Blast to the Past

I'm going to go back in time and tell my side of a story.

I don't want to say I had a terrible childhood because I didn't.  It just wasn't like most.  I never really got to be a kid.  I've been acting like a grown up for as long as I can remember.  My mom and dad have been divorced since I was 4 and my sister was just a baby.  I've always been the one to take care of her.  My mom worked full time and left us with babysitters until I was old enough to watch my sister.  We would get home from school and I would watch her until my mom came home, usually around 6 or 7.  She wouldn't allow us to go outside, (totally understandable) or have friends over, or even go to a friends house (not so understandable) when she wasn't home.  So we found other things to do to keep us occupied.  My feelings about that are she kept us so secluded that we were very socially awkward.  I still am.       

My mom absolutely hates my dad.  She hates him so much that she always tells us how much she hates him.  If we ever had an event at school it was always so awkward because they would be on separate sides of the room, and then we would have to choose which parent to go to first, and then which parent we would go to dinner with.  Whatever choice we made felt like the wrong one.  If we went to my mom we felt bad for not going to my dad.  If we went to my dad we knew my mom wouldn't be happy.
She hates him so much that we would feel like we had to tell her we had a terrible time whenever we went over to his house just to make her happy.  In the end, she hates him so much that we started to hate him too.

Then one day everything changed.  My mom and dad got into a huge fight one day when he was coming to get us for one of the weekend visits.  That sparked the custody battle.  I remember my mom asking us to tell her everything my dad ever did that was wrong.  And then she told us some things that I don't think a child should know about their parent.  I feel I was put right in the middle.  That was extremely hard on me.  It was so hard to deal with that I tried to take my life a couple times.  Failing both attempts.  I saw what it did to my sister and I realized how stupid I had been for trying and how much she needed me.

As the battle goes on we have to see a therapist.  The therapist then decides what she thinks is best for us.  After talking a while with her, she made me realize a lot of things.  My dad is not the bad guy that he's made out to be.  At all.  Yeah he has his faults, but what parent/person doesn't?  That shifted everything.  In the end, I told the evaluator I thought we needed to be with my dad.  And that's exactly what happened.

My sister was young enough that it didn't quite affect her the way it did me.  She's doing great in school and has so many friends.  I'm so happy that she got the chance to be a kid.  She's in a really great place right now and I look up to her.   

To this day I still believe my mom holds a grudge against me.  I believe she doesn't feel so much for me anymore.  I believe I'm the disappointment in her life.  

No I wasn't the best child in the world.  I was always the rebel one.  I had a really bad phase where I was with a lot of different guys (like mother like daughter).
I've got piercings and tattoos.  So what?
She still sees me as the kid who messed up when she was younger.  I've grown up.  I've learned from my mistakes.  I'm still learning.  And I have the right.
No my marriage isn't like hers.  We have our hard times.  I've had my doubts.  But we love each other.  And we'll do what it takes to make things work.  We didn't do everything in "the right order" but I think we're doing the best we can.  I think it's unhealthy to not disagree in a marriage.  Feelings get bottled up and come out as sarcasm (mother).  It's painful when I hear her tell her siblings that she was "glad to get the first wedding over with."
That's another thing.  She hates my dad so much that she couldn't even stay through my whole wedding.  The whole time she was just dying to get out of there.  I'm her daughter.  Does she really not care about me enough to stay through what was one of the happiest days of my life?  It's sad that I had come to expect that from her so it didn't even phase me.
It hurt even more when I found out that her and her family actually made fun of my wedding.

I guess it just comes down to:  I don't understand how a parent could talk bad about their child behind their back.  

I love my mother very much.  I'm extremely grateful for her.  She has helped me through the hard times I'm going through now, financially.  She's my daughter's babysitter and my Bubbaz loves her.  She's also letting us stay with her because we lost our apartment.

For that, I am grateful.