six

curtains

7/3 /16
11:41 pm

today clare and I went to the park in Davenport, which is like an hour away from home.
her and I talked about a lot of things. and I had the realization that clare and you are really the only people i talk to.
which is totally fine. I'm not complaining by any means.
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I was telling clare about my mother and about how scary life is to me.
I've learned a lot from my mothers experiences.

when she was in high school, she had one boyfriend, Kevin, all 4 years. her whole world revolved around him. she would come home, sit around and wait for him to get off work so she could spend time with him. she didn't have many friends because she pushed them away to be with him.

from this I learned never to allow myself to put people on pedestals.  

-however, i still do

in college, she lived in an apartment down on second street with a few of her friends. it was good for a time. they had parties a lot, drank a lot and did drugs. but then moms friend moved out without warning, she lost the apartment and had to drop out of school because she couldn't afford it anymore.

from this i learned that at the end of the day, you can't even trust your friends.

-obviously, i still do

theres a void in moms life until she met my dad. one of her friends set them up. i don't remember her name,  i suppose it really doesn't matter but sometimes I'm thankful she had something  to do with my existence. there was a time when i was younger where i would ask mom if she regretted me, yanno because she hates dad so much. sometimes i would hate that woman for setting them up. i often still do.

but anyway, they met at some party i think. their relationship, from what i understand, was toxic from the beginning. i don't really know how it was until my mom told dad about me. I believe i told you before, but I'm going to tell you again just in case i didnt. mom sat him down and told him she was pregnant with me. he then offered my mother cocaine to which she declined, yay.

my genius of a father then decided to call my grandparents and beg them to force my mother to get an abortion, and from that moment on, my grandmother has despised my father; she's told me so herself. after that, dad disappeared for awhile. so grandma acted as my father and went with mom to every single doctors appointment, every ultrasound, every single thing that involved me.

dad wasn't present until the last few months of moms pregnancy, and despite the past, they wanted to try and work this out. so mom and dad bought a house together. my papa painted it and fixed it up, theres pictures somewhere. but i remember that house, not much since i was an infant, but i remember the living room, i remember the layout of the kitchen, and i remember the real nice hole in the basement door where dad bashed moms head into it.

mom lasted a month. one month. and then she just couldn't take dads shit anymore. so she packed our stuff and we got the hell outta dodge. mom and i moved in with grandma and grandpa for awhile until she bought a trailer on the south end of town and we stayed there until i was four. but mom didnt learn her lesson. she went back and forth with dad until i was five. i remember them fighting in the trailer when i was really young, dad stormed out and mom was just sobbing on the floor. i sat down next to her, rubbing her back "mom, its gonna be okay. everythings gonna be fine." though i was small, i have these random memories from the trailer years. if you ask, I'm sure mom will tell you stories.

from this i learned that my dad was a total fucking jack ass. shocker.

-still pretty true

so when i was five, mom bought the house we live in now. i don't think she intended for us to stay in this life-size shoebox, but here we are. i remember a lot of random things about the early years in this house. anyway, during that time, mom and dad were going to court for custody of me. i had to go to a babysitters house and really all i remember of that is, watching little mermaid, fantasia and refusing to take naps. in the end, mom won. so i lived with her and had to visit dad every Wednesday and every other weekend until, according to the decree, i turned 14.

shortly after that, moms friend, Chris moved in and things were good. Chris had been around in the trailer days too. he's been around my whole life and had always been more of a father to me than Brian. however, because of how i was raised, i didnt make an attachment. and because i was an oblivious child at the time and wasn't able to see what was right in front of me, i didnt know they were just friends. I thought that they were dating and i actually prayed for the birth of my little sister. when i was 15, mom told me the real story. Chris had just moved in with us because he had no where else to go. one night he just happened to sleep in bed with mom and 9 months there was Emma.

that was an interesting day. so much was going on, grandma nearly forgot to pick me up from school. i was really excited to be an older sister. I mean, it had been just me for seven years, i was pretty bored. i treated emma like she was my own kid. i took care of her all the time. i played with her, read her stories, taught her things, took naps with her, all sorts of stuff. mom can tell you more sometime. and for a time, things were pretty solid. mom and chris got married the next year out of obligation but nonetheless, things were okay. until chris cheated on mom a few years later with some girl named Jamie. there was a lot of fighting going on then. more than emma and I should've seen.

but emma and i were a team. we used to barricade the doors so they couldn't leave. i would hear them yelling and i would look at emma, "you get the back door, just block it with some chairs and stay there. I'll get the front." often times emma would break down sobbing and sometimes when people fight or when you yell at her, she still cries. i remember telling chris and mom that they couldn't get divorced because i didnt want emma to grow up the way i had because even at 9 years old, i knew that i had grown up much faster than other kids my age and that it wasn't right.

I think for awhile there, mom really thought she was in love. i remember asking her when i was young, "mom, how do you know who "the one" is?" and she said that chris just "did it for her" or something to that affect. they were together for nine years and it wasn't love. the only thing holding them together was money and my little sister. and even that wasn't enough.

and from that i learned that life is full of curtains.

we're all put in situations where we think that we're happy

until the curtain gets pulled back and you realize the true awful reality of the situation.

and thats when life gets really fucking scary. because sure I'm happy right now, but..

what if its just another curtain?

I really hope this isn't a curtain..