Perceptions

Earlier today I read Lilija's" Perceptions and its something I've been thinking about myself a lot recently. Warning, this will be a long uninteresting blog.

My happiness yardstick has really been shaped by my childhood. Everybody always says how hard it was growing up. We've all got different experiences and mine was no different.
We didnt have a broken home, that would imply there was a home to start with. My mom was 17 when I was born, she didnt finish high school although she later got her GED. When my grandmother found out my mother was pregnant with me (my mom never told her because she was scared that my grandmother would make her get an abortion, she just sort of noticed one day how big my mom's belly was) my grandmother packed up my uncle and left. She left the house to my mother to deal with and that kind of set the tone on what kind of help my mother was going to get from the family.

My biological father had no real interest in me although thankfully his parents did. At one point my father had custody of me, and my mother had supervised visitation. I still remember this red room she would visit me in. I was miserable with him. I had the wicked step mother. I dont remember him at all, but I remember her. There are three instances that I still remember, and I was only 3 years old.

The first one was an early Saturday morning, we were watching Looney Toons and I laughed too loud so my stepmother put pepper in my mouth. Another instance, I was outside playing with the neighborhood kids and being a very young girl, I wasnt wiping myself properly after using the restroom. She, having done the laundry, decided to call me in the house waving my panties in the air and saying something to the affect of "come look at these nasty panties." With, you know, the whole neighborhood watching. And the last one shaped me to this day. The wicked stepmother had two daughters, named Amy and Nicole. Amy was a lot older, she must have been close to a teenager so she had nice jewelry and a jewelry box. One morning I woke up and watched Nicole get into Amy's jewelry box. Long story short, I got punished for breaking Amy's necklace. To this day, I get really really really angry when people accuse me of things I didnt do.

I dont blame this woman. Here she was, saddled with some woman's kid. Another mouth to feed, ass to wash, another little person to take care of that was a constant reminder of a past relationship that my father had had. She wasnt overtly mean, but she did take joy in punishing me. Its sad and funny that I dont remember my father at all during that time. I dont remember what he looked like at all. I remember more of his wife and stepchildren than I do him.

Eventually my mother kidnapped me, stole me back and went to court to win custody. When my father was ordered to pay my mother child support, he said, "that's not my kid." That's okay. I think I turned out well just to spite him, hehe. I was fortunate enough to know his parents who were wonderful to me beyond words. They were actual grandparents to me. They took me on vacations with them and bought me Strawberry Shortcake cereal. I will carry their memory with me always.

My childhood after that was pretty nomadic. I went to 17 different schools, one year it was 4 different schools in 3 different states. I learned Physical Science two years in a row, and never learned Earth Science unless you count 6 weeks when I was cramming for the end of year exam. When people find out how much we moved around, they always assume my mom was in the military. No, dear reader, that would have been logical and my mother is anything but logical. I would always respond that my mother was neurotic. I'd come home, the house would be packed in two small bags and it would be time to go.

Most often we would leave because mom couldnt pay the rent. This was before the days where a deposit, and first and last month's rent were expected. Those were the good old days. We were pretty broke most of the time. I remember catching catfish out of the bay for meat, eating spaghetti five days out of the week. School clothes shopping was done in thrift stores. Hell, most shopping was done in thrift stores. If there is a bargain to be had, my mother can find it. Every year my mom took her tax return and bought a new beater that had to last us another year.


My mom had a job with a construction company making great money for us at the time. She bought our first "nice" car which was an older Oldsmobile that was in good physical condition. She promptly killed it just in time for her next tax return. Unfortunately, she was hired to fill the quota for female workers and got fed up with the way she was treated and some of the harassment she got. She left the job after a little over a year.

In my lifetime, my mom has dated a lot of men. Some for short periods of time, some for longer. Some lived with us. The first one I got attached too was Bill Green. He was around during my mom's struggle to regain custody of me. I loved him a lot, and think of him to this day. He was really awesome to me, taking me to the zoo and out to eat and stuff. He sent me birthday and holiday cards for years and years after he and my mother broke up. Good man.

After Bill Green my mom dated a few guys. I really started digging this one named Leo. He used to sing Golden Smog's Shooting Star to me and take me on some of his jobs. He was a handyman or painter I think and he used to work on these really swanky houses. They had like, playgrounds in the backyard. I was in heaven. One of his friends taught me how to swim. We were standing next to a pool and she asked me if I could swim. I said no, so she picked me up and threw me in the deep end. Leo didnt stick around long. I dont know who broke it off, never asked I guess.

Mike was the next one I got attached too, and he is my daddy. He was younger than my mom by a couple years, and a hellraiser. I guess after Bill Green the preppy, and Leo the blue collar good old boy, mom was ready for change. Mike was wild. I mean, wild. Tattoos, long Vince Neil hair, a band and a drinking and drug problem to go with it. I dont know what she saw in him but they eventually married. We moved around after the wedding, out of Philly and up to Maryland. I remember one night, before we left Philly Mike got drunk and was raising hell. The neighbor lady downstairs came up and tried to take me downstairs with her out of the noise and he punched her in the nose. Good times. I had the biggest crush on the guitar player too. I was all of 7 and totally mooning over him. Hehe. My mom tried getting him to settle down when they moved to Maryland, to BFE and get him help for his drinking and drug issues. It didnt work and they eventually separated. They got back together one more time after he got clean before finally calling it quits for good. He's still my dad to this day, but he's dying of emphysema. Here's a tip kids, dont smoke!

My mom left me with my dad for awhile after they split. That sucked. She was gone for 6 months. She called and stuff but I was starting my period and all of that hormonal shit and my dad was dating this woman with a spoiled rotten daughter. I mean spoiled rotten. I resented her even though she really tried to be nice to me. I never said anything openly cruel to her but I definitely didnt give off the friendly vibes. My mom sent for me down in Louisiana and away I went. She was with another guy. He was cool I guess, he tried to be nice to me. He was a trucker and it was summer so I went on a few of his jobs with him. Got to see Texas, New Mexico and a couple other states. That didnt work out so my mom sent me back to my dad. This time I was with him for a year, and he was still with that woman and her princess daughter.

The next time my mom sent for me she was in Florida. My grandmother drove me down there and made my mother pay her for every single thing I'd eaten and half the gas. Thanks granny. Ooops I'm sorry. Thanks Gerry. Things were good for awhile. We were getting ourselves settled in down there so we moved a couple times. Then my mom met my sister's father and my sister was born. I got pretty close to Wayne, and have considered asking him to walk me down the aisle a few times. I've never doubted his love for me or my sister even if I dont agree with a lot of things he does or doesnt do. There was a post on ACF about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen and I would have to say it was the look in his eyes when he came home from the hospital the day my sister was born to get me from school. I have never seen such pure joy in anyone ever again. It was indescribable and intangible but there in his eyes. He was elated and it was beautiful.

So my sister was born. We moved around a little but settled into one area and I finished high school in the same school from 10th to graduation of which I'm really grateful for. I'm pretty grateful for the childhood I got. There were definitely downsides but I was never abused or neglected and I always had a roof over my head and food in my stomach. So dont take this big long blog and one big whine fest. I'm not angry at my child hood or anything stupid. "I wont be happy until my mom was nice to me when I was 5." None of that here.

Anyway, where I was going with all of that backstory, is that my happiness yardstick is based on the stability of my situation. Its not about the newest Nikes, its about being able to afford the light bill. In an odd twist of events, I was totally turning into my mother and making my own life unstable through my actions and decisions when I met Steve. Its so weird how unhappy I was making myself. I was miserable repeating the same behavior as her. The waitressing, the people I met in that lifestyle. Always telling myself I was somehow above the situation I was in. What joke. I was just another lifer.

I always used to make jokes about the Christians and the middle class. Like they didnt deserve that they had or something to make myself feel better about being dirt broke. In hindsight I was envious. Now, I am the one my friends and I used to laugh at. I am more conservative in my ideas and opinions. I dont spend my money stupidly like I did before, grabbing every $.99 thing I come across because it was affordable. Somehow because I have more in my pocket I spend a lot less. Weird.

I digress. The measure of my happiness is really how stable I am. How secure I feel. I am confident in my own abilities to work through my problems instead of running from them or avoiding them and letting them snowball into something much worse. I am more stable, and my decisions reflect that. As far as feeling secure, I know that no matter what happens, Steve will always work towards a better future for us. It has nothing to do with money, just the knowledge that I am not alone. That I have a partner working through the same problems and being able to trust him completely with everything I have or ever will be. Its amazing the amount of joy that comes from those two simple things.