Dear Child

Dear Child,

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through. 

I know who you are, and I know why you cry in the corner. You’re more sensitive than the rest, and therefore more perceptive. You’re 7 years old, and feel a great sense of abandonment and loneliness. You’re anxious and scared a lot of the time. You feel there is no one who truly understands you, you feel there will be no one to care for you and love you. Your mom is sick and sleeps a lot, your father tells you he has a hole in his heart, your cousins live far away, your best friend stops inviting you to sleepovers because you keep getting sick on Fridays (FYI you’re going to throw up while saying the pledge of allegiance this year) and your sister…she’s the one you yearn to be close with, but is the one who causes your tears to fall the hardest.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 11 this year, the past 4 years have been rough. 3 years ago numerous doctors studied you, and investigated why you were the way you were. Why were you getting sick? They labeled you with an “anxiety disorder” and put you on medication to fix your “problem”. This pill makes you gain weight and feel out of control. You get tortured at school and belittled at home and become angry. This anger brought on more doctors and more pills and gave you more side effects. Things will start to spiral as your environment becomes more and more unpredictable. You will suffer from depression and the medication you’re prescribed will cause you to develop Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), as a side effect to taking a daily dose. You will start to suffer in school.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 13 this year, you’re still in pain. A part of you wishes you could end it all, but all of you understands’ that you could never cause pain to your family. You believe in something greater, you believe you will get through. You know you love to make people happy, and smile, but you just can’t smile yourself. You try to fix your family, you want stability and security, but you have none. You try to repair what’s broken but you can’t.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 15 this year, this will be the year your life changes, your perception of reality rocked. You will witness the end of your parents’ marriage. You will scream and beg your sister to take you with her before she runs out the door and drives away without you. She will leave you. You’re alone and forced to watch your mother tell your father she has proof of his 15-year affair. You watch your father sob for the first time ever and you make a promise to yourself that day, a promise you hold onto for 10 years.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 20 years old, and you’ve found your groove. Four years ago you left home to start fresh. You left for a new environment. In the past 5 years you’ve become strong and independent, discovered and fell in love with Mexico, traveled Europe, saw a play in Shakespeare’s theatre, stood on a wall seen from the Moon, became a true athlete, learned the value of healthy food, made solid friendships, became a mentor and a leader and took yourself off all medications. You are finally able to say and believe that you love yourself and you are truly confident in your beauty, strength, heart and mind. A year later, you will be confident enough to stand in front of a college psychology class and read a paper you wrote which shares your biggest fear (or so you think)– an inability to trust and feel safe with a man, a fear you’ll never open enough to receive love. You read this allowed to 30 strangers, and as you read the words you’re not sure how the past will affect your future, but you’re fearful.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 24 years old, you live in Sydney, Australia with your college roommate, have a spectacular job you couldn’t have dreamed of a possibility having before moving, and a supportive family network who knows your heart. You are in grad school and join the Global Leadership Program. You attend a seminar. You walk in and sit next to a man who will facilitate a true and needed change within you. It will take two more years for this change to come to fruition, but it will come and you will be better for it. You will travel to Turkey, and start to feel for another, and open up. He’s the first you meet of your kind. His heart is big and mind strong. You will enter into your first real relationship.

January 2011 will bring in the New Year with heartache. Your relationship with this man will end and you will feel horrible. You will feel it is your fault. You didn’t know how to believe in love. You weren’t ready. You didn’t understand what it was like to be cared for, you pushed feelings away. You got scared, you felt trapped, you felt abandoned, you crumbled, you spiraled and you became someone you’re not to push someone you cared about away. You didn’t believe. And most of all, you held onto a promise you made almost 10 years before…

 It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

Conclusion is on its way…

A House Goes Down in Flames and a Friendship Follows

“Hey
You’re crazy bitch
But you fuck so good, I’m on top of it”

Oh Buck Cherry, your words are so…ummm…blunt. This song came to mind when thinking about how to jump into this post. Now that I have your attention, I’ll get down to the nitty gritty.

My friend, well sadly ex-friend now (according to her), has told me, “Never talk, call, email, Facebook or show your face at my house again”…I’ve never had a friend write such things to me even if we’re in an argument, and I’ve never really argued with a friend for more than a day. Now, this started as heated text messages (for those of you who read my last post, you may know I don’t express emotion well through online or text conversation when I’m in the moment)

Now, when she says her house, she really means my dad’s house, because she rents one of the two tenant houses on the property. It began when she left her clothes and hamper on top of the stove. The burner accidently turned on as she headed out to take her dogs to the vet. Luckily, she came home before heading to work, because she drove up to the house in flames. I didn’t find out until she texted me about it after the fact, and I spoke to my dad to get the details. The house needs to be completely redone, and there’s about 15-50 grand worth of damage. Luckily she has renters insurance and that will cover the costs…

The “fight” or heated texts, began when I told her she should give one of her pigs to my dad (as a joke) to cover the 1000 dollars renters deductible my dad thinks he has to pay. She has 2 pigs, chickens and 4-6 dogs (depending on if she’s fostering). I never meant to make her upset, or hurt her feelings, I was just trying to protect my dad and his costs (something i’ve been doing for the past 10 years when our family fell apart…more on this later).

I didn’t realize how distraught she was, or how bad the fire was, until I saw her later that evening. I thought we were all good and any animosity that may have surfaced during our text conversation, was gone when she left my Mom’s house. I offered her a place to stay and said she could keep her dogs downstairs, and said if she needed anything to let me know as I gave her a hug and said goodbye. But I guess she wasn’t over the text I sent earlier that day, and around 2pm I received a nasty text at work that sent chills down my back and did nothing but send me on the attack.

From there in went pretty much down hill as she said she was “excited” about getting all new stuff in the house and that she didn’t care about my “wealthy” dad. Now, word to the wise, I am super protective of my dad because he does not ever stand up for himself, and will let people walk all over him to avoid confrontation. I read my mom the text and she laughed at the thought of my dad as “wealthy”. Obviously, she doesn’t understand the debt he’s in with the property, and because he is a nice guy he hasn’t raised her rent in 4 years (from my understanding). It remains at $850 inclusive of utilities for a one bed, one bath, kitchen, “family room” and deck, with land use and obviously all those animals. You won’t be able to get cheaper in this area, confirmed by my friend who does real estate in the area and just rented A ROOM for $1000, and says she can get AT LEAST $1200 for the place, maybe $2000 depending on how much land can be used.

So these messages angered me, and of course I went on the attack to defend my dad. Afterward, I realized that I should not have handled it like I did, and instead should have talked to her in person from the beginning. I spoke to all my friends in the area, and even called some friends in Australia, to help me work out the problem. I read them the texts, and they where shocked by anyone saying they never wanted to speak to me again. Some recommended that I didn’t need a friend like that in my life  and some said to wait until we both cooled down to talk. I did. And contacted her recently, saying “Do you really never want to be my friend again?…Because I don’t want that. I’m home, lunch, mid day wine, talk?” No response.

So I guess it’s officially over. There’s nothing I can do, and I don’t understand how someone could just end a relationship over text if we were really friends. Especially when we saw each other after the fact and she could have expressed her thoughts to me in person. I understand even better now how the one man I tried to impress felt when he got my crazy messages over text, he did the right thing by ignoring me…even though at the time it angered me even more.

I’m sad because I did like hanging out with her, I did consider her a good friend. I saw a mutual friend of ours recently, and he has been over her friendship for awhile, saying she never appreciates what she’s given and referred to her as a “cancer”. I thought that was harsh, but I definitely see why he gave up on her.

Anyway, I want to help her out, I want to be there for her, but I don’t want a friend who ends a relationship over text and can’t talk to me about how she’s feeling or how I made her feel. Friends get upset with eachother, that’s how relationships evolve, and true long lasting friends work through their differences. However, it takes two to tango.

One thing is for sure, I don’t want to feel awkward going to my own house. Hopefully, we can resolve our issues before her lease is up. Otherwise, I’d rather help out my childhood friend to get her realty business going and help my dad get at least $400 more a month for the cottage, especially now that everything is getting redone. Maybe then he can actually paint some fences and redo the barn, which he claims he never has any money to do. Oh “wealthy” dad, maybe one day you can actually make money off your property…