Moving Day Can Be Rough......

Thank you all for sticking with me. I will now explain why I moved my blog to a new URL and what has been going on. I have had this inside for over a week now and it took Jay getting the idea of moving my blog to get me going and viola I was not only able to start over, I was able to keep my name (because as it says, I suck at naming things so it would have taken me a month of Sundays to pick a new one), but I was also able to import all the posts on the other one and just pick up where I left off. I apologize in advance that this is so long...

Ok, so here is why I moved, the short reason. I no longer want my mother to be able to see what I have to say (write). Those of you who follow me on twitter know that this has been the week from hell. But since she is also on my FB friends list I couldn't mention the hard time I was having there.

Now here is the long story:
As you know I was terribly abused as a child/teen/younger adult physically, emotionally and sexually. My mother never laid a hand on me (well except that time when I was about 5 or 6 and was testing things and while angry at her I called her a word I had heard some teenagers use, and called her a slut. I had no idea what it meant but it pissed her off but good and she turned around and slapped me across the mouth). The abuse (and this is the very first time I am calling it that, because it just (no lie) came out as I was typing that it was abuse and I need a moment to breathe) (ok back) at her hands was of the neglectful kind. She was the mother, she was supposed to protect me, but she didn't. She had a drug & drinking problem as well as must have a man in her life at all times way of living. Now I don't want to make it seem like she is an awful human, she is not, but she is what she is and for the life of me, though she hardly deserves it, I love her. Well ok, so she spent my childhood letting things happen to me (and herself, she didn't defend herself either). My father was violent and mean. Her boyfriends were awful and many were married men and a few were even mobsters. Well all of this to say I didn't have it good so as soon as I was able (first time was at 10 story of this at the end if you want to know about the trip to CA) I ran away from home. I was an A student up to 10th grade. I never spoke back. I never skipped school, even during a runaway.  I was not a bad kid, I was just a kid trying to find a safe place.

Flashforward to now. I have a teenager, Ryan, as you know, who has been giving us no small amount of trouble. It started 2 years ago when he got suspended from school for setting paper on fire in the school gym. It only got worse after that until this past year he has been drinking, getting high, failing classes and broke into our house when we were away from my birthday and we stupidly agreed he could stay at a friends for the 2 days (after talking to the mom of the friend) and had a party with drinking and who the heck else knows what. It has been rough. So we sat down with him back in early October and he was told that he had until Feb 2nd when he turned 18 to get his act together or move out. And he joined the army with a leave date of July so he could finish High School. Slowly he seemed to get better, and by his birthday there seemed enough change that we told him he could stay and even got him an iPod for his birthday. A big deal since just at Christmas it was not really better and we didn't get him anything except his normal candy orange. But then by early March he was nasty again, not talking, never home and failing his classes worse than ever. He is very close to not graduating which would void his army contract.

Ok so I happened to mention to my mother what was going on and how sad and worried I was. And she took my breath away and I was in tears when I hung up. She laughed and said he was just like I was. And she also said it was Jay's fault at least partly, because he treats Ryan differently then the 2 little ones. I was still so gobsmacked over what she did with comparing what I was like with what Ryan is like that I didn't react as strongly as I should have and Jay my love, I am so very sorry for that as I have told you. I did say she was wrong. And mostly she was. Yes he treats them differently now, because Ryan is 18 and they are 9 & 4 and he is fed up with Ryan's crap. HOWEVER, he did not always treat them differently so it is not the blame of this man on how Ryan is. He and Ryan took some time to bond but they did and were close for a long time. Ryan and Koti were so very close too but around the time Joshua was born and Ryan started High School it all started to change. Now the boy who used to be so close to his sister they were never apart if they could help it doesn't even speak to her, never even just to say hi.

My mother is not the kind you can tell these things to because she always turns it around and it ends up I am the bad guy and she gets mad at me and I apologize and well it is a mess. She is just the kind of person confronting does any good. But this talk did something to me, broke something. Because she had said she was sorry for not being better and doing a better job at keeping me safe and she knew she was at fault and blah blah blah....I say blah because this conversation tell me is was all lip service. She can't mean that and then say Ryan is like I was. Ryan has never been abused a day in his life. I was so mindful of the monster that lives in me because of my parents that I was so careful with my kids.

Then on Tuesday I was in Ryan's room and I saw bags from pot. I took them and showed them to Jay when he got home. Then when Ryan came home I showed them to him. My fear of course being he was getting high again. Well when I showed them to him I expected him to say, what most kids do, it is a friends, or that it is old and from before (I knew that would be a lie) but what I did not expect was what he did say...He has been selling a little weed....Holy Effin Shit....I do not know how I made it up stairs. I was shaking and could not talk or breathe. This was it, the last straw. I should stop for a second and say that just 4 days earlier on Friday Ryan got really snippy with me over him getting in trouble for losing his key and being told he needs to be in the house sooner if he doesn't want to be locked out and so was told that was it, he had a week to find a place to go (funny (not the haha kind) how after taking so much it is the littlest thing that finally pushes you over the edge). Ok so back to Tuesday night. Jay and I call Ryan out of his room and he is told he has to go, right then...Now it is after 10pm. If this was me, or I assume most people, something along the lines of it is late and I can't get any one tonight can I stay till morning would have been said. Not Ryan, we explained why, and I should say that I am shocked but there was no yelling. We were super calm. I couldn't speak really, I was in tears, but it was calm. Well he made a couple of calls, packed his backpack and left. He came over the next day for some more clothes and not a word from him since. I do know he is at his friends because the mother, a women I am on friendly terms with, called me to let me know. But I am surprised and sad. I had hoped that this would scare the crap out of him and in a day or 2 he would ask to come home but tomorrow will be a week and nothing. I know to some this will sound like we are horrible parents. But trust me when I say that this was the hardest thing I ever had to to and I feel terribly about it. But we have 2 other kids to take care of too and things as is was not good for them.

I don't know what will happen and I am worried...I want to text him or show up at the library when he is supposed to be working just to make sure he is ok..But I know if I cushion this, baby him, then for sure he wont learn anything...But I think I fear he may not ever want to come home...

So that's what my week was like and why I moved my blog...Thanks for sticking with me. Scroll down if you want to know what I did when I ran away at 10.





At the age of 10 I ran away from where I lived in Brooklyn NY to my aunt & uncle's place in Los Angeles CA. Yes I said from NY to CA. I was scared and angry and sick of it and so I took money from my father's dresser (hey I was 10, I didn't have that kind of money, plus he was the one hurting me so I figured he owed me) booked a flight over the phone from Kennedy airport to LAX. I took a cab to the airport and got on the plane. I don't know how I was able to but it was 1981 so things were not at secure as they are now. Problem is that the aunt and uncle had no idea I was coming and half way there I got scared so I told the flight attendant what I had done. My aunt & uncle and parents were called and they sent me back home the next day. I begged them to let me stay but didn't tell them why, not that it I know it would have mattered, I don't know if they would have or could have kept me. The worst part was that my parents acted all wounded in public, they even called the media and the newspapers were there when I got home, just what I wanted, my picture on the front page of The Daily News. They acted all scared and worried and said they had no idea why I had done this...GAG CHOKE!!!!