The Short Of It

     It's time to stop pretending.   So you think you want to be an astronaut... it doesn't mean that pretending to be one is gonna get you to the moon.  If you can't be true to yourself, and realistic with your own attainable expectations,  then at least don't lie to others.   I've been dragged down by my inability to tell the difference... Investing in astronauts and never getting to the moon. Am I to blame? Certainly. Is NASA?  Ok, NASA  has nothing to do with this.   But the men I've let come into my life who were obviously not astronauts have sent me spinning like Apollo 13, and I'm left trying to figure out which combination of their lies and my nativity are to blame.  
     Aside from my Facebook status' which to all but a few probably seem cryptic, depressing and whiney,  not many people known what's really been going on with me.  Not that I think the whole world cares about my problems, but I've gotten a lot of messages and comments asking me if I'm okay, so this is for those people.  If you care enough to read this, you should see that I'm not just some girl posting depressing status' for attention.  The recent events of my life would be enough to send anyone into a tailspin, so I'm going going to attempt to describe them here, and then blog more frequently about them so those that care to listen might offer me the insight I feel I need to work through this mess.
     I've been wanting to do this for a long time.  I've started writing and deleted so many posts mainly because trying to cover everything in one blog post has left me feeling like a crazy person.  I mean, who has this much drama and turmoil in their whole life,  let alone in just a couple of years?  Well, I have, and in order to make sense of it all, I'm gonna lay it all out there for everyone to see.  I'm at the point where scrutiny from others can't possibly hurt me anymore, and I'm hoping that whatever feedback I might receive will help me see the whole picture a little better and prevent all this turmoil from becoming chronic.  So today, I'm going to skim the surface of the events that have gotten me here, and in future posts I will elaborate. 
     When I moved to New England almost 5 years ago, I was devastated.  Harper was 6 months old, I had lost my job and everything that mattered to me except that sweet baby girl, and I was willing to leave everything I knew in order to find some security for my child.  I was leaving behind the remnants of a long term relationship with Drew, and he was much more ready to say goodbye than I was. I was in love with somebody who wasn't ready for me and my daughter and it was time to move on, whether my heart thought so or not, so I got on a plane with Harper and began again at my Dad's house in Wilmington, Massachusetts.  
     Anybody who knew me growing up knows at least one thing about my Dad...He was never around.  I don't mean I just saw him every other weekend either.  From the time I moved to Alabama when I was 10 until I was in 8th grade, I saw my Dad just one time and only spoke with him a few.  I moved to live with him for 8th grade year to escape problems at my Mom's house, then moved back the next year.  I lived with him once more the summer before I started school at Auburn University and basically didn't talk to him again until I moved to New England with baby Harper.  It sounds weird, and it is.  My relationship with my Dad was, and still is one of the most confusing aspects of my life.  And I'm sure I will get into that further in future posts, but for the sake of my readers and covering a lot of ground today, I will get back to that later.
     So I moved to Massachusetts, and tried to start over.  Words can't do justice for the pain I felt in my heart at that time.  1,000 miles away from home and anyone I felt truly knew and loved me, and still in love with a boy who was moving on with his life, I set my focus on my daughter and tried not to look back. Through my parents I met Mike Vitale, and more quickly than I expected started a relationship with the man who I now know was destined to be Harpers father. 
     It was the relationship between Mike and Harper that propelled my life into a direction I wanted.   Security, family, consistency and dependability... Mike offered us all those things and he was in love with me to boot.  He was the guy I knew I should want to be with for all the right reasons and I told myself I could love him for all those reasons, but in the end I wasn't in love.  I had been in love...That boy I left behind in Alabama and cried over to myself for years after leaving,  always had me in turmoil over what I didn't feel for the man I was now engaged to marry. 
     Lying to myself,  in the end proved impossible,  and like all those astronauts I referred to in the beginning of this post, I wasn't getting any closer to the moon and the only person I was fooling was myself.  After our big wedding,  you can imagine the shock and hurt Mike and his family experienced when I said I wanted a divorce.  The tide was unleashed upon me and there was no going back to the life that was three years in the making for me here.  Every relationship I had formed, every confidant and friend I had, was gone, in the blink of an eye, and I was on my own yet again. 
     So I began again.  I started another relationship too quickly,  and when it failed I was just as lost as before.  But my second attempt at a relationship here, I found something real, and that's what I have been doing for the past two years...being in love.  Unfortunately for me, it seemed karma came back to bite me in the ass.  Just as I had wanted to love Mike, but was unable to, Bobby wanted to love me and his inability to be honest with himself has left me devastated. 
     When I left Mike, everyone acted like it was easy for me.  The scrutiny and anger aimed at me by his large Italian family after I came clean was like none I have ever had faced.  But I faced it because I knew I deserved it.  I knew what I had done.  I didn't mean to hurt anyone,  but by lying to myself for so long and not being able to commit to that lie, I had strung people along and hurt them to the core with my realization.  I stood quietly and took anything anybody had to say to or about me because it was the truth.  I didn't like it, but it was the truth.  I didn't want to leave Mike... I wanted to love him or I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to.  I just couldn't and in the end I feel I deserved more and so did he.  I made a selfish decision but the amount of contemplation and soul searching that went into reaching that decision made me sure it was the right one.
     So I understand almost too fully what Bobby went through in breaking up with me.  He and I had lived together for over a year.  My kids loved him just as much as I did and we talked about the rest of our lives together.  He told me he wanted to have a baby, and thank God we weren't successful because he knew how I felt about having another child with someone I wasn't planning on being with forever.   Whenever I was insecure in his feelings, he always made the same reply, "You've got nothing to worry about." Valentines Day before we broke up he wrote, "My heart is yours forever, " in the card he gave me.  I was all in and he knew it and I thought he was as well.
     Boy was I wrong.  Two weeks before we were due to move out of our apartment and into a new one he dropped the bomb on me.  He wasn't happy and didn't plan on moving anywhere with me.  I was unemployed, and we had been sharing his vehicle for a year.  I had been making plans based on us being together and he had been making plans to move on in another direction. 
     I felt like I couldn't breathe.  What has I done?   Was I that blind?  Did I set myself and worse, my children,  up for this?  Having been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Lupus a year earlier, I wondered if I had missed the signals because I was too sick to notice.  At that point I had no time to really think about it.  I had to move and I didn't have anywhere to go.  I didn't have a car or money in the bank to go it alone.  He may have been contemplating his decision for a month or more but this was all news to me.  I felt like such a fool that I could be so blindsided by this, and I didn't know what to do.  My self loathing was at an all time high, and I had never been so lost.  He was so certain, and I was clinging to what was left of my life by a quickly fraying rope. 
     There aren't many things in life more humiliating than calling someone who you hurt to tell them you've been hurt.  Mike Vitale should have been reveling in my faiured, but he didnt.  He didn't waiver for a second in telling me it would be okay.  In the next two weeks we moved all of my stuff (a 3 bedroom apartment's load) into his garage and I moved back to the home I had left to pursue life anew.  Where else would I go?  It was my only option but one I was so very thankful to have after all I had put Mike through.   I certainly new I didn't deserve his kindness and I knew that he could have screwed me over and taken my kids away...but he did what was best for us as a family and I am forever grateful. 

     I mentioned being sick, just now like it was a small part of my life,  but now I return to that because it was all but insignificant.  Systemic lupus erythematosus, or SLE, is an autoimmune disease that causes long-term and widespread inflammation.  It can affect every part of your body, and is the most confusion and painful thing I have ever suffered from.  Probably a long-term consequence of the chemotherapy drugs I received for cancer as a child, Lupus seemed to be overtaking my life now and it is still something that I'm struggling with.  There is no cure, only treatment of the inflammation that wreaks havoc on my body.  My own immune system was attacking me, and while I was happy to finally receive a diagnosis that explained all the seemingly random symptoms that had left me wondering if I was a hypochondriac, the realization that I would always be dealing with this was a hard one.  There were days that I felt so tired I could barely get out of bed, and the pain was almost constant.  
    I don't know what I would have done without Bobby through all this.  He took care of me and made sure I took care of myself the best he could.  When my hair started falling out and I had to cut it, he made me feel so secure in our relationship that I was able to sport my new short hair in a Mohawk like a rockstar.  It was so empowering to feel like I was with someone who loved me for me and who would love me through anything.  I cried to him and he helped me suck it up and be strong for my kids.  I felt like I could get through anything as long as I had him.  And then he was just gone...
     So there I was...sleeping on the couch at my ex husbands house.  Not knowing where to go next.  Being unemployed and without a vehicle, the only income I had was my child support, and I didn't expect my ex husband to pay that to me if I was living under his roof.  We made a decision together that he would find a new apartment, and let me stay in the place we were currently because I could afford the rent with the child support he paid me.  This place that had been my home for over three years previously, this place that I loved so much and felt so safe in, would now be my home and my security yet again.  So Mike found another apartment, and we were all set to go forward with our new plans and move on with our lives.  
     And then we hit another road block.  Our current landlady, Donna, who owned the mult-family home that contained the apartment we lived in, declared that she would not rent to me.  This was a woman who I had considered a friend in previous years, but lost favor with when I decided to divorce Mike.  I knew she would be upset with me, like everyone else here, with the way I handled things leading up to my divorce, but I had no idea she had a problem with me fundamentally.  Well, turns out she did.  She told Mike that she didn't approve of my lifestyle and that she would rent to him but not to me.  I was so taken aback by all this.  I asked Donna if she would speak to me so we could try to clear things up, because I wanted to regain her friendship and I knew that her dislike of me was founded in untruth.  
     A little background...Donna didn't approve of my "lifestyle".  I'm glad she didn't know me back in the day when I was actually a little wild because then she really wouldn't have approved.  It is ABSOLUTELY ABSURD for her to say that now, and there is truly nothing to disapprove of.  All I do, like ever, is parent my children.  I don't have a car, so I rarely even go anywhere.  Monday through Thursday the girls are with me, and with the exception of borrowing my ex husband's car to go to the grocery store, I don't do anything at all.  We walk to the store for an ice cream or play in the backyard or walk to the park, but that's it.  I tuck them into bed around 8:30 every night and I clean the house and do laundry and read.  I never even listen to loud music or have people over.  I don't really have any friends here, and although Bobby and I continued to be friends and he came to visit me on a couple of occasions, I really am just a boring home-body, and I'm okay with that.  
     So when Donna made her decision, and then verbally bashed me to my face when I asked to speak with her, I was yet again devastated.  The only comfort I had in being without Bobby and moving forward was this apartment...this place to be with my children.  The only place I could really afford, was now being taken away from me because of reasons that were just bullshit.  Donna told us that we had until August 1st to vacate, and I was pretty sure that if I lived there for a couple of months she would be able to see the truth which was that I was pretty much the best she could have ever hoped for as a quiet, easy tenant.  A couple of years prior I put about $3,000 of my own money into renovating this apartment because we planned on being here long term, I always fixed everything myself, I loved this place like it was my own, and I hoped that she would grant me the ability to continue doing so.  
     Boy was I wrong.  A couple of days ago Donna barged into my apartment to look for some stuff in the storage area.  I know she wasn't really looking for anything, and her attempt to upset me did just that.  It's 8 a.m. and she barges in here with the man who lives in the apartment upstairs, I'm just getting up with my kids and am not even dressed, and her invasion of my privacy resulted in her calling the police because I wanted her out of my apartment.  What a mess...What has happened to my life?  When did things get this bad?
     So now instead of August 1st I have until the end of this month to leave this place that I love.  I have nowhere else to go, so I will be moving into my ex husbands spare bedroom indefinitely.  Not exactly what I want but I am yet again so grateful to have an option.  I want independence but more than that I want my kids to have security and to be happy and we can have that all living together.  It humbles me again and again what my ex husband who I hurt so badly is willing to do for me and for our family.  He has shown me through his dedication what family really is...he's the only person who has ever been there for me and he's the only person I can call family here.  
     Everyone's question when I explain things to them is, "Why don't you just move home?"  The answer lies in my dedication to the one person who has shown me what it means to really be a family.  While I may have fallen away from the rest of Mike's family when we divorced, they are an amazing close knit group of people who have continually supported my kids and provided the "village" to raise my children.  I don't have anything to go back to at home in Alabama.  Yes, I have my Mom and brother and sister...but none of them are in the position to be financially supportive or really emotionally supportive for that matter.  My Mom has struggled with addiction and depression for my entire life, and right now she has become someone I don't even know thank's to opiate addiction.  My brother and my sister are both taking care of themselves and that's a wonder after all my Mom put us through.  I don't have anywhere to go at home, and to take these children away from this wonderful family they are a part of here to return to somewhere that is no more than a place...absurd.  I would never sacrifice that part of their lives just to be in a place.  It's hard for people to understand that unless they truly understand how little I have back home.  I've been here for 5 years now and nobody has come to visit.  My brother came for my wedding a couple years ago but other than that I have had no love from home.  I have two beautiful daughters who nobody calls...or sends birthday or Christmas cards to.  Nothing.  My Dad moved to Florida a couple of years ago and I don't hear from him either.  I am so alone in this life...so why would I leave the only thing and the only person (Mike) who have every shown me any consistent support and love?  The answer is that I wouldn't, so that is out of the question.  
     So this is the place where I am.  This is my explanation, at least in part, to everyone.  Through all this turmoil I have done so much soul searching, and I have come to the conclusion that no, I don't deserve this.  Nobody deserves to feel as lost and alone as I feel.  I literally wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.  I have a good heart, and live my life as a good person.  Yes, I have made mistakes and I'm certainly not all that I intend to become, but I'm working towards that every day.  I am going to figure this all out...what choice do I have?
    This week I have no time to worry about why all this is happening to me.  This week I pack up my house yet again, after just having gotten settled back in, and I move.  I move to a place that I know isn't permanent, yet again, and I'm tired of it, but it's what I have to do.  I do all this without a vehicle, without much money, and without any support.  I don't have an army of friends to call in to help haul my life in boxes and all my furniture over to the new place.  I have my family...which consists of one ex-husband and two toddlers.  Mike and I will do all this all by ourselves, and it's gonna suck.  But it's going to get done.  It's going to get done with no help from Bobby who cares only about himself, or Donna who refuses to see the truth even if it's hitting her upside the head...I know I have to stop assuming that people will act humanly towards me.  I'm just devastated that my world is full of so much hurt.  I always want to think the best of people...and what I've learned is that the best of people isn't always what I would love it to be.  
     And as much as I would love to spend time right now bashing people and complaining about how they ruined my life, I have no time right now to focus on that.  I'm sure I will have plenty of time to blog about it all in the future, but now I have to pack and move on.  This is so hard, and I don't like to admit how screwed up my life is at this point where  everybody else seems to have it all figured out.  But j refuse to isolate myself anu further by trying to hide all this.  I need people in my life.  I am so alone and I'm sick of jt.  So I'm praying this transparency I'm attempting will bring people in.  If anyone has anything to offer I'm asking for it...advice, kind words, anything.  So here I am and that's what's going on.  I hope to write more positive things in the future.