17 ☆16

My path to fulfillment comes from being married, having children, cooking, quilting, and gardening. Back in the day when I was born, the doctors thought I was a stillborn. In the southern Jersey hospital in the seventies they didn't have the technology today to determine if a child that was born with defects would make it. Well, I was lucky. I remember my mother telling me in the later part of her life before she passed away from cancer that I was a tough cookie. She told me that they had to make a special formula just for me due to the fact that the milk they provided couldn't be stomached due to allergic reactions. When living back East, I tried to live like a normal child but that pipedream vanished when my father stumbled home drunk on more than one occasion and physically abused my mother. I remember the arguments as a child and not understanding why my parents couldn't be happy. Life was spiraling out of control when my father got diagnosed with type one diabetes. He didn't accept his condition and mixed his medications with liquor. One day he was an average father, then the next an alcoholic and a womanizer. I remember seeing my mother cry a lot. Then my older brother was diagnosed with type one diabetes. My mother did her best trying to take care of my sick irresponsible father and newly diagnosed sibling. One day my mother grew tired of all the bullshit and both my brother and I were told the news that my parents were splitting. We moved from New Jersey to our grandparents house in California. My mother worked very hard for us and eventually we were able to have our own house. Things started to improve and we would occasionally visit our sick father for the holidays or summertime. My mother became a postal clerk and we spent less and less time with her. We attended the russian orthodox Church on a regular basis. My brother and I had our own struggles.My mother met Berry and then married him. My father one day came to visit my mother asking for her forgiveness and wanted to marry her once more. I remember the scene he made. She forgave him but told him that she had moved on and was remarried. I remember seeing the disappointment and sadness in his eyes when he left that summer day. Later when my brother and I went to visit our father, we discovered that he had started to see a new girlfriend. It wasn't long before they married. My brother decided to live with them and I chose to continue living with mom. Life was okay. While trying to attend university I dated around and fell for a chinese man. When I told my mother that I was pregnant, she was furious and refused to talk to me for a long time. I felt so lonely. When I told him, he became as white as a sheet and ran away. I tried contacting him for two years. I refused to abort the child. Giving birth was no easy feat but I was now a single mother of a half chinese girl. I worked very hard for the both of us and struggled to scrape pennies to get by. One day my car broke down along the highway out of gas. I was scared but started to think of ways to get to a gas station with my baby girl. I remember pushing the car when a red toyota truck pulled behind us. I remember feeling relief and a little alarmed. I quickly glanced and saw a christan sticker on the bumper. The man helped me get gas for my car. He ended up giving me his number. I remember being a lonely soul. I saw something I hadn't seen in a long time. I pursued him and eventually he became my lover. When I found out that I was pregnant again I was apprehensive. Would he leave me like my other lover? He being who he was, chose to man up and married me. My mother-in-laws and sister-in-laws absolutely refused to talk to me. When I was isolated, they would verbally shame me for sleeping my way up into marriage with their son. I remember being the butt of their cruel jokes and left out of family gatherings. I remember them whispering amongst themselves and telling their close friends that I was nothing but a slut. Perhaps I was. I felt emotionally vulnerable and searched for answers. The only way I could think of hurting less was to embrace religion. I searched far and wide for the right religion. I chose to become baptised and followed in the footsteps of Christ. My husband started to become verbally hostile towards me and my first child. He would tell me that I was incopitant mother and needed to be more strict. I cried when he started treating our son better than the daughter. It wasn't right. But what was I to do? He threatened me he was going to divorce me if I continued to bother him about adopting my daughter and giving her the same surname.  I at times became more mentally withdrawn and showed more attention to my first child and pitied us both. My family told me to go back to work and divorce him. I refused but continued clinging to him and religion. I tried to make my daughter into my confidant and best friend but she was so young. The people around me refused to be my friends. I was lonely even when I was married. Everyone I knew ridiculed me for how I tried to be overly religious and forcing the religion on my children. My husband struggled to scrape pennies to get by then applied to become a firefighter. The money got better and we started to consider moving from the city into the country. After searching far and wide, we decided to build our own house in Calaveras County. Six years of struggling to get by, and getting food and hand-me-down clothes for the children from my husband's family, we eventually completed the project. My husband became someone I didn't recognise or love. Who was he? I attempted to be a faithful wife. He was always finding fault in everything including my first child and how I spent time living life. My family repeatedly told me to jump ship but I refused. I was a good wife I would tell them and wipe my tears. His family still continued to leave me out of the loop for family gatherings. I found my fulfillment when cooking, gardening and sewing. I started to invest my broken heart into projects to feel accomplished. My husband did not respect me. He would always verbally hurt my daughter or completely ignore her. When I suggested decorating her room and the house he got angry and slammed the door. So I put some distance between us. I started to sleep on the couch and tried to enforce more religion on my rebellious son and wild daughter, who ultimately listened with one ear. Can anyone truly listen with one ear and truly follow the path. When I found out about my son's relationships and sleeping with various ones, I was furious. I confronted my husband to correct his wayward son. He ignored me. When I later found out that my daughter had fooled around with an older boyfriend I was enraged and confronted my husband once more. He became rauthfull and stepped in. He stripped my daughter of her church duties and caused her to become an insecure woman. I saw before my eyes that she was trying to get relationship experience and I agree that book experience is not the same as real experience. I saw before my eyes her try to grasp what a true relationship was supposed to be. She kept her promise to me of not sleeping around with any man she dated after her first failed relationship. I felt lots of shame as a mother and as a woman. I racked my brain trying to find answers for her behaviour. I realized later that she was trying to find love because it wasn't given to her from her stepfather. I secretly told her that her stepfather loved her, but I too knew it was not so. I remember her looking at me with those wise eyes of hers and telling me not to lie. I cried because I knew I couldn't change how things were. I was an imperfect mother and a poor example to boot. I told her to save herself for the future wedding. Don't be like your mother I would whisper to her with flowing tears down my face. So I would advise her to find her sense of fulfillment like mine. I would tell her to not have sex before marrage, but to get married, have children, cook, and do what she loves.