Something Deep Down

Do you ever sit there and ask yourself why am I who I am? Why was I placed in this skin that I hate so much? I cant stand myself sometimes. I want to switch places with someone else. Why wasn't I born with glowing skin and zero fat? Why don't I have a shining personality? Why do I feel like an outcast everywhere I go?

I try to shake the feeling for a moment, I try to talk myself out of this mind set. I am only brought back to the reality of the cards I was dealt. A broken family, growing up broke, the friends I thought were forever stayed for only a chapter or two. My mom resents me because I look like my father and have his no bullshit personality. My father resents me because I remind him of her too. I have never been truly loved by a man. The man I have spent 10 years with and also share a child with is 21 years older than me. He doesn't respect me as the mother of his child because he thinks I am still a child. In his eyes, I am and will always be.

We met when I was just 19 years old. He was 39. He lied at first and said 38. He got caught in the lie when my moms friend asked him how old he was and he slipped up and said 39. I was not a bright individual back then and never questioned his motives or why he would be interested in such a young girl. The year I met him, my father finally cut my mom off financially. My mom arranged to move to California and stay with my uncle and his family. It was such a long time ago. I think she initially planned for me to come with her, but i don't remember her pressing the issue like she did when we moved 2 hours north. Since John seemed to have his shit together, she thought she could trust him to take care of me. She wanted to be free from responsibilities. Can I blame her? Maybe and maybe not.

My parents relationship was complicated. A lot of my insecurities may have come from witnessing everything they went through. When my mom was 22 she became pregnant with my oldest sister. At the time she was with a man named Miguel. Miguel and my mom were not in a serious relationship when she found out she was pregnant. My mom and Miguel got married. During her pregnancy she experienced mental abuse and neglect. After she had my sister, 6 weeks later she took Monica and disappeared. Monica finally met her father 22 years later.

Maybe it was a month after she moved back to New Mexico that she met my father at a restaurant they both worked at. She fell in love. Not him. Not long after they met she became pregnant with me. My sister and I are 14 months apart to put the time line in perspective.

During my first year, I can see it was a dark time for my mom. Maybe postpartum depression? I don't have one picture of myself as a baby. She regrets not taking more pictures. I spent a long time resenting her for not taking pictures of me. Its a heartbreaking feeling. To feel like your own mom did not treasure you or adore you as an infant. I let it define me as a person, but we will come back to that later.

When I was 2 my mom got pregnant again with my little sister. My mom experienced physical abuse at the hands of my father, while she was pregnant. He broke her finger. At the emergency room they took X-rays and never covered her pregnant belly. My little sister was born preterm and weighed 4 pounds. During my little sisters infancy, they didn't experience any major health issues with her. After she turned 3 she experienced her first seizure. From that day on she had multiple seizures everyday. Neurologist diagnosed her with epilepsy. Not the average kind. Small seizures, 40 or more every day. to this day she still has seizures. Her constant seizures keep her from building her vocabulary. Over the course of the next 16 years, my mom was driven crazy. My father was there part-time. Traveling for business all the time and when he was home he drank a lot and treated my mom like crap.

The year I turned 16 my dad found his high school sweetheart and rekindled their flame. My dad asked my mom for a divorce a few months later. She lost her mind. 16 years and three children later. The house they bought went into foreclosure. She had three teens one with special needs and no career or anything to support herself and us kids. She had help from my dad until my little sister turned 18 years old. The year Britt turned 18 my dad moved her in with him and that's when the opportunity to move to California came up. I think that when she saw her opportunity to finally be kid free for a while she took her chance. The fact that I had a boyfriend and a place to stay made it easier for her to leave without me.

I hold resentment for her leaving me. I wonder how different my life would have been if had I moved to California with her. Would my life have been better? worse? But how could I blame her? I could have went with her. She just didn't press me to go. She didn't make it seem like I had no other options, like she did when we moved last time.

I am a people pleaser. So, at the first sign of affection from John, I felt like I needed to try and be what he wanted in a woman. Even if that woman is not who I really am and will never be. I feel like my resentment is out of anger for how my life turned out with John and not so much for her leaving me behind with him.

The day that changed my life forever was the day I met John. Sometimes I wish I could go back and see him for who he really is. I wish I could see who I would be if I never met him. Would I be in a bad position? Worse than I am in now? Does what I have materialistically trump what I could have had emotionally?

My mom was going out all the time and meeting guys. Some she would bring home or invite over. She met this one guy named Rick at a sports bar one night and they seemingly hit it off. She invited him over for drinks with her friends and told him to bring some friends if he wanted to. That was the night I met John. I should have know from that first day, he would be toxic to me. Rick warned me that he wasn't a friend I would want. I did not understand at the time but after 10 years 3 of them with a kid. I see exactly what he meant. I was so naive back then. I was 19.

To be continued...