Au Revoir! Adios!

I'm off for the weekend. I'll see you all soon!! Mwah!

My Mother

I'll start this post by saying that I love my mother more than anything. She is an incredible, wonderful woman and has been through hell and is still funny.

My father left my mother when I was just about a year old. He left her for the woman he was having an affair with. Did I mention that my father physically and verbally abused her? Both he and my mom remarried. He cheated on his second wife many times and they finally got divorced 20 years later when she was cheating on him. My mom remarried my step father who raised me and my brother like we were his own. He provided for us and loved us and never treated us like we were "stepchildren" and we called him dad. He and my mom divorced 13 years later when he left her for the woman that he was cheating on her with.

So my mom has had two men leave her for other women, talk about destroying someone's self esteem. I think that my mom lost a little bit of her sanity with these two events, who would blame her right? She also became very weird.

Now my mom has a boyfriend that she's had for 12 years. He lives with her. I'm not even going to start in on him. He stays with her even though she constantly yells at him. We refer to him as her bitch. Trust me, that's not far off. He does all of the cooking, cleaning, running of the errands and she works. I'm not sure if he works on not, no one in my family speaks to him.

so, my mom calls me tonight, I answer the phone just in time to hear her screaming at her boyfriend, something about the volume and then some obscenities thrown in there. I chuckled a little bit. So I wait, she finally comes on the line and yells helloooooooooooooooo into the phone. I say, I'm right here, you can stop yelling in my ear now. So she starts screaming at him again, something about the mute button this time. So now I say, please stop screaming in my ear. She utters some obscenities about him and continues to talk all pissed off. I ask her what her problem is and she yells that she has decided she has no life. I just laugh and tell her to relax and once again to stop yelling in my ear.

My mother is quirky. She's very shy and when she finally gets up the courage to say something or ask a question, it comes out sounding like she's very angry and actually yelling at you. Now if you didn't know her you would think that she's always pissed off, as she always has a frown on her face, but she's not. She's actually very easy going, very friendly and very kind. She is always trying to do things for me to help me out. She's very sweet and loving and truly wonderful. She just drives me crazy most of the time. I can't wait to be stuck with her in the car for 12 hours this weekend.

It's My Party & I'll Cry If I Want To

I don't actually feel like crying yet. Two of my friends sent me ecards both of which made me laugh and another friend sent me an email that really made me laugh. All in all the day is not off to a bad start.

Unfortunately, it's like any other Sunday. I'm going to do my ironing and grocery shopping. I will be going out to lunch with my family, so that will be fun. My niece has been telling everyone since Friday that today is my birthday.

I do have to say I'm a little down this weekend. It's not because of my birthday, it's because of the asshole. See, we had made all of these great plans for this weekend, it was going to be a very fun birthday weekend, which I've never had. I've never had a really fun birthday. And I was really looking forward to it. And now, I'm alone. Again. Who wouldn't be upset? Yes, I'm glad that I found out that he was an asshole sooner rather than later, but I'm still down.

At least I'll get to see my niece and nephew this weekend and they always make me happy and make me smile.

Alright, well Happy Birthday to me!!! Hope you all have a great day.

Why Do I Torment Myself?

Today, AMC is having a tear jerker marathon and I have decided to watch it. Why do I torment myself? I also decided that today was a good day to watch the videos of Zeke that were on my cellphone as I was emailing them to myself so that I would always have them.

Unfortunately, I also came across videos of the ex-asshole on my cellphone that I had forgotten were there. That was enough to make me cry. I also re-read and then deleted all of his past text messages. I know I know. Re-read the title of the post. Of course before I deleted them I sat there wondering where it all went wrong and why things ended the way that they did.

I'm trying not to torment myself. I deleted pictures, videos and texts of and from him so that I wouldn't be tempted to look at them and then relive this lovely scenario again. I did keep the videos of the dog.

I'm hoping to get this all out of my system before my birthday, because even though it's my party and I'll cry if I want to, I don't want to!!!

What sort of things do you do to torment yourselves?

Happy Birthday To Me

My birthday is a week from Sunday (April 23rd for those of you calendarly challenged) and I'm trying to think of fun things to do so that I can enjoy this birthday. I will be (gulp) 31.

There is a new Cold Stone Creamery opening near me and I think that it might be fun for my family and I to go there and get some goodies for my birthday.

My happiest birthday memories were the ones that I spent with my family when my Grandmother was alive. She used to make sure that my birthdays were always fun and tht we always did something special. I remember one year as a little girl, my mother spent all day making me a Minnie Mouse Birthday cake. The thing was unreal. This is what it looked like. Impressive huh?

Anyway, I think that my 30th birthday was pretty special as well. My Aunt took me for a day of beauty for my 30th birthday. I spent a week with her and one day we went to the spa and had facials, massages and I had a manicure. Then the next day we went and I had a pedicure. We spent the rest of the week hanging out and shopping.

Usually, I take the week of my birthday off and spend the week relaxing, playing with my niece, seeing my family and just hanging out. This year, I can't take the week off because I'm in training for my new job. It's a bummer, but I'll survive.

Now, I would like to hear about your favorite birthday memory. I would like to hear your funniest, most outrageous, or best birthday ever stories!

You're not even going to believe this one

So, I'm sitting at work today and Mr. Asshole (the asshole formerly known as Mr. Wonderful) decides that he is going to pick the middle of my work day to break the truth to me. He sends me an email informing me that this woman that he has known for 6 years and has only met twice is moving here and they're going to be moving in together.

He also informs me that he never loved me, but he did like me alot and he's sorry that he hurt me and that he would still like to be friends. I asked why he was telling me this now and he says because he wanted to be honest with me and I said, why start now. I also pointed out all the things he lied to me about and basically just ripped into him.

Since he knows he was caught in the lies, he said that he really didn't want it to end this way, but there was nothing else he could say so he said good-bye and he wished me well. I told him good luck and that I was shocked that he was moving in with someone he's met twice, someone that has lied to him and then I said, I guess it's a match made in heaven because you've probably been lying to her along as well.

So that's that. I told one of the guys that I used to work with and he said they should make a movie about this love story. That gave me a good chuckle.

Let's see, what else can we pile on? I only cried a little bit, but it was mostly because I'm upset over being lied to. Oh well, let's move on shall we??

It's Final

I received an email from the shelter where I adopted Zeke expressing condolences on his passing. Also, to let me know that they posted the tribute that I wrote for him.

I went to the website to view his tribute and of course I got hysterical crying. I mean, I know he's gone, but seeing it on the website made it seem so final. Seeing my tribute to him made me realize all over again that he's gone.

I miss him so much. I was talking it over with my mom and I was saying, wow, it really is like losing a family member in how much is hurts. She's like not really. I guess unless you have lost a pet that you love very much, you have no idea how much it hurts. It's been about a month and a half and it still hurts.

Anyway, I will make my next post a happy one. Maybe I'll share the fun stuff from my niece's 4th Birthday party.

Me-Raw and Uncut

For a long time I have considered myself to be a very private person. There is no one person that knows everything there is to know about me. My family knows nothing about me. I keep everything to myself. What I realized today is that I'm not so much a very private person as I am ashamed of my life. I hold a lot of things inside which leads to things like me just randomly crying or getting angry and lashing out at those that I love.

I realized today that I do not like myself and I want that to change. I think that the first step in the healing process is to let it all out. Now, I'm no expert and I don't know if this will help, but I'm willing to give it a shot. So, fasten your sealtbelts, because here it is, raw and uncut. You may think less of me after reading this, you may think more and to be honest, I don't care at this point, I need to let it out. Unfortunately, I may have to break this out into several posts.

I'm 30 years old (31 this month), I have an abusive father, I spent 4 years in a verbally abusive relationship, I've had 3 boyfriends cheat on me, I've been raped, I was beaten physically by an ex-boyfriend, I had an eating disorder that got me almost kicked out of college and last but not least I've had two abortions. So, let's take these one at a time and journey into my psyche, shall we?

Let's discuss my father. We don't have the best relationship. He physically abused my mother. He psychologically abused me and my brother, although my brother did suffer some physical abuse and spent a lot of time hating me because my father favored me. That was fun. My father would do things like get angry and throw our take out pizza on the floor and make me and my brother eat it off of the floor of the garage. One other time, we went to my father's sister's house for dinner and there weren't enough chairs so my father made me stand and watch everyone eat and then when everyone was done I was allowed to sit down and eat. I tried to get out of seeing my father on Sundays (which, thankfully, ws the only day we spent with him for the first 5 years of my life and then it went to one weekend a year, which is the way it is now. I do speak to him, maybe once every two weeks.

Moving on to high school. I hung out with a wild crowd. We did lots of fun and extremely stupid things. One night my friends called and told me to come over. I went over to a friend's house where everyone was hanging out. One of my best guy was there and was all over me. I decided to go home and he came with me, he told me he didn't want to be at the party anymore. So he came home with me, we were after all best friends and hung out all the time. He wanted to have sex and I didn't. Next thing I know he beat me up and as in the process of raping me when my family dog, who had flat teeth and didn't know how to bite, jumped on him and bit him when she heard me screaming. When it was over he freaked out over all the blood. I locked myself in the bathroom and slept there and told him through the door he had better not be here in the morning. I never told anyone. I've carried that secret since I was 17 years old.

Moving on, I went off to college and was dating the greatest guy ever, except he was a year behind me and stayed home while I went off to NY. Three months later, we broke up when I came home on a break. Also, on the same weekend, my brother went missing and attempted to kill himself. The police found him passed out in a bath tub in a hotel the day I left to go back to school. My mom asked my friends to keep an eye on me when we went back to school as she was worried. I got back to school and stopped eating. If I did eat, it was a 5 crackers, 3 carrot sticks and if I ate more than that, I made sure to throw it up. A month and a half later I was down 35lbs and none of my clothes fit and that's when I met Chris and Shawn at a dance club. They both liked me and I made out with both of them. I got their numbers and I started dating Chris. I still wasn't eating. Chris was bad news. He was into all kinds of things. He used to make me drive his car, but I wasn't allowed to move the seats-he was 6'4" and I was 5"3". He made me drive because he was hiding various things in the trunk and he figured cops wouldn't bother me. We went somewhere and I forgot to lock the car doors, however, I had given him the keys and asked him to do it. When we got back he found the car doors unlocked. He kicked the living shit out of me right there in the parking lot. The week before he shoved me and slammed my head into the wall. I had more self-esteem than that and he was history. However, I was very ill at this point in time and the school hospital told me point blank that if I didn't start eating, I was going to be kicked out of school. I said make me, she called the dean and we had a very serious conversation that included my parents via conference call. My parents were told to come get me I was being kicked out for health reasons. I promised to eat. At the end of that semester, I transferred back to a local school.

Now here we are after college, I'm 22 and I have my first real full time job and a somewhat decent boyfriend. In early November, my grandmother went into the hospital for open heart surgery. I called her, spoke to her for a half hour on my lunch break. I didn't know, but it would be the last time I ever spoke to her. We were unbelievably close and I still miss her so much. Anyway, it's Christmas time and since my mom was in NY visiting my grandmother in the hospital, I was with my boyfriend as his family had invited me for Christmas. I sat up in bed crying because I had this bad feeling that my grandmother was dying, my charming boyfriend sits up and says, can you keep it down, I have to work in the morning. Yep, Mr. Sensitivity. My grandmother died 4 days later. That relationship was over. I attend a training class and that's where I met Steve, it ws February. Mr. Sensitivity and I broke up in April. Steve and I started dating in June.

I should make Steve a separate post, but since I don't post that often, you can read the whole thing. Enter Steve, he was 10 years older than me, divorced with two kids. He was incredibly good-looking with an unbelievable body and he liked me. What woman wouldn't be thrilled? Well, I never saw any of the warning signs until it was far too late. The first 3 months were pure bliss. We stayed up all night talking, we laughed, we went places together. He was smart and funny, charming and he loved being with me and the sex, well it was unbelievable. So, one night we're watching a movie and his true personality starts to come through. He doesn't like the movie so he starts yelling at me. Picture me sitting on the couch dazed and confused as to what the hell is going on. I start crying and apologizing (for what I don't know as I didn't do anything) and he forgives me and we have incredible sex. Another month of pure bliss goes by before he has another explosion and so it goes until the explosions become more and more frequent. It's the same thing over and over again. He screams at me and calls me names and I cry and then he softens, until one day he told me to stop crying or he would beat the shit out of me. I stopped crying and until recently, never shed a tear in front of another human being again. This is how it went for 4 years. He would yell and scream and throw things and punch the walls and windows and call me names and threaten me and I would apologize and try not to do whatever I had done again. But it didn't matter, it always happened again. I used to get up before him and sneak out of the house so he couldn't lash out at me before work. He always made me late for work and he spent every dime I had. After 2.5 years of this, I accidentally get pregnant. I had to tell him, I also told him that I wanted to keep it more than anything. He didn't say much. Then, we're laying around watching TV and he gets up and starts calling me names like bitch, whore, slut and then accuses me of cheating on him and the baby not being his and that he won't have me making a fool of him and his family. Then he tells me that if I don't have an abortion he will tie me down and take a coat hanger to me himself. I had to tell my mom about the pregnancy, thinking she would be supportive. She told me if I didn't get rid of it I would have to leave her house. I was poor, I had no options. This was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I go through it and break things off with Steve completely. He calls endlessly and begs me to take him back. After two weeks and his informing me that he is now in counseling to help, I take him back. We go to Paris for a vacation. What should have been an awesome and exciting experience was a horrible trip. When we came back, my mom had listened to my answering machine messages with Steve threatening me calling me names and my mom lost it. She called me at work and asked me to dinner. We went out to dinner and she begs me to break things off telling me that she's afraid that I'm going to end up as a LifeTime Movie. I again break things off. This lasts another two weeks. We get back together. We have another accidental pregnancy. This time he wants to keep it and I don't. I didn't tell anyone but him and I switch my work schedule and go with a friend to have my second abortion. After this is when I started suffering my anxiety attacks. Steve asks me to marry him and I accept (don't ask, I don't know what I was thinking). I bought a house, he moves in and one day he's screaming at me through the bathroom door and accusing me of having sex with my dog. He took my car keys so I couldn't leave and when I came out of the shower he grabbed my by my throat and lifted me off the floor then dropped me. Then he left. I couldn't find my keys, so I walked down to the courthouse and got a restraining order. I think that this is when something clicked in my head. In order to grant a restraining order, they needed me to write down what sort of things were happening. So, I wrote some stuff down and handed the paper to the clerk and I take a seat. The clerk starts looking it over and I see her gasp and put her hand over her mouth and I'm thinking, what's the big deal. Then she looks at me and she's got tears in her eyes and she can't even speak. She hands the paper to another clerk who calls the judge at a conference and he grants a temporary restraining order and I'm finally free.

It's at this point in my story where I will tell you about the significance of Zeke. I kicked Steve out and I was now living in my own house, by myself for the first time in my life and I was unable to sleep. I was up all night every night because I was terrified. So I went and adopted Zeke and from his very first night up until the night before the day he died, I slept like a rock every night. He made me feel safe and independant which was something I hadn't felt in 4 years. I was a shell of a person and when I added Zeke to my life I started to feel alive again. He was there to love me and protect me, two things I hadn't felt in a very long time, I think that people who have suffered in an abusive relationship can understand what I mean by that. He was more than just my dog and this is why his loss has been so unbearable to me. He was always there to comfort me and now that my boyfriend dumped me and I'm in a new place he's not here for the first time in 4 years and I really feel the loss.

Now, I have skipped over some of the more graphic details of what I went through with Steve, but I think that I've given enough to give you an idea of what I have been through without losing my mind. I'm proud to say that the only tears I shed in writing this were over Zeke and I really think that's the way it should be. So let's see if this makes me feel better.