tell him that if he believed them they I don't believe they were all lies, that I still believe he felt something and got scared. I tell him thank you for the apology and hope that in learning about himself he can learn to love and be loved. I ask him where do we go from here, part and never be friends, avoid each other in public and private situations, that I feel right now he got what he wanted me far away from him and out of his life for ever....I need him to be honest with me...and I wonder to myself what will he say, I also wonder if he doesn't want the friendship why...is he afraid of me still feeling something or is he afraid he will feel something and not know how to handle it. So I hit send and wonder if he will reply tonight or it will be a day....

Wow another email from Bob...I replied to your email through another account maybe you didn't get it...wow...2 minutes later another email from him...where are you...did I say something wrong...OMG what....so what I didn't reply to an email instantly....I will just ignore it and maybe he will realize I am not interested. I can't deal with him now....and now this has confirmed what I had been telling my "friend" all along when we were together, I do NOT want or NEED someone who is there 24-7....and I never helped him realize that by sending him so many texts, but that is me, when I think of something I just want to tell you and I am not always looking for a response....it is just a thought...

So I look back at my other account....wow his mom has send me three guys from craigslist to look at....not sure about any of them and not feeling hesitant myself....and there is a response from my "friend"

Completely honest? he has no idea where we go from here, if I need space he will give it to me....I respond and tell him, he was the one that was hesitant about the friendship and he was the one that gave out the huge sigh when I sat next to him at the movie event (which was my first clue before the email there was a problem and that sigh hurt so much). I don't need space I need the friendship back the way it was before he went to therapy...before he decided to tell me he manipulated me and had to boost my ego....he is the one that has to hide the friendship from his family members that don't approve (which is absolutely ridiculous!), we are adults and it is our decisions not theirs but they are they ones that also helped split us up in the first place...I don't care what anyone says these family members played a role....I tell him I don't want him to say "it might be best if we are friends" that only tells me he is trying to be friends because he doens't want to make his mom mad....so it is up to him....

he replies....he wants to discuss this with his therapist this week...I think that is good, I suggest he prints and takes both emails to the therapist, the manipulation one and this one...it concerns me that he only knows what he feels because it is what his therapist tells him he is feeling, but he will eventually learn how to figure out what he is feeling....

wow...feeling much better...OMG another email from Bob...hello where are you....OMG...so this morning I write him...sorry I had to leave and didn't respond but not interested, I do not need someone that wants to move this fast....sorry...no thank you....

I go to bed feeling much better trying not to question any thing, don't go backwards only forwards, he means he is sorry, yes he felt things he just doesn't realize it....yes you still love him and that is ok you will work through that...can I be his friend and still know I love him...heck yeah....been there done that, and hopefully I never made a fool of myself and I don't think I did because when I was younger and did this, these guys NEVER had a clue...woke up feeling more like myself...before the break up, before the bc pills that made me crazy, before the emails telling me that I needed my confidence built up....woke up feeling almost productive today....

where do i go from here...who knows...feeling like I don't want to even get out there and try to date...if Bob is any indication and the way I walked away from the last one feeling...really I just might take a cue from my "friend" and grow old alone....but all of this will take time....will I still cry once in a while over him...my "friend" if that is what we will be someday...yeah...will I love again who knows...will I have that person that when they kiss me I feel the tingles all the way to my toes who know....but I sit here feeling better, one email makes me feel terrible, another just like that make me feel a little more like a person and going on....even though it seems like an over night change it really isn't but it is just me telling myself I can do this...

Lies, trust and confidence....what a terrible triangle

How do you accept lies when someone you trust and know tells you it was all a lie....oh yeah thats right he never said the word lie...he said manipulations and romantic exaggerations...whats the difference....

Well when you are talking about love or the possibility of love there is no difference when you find out he was only playing with your heart. He figured you needed a boost in your confidence, wow...now I really need a boost in my confidence, now I feel like the only way someone could even want to be with me is if they were faking to care about me....now if someone says anything about love how do I believe them.

He said he loved being with me, he loved looking in my eyes, he loved holding me, he loved talking to me, he said these things first, before I EVER showed or spoke of emotions, he was the first one to say it was becoming more then FWB, he said he loved me but not in the way I want....I was never really sure what that meant and he never could explain it and now I know why ....it was all a lie....a game....he played a game with my heart...and I trusted him, he told me he would never lie about the important stuff like feelings.

Now he says he has and had no feeling for me at any time, he never had and never will have feelings for me, that I need to accept what I thought was there, just wasn't there.

Now he is even hesitant to be my friend, so now I have also lost what I thought was one of my best friends I have ever had. He was surprised when I told him that, but I always knew no matter what he was my friend, he was one of those friends that no matter when when I called he was there. Hesitant...what does he mean by that....afraid, scared, is he afraid of what I will say, do or feel or what he might say, do or feel, I think it is me, me he is afraid of. That hurts...that hurts a lot.

Now I feel like I have been thrown under the bus as a sacrificial lamb going to slaughter. His therapist told him to tell the truth, to not worry about how other will feel.....so here I sit with the tire marks from the bus....

Am I too trusting, am I stupid, I thought I could read people really good, I guess I was wrong.

He did it to build my confidence, really I don't remember needing him to build my confidence.

Am I a bad person, because it seems that these things only happen to me. I sit here crying not because it is over, not because he is gone, not because he told me he felt nothing, never did and never has despite what i might think, I cry because now I feel worse about myself then I could have ever felt in the past. I didn't feel bad about myself before this thing, yet he thought I needed my confidence built up because he has such a huge ego that he could be the one to do this. Well now I feel like trash, like i am so far from being worthy of loving no one could ever love me.

How could a few little words do this to me, how can these words make me feel so bad. I feel worse then when my mother would tell me I wasn't as smart as my brother, or athletic as the other brother or as talented or as pretty as my sister, those hurt but not as much, they didn't hurt because I knew she said things just to hurt me. This hurt because I trusted him, because he said he didn't lie about the important stuff....but he did and he will NOT use the word lie...he has not said he was sorry....he said he meant no harm, but will NOT say he is sorry....

I tell him fine, the friendship is over, no more text no more emails and I will not come to any family functions he is at, I tell his mom I don't think I can move into the family house after he moves out....I can't.

He is clueless he is a man....his mom says something to him about me being upset, did he read the email, did he skim it and not pay attention, he had no clue....so he re-reads the email and he is anxiously asking her what he should say to me....why ...why should he even care, he never had any feeling and he doesn't want to be my friend. I tell her I don't want to hear it again, I don't want to hear the excuses or explanation, all I want is those three little words..I am sorry....and two other words...I lied....so i told her i don't want to hear from him....I want him to think first, I want him to take the email to his therapist and think about it....he got what he wanted he got rid of the crazy obsessed woman that he cared nothing about.....wow i bet he wished he had said those things earlier, he had said used romantic exaggerations, but he never said manipulated or that it was all for his ego and that he was trying to boost my confidence....

I am back 20 years now...maybe i needed a little confidence boosting but not that much, i might have gotten a few extra boost, maybe 2-3 steps forward but one email...one email and I am go backward at least 10 steps if not more. Now I am back to where i was 20 years where my mom never said she loved me before she died, where my sister said she wanted nothing to do with me because I was the cause of all her problems (even though I knew it wasn't true, still hurt) , where my father was pushing me to move out of the house because even though his girl friend didn't live there she didn't want "kids" in the house, where I married a man I didn't love because everyone said it was the right thing to do and I thought i would never find anyone to love me again. Where I dropped out of college because I thought I would never be smart enough to go on to a regular college and never be able to afford it if I could, back there again with one email.....

How could one email do this, because I trusted and thought he was my friend. I convinced him to stay my friend even though he didn't want to....how do I know this, things he said and did, I heard them and ignored them....ask him if he wants to be my friend...I think it would be best if we stay friends, translation, well I really don't want to be, too much trouble and I never really wanted to be but my mom would get mad if I say no....sit next to him at an event, the huge sigh, not the good sigh, the kind I heard from my ex and still do every time I talked to him or walked into the room, I hate that sigh.....that sigh is worse the the knife in the heart of I don't love you....then the "I am hesitant to be your friend" OMG just say you don't want to be friends, and walk away....OMG just say you lied....don't say you manipulated me or something else, you LIED...OMG just say you are sorry, not I meant no harm....but maybe you aren't sorry, how can you be sorry if you didn't care and are happy it is over with. His mom asked him if he got anything good out of the relationship, well I guess....OMG just tell her you were miserable the entire time and I wall all a lie and torture....

So he is free, and he can be happy, he doesn't have to hide the friendship from the family members that aren't happy with it, he doesn't have to pretend to be my friend for his mom...he is free...now that i was over the relationship breaking up I am going through it all over again for the friendship....why should I care he didn't

Mothers Day

Such mixed feelings on mothers day and not the same ones every mothers day
Joy, sorrow, happiness, sadness, loss, fear, confusion, anger, forgiveness,
All of these feelings mixed up in one some times and others just one or two.

The joy of being a mother and hoping i am a better mom then my mom was
to me....I love my daughter with all my heart and soul and I try so hard not
to say or do the same things my mother did.

I have had mothers days there were fantastic, especially when my daughter was
little, then there were mothers days where all I wanted was my mom for some
reason. My daughter always tries to make mothers day a wonderful day for me
but I think she knows that it can also be a little painful and never sure about
what type of day I might have.

My sister would tell people that she felt like when I came along they got the daughter they always wanted even though the had adopted her, well I always felt like she was the one wanted and I was the mistake....of course being told that one she never expected to carry me to term and two that I was a conceived on a trip to the beach and not really expected didn't always help...

The extra mom's in my life, the ones that were there, the ones that thought
they were there for me, it was all good and all confusing sometimes.
Many, friends and family deserted us, when bad mom came along, the
woman that wouldn't go to the parties anymore, the woman that embarrassed
them. However we had many that were there for me and my sister.
The regular scheduled families dinner on Friday with one family at their favorite restaurant
two nights a week down at the neighbors, the other nights mostly babysitting, and the other
nights at another families house. These were the times that mom was
in the hospital, I don't know how this got started or how they all knew
but it was a regular thing how these families cirled around us.

I miss mom my sometimes, even though all the memories are not great,
I still miss her sometimes. It took MANY MANY years for me to go from
anger and hatred to forgiveness, I never stopped loving her, I just didn't
always like her. Forgiveness was a very long and hard process.
The mother that wasn't there when I got married or gave birth to
my daughter. I felt so many mixed feeling when I gave birth, such joy
and happiness, but such loneliness or not having a mom there ...mind
you my mother-in-law was there, but she was FAR from a mother to me.

I always say that there were two mothers in our family,
the wonderful, fun, nice, healthy mom
then the sick, alcoholic, mean spiteful mom.

The mom that was the troop leader of the girl scouts, the PTA mom
everyone loved and loved to be around,
the mother my brothers had all their lives while growing up....
the other mom...well I only had the good mom till I was about in 5th grade
then the other mom came along, the sick, dying miserable mom.

My dad used to joke about who broke the mirror...mom was sick for 7 years before she passed.
She did not want to move to California and leave her friends and her sons in Maryland.
I knew this but didn't know how sad and upset she was about this till recently when I
found out she would call one of her new friends here in CA on a regular basis and go on and on
about not wanting to be an CA.

Mom made me and Carol share a room when we moved to CA, so that the other room could be kept for her boys when they visit, eventually dad let Carol move into the other room and told my mom she had to deal with it.

Other things I have found out later in life is that when we lived in MD she would
have coffee every morning after the kids went to school with her best friend, however
she didn't drink coffee, she would have her soda (maybe that is where I get my soda
addiction from) and she would add alcohol to it (unannounced to her friend)

So I did have the good mom for a little bit, and I had no clue during many of those years
that she was an alcoholic, I have no idea when I really found out.....
however I do have memories of knowing she was.....remembering looking into her room
door not shut all the way, seeing her taking a bottle out of her bottom dresser drawer
and taking a swig....mouth wash, lots of mouth wash, always using the mouth wash during the day.....I am just now able to use mouth wash myself without have a bad memory of it.

Good mom....yeah I remember her, little memories, my brother giving her our dog Peggy
her being part of my girl scout troupe...being in charge of the cookie sales
but by 5th or 6th grade those memories started to fade....and the other mom was there

The mom that conned my sister and I out of money because dad had locked up all the booze
she took the money and went out to the store to buy her booze...and she wasn't supposed to
be driving anymore....the suicidal mom....several times and the only times she tried was
when I was home, either with my sister or home alone with her.
One of those times she even told the dr that she did it because Amy didn't love her....
I was a teenager who yelled at her because I was busy washing window and could not
wait on her hand and foot, because by this time she has become a semi-invalent

the mom that would tell me things like....well with your grades at least we don't have to
worry about refinancing the house to pay for a good college for you, we will be lucky if
you get into college....I was never as smart as David, never good at sports like Ron, and
never as pretty or talented in art as Carol....so there i was the baby, Amy...the loser who
could do nothing right, some say she was jealous, jealous because we weren't close and
me and my father were close, and getting closer all the time, mostly due to her.

I remember making a spelling mistake in school (what a surprise I am terrible at spelling)
sitting in church that week and hearing the minister talk about spelling girl as gril....I was so
embarrassed, I don't remember if he said who it was, but everyone laughed and I sunk into
my seat, watching my mom there smiling like she thought it was wonderful....
I remember being in 5th grade and my mom bought me for a school event a grass skirt, well
for some reason the skirt did not stay together and as me and all my classmates did the dance
it was slowly coming apart, I don't know why everyone was laughing but to this day I am
convinced they were laughing at me and my skirt, and my mom was laughing the loudest...

I know she was a good mom at some point, we joked about our family being the model for the
cartoon/TV show "Wait till your father gets home", that was my mom. She never disciplined the kids, she just told all of us to wait till your father gets home. Then when dad got home she would tell him to yell at who ever it was for what ever they did, half the time he wasn't even sure why
he was yelling at us.

I do love my mom, and I have forgiven her, which was a long drawn out process.
Forgiven but not forgotten - I mean I am a McGaw....
Forgiven for the mean words, for the drinking, for drinking so bad she made
herself sick. For not letting me have the good mom like my brothers.
But would I have ever really had the good mom...who knows.....because the
way she felt about me....I don't know for sure how she felt about me, but I believe she loved me she just didn't really want me and was jealous of how close my dad and I were.

Amy is a tough cookie...she can take it....

I am sitting here writing about my dad's bypass.....and all of a sudden my life hits me...like a lead balloon....OMG my life...the load I carry on my shoulders....its OK Amy can take it....

Amy can take it....Amy will take care of everything.....

mom takes a bottle of pills...why...because she believes Amy hates her....Amy is a tough cookie she will be fine my dad tells the dr and he puts his arm around me and tells me not to worry she didn't mean it.....

Amy watched her mom sneak a drink from her bottom dresser, she tells her dad, he says not to worry he will take care of it...but don't let it upset you Amy...you are a tough cookie you can take it.


dad has to go out of town on business...Amy can leave school to get his paycheck....take it to the bank to deposit and make it back in time for her next class....

bills need to be taken care of at home....Amy can write out the checks, balance the check book, fill out the insurance forms and dad will sign them all....but it was ok....i would do this while dad cooked my favorite dinner...

mom is sick again....Amy will take care of things....

Carol is having another "everyone hates me" episode....so Amy gets blamed by Carol for all her problems....its ok Amy...you know she doesn't mean it, you are a tough cookie...

Carol wants to learn how to drive....we will just let her use the car that Amy drives....

Amy is sick, not old enough to drive yet....so she walks to the dr and walks home sick in the rain....its ok....dad of course comes home to take mom to the dr and drives right past me in the pouring rain and doesn't see me....oh well, its ok Amy he didn't do it on purpose....

Grocery shopping and cleaning the house...it is Saturday....Amy will get up early and go with dad...because Amy enjoys this....or that is what I let dad believe because it makes him happy....

Carol is getting married, Amy will help her, drive her all over, pick stuff up, and then be told Carol really didn't want her in her wedding, the only reason Amy is in the wedding is because she was told she had to .......


Mom is sick again...she will take care of her in between work and school.....

Mom decides to make deathbed confessions to me...Amy can take these secrets....yeah thats the way mom...put things in my head that you make me question and wonder about for the rest of my life...thanks...I tell my brothers, they laugh, give me a break they were just stories she was telling you....yeah I don't think so...

Dad wants to sell the house and move....Amy is in charge of selling all the extra stuff to get rid of...dad tells her what to sell, yet he doesn't remember these things and gets mad at stuff that is sold and how much it is sold for.....

Dad has a new girl friends, she doesn't want kids around.....time for Amy to move out....how does she know, she finds the news paper on the counter every morning with the ads for apartments for rent circled......

Dad is having financial problems and asks for help from his kids, well here we go....we all talk it is decided there needs to be rules and an agreement, and Amy is going to visit dad, she will present it to him...on her birthday, she is strong it will be fine....well it wasn't a huge dad blow up and the papers ripped up and no help for dad...but thats ok Amy can take it...she is a tough cookie....

Dad is having by-pass surgery, I sit there calling everyone the woman next to me says...all men in your family...i asked how she knew...she says women would have made a phone tree work...one brother doesn't even remember the conversation that I told him I was going to AZ to be there for dad...but he is at the movies with his kids, I am cleaning dad's house, it is ok, everyone else isn't here, they have a right to go to dinner and the movies...OMG I AM MAD AT THEM...well that did pass...but when my brother called back you can tell he was a little scared when he said hello....I guess it was the yelling message in his answering machine that gave it away that Amy was a little stressed...oh well Amy can take it...

Amy can take it...Amy can take it....well I guess I should be thankful...this is what made me the tough cookie I am today...the woman that finally figured out she needed out of a bad marriage and wasn't afraid to go out on her own...HELL I was the one supporting the family to begin with.

Amy learned to be a tough cookie at a very young age, some days I really don't want to be the tough cookie....some days I just want to be the one that everyone takes care of and that doesn't have to worry if she can take it....other days, well other days it is the norm for me....

Amy is a tough cookie....she can take it...she can handle anything....


Remind me never to call ANYONE a tough cookie.....

its 6:45.....

Its 6:45 and the phone rings like it does EVERY night....don't get me wrong this is not a bad thing....well not always....and let me say that my dad is 84 years old

my dad used call every few days after he moved away to Arizona....it was fine...there were days that I couldn't talk and sometimes he would understand and other days he wouldn't. I can remember once when he got upset because I couldn't talk because I had to pay attention to the 5 year old demanding my attention.....

There have times in the past that i have tuned dad out....because almost every day hearing about his entire day....yeah sometimes i tuned him out....I learned my lesson with this once because I didn't pay attention and then when he didn't call me the next night I had not realized it was the day he was having medical procedure....nothing big....but he was tired and didn't call....

Then a few years ago--i had started paying attention by this time and he was not calling every day yet at this point--he was to have a angioplasty done on his heart....he had been tired and having some problems, the dr thought he had a mild heartache.

The dr was told to call me when the procedure was done, so my phone rings, its a dr...and he says to me that they have schedule the bi-pass for 8 that night....wait what bi-pass....well the surgeon called me before the heart dr and I didn't know that the angioplasty didn't work....OMG I need to be there...my boss said go....so I jump on a plane to AZ...

well due to emergencies and what have you my fathers bi-pass was postponed till the morning...I got to his house and early in the morning I made it to the hospital just as they wheeled him out of his room....insisting they can't take him till Amy is there....

So I wait...wait and get updates....I have to call everyone...brother 1, brother 2, uncle 1, uncle 2, aunt...cousin....a lady says to me....mostly men in your family, I said yeah how do you know....women would do a phone tree....I told her what makes it worse is sometime the brothers get pissed if I call one before the other....

did is fine...it was a triple bi-pass and he will have to stay in the hospital then a recovery place for a while....I go home...brother 1 has a business trip the week dad is in he recovery center and checks on him....cousin is traveling through AZ during the first week home....he is fine....

HOWEVER now I have ordered him to check in with me every day....even if I am not home he is to leave a message on the machine....

so it has now been a few years everything is going smoothly....

its 6:45 the phone rings...guess who....so how are you ...fine...how about you...fine...well not really...why dad what happened....I fell today....

he was helping a neighbor trim her tree and turned the wrong way and went down to the ground...his hip hurts the neighbor helped him up....he feels beat up and brusied and beaten but will be fine he says.....yes these phone calls are good, but they do stress me a little and make me worry....

I love my family and I love my dad....I don't know how I will handle it when I get that call...everyone around me tells me that I will be a wreck and fall apart...I think it depends on the situation and where I am in my life....

I keep telling myself that it is wonderful that my dad is completely honest with me....I tell myself that is it great that my daughter is completely honest with me about her life and how she feels about mine....yeah it is 6:45 the phone rings and the girls yell "its grandpa"....

where do i go from here

So now I am trying to figure out my where do I go from here.....

In a few years I will be alone....daughter will be off to college and i will be alone....

so do i want to be alone....do i need to be alone.....

i always thought i wanted someone in my life....i think i do...i don't need someone...i want someone there is a HUGE difference...for a while when Jenna was younger I was convienced I wanted a guy with kids, so I could have the more kids I never had....now a few years later and being older I don't know if I want or need that...it would be nice if he had some grown kids maybe so we could eventually enjoy grandkids...but I will have Jennas ......eventually, but NOT now

what type of person do i want....after i left the ex i had this list of this "ideal" mate....what the hell was i thinking.....if you are only looking for the ideal person on the list you can miss out on someone wonderful....

so what that he doesn't like sports.....i really don't watch sci-fy....does this matter...NO...but don't force me to give up what i like and only do what you like....I will watch that horror movie sometimes, but expect my head to be burried in your chest 80% of the time....and don't get pissed that i do this...if you think it is funny or cute...I think I might like that if you are loving about it....

the thing that matters are the core values....the beliefs....their character....not the little things like what you like to watch....heck if you really care for each other you figure a way around this....you don't ask the other person to change, but you do hope that if you like something they will at least give it a try and you do the same for them...heck don't tell me that gay marriage should be banned and then expect me to be happy...yes you are welcome to your opinion....but there are some things that i care about....pot...make it legal and tax it....values...no road rage...i will get out of the car walk home and never talk to you again...

what else matters.....this is what i ask myself....do they have to love you the same amount that you love them....sorry I don't think that is possible for everyone to love each other the exact same amount...and how do you measure this....you ask a mother is she loves all her kids the same she will say yes....but really, does she.....she may feel she loves them the same....but at the same time she may feel closer to one child then the others or feel a different connection with one of her kids....

so what else....OMG a good man....a man that doesn't berate me for doing something that might have been stupid or an accident....I mean really do you think I meant to drive into the curb and blow a tire...yeah I am that stupid....its one thing to joke and tease its another thing just to be mean....

a man that respects me....that I respect.....

a man who makes me feel safe and secure...not just emotionally but in other ways....i have a little control problem when it comes to ridding in cars....the biggest indicator to me is if I feel safe when he drives on the freeway or around town....also secure financially...i am not asking for a guy to support me..I just don't want to have to support him....

a friend told me recently when she started dating her bf that her big test was a movie...if they that person would sit and watch Princess Bride with her....wow that would be a good test for me, make him watch Princess Bride, Caddy Shack and Love Actually.....I realized I had only watched Princess Bride movie once even though I love it...why because the ex didn't and every time I went to watch it he would come in tell me it was stupid and change the channel....I don't mind watching stuff the other person likes to watch even if it isn't stuff I don't like too much....just don't tell me the things I watch are stupid and tell me what I should be watching or like....

what else....family....family needs to be important to him, he needs to get along with his family and his family needs to like me....I don't need to be a shinning star....I just can't be the root of all evil for NO REASON what so ever again.....

likes to have some fun....we go out and isn't a party pooper....is the person that people enjoy to invite to the party....not the person that causes me not to be invited to the party....

so what else....I don't know....i think a spark...a spark when he kisses me....and that when we see each other we both smile....

Time to smile....and laugh....

I am sitting here realizing that my first few posts were quite serious....then I started trying to see how many quick happy memories I could come up with and how far back and they might not all sound good, but they make me smile when I remember them....lets see now

Going to a girl friends house when i was bout 5 or 6, having my mom not know where i am and sending the cops looking for me....the cop asking me to get in his car and me saying "my mommy told me never to get in a car with a stranger", he promptly shut his door and drove very slowly down the street next to me....when my mom started to get upset I wouldn't get in his car he told her don't ever get mad at her for that....I bet he still tells this story to school kids to get the point across....oh and my brother getting in trouble for not looking for me better...hahahaha



my red white and blue bedroom....mom to a 5 year old...what color do you want us to paint your room....5 year old, I don't know red white and blue.....room red and white wall paper stripes, blue ceiling with glow in the dark starts, and a white bed spread with an American eagle...



going to the school fair, asking if I can go into the fish throw room, and reminding the boys who decided that they were only letting the older kids in who my dad was....the man in charge of the event.....




being pushed out my sisters bedroom window to move the snow away from the front door so my brothers could get out and go to the store.




watching TV on the floor with my brothers....love I dream of Genie, Bewitched and shows like that.




riding in my brothers new car...the TRW.....and he driving FAST




taking a whole bottle of baby asprin so I didn't have to wake my mom...then my mom and brother driving me to the hopsital in my brother TRW....with the roof stuck down in the pouring rain.....



my brother bringing my mom her new puppy....Peggy



moving from MD to CA via car....stopping at family, friends, grand canyon (for 5 minutes before the snow came), and lots of fun



family vacation back to MD via car....



spending a summer with my cousins and my aunt and uncle



a surprise birthday party my mom threw for me....but she wasn't good at surprises...I knew



trying to throw a surprise party for Mrs L....baking and decorating my first real cake for her...and one of kids helping me forgot to invite half the people I told them....and it being just a bunch of us kids and none of her adult friends.....yet she still loved it....(mind you I think i was around 10 or 12)



saving all my green M&M's to give to Mrs L as a joke, opening my drawer to discover my sister ate them all....



may wonderful days, afternoons, evenings and weekends at Mrs L's.



The L family....and their house....



my first kiss....my first boy friend



hangin out with first bf and friends in his room...(yeah making out...but that was it) and in the jacuzzi....



many many times in hs....football games, midnight football, church youth group, bonfires at the beach, band competitions, bus rides, friends, babysitting



the families I babysat for



my first real car



visiting my brothers, after middle school, high school, when my niece was born....and their many visits to california



finding out I was pregnant



holding my daughter for the first time



watching my daughter crawl, walk, eat for the first time, listening to her talk the first time...our after work conversations when she was a baby



watching my daughter grow up, giggle and laugh



my daughters first day of preschool


my BFF Linda....all the great memories with Linda....I still miss her, her smile and her laughter very much....


preschool, 5th grade middle school graduation of my daughter.


Getting my friend for her 40th bday...wrote on the car...decorated her office...and she had no idea it was me...



my divorce....hahahaha


my daughter and I going to my brothers for spring break....we had a blast, base ball, bbq's friends and family


going to my brothers for christmas, snow, friends and family



well a first kiss again with a great man that I chased away by coming on too strong....but many great memories with him in a very short period of time...



reconnecting with Mrs L and realizing we never lost that wonderful friendship and connection



Wonderful conversations of catching up with Mrs. L



A wonderful birthday with my daugher and Mrs. L.




Knowing that the L family is still like my family and Mrs. L saying it is just fine that I call her mom.....

The month from hell or my imgination??

Well March has come and gone and I THINK I survived another one...I have always convinced myself that March is a bad month for me...the bad luck of months. This year wasn't any different, have I brought this onto myself, brought the bad "vibes" in around me during this month to make this all happen. The other day at work my boss called me into her office, I had made a bunch of little stupid mistakes all March long...she said she understood because I had stuff going on (I will touch on that in a minute), but that she needed my mind back into the game....and not wanting to make excuses I gave the "March is my bad month" comment.....well she really didn't buy it when I told things that have happened in the last few years "sounds like life to me"....oh well.

So I was sitting in bed last night, trying to figure out where I got this idea and how far back I have been convinced that March is the month I will be domed in (remember this when I die, and look at this, I bet it will be in the month of March), so how long....I mean really from birth...well that would make a little sense, since I was born in March, but come on now--really.

HOLLY CRAP!!! I know why!!

Well I can go back to around 6th grade or so......see my mom was an alcoholic, and due to her drinking she became very ill (this is a completely different posting......)my mom started with a gallbladder surgery and went from there....cirrhosis of the liver, what 6th grader knows what that is, especially back in the 70's, I mean really. So why just March, why is March the month I hate, I mean it is the month of my birthday it should be a blast.

Well many times my mom would go into the hospital just for a small problem and while she was in there it would get worse, I don't remember a time she went in and wasn't either in ICU of SNF (Skilled Nursing Facility...now I think called extended care), and when did she usually end up there...you got it MARCH!! I can remember her being upset because she couldn't go out and buy me a present and told my dad to let me go to the store and buy a few dresses for Easter and my birthday and I had to bring them in to show her.

Well that isn't that bad, so what your mom wasn't drinking and she was in the hospital....well those stays weren't always that easy, the dr in trying to explain the state of mind she was in sometimes called it an awake coma. Wow this dr could have written a knovel on my mom. Well what the hell is an awake coma, she was awake and talking to you however she wasn't really there. She would be looking at me, calling me Ronnie and screaming that Amy was locked in a closet. I think during those years I was called Ronnie more then Amy sometime.....the other thing was my mom hated jello (even though that was her thing to make), the nurses loved it when I came for my visits, because some how I could convince her she loved it and get her to eat the jello....yeah a real talent, to con my mother into something....

Lets not also forget the year that my aunt, uncle and cousins came to visit and my cousins had their birthday in March also. Went out to dinner on my birthday, she got the waitress to give her daughters special deserts and shoved my dad and I at the end of the table and we got ignored, then got home to the cake she ordered that said "Happy Birthday Laura, Wendy and Amy" and the and Amy almost didn't fit.

So yeah I am adult now...so now why, my mom passed just after high school. So then I meet my ex and hey he remembered my birthday and bought me something, this might be a good thing, so what that he gave it to me in the bag he bought.....

Well it never got any better from there, I don't remember what happened every year but I do know that is has continued...one year losing my anniversary band, SEVERAL years the ex forgetting, other things that I know happened, and the last few years, I have had flat tires, I have had things break, well last year on my birthday I got a flat and it was found I had a whole in my radiator, then at a school function for my daughter I was yelled at by another parent, who just acting more immature then the teenagers there.

Well this year, the one thing that I going on that my boss refered to .....I was sort of seeing this guy (who I have known since about 2nd grade and his entire family) and he really didn't want a relationship and I really didn't realize how much I had fallen for him until he decided we needed to end it, and when the first weekend of March. Now was my birthday horrible NO....because of the break up I was able to reconnect with his mother who I love very much and is like a mother to me, and she took me to lunch and for a facial, it was a wonderful day. But my head was not at work for weeks, and I made many stupid little mistakes, oh well that is all over with and my mind is back, of course it is because it is April!!

A lost soul

A lost soul

My family consisted of 4 kids, my two older brothers who are respectfully 12 and 15 years older, and my sister who is 4 years older then me. My sister Carol was adopted at birth, why because after several years of trying to have a girl my parents gave up....and 4 years later low and behold, I came along....

My sister, such as sad lost soul, we lived in Maryland until I was in second grade when my dad was transferred to this little town in California, called Oxnard. Mom was not happy about this, but this was the best thing for my dads job.

I can remember my sister being just like every other kid for the most part, except she never really smiled - especially in pictures - which became a family joke, don't even try to get her to smile, she never would. We played together once in a while, but she liked to be by herself with her books and did NOT like playing with me and my friends. As we got older things changed, she always had migraines, and she really didn't want to do much of what my parents wanted....and she got away with it. There was a set rule in our house, either you participated in something at school, sports, band, choir, etc....or you had a job....and she was the ONLY one that wasn't forced to follow this rule, because no one ever wanted to upset her. Carol had a few really good friends and loved being involved in the church, I got her several babysitting jobs, yet she was always mad at me because they would call me back instead of her...this is because she was not good with kids and did not know how to sooth them when they are upset. She would spend her days at school then come home do homework and stay in her room, or force me to sit with her and watch hrs of Star Trek. Carol had a wonder talent, she was a GREAT artist, however she did not get good grades in any of her art classes because she refused to do what the teachers asked.

Even after graduating from high school she took a few classes at the local community college, however she did not drive, she had not gotten her license. So she took the bus, but not continue this for long. Here she was just around 20 years old, living at home, not working and not going to school full time.....what was she doing, well she was spending her days at a close friends house, I will call her Mrs L. Now this close friend was like a second mother to me, a wonderful woman who I loved to be at her house and with her family, her son was even my first boyfriend in middle school and we were still friends. But low and behold that would end, why because Carol told me I could not go over there anymore, because that was her place to hang out and her friend and I wasn't welcome there anymore. My daughter often asks me why I didn't fight her over it, well Carol had nothing, truly nothing in her life. By this time I had my license, marching band and lots of families I babysat for on a regular basis. She had NOTHING. So now Carol had the church and this family she had clung onto. Carol by this time had become convinced that she wasn't wanted in our family since I had come along they had the "real" daughter they wanted.

Then she meet a man at church, Ed, they started dating and everything was wonderful. They dated for only a short time before they became engaged. So here was Carol and engaged woman who didn't drive and her 17 year old sister, figured I would be at least in the wedding, well at first I wasn't, the only reason I was in the wedding and made maid of honor was because of the wonderful woman Mrs. L who Carol had clung onto, she made Carol put me in the wedding and make me maid of honor, and this was ONLY after I had spent days and days driving her around everywhere to buy and plan her wedding. My cousin in PA was getting the same week as Carol, and my grandmother that lived in Ohio was given the choice of weddings and she choice to come to Carols. Carol was marring an Oriental man with a HUGE family.

So here she was married and my parents felt like they didn't have to worry about her too much. Well she hung out at Mrs L's all the time, I had no idea what was going on in Carol's life unless she needed a ride some where. At some point Carol decided she needed to get her drivers license and since her husband had a stick she HAD to borrow my car to learn how to drive, I had to work my schedule around hers, I don't remember if she ever did follow through and get the license. Shortly later my mom passed away.

Then Carol stopped returning calls, we started getting calls from some of the people at the church asking what was going on she wouldn't return their calls or answer the door. Well about that time my eldest brother Andrew came to visit, and he went over there to see her, he asked her what she wanted to do, she had thought about being a nurse, well he offered to pay for college for her to go to school and I had just graduated from HS and he offered for me to drive her to and from school. Well she didn't take up his offer and she got worse. So here she is no answering many of our calls and spending time at the church, which I had stopped doing and Mrs. L's house. I was working full time by this point for an eye dr, I remember walking through the waiting room and seeing the new assistant minister, and I knew who she was, so I stopped and said hi "and then said to her so do you hear from my sister Carol much any more" and she had the nerve to say to me that I just did not understand what she had gone through growing up in a house with an Alcoholic parent.....OMG did she not hear me say sister, how stupid is this woman....so I didn't say anything, walked to a back office and called the church. I asked for Jim the head Minister, who I had known for years and very calmly told him what had just happened and told him if she I ever see her again and she EVER says anything like that to me, I won't be calling him I will be calling the head of the Presbytery Council.

By this time my dad had decided to sell our house and he and I moved into a mobile home, since it was now just the two of us. As we were moving I found Carols diary, and I did the one thing my dad told me NOT to, I read it. Yeah that wasn't real smart, everything in there was misconstrued. I was the one that had spend hours taking care of my sick mom while Carol was in her room, and she would write that she was the one taking care of mom and I was in my room. So dad and I moved and my dad got a hold of the journal and threw it away....

A few months later we were told that Carol and her husband were moving out of town, about an hr or so north of us. So shortly after that I remember this day very well, my father was still working and had a business trip, he called to say he was there safely however he had taken longer to get there because the engines had gone out on the plane just after take off and they had to make an emergency landing. Minutes after i hung up the phone with my dad the phone rings again, it is Ed, Carols husband, what does he want. Well he wants to yell at me and say terrible things of course. He tells me that she wants nothing to do with ANYONE in our family any more that that me AMY was the reason she had so many problems that I was mean to her and I caused all her problems, and to tell my dad not to contact them any more, he had Ed's work address and that was only to be used in case of an emergency.

So that was it, no more Carol, I had to tell my dad this when he got home, dad was devastated. Well my dad didn't stick to the rules, he sent my sister cards, birthday, valentines, Christmas and any other ones he could think of. This went on for a long time; during this time I heard a rumor that Carol had been institutionalized for a spell. Then all of a sudden one day my dad gets a call from a nice lady at Ed's work telling him that they had moved and he left no forwarding address. So my dad still didn't give up, he sent the cards to Ed's mothers address, until several years later when they came back returned as no one there by that name, we were sure that his mother had passed away. So now my dad just wonders. Well I know where she is several years ago I googled her name and found an address, wrote a long letter enclosed pictures and what have you and it was returned, written in hand "no one here by that name" well I know that is not true, it was written by her or Ed. They since have moved but they aren't very smart, their new address shows up when I google them.....have I tried again, no way. Why not, her loss.

Recently I have been VERY lucky to reconnect with Mrs L. I love her very much and I am so glad that between reconnecting on line and a weird situation that happened has brought us back together. Mrs. L was very shocked when I told her why I stopped coming around, and she told me many things that I did not know my sister had done or said, and those things made me sad, sad that she said some of these things or acted in this manner. But I am very happy for finding my long lost mom...and my daughter has found a wonder grandmother in Mrs. L....we both lover her very much and her entire family.

Marriage and divorce

When I was about 21 years old a friend of mine fixed me up with this guy, Dave. I liked him, he was nice, we dated, found out he was a liar about certain things, like he had a trust fund, but didn't, things like that. Broke up got back together. Well my dad was now a widower and he was dating this woman who wanted no kids around, I was still living at home, now at this point I am going to school part time and working full time, not sure how that came about, but I think that was at the encouragement of my dad because he was retiring and couldn't pay all my schooling and expenses anymore even though it was community college at this point....career and school choices that is a whole completely different story. Well the woman my dad was dating Melba (my friends and I would call her Melba toast, or Melba Melba because she was so fat you had to say it twice...) she hated me being there....all of a sudden I would find in the morning the news paper open to the want adds with apartments circled in them....well I decided to take the hint and move in with my boyfriend. After about a year he wasn't happy...he missed his mommy....so he moved back home and i was stranded, moved back in with dad for a week while I found a room to rent.

So I found a room to rent and moved in....not the best roommate and just dealt with it the best I could. Was still dating Dave, but was living my life, by this time I was just working full time and not going to school, this is because when I lived with Dave previously he had whined so much about me being gone at night to school I dropped out....yeah not the smartest move.

So I went on vacation to visit my brothers on the east coast, I had a blast, except for the fact that Dave called constantly (this was before cell phones) and he was driving me and my brothers nuts. At one point during the trip I had actually thought about quitting my job and moving there to live, I was so close, I had several of my brothers friends even say they would help me find a job.Well I went back to CA anyway, my dad and Dave picked me up at the airport, got home and Dave decided we needed to go shopping, I was tired but didn't want to fight, well he was shopping for an engagement ring for me...he never really asked, just took me shopping, so I guess I never really had the chance to say no. Why did I go through with it, not that I loved him, its that I was afraid I would be alone for the rest of my life.

See guys never really asked me out much or looked my way much, I can count the number of times on one hand, the middle school boyfriend, the friend who asked me out in hs that he was such a good friend that is all I ever thought of him as, the guy whose mother gave me rides home from school, who was nice, but not my type and I had a crush on someone else, and the guy who I made out with in HS my freshman year that he was just using me, that when I saw him years later and had grown up, lost a few lbs (maybe 12) he wanted to date me all of a sudden. Otherwise, there were guys I liked but they had NO clue or didn't like me at all.....

So I married him, and he had such huge dreams, yeah dreams. For the most part I got along with his family, except his mother never liked me....not because I stole her baby boy....because I was smarter then her, really that is why. So I married him in 1988 and left him in 2003. Yes almost 16 years of him, this man that couldn't keep a job - I think at one point he had a record 5 in one year, he never graduated and couldn't read or write. Yet all the time all I ever heard was he was going to have his own business some day. When we first got married it was he was going to buy some land and build a house, gave up on that one early. I supported us for 95% of the marriage. My life being married well, hated by my mother in law, being told I didn't know what I was doing half the time, taking care of all his ailments, there were many, and being blamed by my mother in law for them (did you know I can cause appendicitis), paying for the medical problems because of the changing of the jobs he did not have ins many times, working two jobs just to keep things going many times, including only 8 months after my daughter was born, and I never thought of the future, I was too busy worring about the present. Did he ever work a second job, well if you ask him he will say yes, ask me, for 30 seconds, he delivered pizza's for 2 weeks and it was too much to handle. He had many problems with depression, he got medicated and had problems with that, he tried to kill himself a few times, and once even told me it was because he was in love with my best friend who had died and he couldn't live without her.

I was done, I was done with the stress, the jobs, covering for him. He was working as a custodian at my daughters school and had flaked out and not shown up for work and this was just a month after he was too sick to come to the school and pass out a fund raiser during the day he was in charge of, so I did it, during my lunch hour in my heals - thank god for the kids that helped - running up and down the halls of the school making sure i was back to work in time....I was DONE! I had just started a new job, also at the school district and I was already embarased by people knowing he had flaked out on showing up to work. So I gave him ONE more chance, his best friend was retiring and I told him I was leaving for the surprise party at 4 and he needed to be home by then, well I went alone, and at 4:30 he called me and asked where I was, he swore I said 4:30 but he also had the invite in his hand that said 4, give me a break, he did it on purpose, he didn't like parties and didn't want to go. That night I moved out of our bedroom and into the spare room.

Within about 2 months I was in my own apartment, a little one bedroom roach place that my daughter and I moved into. He stayed in the house we rented he was convienced he could afford to stay there, that lasted 2 months, and only that long because he was friends with the landlord and did work for him on the side. The divorce well that took a while, when I announced I was leaving him my brothers were great, loaned me money to move out with told me what ever I needed and offered to help pay for a lawyer. Well I went and saw a lawyer, told my brothers how much then told Dave that my brothers were going to pay....he panicked and said he would do what ever I asked if my brothers weren't involved....so I went to self help...300.00 that is great I can save that. Well I had that in my hands at least twice and had to spend it on other things, like tires. The other thing was I wanted to file bankruptcy before the divorce and that took time....and that one he screwed up also. Anyway, 6 years later the BK is finalized and I have the money and I file for the divorce through self help. Great, however I go in and I am told since he shows no income I would have to pay spousal support there is NO WAY IN HELL I tell him, and the lady there was great, she played with the numbers and he agreed to report his income (being paid under the table) and now I don't have to pay spousal support and he doesn't have to pay child support, and I really don't care, I just want it over and done with.

NOW I AM A FREE WOMAN! wow...so what does that get me....here....it is better I don't have to deal with his shit, do I want to find someone yeah, but will I settle NO WAY! Do I care if I grow old alone...a little but not enough to end up with someone like him again!!

Where to begin

Well I have never done anything like this. At the encouragement of a friend I have decided to start a blog, why my life above the septic tank....well some days you just feel like that is where you are living, above the septic tank, also, my mom, as much as we had problems, loved Erma Bombeck. So what a better title to come up with. What will my blog be about, who knows, my life growing up with an alcohoilc mother, the sister who was adopted and had such bad mental problems she disowned the family and moved away. The stupid marriage, that the ONLY good thing out of it was my beautiful daughter, the divorce, trying to figure out my life, where I am going, what I want, and what type of person I think I want in my life....yeah that might be some of it. Read it, don't read it, enjoy it, think I am crazy also....hey its my life, you can take it or leave it but this is the way it is, not real exciting, but hey it keeps me going.....

Oh and as far as my writing, I do not claim to be a writer, or even very good at it, and I will try to correct my terrible spelling as best as possible.....hey I take care of numbers all day, I do not claim to know how to write....