Letters To My Mother

Letter Two

We moved a lot when I was a kid. I went to 11 different schools growing up from Kindergarten to my senior year. This was a reason I had such a hard time making friends. You would get bored being in one place and we would pick up and move, it would be good for a bit and then you would get bored again and we would do it all over again. Do you remember when we moved to Quartz Hill, California in my freshman year? Do you remember what you promised me? Well just in case let me give you a refresher. We moved from Las Vegas,Nevada back to Lancaster California right before my 8th grade year, we had lived in Vegas for about 3 years, I had made quite a few really good friends. And when you decided we were moving in the summer before my 8th grade year I was angry. I didn't understand why we had to move again, and why it had to be so far away from all my friends. You told me that there were better jobs in California, and that we would be closer to family. You told me that we would stay there. I went to a new school, with kids I didn't know, I was the new girl, everyone else had gone to school together for years. But I did make a small group of friends and I was Excited to go to high school with people I actually knew.... But then you got that itch again. And before the year was over to told us we were moving again. We moved to Quartz Hill over the summer and I had to be the new girl all over again. I was so upset with you, I hated moving around so much, I hated having to pick up and start again. You promised me that this would be our last move, that I would be able to spend my 4 years in the same school. I was still upset that we had to move and start over again but I was really excited about staying at the same school. I was excited about that little bit of normalcy, that stability. I had my 16th Birthday party in that house, we had a huge backyard that I loved spending time in, we even had a front yard with a little garden. But it didn't last, and that promise you made to me. That promise you swore to keep, you broke it. At the end on my freshman year we packed everything up and moved again back to Vegas. I was so angry at you. I hated you for a long time for breaking that promise. We moved in with Teri and Lori and again I was in a brand new school with people I didn't know. 

That was the worst part of moving for me, being alone. I have always joked that books were my best friends my whole life. But in reality the reason books were my best friends was because, they were all I had. They were the only thing that didn't leave, the only thing I could rely on. I never made lasting friendships so books were the things that kept me company. And because you were so overly protective of me, even when I made friends its not like I could do normal things like hang out with them after school, or have sleep overs or even go out with them to hang out at the mall. All I had was my books, I had all those characters to keep me company. 

Making friends in High school was harder then in other grades. People had already found their thing, their clique. I didn't have anything like that, I was just a quite girl who always had a book in her hands. After a week I finally made some friends, and then I slowly made more. I was enjoying my classes. I even had a job. Close to the end of the year you met a guy, John I think his name was. He had just gotten out of jail and was on probation. He lived in Bullhead city, Arizona, He came up to met you a few times.  And after only a few months of knowing him, you made the decision that we were going to move to bullhead to be with him since he couldn't move, you know cause of the whole probation thing. I told you I wasn't going, you had already broken that promise once and I wasn't gonna do it again. I told you I wouldn't go, you said I didn't have a choice, I was your daughter and I had to come with you. I contemplated filing for Emancipation, But then Teri stepped in. She offered to let me stay with her and Lori, you of course said no, I was your child so I would go where you went. She knew how much I didn't want to go, and she didn't want me to go either, she didn't feel comfortable letting me go off with you and some guy you barely knew. She didn't stay nice after that, she told you that if you tried to make me go with you that she would take you to court and she would get custody of me. After that you left, and you left me with Teri. It was one thing I will always think you for. I was finally able to be a teenager, I hung out with friends, I had sleep overs I was able to grow with people. I met the girl who is my best friend still to this day, who is the God mother to my children. Thanks to you leaving I had my very first date, and my very first boyfriend. I did things I was never allowed to do before. 

But all of this was because you abandoned me, you chose a man you barely knew over me. The relationship with him didn't even last all that long. You lived in his sisters house, you slept on a couch with him. He didn't have a job and you couldn't seem to find one either. You ended up losing your van because you couldn't afford the payments.... and this was what you had wanted to being me into. That's the one part that that never made sense to me. Why would you chose to go there, and why would you have wanted to bring me with you? Where would I have stayed? On the sofa with you and him? On the floor in someones house that I didn't even know? What part of that situation did you think was going to be a suitable place to bring your child? That is the part that always messed with me. If Teri hadn't put her foot down, was that really a position you wanted to put me in?