My Real Friends Don’t …

I guess you could say I’m a victim of my own terminal naivety and hopefulness, even when none is warranted. How else could you explain my repeated attempts to make peace, even after everything that has been done to me? Is there any other way to explain why I would try to even co-exist with people who actively and with malice aforethought planned harm on me?

I’m generally not a stupid person. Truly. But when you are trying to move forward in positivity, it becomes easy to convince yourself that a positive outlook requires forgiveness and ease between all involved. Forgiveness, of course, is a very good thing. But co-existence, peace, ease … You can’t have this with everyone. You just can’t. Some people are simply evil, and opening yourself up to them invites nothing but pain.

I’m ashamed to say I did this. It was for all the right reasons: moving on, closure, a positive outlook … Whatever label you’d like to slap on it, they all mean the same. But I overlooked one major detail: you can’t make nice with people with no heart, no empathy, nothing inside.

I have spent months crying to my therapist that I keep hitting a wall in my healing and telling her how frustrated I am by the memories that keep surfacing. I begged her to help me figure out why I’m caught in a loop. The answer is not only painfully clear but comes courtesy of the one who deliberately caused all my pain, for no other reason than their own amusement.

See, that’s what narcissists do. They play with their victims, take what they will, and then leave them twisting in the wind. Mine went above and beyond, by fracturing my family. I have to continue to deal with them until my children grow up since they wormed their way inside my marriage and took my ex-spouse. The children were one of my reasons for trying to at least be civil.

But the narcissist will never stop if they have an opening. So my attempts at peace just opened the door for more abuse, more reminders, more pain both new and old. And when I finally reach my limit and react, and I have a few times, the narcissist points the finger at me and tells me I’m the one at fault. But this time, they did so with a quote that inadvertently unlocked the chains I had unwittingly put back on myself:

“I don’t see how we can talk. My real friends don’t say such things to me.”

“Such things” being that I had the audacity to remind the narcissist of what they had done to me.

But, you know what?

That’s some true wisdom.

Real friends don’t try to cause harm.

Real friends don’t steal spouses.

Real friends don’t fracture families for their own amusement.

Real friends don’t play God with others’ lives to cure their own terminal boredom.

Real friends don’t lie repeatedly.

Real friends don’t gaslight.

I could go on and on.

But mostly, real friends don’t do what you did.

But that’s because you were never a real friend. So thank you for the truth bomb you didn’t realize you were giving me.

I’m now set free from my imagined obligation to keep the peace with someone who deserves no peace from me.

Making New Anniversaries

Twenty years ago today …

So many nice sentences start with that saccharine beginning of “x years ago.” Trust me, I know: I’ve used it way more than I care to admit. It’s markedly different when you look at it from the other side, though.

This morning I woke up on the wrong side of 4 am, so after the obligatory attempt to go back to sleep, I checked my Facebook. On This Day has been renamed “Memories” for whatever reason, and I check that section every morning. I love seeing pictures of my kids through the years, but often there’s a painful reminder.

Today was interesting. Apparently, twenty years ago today I got married. I had forgotten until I saw all the posts I’ve made over the years. It was like reading someone else’s life, but yet I could also remember living it. I had to read it twice to really take in the over-the-top declarations of endless love from my ex … The one who left so fast for the first woman who showed interest (and had decent cash flow) that the whiplash lasted years.

In the years since we split, I can see the pain, anger, and confusion in my posts. But this year, the big one, the 20th anniversary … I feel … Very different. I feel lighter, I feel wiser, and yes, more jaded. What I don’t feel though, is sad. I don’t feel hurt.

I spent almost 20 years of my life with an abusive man. He loved to publicly declare his “love” in the most showy (and often trashy) way possible. Behind closed doors, it was a different story. I was screamed at, called names, taunted, not allowed to go places without him, raped, shoved, and kicked out of a car in 10 degree weather in the middle of nowhere. Whenever I summoned the fortitude to think about leaving, he would threaten to take the kids so I’d never see them again.

That’s ultimately why I stayed. I couldn’t lose my kids, and he had me convinced that he’d win in court and have me declared “insane.” That’s what abusers do … They make you doubt yourself. They tell their next victims all about their “crazy ex,” and the new “loves” bask in the attention until they become the next “crazy ex.”

In the last year I’ve undergone growing pains of some magnitude. I struggled with all the time I thought I’d lost with him, the years and the youth that I can’t get back. I cried over my lost health, something I try to hide but when my body gives out at 10 pm and I’m limping it gets harder to hide the pain I’m in. I railed in anger at him from afar, knowing that the stress of his abuse likely triggered the autoimmune disease that left me feeling this way.

But it doesn’t help to be in that place for long. Maybe the anger and the helplessness needed an outlet, but staying in those feelings won’t help me long-term. Because it won’t change anything, and negative emotions only hurt the bearer. So I dug deep inside, to find out what I was truly mad about. And the answer? Me.

I was angry at me. I was furious that I never stood up for myself, that I reached out for help in the past with vague Facebook statuses instead of actually initiating the change that would have given me help. And then I looked at my life, and realized that I can spend 20 more years abusing myself in his place, or I can let go and look at all the gains I’ve made.

I’ve reached a place where I’m no longer willing to put up with horrible treatment for any reason. I cut ties and made changes that propel me forward daily, and I do it on my terms.

And so, twenty years ago today … Did I make a bad decision? I definitely did. But I don’t regret the 4 blessings that came from it.

Five, if you count me finally finding my power.

He Didn’t Do It To Me

It was the middle of the night when I woke up to being raped.

I’d heard so many times about how to keep myself safe: don’t go out alone after dark, don’t go into unsafe areas, don’t put myself into a dangerous situation … I guess I missed the PSA that said not to go to bed next to my husband.

You read that right. My husband was my rapist. And the next morning he got up, kissed me, and waited for me to pack his lunch as he went off to work. Me, the person he had raped 3 hours prior … he waited for ME to make his breakfast and pack his lunch.

And I did it.

He had been verbally and emotionally abusive for as long as we’d been together. Shame on me for staying, and letting him treat me that way. I always felt like if I just gave in to whatever it was he wanted this time, maybe he would stop being an abusive bully and go back to the act that had won me over.

Let’s be honest here. It’s all an act with these kinds of men. If I gave him an inch he took ten miles, along with my dignity and self-respect. I wish I had learned to stand up to him when I had the chance. I wish. I wish.

I WISH

Do not let yourself be someone who wishes. Just don’t. You are worth too much and your boundaries are too valuable. Wishes are many things, but when they’re boundaries that you wouldn’t enforce, they’re painful and sharp reminders of things you once stood for.

I woke up confused, because something was off, something was wrong. What was it? Do you know those first few seconds when you can’t figure out why you were jolted from sleep? Well that, plus something much more. A blink, maybe two, and then I felt the sweat from above. What the hell? What is going on, and why am I being sweated on? What are the grunts for and … wait … it hurts. OMG it hurts. What is happening?? Why am I in pain??? And … THERE. Why does it hurt there? Wait, stop, why are you hurting me?? Please, stop. Please.

Why won’t you stop?

I put my head down, face-first into the mattress, to muffle my screams. And I screamed into the mattress until he was satisfied.

I bled when I pooped for the next few days. He professed his sorrow and immediately apologized, putting on his “contrite and good partner” act. I bought it, which is unfortunate because he did this to me two more times. He did this to me two more times after promising he never would. He did this to me two more times after I told him I was bleeding all week and he swore I would never wake up to anal rape again.

BUT I DID.

I think the best illustration I can give for what’s wrong with society is what happened next. I confided in one of my closest friends all of the above. I trusted my friend, and believed in her friendship. She took my private confidences and used them when she befriended my husband, something I allowed because I trusted her. I couldn’t believe she would betray that, because I wouldn’t.

Silly me. I wouldn’t, so I think others wouldn’t.

She thought that a man who anally raped his wife was attractive. Call me a prude, but I can’t see it. She thought that the man who anally raped me was not only worth falling in love with but worth throwing away my trust and destroying my family. I have 4 children who suffered because she was hot for a man who would rape his wife, the mother of his children. And her excuse was: “Well he didn’t do it to me.”

He didn’t do it to me.

THIS is why our country is so morally bankrupt. We are no longer our brothers’ (or sisters’) keepers. We only care what happens to us. “He didn’t do it to me.” Can you imagine if our justice system was built on “he didn’t do it to me?” How about our police force? What if nothing happened to criminals unless they “did it to us??”

What kind of person abandons a friend to prop their rapist? I’ve heard of victim blaming/shaming, but this seems like it needs a whole new category. I’ve never met anyone who found a rapist irresistible.

My rapist lives a happy life with his partner and her two children. I’m in therapy to process his years of abuse. I thank God every day that I’m here to raise my children to be moral and good people. I am aspiring to forgive the two of them for the worst evil ever done to me.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

I’m sure the above Bible verse, a quote from Jesus, applies somehow here.

The Storm

The storm outside seems to be a manifestation of my soul this evening. For weeks now I’ve been churning inside, emotions and anguish bubbling up to the surface unbidden, painful memories haunting my sleep and darkening my days. My hope is that this is the storm that leads to a brighter tomorrow, that the work I’ve been doing on myself has come to this: the memories and pain and loss have created this storm inside me, and it won’t end until I can face all that pain without flinching. I’m finally ready, and so it’s here. I have to stand here, in the midst of the storm, and let all the hurt pass through me and finally away to be able to move forward into the sun.

My introspection has brought up many buried feelings, and lately I have been lost in them … Searching the remembered pain for things I could have done differently. I’ve spent days chastising myself for trusting someone who couldn’t be trusted with my friendship … Let alone my family. The thunder crashes in my head and heart as I feel shame, regret, and the loss of time I can’t retrieve. I look at pictures and feel the weight of the past like a boulder on my heart. I can’t escape the recrimination; it’s mine to carry.

The lightning flashes both outside my window and inside my heart as the anger melts away to pain, and then white hot fury. How dare you take the precious gift I entrusted you with, and soil it with your sick designs?? Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?? It wasn’t for you to play God with my life, and decide to “make it better.” And how is this better, exactly? The only question is if I’m more furious with you for what you tried to do to me, under the guise of love, or me for being so stupid and believing you. I can’t seem to separate where the pain ends and the anger begins, and I’m not entirely sure they’re separate anyhow.

I want to cry into the storm until I have no more voice. I want to scream until all the pain and all the rage and all the injustice is gone. What would I be left with?

When the storm ends, and the world is washed clean, there’s a silence and a waiting. I’m not there, yet. I’m still caught inside the storm. But someday soon, the clouds will part and I’ll see the sky above.

Silent Treatment

Do you hear that?

Neither do I.

Do you know what that sound-you-don’t-hear is?

It’s the sound of a marriage dying. It’s the sound of trust being crushed under your shoes into dust. It’s the sound of a heart breaking while another sits in cold indifference. It’s the sound of a promise being broken.

People give a lot of lip service to the silent treatment. Yet sometimes I don’t think it’s really understood for the emotional abuse it entails. It’s not just someone being quiet or needing some space. It’s the intentional and with malice aforethought ignoring of another human being, one who, no matter how irritated you might be with them, doesn’t deserve to be ignored.

Ignoring someone is a statement that they don’t matter. It’s you looking someone right in the eyes and telling them that they, as a person, have no value to you. Their feelings move nothing inside of you, and their hurt is nothing next to your need for superiority and  being right.

I still remember your empty words: love forever, without conditions. I can hear your voice as you proclaimed that you were different, you weren’t like other people, and you were the only one who could love me in this way.

For those of you in the back, these are the people you watch out for: the ones who say that “no one can love you like I can,” or “your friends/your past partner/your current partner/your family don’t have your best interests at heart, and only I do.” These are the hallmarks of an abuser who wants to isolate you from your support network, because that’s when they can really get into the down and dirty of destroying you. If you have your support network around you to constantly point out how abusive this person is, they wouldn’t be able to abuse you in the way they desire.

And I remember you, and your desire to hurt me. I remember how you expertly isolated me, or tried to. I confounded your plans, though, when I wouldn’t cut people out of my life. I’m troublesome, in that way. I don’t throw people away … unlike you, who casts out people who you’ve used up like an empty container.

That’s not human.

For as long as I live, I’ll never forget being so low that I begged you to answer me, sobbing, and looking into those eyes that had so fervently and earnestly promised to love and care for me forever, and seeing cold vindictiveness as you turned on your heel and walked away. As the silent treatment went on, and I started bargaining for a response, your eyes started broadcasting a twisted delight in my pain. I can’t even begin to express the horror at looking in your eyes and seeing both pleasure and disinterest at my pain, and a sick interest in watching me suffer.

What the hell is wrong with you?

The silent treatment is perhaps one of the most insidious and cruel things someone can emotionally abuse another with. Maybe you think you’re superior for reducing me to tears over and over … but you’re the one far beneath me. I’m the one who returned all your cruelty with continued kindness and trust, even when you clearly didn’t deserve it, even when my support network was practically screaming at me to run – and far away. You have no idea what you threw out like garbage, because you’re too busy with your next throwaway abuse victim to look back.

But at the end of the day, you’re the one who is truly alone, because you’ve earned no one’s trust and possess the love of nobody. You can have 100 partners but you have yet to love a single person.

How sad.

The Words Have Now Been Spoken

After all these years you’ve finally decided to admit the truth: that I was wronged, specifically by you. I have it in writing; you acknowledged every single thing that I’ve written about, every single thing I have cried about, every single thing that caused my family to fracture into a million pieces. It is all because of you.

For those 2 long years of hell, you lied right to my face over and over, and tried to make me think it was all in my head. That’s called gas lighting, in case you weren’t clear on that. The fact that you have now admitted that it wasn’t all in my head only further proves my point that it was a clear case of emotional abuse and gas lighting. You might want to look into how you could treat another human being, someone you claimed to love, so cruelly and with no remorse whatsoever.

You can claim now that you felt remorse, but what exactly would convince me to believe you? You knowingly and with laughter ripped my life out from under me. Every time I expressed any emotion at the destruction of my family, the heartbreak I was going through, or my fear at what was coming, you used those emotions against me to justify further taking from me.

DID YOU HEAR ME??? You CAUSED the fear and insecurity, you DELIGHTED in it, and then you USED IT AGAINST ME to destroy my family!!!!

I was so happy to finally have your admission, right there in black and white. But then … I wasn’t. It was hollow. In its place … anger. White hot fury. Because, you followed up your admission with asking what can be done, and wondering why I needed this admission.

What can be done? Why did I need this? You took so much from me, and danced off merrily to live MY life with MY family. What can be done? How about not be such an evil person that you could destroy a family from within and not care?

You partied your way through those 2 years, leaving me to take care of the home and kids. Now you have the audacity to complain to me that the party is over, since you no longer have me to be the only adult? When you kicked me out of my own family, you told me I was too insecure and too “unstable.” Let’s revisit … I was the only sane, stable person there. I would go out shopping with multiple kids and come home to you drunk at 3 pm. Who does that? Certainly not the stable one.

This post is rambling, I know. I am so angry, and so hurt, and so desirous of justice that I know can never really come. But what I do have, is the satisfaction of knowing that I have full custody of my children. You could not really take my family. What you took was the illusion of family that I thought I had. You took a faithless spouse, and you took years of my life. You took my house. You took my ability to stay home with my children.

So you go get in your hot tub and live it up in your luxuries and try to sleep well at night, knowing you are nothing more than the other woman, a homewrecker, a classless and faithless person yourself. You are a match.

The Key

I left my key at the office today, and walked out for the very last time. Although that office ultimately became one of the symbols for how you destroyed my life (or tried to), it still hurts. I left with red, puffy eyes, and wept all the way home.

I’ve been over this in my head and heart a million times, but I’ll still never know how it was ok for you to do what you did to me and my family. I’ll never truly understand how you can just skip merrily on your way, never once glancing backwards at the devastation you’ve left in your wake. Does it ever cross your mind how you hurt people? Do you have cognizance of using people up and then throwing them away, leaving them with gaping holes for hearts and walls a thousand miles tall to protect them from anyone remotely like YOU???

First, you decided that you would win my trust. That isn’t easily done, so you spent a year+ working on that. Kudos to your long game. Seriously. Then, you decided you’d manipulate my feelings about my abusive husband, promising to protect me from his anger and wrath. “I’ll send him pink light. Just let me know when he’s being hurtful.”

My ideas of pink light and yours are very different.

Once you had my husband completely in your talons, which didn’t take long as he’s a cheater, you started your campaign to turn him against me. You planted seeds of doubt, outright lied about me, and ultimately succeeded in getting an abusive, porn-addicted, serial cheater to move onto his next conquest (victim). Congratulations?

That’s kind of like congratulating someone for blinking. You realize, that wasn’t hard, right?

In the midst of all of that, you offered me a job. I had been looking, because my “husband” had been insulting me on a regular basis for not bringing money into the household. This was a new development, since he and I had made the decision that I would be a stay-at-home-homeschooling-mother, but I suppose you might have influenced that. It probably scared you when I was going to look for jobs, because if I landed one, that would be lots of people who would point out your scheming, and help me see you for what you really were. So you hired me.

I’ve worked there for 5 years now. It was my first job in … 13 years? It turns out I’m really good at it, and I was moved to full time, given a raise, and I really enjoy it. After you threw me out of my own family, without a second of regret after worming your way into it, you fired me but then re-hired me only days later. You tried to paint me publicly as “unstable,” but that held no water. First, because it wasn’t true. Second, after you threw me out no one objected to my taking my children with me. (When you left your husband to show up on my doorstep, you left your children behind for 2 weeks. Why was that, exactly?? Many people noticed that, by the way.) Third, well, you re-hired me.

I realized in December that my ex-husband (thanks to you) has been shorting me on child support. That was corrected, and the right amount of money started coming to me. That affected your household, since you two are still together, a match made in hell. Within a month of rectifying almost two years of underpaying ($9000!!!) you told me you couldn’t afford to stay in business as you were, and had to lay me off. My ex had a silver platter new career handed to him by your wealthy best friend, but me? Good luck, sayonara, buh bye.

You gave me a two week notice on my job ending, but also told me I wasn’t allowed to publicly job search. Gee, thanks. So much more evidence of your caring, which you claim that you do. Luckily, you are about as reliable in that department as every other, and you kept extending the time. But it’s crunch time now. You’ve packed up your office, to go rent a room from a friend, who is only renting to you to use you to get your patients to become her clients … Simply money. She was a huge fan of getting rid of me back in the day, going so far as to tell you not to be the other woman within earshot of people I know. She loves money more than her own children, and it sounds like she’s your perfect puppet master. I hope you enjoy her hand up your ass.

Today, I went into that office for the last time. Memories flooded in, of being just a patient there, back when I thought my doctor actually cared. And then when I thought you wanted to be my friend, and as an abused woman (which you knew), it was a welcome overture. I could hear the echoes of all the times there, my first day, laughter, the patients that I’ve grown to care about. I thought about the job I thought would be there so I could support my family, which you made exponentially harder by your meddling in my life.

Why couldn’t you just leave me alone??? If you had to leave your husband and whore yourself out, couldn’t you have found some other family to ruin?? One solace is, back when you were pretending to be my friend, you told me you swore you’d never be with an Italian man, because of their tendency to be verbally abusive and co-dependent. I’m not agreeing with your stereotype, but I think it’s hilarious that you risked it all to be with … an abusive, co-dependent Italian man.

You showed your true colors, when after everything, you took time out of your day to let me know you don’t have time for anyone. You are unavailable. Did you think I wanted to lean on you, when all this heartache is BECAUSE of you? Go flatter yourself somewhere else. Good luck, because you’ll need it. People are starting to see through your act.

People are waking up to the fact that you have no soul. You’re a narcissist.

First, Do No Harm

The primary directive, as it were, for doctors is “First, do no harm.” If we expand this thought, it means that the first step in helping and healing is to not cause harm. At first this may seem obvious, but it’s quite deep. Doctors, don’t make your patients’ lives worse than before they came to you!

You were my doctor. You slowly worked your way into my life as my friend, and then as my close friend. You drew out of me every single detail about my life: my abusive marriage with a porn addict who raped me and refused to let me leave the house without him for 7 years, the loss of my mom as a child and how that affected me, the loss of my twins halfway though my very first pregnancy. You set yourself up as my trusted confidante, offering advice, support, love, care. At my appointments we would touch on these issues, and at home you would text and Facebook message me, until it was an all-day-long conversation. If I woke up at night, you would instantly message me, checking on me.

I trusted you.

You told me this would better my life, would protect me from him yet keep my family together. Everyone asks me how I could be so naive, so stupid, but I couldn’t envision an evil that complete. I had never known someone so cold, so calculating, to play a long game with such drawn out precision that you waited over a year to get me to trust you implicitly.

And then you did me harm.

You took all that information about my abusive husband, and his addictions and fetishes, and turned yourself into his perfect partner overnight. At the same time, you messaged him, planting little seeds of doubt about me, questioning my stability. He didn’t need a long game, and through some expert gaslighting and prepping, you robbed me of my family, my husband, my house, and my future.

That is harm. Physician, you harmed me. And you did it on purpose.

I don’t think you expected me to bounce back from the hell you put me through. You either underestimated me or overestimated your reach. I have my children, and although you stole the house that I owned from me, I rent a home and we are happy here. You still have my ex-husband, but if an abusive porn addict, serial cheater, co-dependent who can’t be alone is your dream guy … well, I guess you hit the lottery there. My only mistake was not leaving him years ago.

Scratch that. I made one other mistake. It was trusting my doctor not to harm me.

You violated your oath, and you have no remorse. Now you and my children’s father live your lives in material comfort, and I have full custody as a single mom. I’m rocking this, but you have made my life so very much harder. You took from me everything I spent almost 20 years building, and without a single pang of guilt on your part.

Good people don’t go around destroying other people’s lives. You were my doctor, and you violated your ethics in so many ways, I don’t even know where to start. And now you have the gall to say I should be grateful to you for freeing me from an abusive marriage??

You should be grateful to me that I haven’t called a lawyer.

The Show Must Go On

It’s been three years to the day since you threw me out of my own family, and launched me into a solitary existence as a single mom. I found myself reliving some of the events of this night, three years ago. I caught myself wondering if you even knew, thought of it, or cared.

Do you care that this is the anniversary of the day you took my family from me? I cried most of the way to work today, remembering you sending my clothes sailing down from the second story landing, narrowly missing my daughter, while you screamed maniacally for me to get out.  You ordered me out of my own family.

But then I step back and bring some logic to the emotional overload. I’m sitting here, in my home, with all my children around me. So what did you take from me exactly?

Well, before you kicked me out, I was emotionally abused. I was ignored. I was gaslighted. I was treated like an annoyance, an afterthought. I was lied to. I was made to look like a fool. I was set up over and over and over again to be the bad guy, when in reality I was the only one trying to hold everything together while being run around on.

So, what you took from me was … you.

THANK YOU.

You deserve each other. Both of you, who thought it was funny to lie to me, who knew exactly what you were doing and did not care … I lost NOTHING that day, other than people who would treat me like absolute garbage and skip away laughing.

You did me a favor, by removing that – and only that – from my life.

The show must go on, and so mine does. It is sometimes lonely, and I still struggle with resentment and anger over you both getting away with and getting rewarded for treating me that way. No one should treat a stranger that way, let alone someone they claim to love. And the way you justified it, telling me I was defective … and I believed you! But that is your baggage, your karma, that is who YOU are as a human being.

You both supported that in the other. So you are both guilty.

I lost nothing that day, but gained myself.

Maybe Tonight

The sound of my bedside fan seems to mark the seconds that go by, as I lie in bed staring at the silhouettes of trees standing out against a red-tinged night sky. Seconds turn to minutes, minutes bleed into hours, and I’m no closer to sleep than when I got into bed. The only noise I can hear is the fan blades whirring, stirring the air and insulating me from the sounds of the night. It seems to be a metaphor for me, isolated from the voices of the rest of the world.

You don’t really grasp how valuable human contact and closeness is until you no longer have it. I spend most nights like this, with my soul longing for anyone to want to connect, but getting nothing but white noise whenever I try to reach out. I might get two word responses, or a polite haha, maybe even an emoji … All dismissals, done out of a sense of obligation or just habit.

I have a couple really good friends. Other than them, no one really talks to me. I don’t mean conversation for the sake of it or discussing the weather … I mean really talking, about feelings and dreams and fears and heartbreaks and joy. These are the things that matter, that connect us as humans to each other. But most nights, I lie here and wait for anyone to actually wish for that kind of connection with me. I wonder why people have forgotten me … How can they not see me anymore?

I’ve tried to spark a discussion. Most nights I end up making a fool of myself, sending random memes and one line messages, because I can’t find the words to say “Please want my company. Can’t we connect?”

With a couple of exceptions, and I cherish them dearly, people have all faded into the background of my world. Now I’m alone, shouldering an almost impossible task as a single mom, and at the end of my long days when I fall into bed exhausted, I set my alarm to do it all over again tomorrow … I just wish I wasn’t one of the forgotten.

The fan keeps turning, turning, kind of like the years of my life going by. I’m starting to wonder if it will always be this way, and why. I’ve always tried to do good for others, but at the end of the day … Maybe tonight, someone will want to talk.

Maybe tonight.