Six months ago I’d wake up every morning feeling confused about how quiet you all are, one of you are always in my bed or standing by my bedside whispering “mommy…” before my alarm goes off. I’d lie there with my eyes closed & for a split second I’d feel like it was going to be a great morning.

The mornings that I wake up first go the most smoothly. I could get up, brush my teeth, take my wedgie out & play our wake up songs on the Bluetooth speaker.

The Jones would be the first to arise with a swing in his hips, crust in his eyes & in a raspy just woke up singing voice echo the speaker like “SHUT UP AND DANCE WITH ME!” air guitaring while still in bed.

I’d draw the curtains & chant the same thing you each heard every morning of your life, “Good morning! Good morning! Hello & how are you?! I’m fine, I’m fine… & I hope that you are too!”

But then that split second would end and I’d open my eyes only for the first thing I see to be pictures of you on the wall next to my bed in the shelter. Pictures of us, some art made for me, my little reminders of why I should stay alive another day. Every morning tears would well up in my eyes as I realized my darkest truth.

My sons are in foster care.

This was darker than me giving up our home in hopes that it would have meant getting you back sooner after being told “You need to think about where else you can live with your children because your home is no longer safe, he could always come back, he shouldn’t know where you are.”

This was darker than the bruises that covered me after the last time your father lost his temper.

This was darker than anything that had ever happened in my life before.

It was at that moment every morning, just a split second after waking up, that I would begin my prayers. I would plead with God as the tears streamed down my face to please keep you boys safe, keep you boys strong.

I’m not sure how I survived those 21 days. I remember when the supervisor who interviewed my kids said to me that I would not be going home with them that day, feeling like I was hit in the chest with a cement block. I couldn’t breathe. My mother was by my side, I’d asked her to come with me when they called me and said I needed to come in.

I remember losing the feeling in my legs & pulling on my mothers sweater as I dropped to the floor and lost my mind. I was pleading with God over & over again in my mind or maybe out loud, I can’t remember if my screams were escaping me or trapped inside. “My babies, my babies,  I can’t leave my babies, you can’t take my babies! Mommy please mommy please don’t let them take my babies!” I remember locking eyes with my mother and only seeing the reflection of my own despair in hers.

Next thing I knew I was in an ambulance with oxygen tubes in my nostrils shaking and crying feeling my body go more and more numb. They took me to the psych unit of the ER & that’s when I knew I had to get it together if I wanted to come out of this situation. I managed to relax myself to some state of being I can’t even identify, what was that? It was like I was in a dream state.

I’m still in a dream state. It’s been 7 months now, since the most awful day of my life. Nothing is right. My mom has my kids now, she finally got them after 3 weeks of them being with strangers an hour away and other foster kids who were telling them they would never come back home. My babies almost lost hope in that time that they would be able to come back to family.

They looked so different during those days, they didn’t look like my kids, their spirits had been broken.

My two hour visits with them once a week in those three weeks were the most difficult, they always ended with the kids crying as they drove away in the transportation van, Jaxon screaming “No mommy don’t leave me don’t leave me!” & Kid trying to be strong for his younger brothers saying “It’s okay it’s okay,” with tears in his eyes really not knowing if it was going to be okay for sure or not.

Tears are streaming down my face as I’m writing this, living the nightmare that was my reality over again. I would sit in the car after our visit and scream at the top of my lungs and beat on the steering wheel wailing and crying for sometimes an hour before being able to drive away. On one of those days I couldn’t control my crying on my way to my moms and I crashed into the shoulder of the highway damaging the passenger side door.

But I tried to make the best of our moments, took polaroids for them to take with them to the foster home, brought art supplies to make art with them, play dough, anything to make it feel like for a moment we were back in our world and not on this alien planet.

This story doesn’t have an end yet. We are still pushing through, still visiting twice a week, still on this alien planet. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that of all mothers in this world I was deemed unfit simply for opening my door to someone that I should not have given another chance to.

Is this what it really took for us to end our relationship? One too many fights.

What the fights were about, the person they were with honestly… is neither here nor there to me. I just wish so badly that I could go back in time to talk to younger me and saved myself this trauma. More importantly saved my kids from this sad and unfortunate circumstance. They didn’t deserve to face such ugly aspects of life so early on. & That will forever be my cross to bear.

Soon boys, soon we’ll be home again.

 I’ve been living.

 

Kid.

We named him Anthony Jr but he really should have been named Franky Jr.

Why is he so much like me?

He is so beautifully, painfully… like me.

I love him and worry about him equally. I must also mention that as he’s gotten older my fears have subsided with his consistent progress in certain areas. For example, he is less senstive and more understanding. He’s just a growing boy I suppose, but to me… its such a wonder; just a blazing spectacle of glory much like a sunrise, watching my kid grow.

Today I had a meeting at his school to talk about his progress and what he & I need to work on to get him where he needs to be academically. He is “so strong in math,” said his wonderful human sunbeam of a teacher Mrs. Ziegelmeier. “He is so capable! He just needs to be here,” …words that resonate with me as I reflect on how poorly I’ve done this school year with getting him to school. I spent so many days, so so so many days depressed or stuck in a situation I could have avoided that prevented Kid from getting to school. He’s had enough absenses this year to last his entire elementary experience. I could go on beating myself up but I’m going to stop myself there. I’m going to do better. As far as Kid goes, he’s going to do better too, we all know it. He’s getting there. His main problem is what my main problem at that age was as well;

D A Y  D R E A M I N G

That wonderful freedom of the mind to which I have often have found myself a slave to. Its like I want to focus, I want to get things done, I want to remember to make that call or drop that off, or pick that up or fix that thing. But instead I’ve imagined dozens of times throughout the day for long periods of time what it would be like if I had super powers or what heaven could look like or my house when I become successful or what the boys will be like when they’re older. A daydream could literally be as deep as a long over-due self realization to a good memory played over and over again on repeat to a fantasy to a picture or a poem that invites itself into my mind spreading its body across both sides of my brain not leaving much room for any thoughts vital to where I am or what I’m supposed to be doing. It could last anywhere from 1 minute to 3 hrs. My imagination is literally in charge of my mental activity.

This is me on line at Walgreens…

Same goes for kid. But he’ll be just fine, I know he will because I am. Even with all of my flaws and short comings, I love who I am. I love how smart I am, how quirky, how confident, how fun and inquisitive, I love how creative I am and how nothing can stop me from achieving something… nothing. I plow through obstacles like the snow plow outside my window is crashing through the helpless layer of unsuspecting snow on the ground. Slowly but surely, Kid is learning to do the same. I just need to help pull him down from the clouds more often, as sorry as I am to do it.

Sometimes I sincerely wish that we can live that way; in constant ponder of all things. I’d like to travel the world, just a few philosophical nomads, my terror squad and I. A girl can dream right?

2:00am

*cracks knuckles*

They always come to me at this time.

Deep words of wisdom banging on the door of my mind, begging me, pleading with me… “Set us free, set us free.”

Tonight I have you on my mind. The young woman suffering at the hands of the father of her child. The young woman I used to be and sometimes… still am. Lets talk about it.

It all starts with falling in love.

No one falls in love with someone who hurts them. Unfortunately, people don’t come with warning labels… I mean how freakin convenient would that be be right? Just imagine;

“WARNING: Once I know you’re mine I’m going to violate you in every which way I please because, hey, you won’t go anywhere. You’ll hold on to the memory of the nice guy I was for the first month of dating me & treasure it, waiting for the day that this version of me will wake up by your side again. Well don’t hold your breath sweetie cause it won’t happen. I’ve got serious mommy & daddy issues & my self esteem is so non existent that pushing you down is my ideal way of reassuring myself as a man of power and value. By the way, my deep sense of inadequacy due to years of emotional neglect as a child have pretty much caused me to be more of a man whore than you could ever dream honey! I’ve got more women willing to fuck me at my call than the letters in the alphabet. This makes me feel better. I know it hurts you, but its not about you, its about me, its ALL about me. Question or comments: Please call your friends because I’m never going to want to actually discuss these things with you, hell I’m never going to even want to admit them to myself.”

I mean seriously! How amazing would that be?! I’ll tell you one thing. I might have never, no no no, no need to sugar coat it… I would never have become a mother by the man that I did. I would have read that warning label & tossed him back on the shelf of things I’d never try right between crack & heroine. Funny thing is, before I started dating him, he had already had a bad repuation for being a player. But hey, we were young & I figured all he needed was a woman to make him a man. I believed that one thing that’s no more silly to believe in than Santa Claus..

I believed that I could change him; that through preserverance & unconditional love, this once untamed dog would turn into mother fucking Lassie. It never happened.

I’m not angry. I’ve forgiven both him & myself, but forgiving is not forgetting.

Unfortunately, it took me living a few years of dedicating most of my energy to this toxic situation & seeing how because of that, my oldest son is an anxious child who is emotionally affected, to take myself out of it. I moved out of state & its been over a year now that we are separated. There is still so much work to be done between us just to come to the point where we can simply co-exist as parents peacefully and consistently but I am glad to say that moving away was truly a right decison that I’ve made amongst a sea of wrong ones. I am still unable to define the status of our relationship because I do love him & the dream of us maintaining a functional family unit one day still creeps into my mind at night.

But maybe, thats something I just need to continue working on. I start therapy again next month so hopefully I can gain some clarity over the next few months about a final and clear direction to take regarding this man. I think about older couples that I know who have had similar pasts to the one I share with my husband and through hard work and miracles, survived. They are together and are happy and living peacefully and that gives me hope sometimes.

Then there are times where I’m just not sure. I just don’t have enough reason to believe that other than my hope. By now, I know that you can’t live off of hope, you need some type of evidence that the dream is possible. Unfortunately, other peoples lives are not evidence of something being possible for you, they are only inspiration to find out whether or not you too can tell a similar tale. So please, don’t read my story and base any decisons for your life off of it. Just know, that you are not alone. That you have nothing to be ashamed of and if there is anyone who is putting you down for the situation in which you have found yourself, they aren’t people you should have around you. Surround yourself with those who will raise you up, even if it isn’t anyone you know personally. During my extremely difficult decision to move away there was a woman who  helped me feel sure of myself more than anyone ever had.

Her name is Warsan Shire & she is a poet. Here is an excerpt from “For women who are difficult to love,” that for me was the flame inside my lantern which I clung to for dear life on my dark path to healing.

Click on the poem to enlargen in a seperate tab!

So to you, and you know who you are, my message although long as usual… is simple.

“You are terrifying and strange and beautiful, something not everyone knows how to love.”

& I am hoping & I will pray, that you find within you a love for yourself that doesn’t need the validation of a man or of anyone else for that matter, even if that man helped to bring your baby into this world.

Love yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself.

Love, Franky