All it takes is one.

Imagine you are a sixteen year old teenager.  Lets make you female... You are attractive, street smart, book smart (but you have to work hard at it), and the child of a single mother.  Your upbringing was quiet, no drama.  Although your dad uninvolved, your mother always made it work to put a roof over your head, food on the table, and was consistent with her expectations.

Now imagine you met a boy, a really nice boy.  He works hard, brings home a steady paycheck, is skilled with fixing cars, and is a volunteer village fireman.  He is very sweet, likes you very much, and after you decide to enter into the boyfriend/girlfriend stages, he is all you think about.  Buying him the perfect birthday and Christmas gifts was a thing.  You spent hours upon hours at his house, get to know his family pretty well.  His siblings become your siblings, his friends become yours.  If this is how it is, and nothing changes, then you feel lucky enough to know that you might have found the person you might end up being with for life.

Several months into the relationship, there are some stumbling points.  He doesn't acknowledge your birthday, he starts to act jealous if he perceives any boys as 'checking you out', he demands to know the passwords to your social media as a requirement for trust.  You comply, why not? you have nothing to hide.  He starts talking about his ex-girlfriend, telling you stories about her, even describing events where she has spoken about you.  He wonders aloud if maybe she should be taught a lesson.  These hints start becoming more direct, some laced with the idea that you would be proving trust and devotion by teaching her a lesson.  It is not how you were raised and you are uncomfortable with his requests and choose to not comply.

The scale that balances happy times with stressful times begins to collect moments, stressful times is the heavier side.  You start to withdraw from the relationship.  Your mom is noticing what is going on and questioning you about it.  You decide that maybe you should step back, take a break, get things back on track in your life.  He doesn't agree.  He contacts your mother to speak with her about convincing you to stay with him, no luck.  This is where it starts to get complicated.  There is a point where the nice route doesn't get you what you want.  Your mother is not receptive to helping him convince you to stay in the relationship, after all, you are now seventeen, this is normal.  You are slightly horrified that he contacted your mother and decide to make a clean break.  He begins to panic, he starts tracking your location using social media, showing up wherever you are and acting as if you are still together (to which presents the situation that you feel that you have to reiterate that you are no longer in a relationship) and each time this happens, his reaction is more severe than the last time.

He begins messaging your friends.  He tells them that you talk about them behind their back.  He gives specific fabricated examples.  He describes text messages that he cannot provide screenshots, or any other physical proof of, but the seed of doubt has been planted and some friends decide to distance themselves from you.  He begins to call you and threaten to commit suicide.  You alert his mother (who tells him to go for it? you decide to give her the benefit of the doubt and chaulk this up to reverse psychology).  At one point his suicidal threats are so bad that you tell him you will stay with him out of fear of being responsible for his happiness, thus responsible if he chooses to hurt himself.  Two days into the renewed relationship, he starts demanding social media passwords, you end it for the second time.  He contacts you and tells you that he is going to crash his truck because life is meaningless without you, hours later he gets into an accident and blames it on icy roads to anyone who asks what happened.  This did not persuade you to go back to him.

At this point, he has started writing things on a social media platform (Facebook/Snapchat/Instagram, all of them).  Sad quotes about not being wanted, about girls who are not faithful, about broken future plans.  Although you have blocked him from seeing any of your social media, people start sending you pictures.  There are comments upon comments under his quotes, people that don't know you calling you a cunt, comments saying that you are a cheater (this one was written by his grandmother), it is completely out of hand and out of control.  You are now stressed enough that you barely can get through a day of school without bursting into tears over a new revelation that someone has brought to you about your ex boyfriend, stories he is telling them about false things that you have done.  He starts telling people that your mother is strung out on drugs, there is no stone left unturned for every faction of your life that he has impacted in some way.

A month after the break up you start to form a potentially new relationship with a boy you have known for a long time, it goes nowhere after your ex finds out and contacts him to fill his mind with more seeds of doubt.  This happens a second time a month later.  Few more months down the road, you start talking to someone but do not tell anyone for fear that it would get back to your ex and he would sabotage yet another connection that you hope to pursue.  Your ex finds a new girlfriend, she is the sister of a close friend of yours.  He starts showing up to your sporting events at school with his new girlfriend.  At these events he doesn't break his stare as you try to focus on playing basketball, it is palpable and people begin to notice.  Your coach mentions possibly having an administrator ask him to leave (it never gets to that - thank god).

Your close friend (and her sister) start to withdraw from you.  They both act angry towards you and your friendship become a shell of what it used to be.  They end up breaking up.

At this point it has almost been a year.  He begins dating a new girl (another person that goes to your school - he graduated from a different school district), at your graduation ceremony as you are walking down the hall, there he is walking towards you along with her family, you change direction and manage to avoid him.  The new girl he started dating and you are familiar with each other and have never had negative interactions.

After graduating, with no school events to be concerned about, your mother and you move to a new place out of town and things settle and the quiet is most welcome.  Your new relationship is still going strong and you have a great summer together.  You start working at Walmart as you attend  school full-time at the local community college.  Months go by before one day while working, you look up and see your exes girlfriend video recording you on her telephone while you work.  You turn and walk away.  You need this job and confrontation is the opposite of enabling yourself to keep it.  This happens a second time a few weeks later.  Then, a month after that, you are working and your exes girlfriend approaches you and begins to physically attack you.  She strikes you several times, some in the face, has you backed into a corner, and then disappears.  You have no means for defending yourself without risking your job and nowhere to go physically.  The police are called, a report filed, and thats it.  In this process, you are allowed to look at the video footage of the attack, standing about 10 feet behind your attacker is your ex with a cheshire grin on his face.

Less than two weeks later, before a court date or any notion of legal action happening, you arrived at the mall with your boyfriend when a truck comes charging directly towards your car.  At the last moment it swerves and then parks next to your car.  It is your ex, and his girlfriend.  Your boyfriend and you start walking towards the entrance of the mall with the girl yelling in your direction to stop so she can "talk to you".  You go into the mall and are followed from store to store by your ex and his girl.  The police are called, your  mother, horrified and worried, gets in her car and starts driving towards the mall.  They leave before either entity get there.

At this point it is nearly eighteen months since you had been in a relationship.  It took several weeks to happen before a stay away order is in place.  The court would only grant an order against the person who physically attacked you and not against the person who has instigated months and months of harassment with no signs of stopping.  With the physical attack being behind you for about 4 months, you recently noticed a couple of people at your work, vaguely familiar, watching you intently and in a peculiar way (again, yeah I know...) off in the distance you notice your ex and his girlfriends brother laughing hysterically.  The people were her parents.   With all of this being said, you have no idea when this will stop, you have decided you cannot keep recreating your life to work around any opportunity that he has to 'get you' in whatever way he can convince people to do it for him.  You would love to say this cloud has a silver lining.  "don't do what I did..." "really get to know a person..." "check for these signs...." none of those things sounds like things you would have listened to when you first starting dating him almost two and a half years ago.  You are sure at some point you will stop having to look over your shoulder or endure strangers calling you a "pussy" for not attacking this girl back at your place of work.  In a way, you feel bad for her, you know the things he says to manipulate people.  God knows what else he is having her do.

Now.. imagine those non-specific thing happens to you.  Your Aunt would be very shocked, horrified, and amazed with the decisions of several adults in this scenario.

The edges of Mother's Day.

I have learned to dislike Mother's Day greatly.  It is the day that I spend way to much time anticipating, what used to be, crazy amounts of disappointment.  It's so weird because if Mother's day was disappointing, you would think it would be due to the lack of acknowledgement on the part of my children, but that actually is not a thing - my boys are awesome and love freely and openly and do not neglet me in any way.  I don't speak of it much anymore, but I am effected deeply from a relationship I was in for many years, where the person used Mother's day as a platform to hurt me.  It sounds pretty dumb on paper, dumb that I allowed it to happen over and over, but - a few years back on this day, I would wake up and hope to hear a simple phrase come from the mouth of the person who was supposed to love and cherish me.  It took some years before I finally broke down and admitted that I was deeply hurt that he would not acknowledge or say "happy mother's day" on Mother's day, but he did admit (towards the end), that I wasn't the mother to any children of his, so why should he? 

I don't know how to explain what it feels like to have to cry and explain to someone why they should not just acknowledge the day as a celebration of motherhood, but that it might be even more important to teach the biological and non-biological children how to celebrate it also.  It is ruined when you have to ask for it.  It is embarrassing to have to ask for it.

I find myself trying to avoid the day all together because it is a day where there lies a pit in my stomach that feels like lead weight, because I have somehow allowed this negativity to evolve into the underlying feeling that I do not deserve it.  I can't seem to erase it no matter how hard I try to forget. 

The last Mother's Day prior to my hasty exit from said toxic relationship, (as i'm sure that it was also being anticipated that we were coming to an end), in an attempt to win me back or get me to rethink my impending departure, it was decided that we now celebrates Mother's Day and together with my younger son, put up a sign and got a couple gifts.  Despite what was to come, I betrayed myself and expressed happiness and acted as if this was normal.  It wasn't.  A few hours after my surprise Mother's Day acknowledgement, it was then inquired as to why I didn't acknowledge the efforts to make my day special by posting it to social media.  When I acted perplexed as to why this should be a thing, the response was "you mean I did all of this for nothing?". 

As I said, at this point, I just wish this day wasn't a day.  Last year, my older son living out of town and my younger son being on a trip with his dad, I was actually not as anxious about Mother's Day as I normally would be.  I began a new relationship with a person who is completely genuine and expresses love in the way that it should be expressed.  He took me on a day trip to Syracuse, we went to my favorite Market and had lunch, and it literally was one of the best days ever.  I don't know how many of these trips we will need to take for me to stop recoiling inside every time I hear the phrase 'Mother's Day'.

On the part of the other party, I hope, for the sake of any new relationship, that something was learned so that this is never a thing that is done to a person again.

the best Christmas

It wasn't because there were many gifts or much money.

Just Luke and myself in our two bedroom subsidized apartment.  This place was freedom to me because I could afford it, but at the same time, that was about all I could afford.

Now it is Christmas and Luke is maybe three years old.  I had one gift for him, cowboy boots.  That was it.  They were very, very nice cowboy boots.  I had guilt and sadness because I was failing him in the present department, but, he just did not seem to care.  We spent the morning opening gift, ok maybe it was like five minutes.  Then we headed over to my dad's house to spend Christmas morning with my family.

My dad was known for buying gifts for us girls that were, quite frankly, bizarre.  Crazy kitchen appliances that one would have very small use for, like food dehydrators, or waffle irons, or... I don't know.  Anywho, my dad's mother would send gifts for us to his house (she lived out of town) - and we also had a gigantic breakfast every Christmas.  If it was a breakfast food, he made it.

We sat down and ate breakfast around the living room floor (pow-wow style).  My dad would start handing out gifts.  This year, my grandmother sent us comforters, big, thick, soft, comforters.  How exciting, honestly, all of my blankets were dismal in comparison.  Tattered remnants of my childhood, too old to be amazing and too old to get rid of.  Then, my dad gave me his gift for me.  It was AMAZING.  No avocado scooping, coffee grinding, potato peeler.  No, this was far better than anything he could have ever purchased for us.  It was a 13 inch, television VCR combo and it was FABULOUS.  I didn't have cable, I didn't have a TV, I guess I didn't really have much of anything now that I think about it.  But I had this...

Usually on the way back to my apartment, I would be fighting the exhaustion of getting up so early and the carb fest at my dad's.  We got home, dug up a VCR tape, set up the TV in my room.  Unfolded that luxurious comforter from my gram, and fell asleep to the sounds of Ferris Bueller.  It was literally, the best Christmas ever.  I cuddled my Luke on my bed in this heavenly blanket and slept for hours... just to wake up and head to my other grandma's house for dinner.

the simple things.

It has been a little over a year since the last time I have confessed all of my life secrets in this little blog of mine.  I'm still here, rest assured.  I've been standing at home plate trying to knock all things I swing at, out of the park.  Finally, the universe's first string pitcher has thrown something that I somehow managed to see and recognize as the perfect pitch.

People say things that I think I understand, I think relate to, I think I have experienced -- then it is truly experienced and it's as refreshing as that first splash of water on your face after biking ten miles on the hottest day of days.

I hate to admit that I grew up a pessimist.  I remember being in elementary school, lining up on the risers on stage for a chorus concert.  My chorus teacher warned us against looking up into the stage lights, she said it would hurt our eyes.  I stared straight into those lights to prove her wrong.  I wasn't a believer.   My mother said that soda in the morning would give me a stomach ache.  Proved that one wrong.  Not a believer.  Eating before taking a swim...no cramps, nothing.  If you chew on your hair, you'll grow a big hairball in your stomach and it will have to be surgically removed...nope.

Someday you'll meet the love of your life and you'll know.  Seriously, now... come on.  I really wanted to be a believer.  Like if I pretended it could happen, maybe the pretend thing would actually turn into a reality... or some shit like that.

If I could tell my younger self something to keep me going when my mind was filled with dread and doubt about this life, my decisions, seeing the true intentions of people who I thought loved me for me and nothing else... I would say, "when the time is right, he will walk into your life.  He will surround you with his light and you will experience true happiness and genuine love.".

I have never trusted someone so fully and it is otherworldly.  He slows me down, listens, is completely tuned into my emotional state, and I have never loved someone like I love him.

I won't paint this as a happily ended fairy tale or something that is too good to be true.  I will say this though, I feel safe, I look forward to continuing growing with him, experiencing our life together, and am extremely optimistic about what the future holds for us.  I just want to be the best person that I can be, and someone who makes you feel that way is sui generis.  If you are lucky enough to find it, don't let it slip through your fingers.  I take zero of these moments for granted.

Falling off the balance beam.

I'm not a writer.  I wish I was.  I can't write songs, I can't write the way I would want to write, so I don't.

I've been thinking awhile about writing this post.  Writing about the end of a very long relationship, about feeling betrayed, and just about how tired I am in general.  So here it goes...

I remember the first time I felt depression.  I was in the 8th grade.  I expressed my sadness by not spending a whole lot of time getting ready in the morning, pulling my bangs and sides up into a partial ponytail, no makeup, hoodies... it passed, it always passes.  My entire life I have been known for my happiness, being cheery, funny, always relied upon to be fine no matter what circumstances were at hand.

So yeah, enter in 20 or 30 years of living, couple kids, couple marriages, and here I am.  Trying to give myself on honest take on who I am.  I realize and am aware lately, more than ever, all of the toxic behaviors I have engaged in, in the past.  For a long time I was not responsible with my physical body.  I ate without abandon, drank without abandon, basically did what I wanted.  I overstayed my welcome in relationships that were painted as loving when they were everything but.  I hated myself, but I didn't know that.  I did not do the hard things until this year, this particular year.

This year has been different for me in the sense that I have faced many inner demons that I have failed to acknowledge for as long as I can remember.  Who am I?

I am the girl who seeks love in the wrong places.
I am the girl who hides when she is depressed, wanting nothing more than to lay and cry and not know why.
I am the girl who is easily distracted.
I am the girl who will give you a hug, a genuine hug.
I am the girl who freely tells all of her friends how much she loves them.
I am the girl who justifies her bad behavior and believes her justifications when she should not.
I am the girl who did not cry at her grandfather's funeral.
I am the girl who is lost.  I don't think I will ever be found honestly, learning to live my life in a state of wander.
I am the girl who lost the ability to lie.  I can't anymore. 
I am a girl.  A really tired girl.

At some point, I will probably be able to elaborate more.  I hope I will be writing that blog post about how I found happiness within myself.  How I finally felt like I was worth something meaningful.  How I found my confidence, and how I shrugged off all of the negative things I constantly thought about myself.  I hope I figure this all out.

Pass the sour cream.

A short note to quickly explain how completely overwhelming it is, sometimes, being a teacher, a single mother, and trying to be perfect all the time, every single day.  Besides teaching, during the day in a classroom M-F, I also work in the evening teaching college classes at the Community College on Tuesdays/Thursdays.  Along with this, I spend many hours furthering my skills as a teacher as part of a NYS fellowship, last year I logged 120 hours, on my own time.  Basically, I am very, very, busy, making ends meet and making everything work.  Since my son was at his Father’s this weekend, I volunteered to spend my weekend at SUNY Plattsburgh with the NYS Fellowship.  After receiving a call very late Saturday night finding out that my son had a dental emergency, I rushed back early Sunday morning to pick him up and take care of the broken tooth dangling from his braces.  He and I then spent three hours shopping and running all over Watertown, then delivering to school supplies to reward the 86 students that were in my classroom the last day of school, with a surprise taco party.  I spent $170.  This is a glimpse of what my life is like ALL of the time.  It is never ending and every day.

Today, the last day of classes for grades 7-12, even though I got to school early, cooked the taco meat, cut the lettuce, put out the plates, drinks, and decorations,… I still managed to run down to my supervisor and ask if it was too late to give awards to the 7th/8th graders.  Every year I struggle with whether or not I should give awards because I have so many amazing students, when awards are given, I think more about the kids who are left out.  I think about the ones who don’t think they are good enough, I hate letting anyone down.  My supervisor said it was fine and to try to contact the parents asap.  I went back to my room, made all the phone calls, almost got everyone, the bell rings, students walk in, phones have to go away.  My students were ecstatic with the surprise taco party, they thanked me profusely and no one went hungry.  Fourth period came, I gave out my awards.  The couple of students whose parents I was unable to get a hold of, I made sure to whisper an apology to, as I was giving them their award.  I am definitely not perfect, by any means and will never claim to be.  I received an email that a parent called and chastised the secretary at school because I was unable to get a hold of her prior to the award ceremony, a secretary who has no idea or stake in whether or not I give or do not give an award and also has nothing to do with notifying parents.  The email also stated that the parent called back a second time to speak with my supervisor, again, to express her anger that she was not informed quickly enough.  I then, was made aware that the parent posted a picture of me on her Facebook, again describing in detail how mad she was that I was unable to get a hold of her in time.  Other people commented on her post, mostly in a negative manner towards myself.  I think this makes it pretty easy for me to say I will no longer participate in the awards ceremony, I was always weary of it to begin with and would rather do something on my own that can not be misconstrued as something negative.  Something that all of my students can benefit from and get the accolades that they deserve rather than just a lucky few. Although I really do want to apologize for not getting everything together last week like I had intended, and also apologize for trying to make it happen the day of the ceremony, I realize that had I just forewent the awards and stuck with just having a surprise taco party, this would have never happened.  Apologies should also be sent to all the people who try to find the good in a situation rather than turn it into something negative.  I am beyond thankful for the smiling faces that keep me coming back every day and am angry with myself for allowing a this bit of negativity overshadow so much love that was felt at our beautiful school, all day long.

With all this being said, my intention is definitely not to spread any negativity.  My intention is to help people understand how a simple post, a comment, a mean emoji, can feel on the receiving end.  For one act of perceived negligence, there are 200 acts of love, kindness, and understanding.  It is much easier to post nasty things and scream into a telephone at a stranger, than to just call someone directly and explain and try to understand their side of your story, no matter how big or small the situation is.   

I was that mom.

I didn't know what kind of mom I would be.  To be honest, I never had a plan for being a mother.  I never played "mom", I didn't dream about being a mother, I didn't have any desire until the day I found out I was going to be a mother at twenty years old.

So, there I was, alone, very young, in a huge city, baby in belly.  I didn't know how I got to where I was, but I did know that it was going to be hard and I would prevail.  The ultimate love, the unforgiving feeling that you have no control over the most precious being on earth.

You might be surprised at what this post is about.  It is not about how much I love Luke or how powerful our bond was and now, in his twenties, still is.  This post is about what I became when he left my arms from toddlerhood and straight into the waiting arms of his teachers for the next 13 years of his life in the public school system.

First of all, there is this possessive thing that happens when you become a parent.  These kids are created from your blood and bone, they are your DNA, your chromosomes, how could anyone not be completely devoted to their child?

That being said, I first started to see the signs of what was to come when Luke started pre-school at New Day Children's Center.  His teacher pulled me aside when I picked Luke up to tell me that he ran away from the group that day and into the church (which Luke thought was a castle).  I definitely understood why the teachers would have concern, they would have to chase him down and make him stay with the group.  He was a bit of a handful.  These types of interactions between Luke's teachers and I became the norm.  In kindergarten, he would have his card flipped on a daily basis.  First grade, Second grade, Sixth grade, his parent-teacher conferences would be something that I would dread.  I started to get angry.  Why couldn't they handle Luke?  What was it about my kid?  When we were home by ourselves, just him and I, he was perfect.  He behaved perfectly, was focused, helpful, had a huge heart.  I was getting so frustrated with the reports coming from Luke's school, every... single... day.

Now this is where I drop the revelation.  A.) Luke was gifted and bored, B.) Luke was dyslexic and acted out, C.)  Luke's teacher's didn't have enough patience, D.) Luke was bullied, E.) Luke was just being a boy (and boys will be boys right?), F.) Luke was, was, was....

You do realize that all of those revelations are not revelations, I wanted a revelation, I wanted a reason, any reason.  Any reason that would lift me off from this hook that I would dangle from anytime I was interacting with his teachers, reading a referral, getting the notes (written in vain) trying to get me on board.  The truth was... my kid was an asshole.  Seriously though, when my kid went to school, he did not act the way that he acted with me when I was home.  He was a smart ass, disrespectful, little asshole.  The shitty thing about this was, for years and years, I would walk into school to talk with his teachers and I would make excuses for him.  I would cover for him, yell at the teachers, go to the principal, complain about the teachers.  Lunch lady didn't like something Luke said, then she is a bitch.  Bus driver writes Luke a referral, well he is getting kind of old to be handling these kids, isn't he?  When I realized what my kid had become (sometime around the sixth grade), I was beyond horrified to look back and realize that all of those years I was standing in the way of the people who were trying to help my child be a productive member of his classroom, respected among his peers, and also impart to him that his actions had consequences.  Here I am thinking that I am being the best parent to my child when all along I was teaching him to never think he is wrong.  I taught him to victimize himself if he was called out for making poor decisions.

What happened in grade six did you say (or think)?  Well, at this point in my life, I had managed to put myself through school enough to obtain my initial teaching license, and became a teacher in a small k-12 school which I also enrolled Luke in.  I went from seeing my son only at home, to also being in the same building 24-7.  Those pesky teachers became my colleagues, and well, you now know the rest I suppose.  I learned the horrifying truth behind my child's behavior.  He wasn't bullied.  He wasn't dyslexic, gifted, bored,  and he definitely wasn't being a boy.  He was being an asshole and I enabled him.  I might even say that I made it much worse to the point where I could claim that I created this kid's behavior by taking away his consequences.

The next six years were not as easy as they could have been had I not been a wishy-washy mom-friend that I was at the beginning of all of this.  Luke was grounded a lot.  There was no grounding limit.  I recall having a conversation with my father-in-law at one point who told me that it is not abnormal for a kid to be grounded for their entire high school tenure.  "Do what it takes." he said.  Did I get tired of grounding him? yup.  Did it ruin some of the fun things that I wanted to do sometimes? yup.  Being a good parent required sacrifice.

Do I love my Luke more than life?  I do, so much.  I am so proud of Luke and what he has accomplished so far in his young life.  The sky is the limit for this beautiful child of mine.  He is so much like me, still has a great big heart, and is learning about life in leaps and bounds.  I still have to physically stop myself from hovering, even now, but I do and he is killing this whole 'adulting' thing.
Anyway.  I have wanted to write this post for a very long time.  Glad I got it out there.  Every time someone tells me that I did a great job raising Luke, I have to bite my tongue and spit something out like "oh, if you only knew....".