2024 in summary: a list of the most incredible successes in my lifetime. Grateful is an understatement.

My life has changed significantly this year, following a year of tragic losses and a life trauma in 2022, and a year of ending all my friendships in 2023. I am sharing achievements and positive happenings from this year that mean everything to me and I fully respect that others may not have had a great year this year – therefore, please accept this as a gratitude list and not a brag – I am just overflowing with thankfulness and am wanting to share this little list I made, somewhere that I feel safe to do so. Please enjoy with me, and thank you for tuning in.

1. I enjoyed a season full of wedding shoots – I am surprised and so thankful.

2. Our mares birthed four live foals.

3. We incurred a $25,000 vet bill between Sophy foaling ($17,000) and a navel infection on Zora ($8,000), and paid it all off despite nearly going bankrupt because of it. There were days we had to choose which foods to skip until our next grocery trip. Some days we couldn’t afford our groceries at all.

4. Bambi (Sophy’s foal) survived, recovered from severe contracture and dummy foal syndrome and is thriving.

5. Goliath sold to an amazing home. We held his price, believed in his worth, proved his genuine personality stands out, and found him a career-oriented home and lifestyle with an adoring woman just a few hours away from us. We will be seeing more of him in local competitions and shows, and it thrills me to no end.

6. Evelyn is pending sold and will be heading to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in the New Year. It swells my heart. It was a veterinarian who’s chosen to purchase her, and this means a lot to me knowing she will be well looked after.

7. We had a beautiful litter of four Maine Coon kittens, three have sold and one is left, pending sale tomorrow. Acquiring the registration on my two adult Maine Coon cats proved to be a nightmare, taking over two years to get ahold of the registration on George, our male. But that’s okay. Registrations are now all in place, after once again I persisted like a mad dog. It’s a wonderful feeling.

8. We MADE IT to the Calgary Stampede, and brought home 3 ribbons and loads of new experience. My horses and I were on live television. I still catch myself wondering if I dreamt all that. I pulled a 40 foot camper with my own diesel truck down to Calgary, while my handler took my other truck, the horse trailer, and my two show horses – a very nerve-wracking four hour trip ending in downtown Calgary, but my God, we made it. Two first place ribbons, and one second place. And one very, very grateful horse girl at the end of it all.

9. I halter broke two of my own foals completely on my own. My ability to handle horses has grown exponentially, and defied many (including my own) doubts. I can do anything I put my mind to.

10. I am handling my stallion on my own after some chaos and a little bit of anxiety regression from the Calgary Stampede. I have worked diligently and I am succeeding in overcoming my fears one step at a time. He passed his CSHA stallion exam with flying colours, which is another amazing thing for us this year.

11. I revisited all my ended friendships to leave them all with kindness and love. An ex friend made a trip all the way here from Whitecourt, just to “bump into me” and be kind in return. I was a little uncomfortable about it to begin with, but lately I feel quite appreciative that the effort was made. He will be making a second appearance tomorrow afternoon. I’m nervous about it but I know I will handle it appropriately like I always do.

12. I talked to one of the ex friends over the phone in September, he’s not sorry for his choices and he would without hesitating, do again the thing that ended our friendship; but he heard me out and acknowledged the ways he and his partner and our other friends broke my heart. We will not take them back as friends. And letting them go has certainly become a lot easier, as well as forgiving them after we had our talk that evening.

13. My son started kindergarten and it’s been a whirlwind adventure of both love and learning and realizing how quickly time is slipping through my fingers. My daughter is growing quickly beside him, learning to speak and communicate much clearer than her peers. It’s astonishing to watch. She was just two years old when she drove her toy gator all lit up in the local Christmas parade.

14. Photography has never been busier for me – over one hundred sessions through the whole year, strong five figures earned. My photography business name is being passed around locally and many people have had incredible things to say about me and my work.

15. My confidence has risen exponentially, with both horses and photography. The woman I see in the mirror today, is a stark contrast to the woman that looked back at me just a little over a year ago. Most people probably wouldn’t even recognize me.

16. I bought five bred speckle park heifers with my own money – we had initially taken out a loan but then I made another sale on my horses and was able to cancel the loan application and buy them myself, and what an amazing feeling. I have tremendously missed our cows. I got to hand pick the five I wanted, and they are the cutest, quietest, and sweetest little bunch we could hope to start out with again. I am very happy. They come home the day after my birthday in January.

17. I got burnt out in November and fought through a hard hitting physical depression, and made it out okay without alcohol or other poor choices and or coping mechanisms.

18. I am still dealing with grief over my ex friends, but it’s getting a little easier every day. There’s only one left out of all of them that is really on my mind every day, and the things she has done since I stepped away from our friendship have really broken my heart and led to me repeatedly thinking of her because of those hurtful things she has done. I thought there was something wrong with me and I was being obsessive of her for no reason. But a lot of the things she did have been pointedly made known, I feel on purpose – to get my attention. And she was successful. She got my attention and her actions really hurt my feelings which were already hurt and led to me walking away to begin with, and she now gets to live with the very bitter after taste of that satisfaction for hurting me. I still chose to extend kindness. I still chose to send love. And while I still struggle with my grief of the loss of her in my life, I can remind myself any and every time that I never did any of the things to her, that she has done to me. That’s her burden and not mine and once she finds it in herself to face whatever she is dealing with and grow beyond it to take accountability, she can reach out to me if and when she ever chooses to take that step for herself. I will continue to feel my feelings, process my grief, and work on forgiving both her and myself.

19. I am still not making new friends or letting others get close to me but I am slowly regaining faith in others again. There is a special woman that stepped up to support me and she knows I appreciate her for her unconditional warmth and love extended to me during both my highs and my lows. If there is anyone I will ever call a friend or a best friend between now and the end of my life, it will be her. She remains interested and ready to support me in any of my dreams and endeavours, and she is always willing to lend an ear or trust me to lend mine. She has never made me feel second best, picked someone else over me, or dropped commitments with me for any reason. These three things that she has upheld, are possibly the most sensitive subjects and triggers for me, and she has respected my boundaries with all three, without ever being told what my boundaries were to begin with. My failure in friendships have led me to someone like this and it will remind me every time just how grateful I really am for her and I will make sure she knows it too.

I am leaving this year stronger, wiser, and much kinder to myself than ever. I am growing all the time, and standing up to others as well as my own insecurities. I’ve forgiven myself for my mistakes and I have confronted the parts and pieces of myself and my life that I wasn’t willing to previously. Today marks the beginning of the rest of my life and I am grateful, willing, and ready for it.

To the friend I had to move on from:

To the friend I had to move on from:

I wish it didn’t end this way. I wish I could change the story, fixing the broken bits and gluing them back together.

I want you to know that it broke my heart to move on from you. I loved you with my whole self, nothing held back. I thought we would be friends when we were old and cranky, cracking jokes in the nursing home and remembering the days our kids were young. I didn’t plan for losing you.

You were there for some of my very best days and for some of my very worst, and I was there for yours. We shared a hundred beautiful moments and hundred more hard ones. It hurts to remember it sometimes, knowing it will never be the same.

I won’t ever regret knowing you. I won’t ever regret loving you.

I hate that I could no longer take care of me and stay around you. I hate that we grew apart and our paths took us different directions. I hate the ways we hurt each other however unintentionally.

I wish I could undo it all, and weave our stories back together somehow.

I wish I could uncomplicate it, and make it simple again. I can’t, I know that, and it’s hard.

For now, I want you to know, in my deepest heart, from my very core:

I wish you well.

I pray that the things you told me you wished for and dreamed of for your life would come true.

I pray your days are full of sunshine, your nights are full of rest, and your heart is full of peace.

Love,

Me

*This was copied and pasted from a post I discovered on Facebook. The quote means a lot to me.*

I Will Remember You

  Our time together came to an abrupt, disastrous and fiery ending. Complacency thrived for a long time, until this year. It was my fault for standing up in my skin and demanding respect and worth of myself and my family. It was my fault for being straightforward and honest. It was my fault for being human, with real feelings and real intentions. It was my fault for expecting actions to follow promises, and walking away when for the umpteenth time, they did not. It was my fault for being real among a fake world, and a fake online reality. It was my fault, for calling out mental abuse with direct conviction.

  I seethed with rage. I burnt objects with the anger behind my eyes just by looking at them. My heart pounded so hard my ear drums nearly exploded. Then I cried enough tears to replenish the ocean. I drowned in bottles and emotions, and asked empty air why I had to suffer like this. I woke in the mornings, unable to move enough to pull my aching body from the warmth and security of my quiet, caring, protecting, blankets. I dragged my full body weight along with the weight of the world, on two sore feet, day after day.

  The ego speaks louder than empathy ever can. That’s why so many people struggle in life and lose everything, never understanding until it’s far too late. I stopped what I was doing over a year ago, and listened. I could hear the things said to me then, very clearly. I could see through egos and facades, listening to others’ actions, and discovered shame, sadness, inadequacy, heartbreak, and every other distinguishable emotion. And I think that’s why I never reached for daggers on my way out the door.

  I remember trusting someone with my babies, and all the emotions coursing through my body when I discovered the betrayal of my trust that they’d committed. I still can bring all those physical sensations alive again whenever I think back. I remember the dread and the sense of “cold” blood coursing through my veins when I chose to briefly disengage with someone else after feeling let down by them after another broken promise. Standing up to any of you was hard. Intimidating. Terrifying, even. One by one, bridge after bridge; crumbling to the finest dust you could imagine, that lingered in the air for months and was hard not to breathe in and suffocate from.

  I will never, for the rest of my life, forget the way all of you reached for weapons the moment you’d been confronted. And I bore that weight. I took those blows, and carried the heartbreak and pain with me for a long time. Words can break hearts, too, especially when it’s something that meant everything to a person.

  There was a time I ruined something for one of you. I knew I ruined it, too, and I felt awful for it. The mountains all around, music in the air. Laughter, and togetherness echoing off the ground and the trees, connecting all of us. And one of my infamous stomach aches came out of nowhere. I couldn’t sit still, I couldn’t feel good. I couldn’t breathe in without wincing in pain. I became so afflicted that it distracted you and affected the wonderful time you were supposed to be having, and that dampened the effect of something that meant a lot to you. I could hear, see, and feel the disappointment radiating from you, and suffered through severe physical pain to try to remain in that place so you could still take in as much as possible of it. But it was ruined. I spent years replaying that scenario, and loathing myself for not simply bringing pain medication and warmer clothes and supplies since these stomach aches were a common thing for me. You thought I wasn’t sorry. You thought I did it on purpose. The curse of not understanding one another, is misunderstandings, and hurt feelings.

  I read the venomous words and felt the sharp points of their daggers piercing every bit of me when someone threw a betrayal of exclusion at me for speaking up about broken promises. Then in another breath, my children got brought up – as though they were pawns in this uncomfortable disagreement that could be used to sway the tide. Crushing heartbreak and an instant, violent death of a longstanding relationship with someone I truly believed would be in my life forever.

  The thing is, I forgive you.

  Because of what you did to me; I will not take you back; any of you. But I will forgive you, and choose to learn from the experience, as well as pause long enough to understand the circumstances that led to these choices and actions which ended our friendships and relationships. I will take that understanding and use it to soften my exterior and still offer kindness and respect in all forms, so that you can learn and feel the warmth of forgiveness rather than the lingering pain of grudges and wounded egos, something that we are far too used to in this life. I am building a life of love and gratitude, and with that comes my own accountability and taking the time to forgive others.

  I was seventeen years old when I was taken advantage of and left destroyed by a man that was trusted by my family to look after me. Not only did he take advantage of me, he then brought down the full destruction of my life with my family who couldn’t forgive me for what happened, leading to my early adulthood when I ran away at seventeen and supported myself while finishing school. I couldn’t catch a break; the man pursued me after I ran away, and tried to convince me to move back home to be with him. Only for me to discover he’d taken up a relationship with my best friend, a girl even younger than I, who drove six hours every weekend to be with him, for months behind my back. The whole time, I couldn’t see through my rose colored glasses deep enough to see him for the predator that ruined my life.

  And then, in the most bizarre turn of the universe, this man ‘s ex girlfriend from high school tracked me down for her own reason, listened to my story, and facilitated the opportunity for me to see this man again and confront him for closure. Thirteen years later. I think the most amazing part of that experience, was looking a man in the face that I believed was a gift from God at one time, and seeing him for real – as a vulnerable, broken, wounded human being struck endlessly by the twists and turns of life just like the rest of us, tears streaming down his cheeks and shame radiating from every pore. It was the first time I think I ever truly forgave someone. Forgiving him was certainly much, much easier because of his willingness to hear my pain and tell me in person that he was sorry, but I forgave him, nonetheless.

  And two days ago, my story with him came to the surface of my memories as I sat with my feelings and thoughts over all the people I’ve left and lost this last year. I remembered the experience, and felt grateful for it for how much it helped me grow, and because of how much it taught me. And how I realized that as angry as I felt, or how sad, that I can still forgive people and appreciate the memories of them.

  So I forgive you. And I will remember you. Fondly. I’ll look at the pictures, I’ll show them to other people and tell them how much I loved the trips and experiences, even if I ruined them. I will look at the trinkets gifted to me over the years, and my children, from all of you, and I will hold those trinkets with love and gratitude and remember all those wonderful moments we got to share. I will remember my son being born and smile knowing one of you was there, through a whole night supporting me. I will remember boat rides on the lake, and feeling like there was nothing more peaceful on earth than the wind sailing through my hair as we glided over the water.

  I think you are each lovely people. And I will remember you as exactly that, without a doubt. We may have ended our time together on this earth, but I will always thank God for you and your footsteps through my life.

  I will remember you.

My Earliest Memory

I was born in Peace River in 1991, in the old hospital that now sits empty and run down. Of course I don’t have a memory of that hospital during my birth. No one has vivid recollection of the days so early on in life.

Interestingly, however, I happen to have memories from both my brother and sister from before I was born. My brother is the only one who’s been around and able to verify a couple of these pre-existence memories of mine, since my sister and I don’t associate with one another. The first memory was of my brother, at eight years old – a full five years before my own birth – at the airport with my parents while they waited for my grandfather to land from Holland.

There was a large round luggage display station and hundreds of folks were milling in from their landed flights and looking for their luggage. We stood (me as my own brother) together to the side waiting to spot my grandfather. He didn’t appear yet.

My dad then murmured something to my mom, and when I looked up, my dad was walking away toward the washroom and my mother was heading toward a small convenience store down the wide hallway that led to the exit of the building. I spotted a trading card shop on the opposite side and without saying anything to my mother, I blankly strode toward it.

I spent what seemed like a single moment in the small shop browsing all the different cards and paraphernalia, expecting with certainty to see my mother simply standing outside the shop waiting for me with my baby sister. But I was wrong.

I came out of the store, panicking almost immediately, being unable to spot my mother, my father, my sister, or my grandfather. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Tears were starting to well in my eyes and my jaw felt tense and locked from the threat of crying.

Scared. I was just so, so scared. I headed for the revolving luggage display again, but tripped on the way there because of an undone shoe lace. And then the dam broke and I stood, crying and terrified that I would be left behind and never see my family again. Until my grandfather emerged from the crowd, immediately kneeling in front of me and crushing me in a hug. He then tied my shoe lace for me, gave me a wide smile, and took my hand as we walked toward the exit where my angry parents stood waiting with my baby sister.

Though they were annoyed with me, they were happier to see my grandfather so I was lucky to escape punishment. Getting in the musty old boat of a car we owned and heading for home was the last of that memory. I can recognize that smell any time, anywhere, and it always brings me back to that day.

Then, when my sister was five, still three years before my own birth, I had a memory from her, of being at the neighbour’s home. The neighbour was an elderly lady. A beautiful, sweet, loving lady who treated us like we were her very own grandchildren. She watched us often for my parents. I don’t know what my parents were doing in those times, if it was work or farming. “Frou Broat” we called her.

She was sitting on her couch knitting, and my brother and I (as my sister) had been playing a board game of some sort on the floor at her feet. I jumped up, and rushed to her lap, startling the poor woman, excited to show her something to do with the game. But my brother came up behind me, cutting me off by wrapping his arms around me from behind and lifting me up off my feet. He swung me away from Frou Broat and I grew upset. We then began to argue for her attention, but she ended up dismissing both of us when she got up to cook some supper.

I’ve got other memories, too. From other people. Some are very vivid, especially when I am exposed to a certain smell. So much as the scent of a certain type of tea can bring me memories from over two hundred years ago. Who knows if it’s real. I just find it so fascinating, whether it is real or imagined. I enjoy reliving most of the memories and wondering if there’s something to be proven or discovered.

And my own – me. My first memory that I can vividly recall, is being somewhere around two or three years old and just having started to talk. My parents owned a gas station in Nampa, and we had just pulled into the parking lot to head inside. I can remember talking up a storm despite not having a clue what I was saying, and my mom pulling me out of the car and making me zip up my coat. She was kneeling in front of me and I liked her long wavy brown hair. She would nod along as I talked so that it seemed like she could understand what I was saying.

My parents owned that gas station for, I think close to five years. Definitely no longer than that, though. We were constantly on the move growing up. From kindergarten to grade 12, I attended five different schools, in totally different, spontaneous locations all over Alberta and British Columbia.

I was fortunate enough to be able to graduate at the town we lived at the longest – after running away at the age of seventeen and having to work part time and rent a room on my own. It was a struggle but I’m still thankful for the life experience it gave me. But that’s a whole tale for another day.

Stay tuned to be regaled with more enthusiastic tales of memories and experiences from my youth and onward. I’ve decided to start opening up more about my life. Maybe I can help, entertain, or teach others – and maybe I can just show others that they are not alone in what they’ve been through or are currently going through.

I called a cop stupid and he heard me.

I failed at life today.

Well, yesterday to be exact. My conscience is so heavy that I’m awake at 1:45 a.m. the following morning, the tension causing me a night time nausea.

I haven’t had a good week. My husband and I process all our financial dealings, including mortgages, separately, since before we married, though we are aware of each other’s circumstances and work together as such.

And my husband, having been dealing with a bitter divorce when I met him, hit some hard times with his own mortgage, so I stepped in and helped him set things straight.

It was a moment that I felt defined our true partnership when I was able to step up recently, and help my husband with relaying documents and communication back and forth where necessary, between the bank, the lawyer, and his mother, whose name was still on the title of his land.

His debts had become one too many, and his mortgage term was coming to its end, so the decision was made to facilitate a title transfer and finally put his property fully in his own name, and refinance his mortgage accordingly, in an effort to consolidate his debts and give him an easier time making ends meet since he’d taken a new job with a major pay cut last summer. I was happy to step in as his secretary extraordinaire and do all the talking, paper chasing, and number crunching for him. It was exciting at first, to be helping like this. I was confident in my abilities after my own experiences as a financial contract administrator, and felt like I could make the universe happen for him.

March 1st, 2019, we were to have the finances in place. I began dealing with my husband’s case on the 27th of December, 2018. It is the 10th of May in 2019 and we will have the finances in place next Friday, maybe. Three mortgage payments have bounced, and I have now emptied a year’s worth of my savings to pay his child support for him as the school year is coming to a quick end and his ex-wife cannot afford to miss payments or wait for them at this crucial time.

The trouble began with my mother-in-law’s lawyer, meeting with her to process the title transfer and begin the refinancing procedure with the property in my husband’s name alone. The lawyer saw my mother-in-law and instructed her to see an accountant to go over financial values before completing the title transfer, as there would be taxes to be paid on the value at the time of transfer. Her meeting with the accountant left her horrified – the accountant that the lawyer sent her to had extremely high rates for his services and proceeded to convince her that she would be in debt by tens of thousands of dollars over this transfer. She was on the phone with my husband instantly, asking if there was any other way to proceed.

I stepped in at this point. I had just had my baby on the 22nd of January and we were now into the first weeks of February – we were going to fall behind if we didn’t act quickly. So I contacted the loan officer assigned to my husband’s case and asked the same question as my mother-in-law. Is there anyway we can proceed without having to do this title transfer? The answer was a bland “no”. Unless we wanted his mother liable for his mortgage as well, we would have to find some way to proceed with the transfer. I then chose to contact my own accountant – and asked her for help with the matter. She was happy to give us her assistance. We quickly met with her, hoping we could rectify the situation before we ran into trouble. She gave me the assignment of finding a realtor to assess the value of my husband’s property, and to research the value of the property at the time that my husband’s father passed away.

It didn’t take more than a day and a half. Baby in tow, I visited the realtor, then my mother-in-law’s lawyer, then the realtor again, and then made phone calls back and forth with my accountant. She proceeded to inform us of a far lesser amount of taxes liable based on a title transfer at the value I had presented to her from the realtor’s assessment. So we sent my mother-in-law back to her lawyer with this new information to complete the title transfer once and for all.

We were devastated when my mother-in-law called my husband that evening to inform him that the lawyer had turned her away and dismissed the information presented from my accountant. The lawyer berated my accountant and claimed he would not proceed with the transfer until my mother-in-law visited the accountant HE chose for her. I’d never heard something so ridiculous. My mother-in-law didn’t know what to do, and I was beginning to wonder as well. My husband insisted she go back to her lawyer and put her foot down and tell him we will proceed with what we have, and that’s it. His mother agreed, and scheduled yet another appointment. Two more weeks lost, because of the nonsense.

When finally she got in and had words with her lawyer as planned, the lawyer did in fact not respond to her as planned. He simply refused to serve her. Away we came for a third time, empty handed and now on the edge of our deadline. My husband was beginning to lose all hope.

So I performed once again, and called on my own lawyer, asking if he would be willing to step in. He said he would be happy to, so I felt like I had saved the day yet again. A week went by before we were sent in to meet with him. I was a little shocked when we were met with his partner, instead of himself. But oh well, they were helping us and that’s all that mattered. We were saved, and I was confident everything would be alright.

I was wrong.

My lawyer’s partner met me with a strange vibe, that I only recently realized was in fact, a nasty, judgmental disdain which at this point I do believe interferes with his motivation to handle our dealings regarding the title transfer as well as the new mortgage waiting to be secured against my husband’s property. A disdain for my age, and his assumed reasoning toward my choice of spouse – my husband is twenty years older than I, and here I was, handling all the financial matters on his behalf – perhaps for my own recreational gain more than my husband’s best interests.

What started at the end of February and should have taken two weeks, took more than two months instead, with one attempt to stall the procedure after another.

I watched my savings fade away – money I’d become proud of holding onto in case of emergency – because this man was purposely holding us up. The loan officer was purposely holding us up. We told them this was urgent. We expressed how important it was that we complete this procedure as soon as possible. And yet – every possible snag that could be caused by brutal misconduct and miscommunication, was in fact caused.

With a baby on my hip, I was travelling between two towns and our home at least four times a week, delivering paperwork, obtaining signatures, transferring balances between accounts to facilitate impossible amounts of extra transactions necessary for this whole procedure to take place.

My husband’s job was leaving him in a manic depressive state, unhappy with himself and as a result, unhappy at home. This caused a strain on our brand new marriage, with our sweet little baby in the mix now, too. On top of over-indulging, extremely dramatic “friends” of his invading our personal life and testing our patience with them and with each other. It actually got bad enough that we had to hang gates on our driveways and lock them with padlocks – I have already received a death threat from one of these “friends”.

At the same time that we were attempting to refinance my husband’s mortgage, we found an incredible opportunity two hours away. A firewood business – my husband’s DREAM occupation, was listed for sale for a reasonable price according to the projected income and the listed assets included in the sale of the company. We grew wild with lust for a fresh start and a new job for my husband. I assured him that with my smarts and my secretarial abilities, I could make it happen one way or another and convince a financial institution to loan us the money necessary to take on this new opportunity. I finally began to see the light come back to my husband’s eyes.

I watched my husband work himself to the bone attempting to bring in enough money to get us by, while I lost sleep with my new baby, worked on paperwork and finances during the day, and cried myself to sleep in the evenings.

We’d come a long way by the middle of April, but we were falling very far behind financially by this point. I continued to pressure my lawyer and the loan officer to speed up what seemed to me to be an eternally long process. They continued to balk me, and send me more “assignments”.

The owners of the business we were interested in purchasing were getting to know us quite quickly and could see how desperate we were to start over and make the most of ourselves.

It was a warm Monday afternoon when the bank phoned me after a celebratory email the Friday before, claiming we had finally been approved for funding and now just needed signatures to finalize everything. My husband was over the moon. So was I.

The loan officer called to tell me the rates and expected payments we would be looking at, for the mortgage. It sounded too low to me, so I asked her to clarify the amount of the mortgage, and she quoted me an amount less the cost of the business we had wanted to purchase – so I pointed this out, and she explained that we had not been approved to purchase the business – we had only been approved to refinance my husband’s mortgage. I was horrified, and exclaimed that she’d misled me with her email, and she agreed that yes she had – but she claimed she hadn’t meant to.

I suppose we saw it coming in the last couple weeks leading up to this point. Red flags had begun to spring up all over the place with this business, and we clued in quite quickly just how falsely a lot of the information had been presented to us to begin with. The owners themselves approached us, not yet knowing we’d in fact been declined, and encouraged us to change our minds about buying the business. They convinced me to take the last of my money and pay half of a truck driver course for my husband with the promise that they would hire him at a far better pay rate than he has currently, but took that offer back as well, after it was too late and we had already enrolled.

It was devastating, but my husband and I chose to accept this as a blessing in disguise and re-focus our attention on our own home and what we could start on our own. Perhaps we could start small with firewood, now that we knew more of the industry.

Maybe we will get serious about farming.

Perhaps we can expand with investment properties and earn more rental income over time while building equity.

In the end, we still have each other, we agreed. So now it was time to finish this mortgage dealing once and for all.

I questioned if we should have sought services from a different financial institution after the loan officer misled me so brutally, for what I honestly feel was her own amusement at our expense. But we chose to proceed with her anyway, since we were this far in already.

And so, we resumed our proceedings as normal, now without the thought of the business being attached to the mortgage.

But it still dragged on. Suddenly new complications came up – the loan officer had to come to our home to have my husband sign the last of the paperwork. After missing a full week of work due to the driver course he enrolled in, it was too much for my husband to take more time off right away, so this caused yet another exhausting two week delay. The loan officer finally made it here last Friday to get papers signed.

Now the last step, she told me, was going to my lawyer and signing his contracts, providing him a confirmation of insurance, and having him submit his paperwork back to her, and from the day of her receiving his paperwork, we could expect to see the finances within three to five days. I showed some frustration with this, and expressed how far behind we’d already fallen by this point. But the loan officer simply shrugged and gave me the “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.” speech.

So on Monday I headed in to the lawyers office and asked to see him. He met me in the waiting room with a very obvious sense of disinterest. I offered him the confirmation of insurance and asked if we could schedule to sign – I was there now, so why not let me sign while I’m there? He rejected the confirmation of insurance and said it would have to be filled out on his own form, not pre-made. So I requested this form, and he said he could not provide me with it until we would meet to sign – at which point he also refused to let me sign then. It would have to wait until it suited him better.

So we found ourselves scheduled for Wednesday morning to sign the FINAL documents. This was it. The moment we had been waiting for for now almost six months.

But once again – bad news. The lawyer met us with nonchalance and informed us that he’d in fact not processed the title transfer yet, and to do so would cost about five hundred dollars and still take a day or two. Then he handed me the paper needing to be filled out by my husband’s insurance and instructed me to go have it filled out and faxed back, and he assured me then he would send everything into the bank, finally.

So I left his office and drove straight to our home town and had the form filled out and submitted as required. Now we waited with anxious anticipation.

It didn’t come as a surprise when I received a call Thursday morning from the lawyer, with another complication. A new form had come up, needing signatures from my husband and his mother, to facilitate the title transfer once and for all, and we could not proceed with funds until this document got handed in. So, I got dressed, loaded up my baby, and back on the road we went, over tired and more depressed than I’ve ever felt – more hopeless than I’ve ever felt – in my life. I didn’t complain. I didn’t argue. I did exactly as was requested of me, and delivered the signed document straight to the lawyer’s office. He refused to see me when I got there, so I asked the receptionist to hand the document in and remind him that I was insisting he send the document package into the bank immediately.

Which brings us to Friday, yesterday morning. Another morning phone call. More disdain dripping from his voice as he quite calmly told me there was a new document that needed signatures and filling out – this time from my husband’s ex wife. And I finally lost my temper. I finally demanded to know why on earth these documents hadn’t been handed in and what the heck my husband’s ex wife could possibly have to do with this.

He responded in a shallow tone. My husband’s ex wife’s name was still on the home insurance policy, and would need to be removed or else he was unwilling to proceed with the document package for the bank. The same insurance that I attempted to offer him on Monday – that I obtained for him again on Wednesday – he chose not to deal with this sooner, but rather wait until now, to bring it to my attention.

I was furious. I emailed the loan officer and demanded that she request the document package with the previous confirmation and proceed with things as they are, until I could contact my husband’s ex and ask her to sign off on his home insurance.

The loan officer emailed me back, mocking me with an air quote of my sentence containing the words “proceed with things as they are” and implied that I was making a ridiculous demand that would be entirely against policy.

I didn’t hesitate to email her back and call her out for her mockery of me, and proceeded to tell her that I have experience in her very line of work and I know the policies and procedures surrounding large financial contracts. My husband in the meantime sensed my meltdown and left his work early, tracking down his ex with the update form and asking her to sign, and she did. He promptly submitted the document, and demanded that the bank now proceed.

Moments later, I received a smug reply from the loan officer that they’d received the updated insurance binder and had now finally submitted all documentation for fund transfer. No apology in sight.

My husband arrived home, and I had just finished getting ready to head to town with baby to go and try to get the document signed by his ex. I read the email from the loan officer just as he entered the house, and told him I felt outraged and robbed of something. Maybe some dignity. I felt embarrassed. He expressed sympathy as he changed his clothes and also got ready, as he had a medical appointment to attend right away. We decided to travel into town together, and tie up any loose ends still hanging.

I was angry, and disoriented, and could not focus on anything. I told my husband how ridiculous I felt this whole thing was, and how embarrassed and angry I felt, as we pulled into a parking stall on Main Street.

I swung my door open just as a peace officer pulled up to park beside my car, and almost connected with my door. The words were out of my mouth before I even realized it.

“Wow. Are you kidding? How f*^king stupid can people be? Just because you’re a cop doesn’t mean you can pull in and park like an idiot while I’m trying to get out of my car!”

I meant for myself – maybe my husband to hear it. But nobody else.

I stood, closed my door, and began walking toward the bank while my husband waited in the car with our baby.

And suddenly I heard, “Miss! Miss! Excuse me!”

I looked over, into the bright young face of a new peace officer in town, with kind eyes looking back at me.

“I’m sorry about that.” he told me. “I’m new in town and I didn’t mean to pull in and almost take your door off! You’re right it was stupid!”

Of all the things I’ve ever heard anyone say to me – this has to be the most dis-arming comment I have ever heard. I went bright red – I tried to speak but stuttered, and I finally blurted “Well you were not supposed to hear that and now I’m awfully embarrassed and I don’t have a clue what to say. I have to go.”

I only embarrassed myself more when I said that. I hastily stormed off, and heard him call out one more time.

“I hope your day gets better!”

I don’t know if God himself put this officer in my path today. But I feel I needed this to happen, for me to remember just how impactful my expectations are, and my reactions to my circumstances.

Things are not hopeless. Life is not over. We had a rough time. But here we are – the roof is still over our heads and we still have each other. We might not have a great day every day – we might have bad days like we had today – but if we change our attitude, we can make anything better. A bad day turned to a good evening.

I called a cop stupid today, and he heard me.

Love and Loss – A Year in Review

I realize it’s been more than a year since my last entry. So much has happened.

A year ago today, I left my home and my husband to be, for a week long and nearly ended my relationship with him. We’d been together almost six years. Lived with his daughter, 18 at that time, for two years. Her second boyfriend moved in with us for eight months already. She was three months from graduation – I had fought hard to get her back into school to begin with, after we took her in in 2015 following her drop out from school and a harrowing drug addiction. But now, at eighteen years old, her mother and a school counsellor had convinced her that I no longer had authority over her since she’d become an adult. The fall out from this resulted in screaming fights, nearly no school attendance, and horrid mental abuse. I couldn’t take it anymore. My skin would crawl when she would enter the room. A long meeting with my now husband, and we decided it was time to tell her to get out, and let her crawl back when she would be ready to obey my rules in my home. Instead, my husband’s ex-wife convinced him it would almost certainly result in his daughter dropping out before achieving graduation, and it would make him look better as a dad if he defied our decision and chose to keep his daughter despite the damage she’d been doing and would continue to do. At least until graduation in June.

He understands now that this was a mistake. But he didn’t then – and to ask him to choose between myself and his daughter – that was exactly what his ex-wife wanted. So I left for one week, and went house hunting. I found a house I wanted, and listed everything I could for sale, to come up with the down payment. The week away helped. I needed to get away from him and from my stepdaughter in order to clear my head and decide if our relationship was really worth everything I’d gone through and continued to go through because of his ex-wife and kids. It was worth it, because I loved him dearly. So I returned, after a lengthy discussion regarding my new rules of complete disengagement from his children. Not my kids, not my problem. Not my mess, I’m not cleaning it up. I also chose to proceed with purchasing the house I’d chosen, as it would be an excellent investment opportunity for me as well as a safe place for me to move to, if ever things still couldn’t work out here. I’d only ever dreamt of buying a house. Especially of my own. I felt so proud.

So with one dream come true, I pressed on. We stayed living together, with his daughter and her boyfriend still in our home, until July. He knew I intended to leave him still if he did not proceed with evicting the two. Our wedding was coming up right away, on the first of September, so I resumed planning it despite the upset it caused a few of my then closer friends. I’d lost some support of my relationship due to the severe bouts of depression I’d gone through from all the drama with his family. Two of my closest friends were to be part of my wedding party, and both gave me constant static and occasionally mentioned not wanting to be involved in the wedding anymore – it ended up overloading me with anxiety leading up to the wedding.

The wedding – getting married to the man I loved, was another dream come true for me, so the thought of the wedding being ruined by losing my friends leading up to it, left me suffering extensively. This at the same time as the discovery during May long weekend, that I’d successfully become pregnant with my now husband’s child. Yet another dream come true, if we could make it to the wedding and then make it to the next stage of our life with a new child.

I had been getting bullied at work – I work as a business administrator and do some of the major accounting for a major equipment brand dealership. It’s a high end corporate environment, loaded with female coworkers, several of whom are depressed, middle-aged women post divorce and struggling to make their way through life after many shattered goals and dreams. Despite everything they’ve put me through, they are like my husband’s ex-wife and I somehow manage to feel a sympathy for them. The bullying escalated to a point of brutal slander – the two women who’d been targeting me had been spreading a lie that I’d been having several affairs which led to a pregnancy outside my relationship, and the wedding was a sham to cover up my adultery. They sabotaged my work as well whenever they could, and attempted more than once to get me in trouble with upper management for unknown errors. Though I successfully thwarted every one of their attempts, it didn’t make me feel better. I began to deal with symptoms the equivalent of post traumatic stress disorder – I had trouble sleeping, I became overwhelmed with hopelessness and mistrust, and on more than one occasion, I would get so anxious that I would sweat intensely very suddenly.

I didn’t trust anyone. I carried on, pregnant and invested in my own house as well as an upcoming wedding and the desperate hope that my husband would not deceive me and choose not to kick his daughter and her boyfriend out. I prayed that my friends would come through, but I grew depressed and angry as I continued to gravel to them more and more, trying to keep them all happy enough to make sure they would pull through for the wedding. I don’t know how many crying meltdowns I suffered in the middle of the night, nights in a row sometimes.

The first one to pull through was my dear husband, himself. I think he knew that my intent was to leave him if the kids were not told to move out in July by the first of June. And it was that very day, that he stepped up and confronted the kids. Of course they were not happy about it. But I was. I felt so much relief. So much less anxiety. Finally some trust, in SOMEONE in my life. I knew then, that I was still on the right track with my life.

My stepdaughter graduated with a certificate rather than a diploma – a handicap piece of paper saying “hey she made it this far, let’s just call it good enough.” To this day I’m not impressed and I know god damn well she could have gotten that diploma. But I gave her a “congrats” at least, and despite the tension was still invited to her graduation. The bullying coworker made sure that she booked that day off so that I would miss my stepdaughter’s ceremony. But at least I made it for the second half.

I began to feel a strong faith that things were going to be alright. I felt the beginnings of true happiness, and started to worry less about the things that could go wrong out of my control, and more about the things that I could make happen for myself.

But on September first of 2018, another dream did come true, my friends all pulled through, and I married the man I so dearly love. I was glowing.

We went on an extraordinary honeymoon to the Caribbean, staying at a breathtaking resort on the island of St. Lucia. Yet another dream come true. We took a forty thousand dollar vacation for less than a quarter of the cost – it was a vacation I’d dreamt of for several years. One of my novels is based in St. Lucia. I got to taste the famous St. Lucian Cocoa Tea, on the side of one of the spectacular Piton Mountains. I felt my first baby kicks while we lay together talking about our dreams and incredible journey together so far, on the soft king size bed in the loft of our suite as we listened to the birds and bugs of the night.

Several weeks following our return from our honeymoon, I finally published two novels – a romance based loosely on my own trials with my now husband, and a Christmas mini-novel with the same characters, based about twelve years later. I own a copy of each of my own novels. I can’t express the amount of pride and happiness that comes with holding a copy of a book I wrote, in my very hand.

Things just kept getting better and better while others got worse and worse. The bullying at my work escalated even further, and the anxiety with my friendships only increased despite many in depth conversations with each of my friends about my insecurities. None of my friendships are carefree and happy like they used to be. I hardly see my two closest friends or talk to them anymore and the anxiety every time I do interact with them is crippling to the point that I’ve wondered on several occasions if it’s even worth it anymore.

November came like a speed train. I was seven months pregnant and really feeling the excitement and anticipation of my first child. I had no idea that with everything else that had happened, that even more insanity was just around the corner.

My dad called me one afternoon, giddy like I’d never known before. He’d finally gotten in touch with my estranged sister. They’d lost touch for over a year, almost a year and a half. It’s a long story for another time, but for now the short version is that I was born unplanned when my sister was eight years old and I was brought up at a time that my parents had a little more money. My sister hated me for it, and never treated me with love or respect for as long as I can remember. She guilted my parents so much about me that my own parents grew to resent me and discarded me with ease. Her influence over my parents was so strong that they would snub my husband and I and ghost us if she ever got jealous or upset about us spending too much time with my parents. This caused huge strain and distrust between my parents and I – I inevitably ended up the family scapegoat. So understandably, when my sister finally disappeared, my relationship improved immensely with my parents, and I had never gotten along with them better.

It horrified me the moment my father told me he’d gotten in touch with my sister. And that her poor decisions had landed herself and her children in a distressing situation, needing help. Of course we will help her! Of course we will go get her and her six – what, seven!? kids and bring them here, now that we finally established a loving relationship with our youngest unwanted daughter! And it didn’t come as a surprise when they began to treat me poorly again the moment they brought her and her children home with them. Even though I knew it was going to happen – I wasn’t prepared for the heart break.

Christmas came, and my husband and I were blessed to have all of the kids home for Christmas, since the previous Christmas his oldest daughter chose not to come after making up a lie that I did not welcome her onto our property. This time it was happy, and calm, and not one bit of drama, even with my eight months pregnant belly sticking out as blaring evidence of the complete destruction of their first family unit. I was thankful, and glad. We exchanged courteous calls, cards and holiday wishes with friends and family as usual, and carried on into the new year, excited and nervous for how soon our baby was coming.

My stepdaughter got her first full time job at a local convenience store after New Years 2019. She and I hadn’t come to terms with one another until this new job. She comes out to the farm to tend to her horses at least twice a week. The difference now since she got her job, is that she will stay after she’s done with the horses, and visit with her new brother and my husband and I. I’m slowly beginning to warm up to her again, and I feel happy that we are getting along again, even if it’s in minimal doses. It would appear that perhaps her job made her realize that there are in fact people out there that are worse than her dad and her monstrous stepmother.

It was the 22nd of January when our beautiful son entered the world and turned me into a mother. I cannot express the powerful emotion that coursed through me. That still does every time I look at him. The happiness and the incredible sense of responsibility, having a true purpose. Yet another dream come true.

We spent three nights in the hospital before finally going home. We were exhausted – friends and family had been stopping in at the hospital frequently to see the new baby, and we were excited to finally be home and have it quiet. But of course it couldn’t last. We were bombarded with company within an hour of getting home. It was frankly frustrating and even more exhausting for me. After company finally left, close to midnight, my husband I settled down for the night with our newborn son, and planned the next day. It being a Friday, we decided it would be okay for my husband to return to work and that I could stay home alone with baby for the first time. I was excited to catch up on rest and spend time alone with my baby without interruptions. I suppose it should not have shocked me to be bombarded with company again anyway. And that company was my parents, my sister, and all seven of her kids. Loaded with criticisms, and finally my father yelling at me for not preparing our home as he’d instructed us to in the weeks leading up to my son being born. He told me that I had the house far too cold and would cause my son sickness or death, before storming out of my home and leaving me standing crying in my kitchen as my mother and sister rounded up my seven nieces and nephews and snuck out out after him. The upset from the confrontation led to a short period of postpartum depression as I grew sad and overly anxious all over again, feeling undeserving and inadequate to care for this beautiful little boy.

It didn’t take too long for me to realize, however, that I was doing just fine and didn’t need my parents’ approval of how I was choosing to care for my son.

My son is two months old now. My dad is still criticizing my parenting, and my sister is making remarks about how I parent my son behind my back, while pretending she and I are long lost friends. My parents bought my sister a brand new house in town, as well as enough brand new furniture to furnish the whole home. They’d be hard pressed to lend me ten dollars on my worst day. They insist it’s for the grandchildren. They insist she will pay every cent back. They must think I’m stupid. I make more money than all of them and I couldn’t pay all that back. They will be in debt until they pass away – all of them. It’s like my parents lost their sanity the moment my sister reappeared in our lives, and I’m stuck right in the middle.

While I’m losing friends and fighting with family, I’ve reached out to my psychologist for help coping with the depression and loneliness. I grew fairly desperate in the last three months – I attempted to reconnect with old friends, only to realize exactly why we didn’t remain friends in the first place, and then I connected with new friends – one who is only interested in gossiping and judging others, and leaves me loathing myself after every one of our visits, and another who is in fact a divorced mother, two decades my senior. You would think the divorced mother would be the last one I would connect with well, but ironically I feel a closeness building with her that I’ve been seeking for a while, unless I am simply fooling myself, as I have easily done in the past. But hey – here’s hoping she’s different and I’m not wrong for trusting her. I do like her very much.

My husband stands faithfully by my side throughout all of it. He holds me when I cry, he listens when I talk about the loneliness and anxiety, and he shares as much joy and love with me as he can, and helps me to care for our son any way he can. He even dropped everything to come with me on a foolish, drop-of-a-hat decision to load up our son and some overnight belongings and drive six hours to see my one close friend. We didn’t have the money to see her, nor the time, nor did he have the energy. My son had never been in a vehicle longer than an hour and a half. But he never once ridiculed me. He’d held me several times while I cried, that week already, so I suppose it’s not surprising that he was happy to go along with me on something that I’d hoped would make me feel better. The trip eased the pain temporarily – but our return home brought with it a hard slap in the face from reality. I am relying too much on everyone else to ease my sorrows.

I have a son to look after. I have a best friend right here with me – my husband. I might have another chance at a relationship with my stepdaughter. And most of all – I have myself, and it’s time for me to look after myself as well, and stop trying to please all these other people. If they give a single shit about me, it will show. Otherwise, I’m better off without them.

I’d say we’ve come a long way. I could never have guessed, that so much could change in one year.

Excerpt – “Can You Hear Me”

“Can you hear me?”

“Anna.  Anna!”

“Baby please wake up.”

I can hear the voices.  I can feel the love.  I can feel my body, at rest.  I need to open my eyes and answer them.  Tell my mother that I’ll be okay.  Tell my husband that I love him.  Tell my father I’m sorry for being so weak.

But I’m just not ready I guess.

My mind is trying with all its might, to force my body to make some sort of movement.  But the connection just isn’t there.  The brain-to-impulse-to-nerve-to-muscle movement just isn’t complete yet.  I know it will be, eventually.

For now I will just resume the peaceful dreams.  The calm and quiet.  The gentle self-reflection.

How did I end up here?

I can barely remember my last moments.  The argument with Darwin.  The empty house after Jayden and Riley stormed out.  I think I was in the kitchen when everything finally went away.

“How many times do I need to tell you to leave?”

“I’m not leaving my wife here.”

“You’re the reason she’s here in the first place!”

“Me?  You’re blaming me for this?  This is a heart attack, Harold – I had nothing to do with this.”

“The hell you didn’t!  You and them goddamn kids and that despicable woman.  You ruined my daughter!  All of you!  Look at her.  Look at her!  You and your family did this to her.  And you know it, you son of a bitch.  She kept trying to tell us – but we kept giving you the benefit of the doubt.  What kind of a man are you, that you can’t keep your old life separate and under control from destroying your new life?  If she wakes up, we are taking her home and she is divorcing you and I never want to see you anywhere near her again, do you understand me?”

“…”

“Both of you have said enough.  I don’t want to hear another word.  We need to be here for her if she wakes up.”

“We don’t know that she’s going to wake up!  What in the hell was going on in that circus of a house that caused this to happen, anyway!?  You don’t know you have it good until it’s all gone, do you?  Just like with your last one.  Let everyone and their dog walk all over you and get between you, and wonder why everything finally came to an end right?  Well this time it might be her life that’s come to an end, because of your bullshit!”

I can feel shock coursing through me as I listen to my father demanding answers from Darwin.  I thought they didn’t believe me when I told them about what was happening at home.  I thought I was making a big deal out of nothing.  Had I really suffered a heart attack?

“You’re not taking her away from me.  I didn’t do this to her.”

I feel desperate to understand what exactly happened.  It frustrates me that I don’t remember the details of what put me where I am now.  Was this really because of Darwin?

I visualize the last thing I saw when I was still awake.  I was turned away from my husband, looking down at my white hands as I gripped the edge of the kitchen sink like my life depended on it.  I can remember the tear drops on the backs of my hands.  They were falling from my face – from my eyes.  What was it again that had me so upset?  I want to remember why we were arguing, but I can’t seem to recall.

Everything begins to fade from me despite my protests, wanting to hear more of the discussion between my mother and father and my husband.

I’m resting, but not completely.  I’m back into one of the many dreams I’ve been having over the course of my time in an unconscious state.

We’re out in the field, my father and I – stacking square bales on the trailer behind the pickup while my mother inches the unit forward slowly.  I’m a seventeen year old, confused teenager again, farming with my folks and schooling myself from home.

“Put some muscle into it!” my dad hollers at me.  “Jesus, Anna.  Come on.  You’re not a little kid anymore.”

I do my best not to show any reaction, but give all my energy to heave the bale up onto the trailer faster than the last one.  I’ve loaded over a hundred bales, each of them weighing seventy pounds at the least.  He should be happy that I am keeping up with him.

Then suddenly I find myself seated on the deck with him, my mom, and the neighbor’s son, staring into the darkening summer sky.

I can feel the heat in my face.  I’m waiting to hear my father praise me.

“Got it done today.” I hear him say.

Brian looks at him in curiosity.

“Got the bales all hauled up to the house.  Took a lot out of me.” he adds.

Brian nods.

“How many you get?” he asks in his familiar low voice.  A voice I’ve not heard in over ten years.

“Six hundred or so.”

“Ah, yeah.  Takes a lot out of a guy, heavin’ them things up on the trailer, then unloading and stacking ‘em when you decide where you want ‘em.” Brian replies, casting a small glance at me.

“I helped.” I pipe up.

Brian grins at me now.  He is aware of my frustrations with my father.

My dad casts a glance at me now too, before returning his attention to Brian.

They continue to chat pointlessly into the night while I lean back in my chair and stare out into the sky, wondering when my dad will ever give me praise.

It doesn’t take me long to realize that I’m dreaming, and soon the scene changes again.

Brian is seated on my bed, beside me.  Sunlight is filtering through my window, shining right onto the side of his face as he looks my bare self up and down.

I can feel the blood drain from my face as I remember exactly what it is that he’s about to say after he just took my virginity and I wait for him to tell me this means he loves me.

“I kind of lied,” he says to me with a small, guilty smirk on his face.  “Janna and I didn’t actually… break up.”

I remember the sadness.  I remember the surprise, when I first learnt he had lied to me.

“I know all this already.” I mutter.

Brian looks up at me in shock.

“I don’t know why I have to remember this.  I don’t know why I have to feel this, all over again.  I know, Brian, you didn’t break up with Janna.  You’re about to pull out the engagement ring you bought for her, flash it in my face, and suggest that I keep my mouth shut.  I’m going to cry, and ask you why you did this to me, and you’re going to tell me because you took the liberty of taking my first time for my sake because you’re experienced.” I continue.

Brian becomes blurry before me, as I can feel myself exiting yet another dream.

A gasp escapes me as I sit up quickly in our bed.  Darwin is beside me, with his arms around me instantly.

We’re at home now.

“Anna.  Baby what’s wrong?” Darwin asks quietly.  “You’re dripping in sweat.  Bad dream?”

“Bad dream?” I echo faintly.  “I survived?  I survived the… heart attack?”

“What heart attack?  You haven’t had a heart attack – you’re much too young.”  Darwin almost laughs as he holds me against him.  “Silly girl.”

I turn my head sharply to look him in the eyes.

“Don’t talk to me like that.” I hiss.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m dumb.  You put me down.” I answer immediately.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”  He releases his grip and leans back, regarding me with a passive dismissive look.  “Do you want some breakfast?”

I grunt and glare at him.  He puts me down constantly and then makes me feel like a nut case every time I try to stand up for myself.

“You’re getting mad over nothing.  I called you silly.  I meant it in a totally loving way.” he murmurs to me as he twists his body to get out of bed.  “Now, do you want some breakfast or not?”

First he puts me down, then disregards my upset and makes me feel like a hot mess of psychopathy when I tell him I am upset, and then immediately changes the subject to derail the conversation altogether.  Or he turns it around on me.

“No I don’t want any damn breakfast – I want you to stop putting me down.” I snap at him again.

I see anger flicker briefly across his gaze as he attempts to maintain his nonchalant front with me.

“I guess I’ll have breakfast by myself then.” he murmurs before turning away from me.

“Fuck you, Darwin – say something about what I just said to you!” I yell.

“What?” he demands.  “What do you want?  You woke up from a bad dream, I grabbed you right away, I held you, I looked after you, and you just start yelling at me.”

We fall silent, staring one another down.

Is he right?  Did I just over react?  Have I been looking for something to react to since I feel so beat down from every other time that he’s made me feel dumb?  I suddenly feel a pang of guilt as I think of how ungrateful it must appear – he simply tries to comfort me from a bad dream, and I just start losing my shit on him for no apparent reason.  Wait a minute.

No.  No!  This is the abuse.  This is it.  He’s abusing me right now.  And he’s doing it successfully, yet again.  I should be angry.  I have the right to be angry.  It’s very possible for me to have a heart attack despite my youth – because I did have one – and he is making me out to be melodramatic and unaware of what is possible with my body.  This is another of these dreams.

“You’re not treating me right.” I whisper to him as I watch the environment blur around us.

Darwin makes to say something, but immediately fades from view as well, and everything finally just goes black.

The Great Divide

I read once that a woman’s mind alters for life during her twenty-sixth year.  I heard that when I was twenty-three.  Of course I didn’t believe it.  Her body changes, and with it, her hormones become altered and her entire pattern of thought changes radically.  The whole world can appear different to her from one day to the next, and she won’t know or understand why.

I’m not sure if that’s my problem.  But three weeks or so ago, everything changed.  I woke up from what appears to be a bad dream, and am now wondering what the hell I’m doing, why I’m where I am, and how quickly and how rapidly I can change things and take care of myself – only myself, once and for all.

“If anything, you don’t know when to quit on a horse that’s already dead.  So I wouldn’t go with a lack of trying.” is my best friend’s text message response when I explained to him that I finally let my partner know of the impending doom of a changing heart.  I told my best friend that I felt ashamed for being this tired after this many years of trying and trying, to just wake up one morning and realize it’s all too heavy for me.  I just can’t do it anymore.  It was making me feel like a quitter.  I should try harder.

But when do I get to come first?  When do I get to do what I want?  Be who I want to be?  I’m twenty-six years old.  Can’t I be just that?  A twenty-six year old woman?

It’s a tough, straight up mentally damaging road for any stepmom.  For any “younger” wife.  To walk into a family that you were never part of, and love kids that may never love you back – to love a man who is constantly torn between you and other people.  To give input and assistance to raise adolescents and teens when you have no parental know-how, and everyone looks at you with judgment in their eyes every time you fuck up.  Because you can fuck up, and you will.  A lot more than you will ever like to admit.  To stand by the man you love while he reminisces with his kids about the good times with the woman before you.

I don’t blame my partner for any of it.  It’s a damn hard road for everyone involved.  Him, his ex-wife, her boyfriend, the kids, and lastly, me.  It’s easy for me to fight with any one of them.  But now that I’m so disengaged, it’s easy to realize that they’re all humans, struggling inside the very same rocking boat as me.  I wonder if any of them have days like this.  Days of complete exhaustion.  “I’m done.  I can’t do it.  I can’t keep up.  I tried.  I need to look after me now.  It’s too heavy – I can’t hold up.”

And I just don’t want to anymore.  Everything I used to love – painting, writing, raising the goats and sheep – I’ve entirely lost my compassion for life and after three weeks of feeling this way, I’ve made the step toward advertising and preparing my livestock all to sell.  I’m going to send my dog to a new home.  I’m going to donate nearly all of my wardrobe to charity.  I’m putting the pens and the sketchbooks away.

I’m sad and ashamed to feel this way.  I feel as though I’m about to let everyone down.

But at the same time – I can feel something, like a small spark trying to ignite.  Way down in the deepest, darkest part of my subconsciousness, desperate to light up and burst through to the surface.  It’s the real me.  I can bring her back to life, if I take the time now to nurture myself and make the changes I need to get me to where I want to be.

And so I find myself standing before a divide, with umpteen people standing on one side, and myself on the other.  The choice is mine to make.

Growth

I think it goes without saying that each and every one of us has a blotch in our past.  That ugly mark, that you wish would go unnoticed, or forgotten, but in the back of your mind, you remember it so vividly, for the sole reason that you are not at all proud of who you were or what you did in that moment.

Our self esteem is not so much a quality or aspect of ourselves, as it is a process.  I don’t believe anyone is simply born into this world with the perfect amount of self-confidence and respect.

It comes from how we are raised, partly, and what kind of environment we grew up in, what kind of people we socialized with and grew up with.  There are too many factors to consider when attempting to understand one particular individual and why they act the way they do, or why they feel the way they do.

As a teenager, I constantly felt like a victim.  I felt poorly about myself, and it was evident.  I was an easy target for all the wrong types of people.

Even into early adulthood, I saw life through tunnel vision.  I was the only person on this planet, and my feelings and actions were all I knew and understood.

I don’t know what changed, or when, but a day came in my life when I began to notice the other people around me, and how they behaved, specifically.  Were their actions familiar to me?  Was it something I had done or said once myself?  And why did I do or say that very same thing?  The more I observed, the more I learnt.

I began seeing the psychiatrist when I was nineteen years old.

I was greatly unhappy with myself.  I focused on my mistakes, and every single shortcoming, until I was so distressed that I felt I didn’t belong.  At all.  Mentally, I had hit rock bottom, and there was nothing that anyone could do to help me, as long as I couldn’t help myself.

There had to be something I could do, to become a better person.  To become stronger, and healthier, and most importantly, happy with myself.

It was the recognition of my own poor self esteem, and the constant observation and attempt to understand my feelings and actions and exactly what provoked me, that ultimately led to the path of betterment.

My past is most certainly not perfect.  I’ve made too many mistakes and wrong choices to count.  But that doesn’t make me any less of a human being.  It doesn’t take away the opportunity for me to become better.

I’ve learnt to be proud of my accomplishments, and accept and love myself for who I am, as I work to become better and better with every passing day.  I will still make mistakes.  I will still make the wrong choices.  But as I grow and become a better person, I will become stronger, more understanding, and happier, and the mistakes and wrong choices will lessen.

I want to be a part of the change I want to see in this world.

It’s easy to remember the bad things.  The experiences, the people, and all the things you dislike about yourself.  Make the effort to forgive and forget, and start remembering all the good things.  See what it does for you.

There is nothing that holds us back but ourselves.

Free your mind, and open your heart to becoming better.  Be better today than you were yesterday.  Do something to improve your happiness.  Learn something new.  Smile at someone who loses their patience with you for no reason, and pray for their lives to get better.

Let’s make the world a great place to be.

via Daily Prompt: Better

To The Fullest

My lifestyle could be labelled as “busy”, “pressured”, “blue collar”, you name it.

I live the fullest lifestyle.

I live a life of stress, work overload, anxiety, etc., but I use all those qualities of my life, and more, to make it the best it can be.  Leading a stressful life means for incredible days off.  The road trips are that much more wondrous and relaxing.  The camping is that much more appreciated.

Anxiety is quelled by many things when the effort is made to cope with and deal with it as a chronic ailment.  My ways of dealing with it are relaxation, hobby farming small animals, and doing anything that is calm, safe, and creative.

If my husband and I quarrel, we bounce back twice as strong in love and spending time together to make up for damages.  I don’t think we would love one another half as much as we do, if it hadn’t been for the quarrels and struggles we have faced along the way.  We’ve had to learn to understand each other and continue to love and support one another, even at our worst.

Years ago I lived day by day in pessimism and misery.  Nothing was positive.  I wasn’t grateful for anything.  I dreaded waking each morning and facing the world all over again, feeling as though I had no purpose.  Back then I lived a quite depressing lifestyle.

It’s taken a long time and a lot of hard hits and bad experiences, for me to realize what the negative does for me.

I will forever stand by the statement that life is what you make of it.

One day, I finally understood the balance between negative and positive, and how to make the most of what I had.

I give it everything I’ve got now – for my sake, for my husband’s and kids’, and all those around me, to live the fullest lifestyle.  To appreciate the bad experiences because I know that it will make all the good ones that much more worth it.

Living the fullest lifestyle means living with gratitude and compassion.  It means choosing to be happy no matter what the circumstance, because even though it can get very dark, the sun always rises the next day.  Every moment is absolutely worth it.

Find your balance.