About Me.

I imagine I can’t write about myself without sharing a hint about me. I do plan to stay anonymous to give myself the freedom not to hold back. Also, because some of my story ties into others who deserve consent to share their name with their stories. I also do still care if what I share hurts people. Even if they have hurt me. I’ll be straight though, none of what happened to me is severe. Others have it way worse. Even others intertwined with my story.

I was born in 1992. (Ancient, I know). My parents are normal. Still married actually. Sometimes I do wonder if its stuck or love. Who knows. My sisters are 10 and 12 years older than me. I was an ooppss surprise. Valentines was special in 92 (haha). We moved twice in my childhood life. Once from FL to PA. And then back to FL when I was 8. My parents still live in that same house they bought in 2001. (the equity mannn) My dad was in the navy and retired due to a back injury. Then he went on to do over the road truck driving. Sometimes I wonder if it was to avoid being at home. This left my mom to handle the household alone. Which honestly, being a mom now, I imagine she had her hands full. She also took care of my great grandmother for several years of my childhood. After my great grandmother passed, we moved back to Florida. (As my mom says, back the hell where we belong…she is sooooo close with her family isn’t it obvious).

My oldest sister and I aren’t close, but enjoy catching up every now and then. We are kind of on different wavelengths with her being 12 years older. Her youngest is going to college and my daughter is headed to VPK this year. But we get along and its always been fairly easy. Even if most of her childhood she was made to babysit me. I remember being taken to her best friends’ houses and always playing (usually with their mom) while my sister and her friends did whatever teenagers do. I remember picking cds in the passenger seat of her green Sunfire. The hardest part of our relationship was she was always gone. Her life pushed her onto other things. High school. Cheerleading. Boyfriends. Babies. Moving out. Jobs.

My other sister…well. Let’s say it was like walking on eggshells to be around her. Everyone tensed up when she was around. Still does. It’s incredibly uncomfortable to be around her. Everything is out to get her. She hates everyone. She is nice until she is jealous or feels unsafe. She is bi-polar and possibly has always self-medicated with some form of substance. Seems her longest standing substance is alcohol. She would deny it. We can smell it. We can hear it. We can see it. My mom hates the slutty way she still dresses. I appreciate it because I can see if there are injury marks. Self-harm has always been a thing with her. Several attempts too from what I was told (I personally don’t remember). She was in rehab and baker acted a few times. I remember visiting her in rehab as a kid. I remember her always at 100% angry. Always lashing out. Always cussing out my mom. I do still vividly remember her holding a knife to my mom’s throat and trying to push her out the multiple story window of a friend’s apartment kitchen window. If I hadn’t walked in at that exact moment, I’m not sure my mom would still be here.

Most of my childhood, I spent trying to be the peacemaker or invisible. If she didn’t see me, I couldn’t be on the end of her anger or bullying. As I got older, I got braver and started throwing it back at her. I figured out really quick what cuts the deepest with her and I would definitely use that to my advantage. To the point she wouldn’t start anything with me because she knew I would cut deep with words alone. But eventually I realized it wasn’t helping, and I didn’t like being that person even if it was a protection of sorts. Putting her down actually didn’t solve anything because I did realize the problem is internal for her and nothing, I say good or bad is going to help that until she does some inner work. And frankly that isn’t my business. I apparently have enough of my own inner work to do. (Some of it, thanks to her.)

I think in switching my strategy, I earned some sort of respect with her. But my entire being is in fight or flight around her even if I play it cool. So, I stopped being around her. I didn’t want to cause a rift in the overall family dynamic, but I also don’t want my daughter to see that side of me. I want to give my own daughter softness. I want everything good in this word for her, even if she presses every last button…

It has been about a year since I last spoke to my sister and I find it weird to still think about her. Not that I want to contact her, but that I wish she would get her stuff together and turn her life around. Treat her kids kindly and love them like a real mom. Being a mom, I just don’t understand how you could ever want to stop in on a holiday and then be gone the rest of the year. Wonder where your presents are, but forget to buy theirs. The level of selfishness, I just don’t understand. But we are obviously different. So incredibly different. And I don’t really attempt to understand it anymore. I’m okay with different. I’m also okay with distance.

I’m also okay with starting to think about my childhood and how different it was from the normal American household. I thought because I was never sexually or physically abused, that I had it great. Others had, and have it way worse. But I realize now, I was forced to grow up very fast, seeing what I saw in my house. I was also forced to fend for myself. Protect myself. Protect others. Take care of others. Live in a lot of fear, of my sister and her friends, and then even her kids at times.

This blog will unveil my life, piece by piece and I have no idea the order. I’ll share as things hit me and need to be released. Because I’m releasing it. It’s out into the universe and no longer being stored in me. My cells can heal. I can be soft. I can relax. I am safe.