my childhood, my life

my childhood growing sucked. it wasn’t like any normal childhood.i was raised on a small farm up here in northern new jersey and i lived on that farm for most of my life. i was raised with three sisters an overbearing mother and a workaholic father. my mom didn’t work that i could recall. my dad worked a full time job during the day and a part time job at night to keep food on the table. when he wasn’t working those jobs he was working the farm. from the time my sisters and i were old enough…probably about 5 years old…dad had us out in the barn working along side him feeding and watering the animals. we had to work out in the garden doing the hoeing and the weeding. we always had to do the chores before we could play.

i was never very good with having friends in school and neither were my sisters. i think thats because mom never let us have anyone over to play. we never went to other kids houses to play. the only time we ever got together with classmates was when there was a school project that had to be done. otherwise we only played with some of the neighbors kids.even that was few and far between. there were never any birthday parties to go to. mom always said that was because there was no money to spare. yet as we got older she came out and said that she didn’t want to be driving all over the county.there was times i was the one made fun of by other classmates when i was younger because i never did anything with anyone. we weren’t always allowed to go on class trips because again mom said we didn’t have the money. the only trips we went on were ones that the school paid for.

when i got into highschool things changed a bit. i went to a few school dances as long as my friends picked me up. i wasn’t allowed to go to the mall or to the movies with friends. it was that way for all of us. mandy broke that trend when she decided to go to college and stay on campus. she wasn’t allowed to have her car but her friends were more then happy to take her out places. mandy always made sure to give them gas money for taking her out. i think alot of the problems i had with my mom started when mandy went to college. i was sick of being treated like crap and never being allowed to do anything. moms supposed health problems all started around this time.everything seemed so coincidental. mom started going to all of these doctors and my dad was getting sick of taking her to one right after another. my dad had some serious health problems of his own to. over the years he had his knee reconstructed and he suffers from sarcoidosis- its scare tissue that starts to form in the lungs slowly closing the airways and it causes inflammation. after all of this started to go down there was never anytime to do anything. the twins and i were the only ones who were home yet who could tend to everything. i felt like i had no life. there was chores in the house chores in the barn and homework.

my first taste of freedom was when i went to florida for my senior class trip. since the start of freshman year i did every fund raiser and worked all school functions were i could get credit towards this trip.mom had said at the start of freshman year that i could go as long as i worked enough school fund raisers and such were she didn’t have to pay for anything that was fine. i was allowed to get a job beginning of my senior year. i got a job busing tables at a local restaurant a few nights a week. mom dropped me off and made dad pick me up most nights. she didn’t want to be bothered in the middle of her shows to pick me up.

i went to florida for senior class trip and it was great. the chaperons told us were to meet the group and what time and then left us on our own. it was the greatest feeling to have freedom and no one telling me what to do. when i got home i realized that i never really enjoyed my childhood and that i wanted to live my life and to be free to do what i wanted. to hang out with friends or to go to a movie whenever i wanted. i think thats about when i started to rebel and test the limits. i started to meet people who weren’t into drugs but they liked to have a good time. i had enrolled in some college classes about a year after i graduated highschool. i met some really great people. i still did my chores at home but i started to come and go as i pleased. i was over 18 and i wanted freedom. my mom didn’t like that very much. we started to butt heads in a big big way. i figured that there wasn’t much of a problem seeing that i came home to do what was asked of me . i always told mom where i was going and tried to tell her most times when i would be coming back. i tried to maintain some respect for her and her house rules.

things got even worse after i had my car accident. september 8th 2004. it was a very rainey day. it was pouring out and there was flooding everywhere. my parents were supposed to leave the next morning to go to Connecticut for a few days just the two of them. mom was on the phone with a neighbor and she had been on the phone that day for a few hours by this time. jennifer needed to go to work and didn’t want to be late so jen wanted me to take her. mom just kept waving her hand at me telling me to take jenny and get out of the house. there must have been a good inch or more of water on the road so i was taking my time trying to be careful. the rain was coming down hard and fast making it hard to see. there was a car in front that i could tell if her was stopped or not as i didn’t see any break lights. i went to slow down when i realized her was stopped (no break lights mind you) i hydroplaned and rear ended him. it caused a great deal of damage and it set the airbags off. the guy in front of me …..well it was a car full of non english speaking mexicans……hit the dump truck in front of them. i called 911. i called my dad and i couldn’t get through to my mom. i called the place where jenn was working and i asked them to keep calling the house till they got through to my mom. they got ahold of my mom after about 15 minutes of trying and told her where i was. dad was there before mom. dad wasn’t annoyed that it happened. driving conditions were bad. he was pissed at mom for letting me out in that kind of weather. they ended up not going to Conneticut. mom still bitches about that to me how i wrecked her vacation. dad was able to fix my car up for the most part but it never ran the same again. i went through the whole deal with the fines and going to court and paying the ticket.

11 months later the county sheriff’s office is knocking of the front door. her serves me with papers for a lawsuit from the car accident. you only have a year from the date the accident occured to file suit. the guy was claiming that he sustained injuries that has affected his sex life. boy oh boy did my mom blow up with me on that. i spent a year worrying about what was gonna happen with it. i don’t think they guy won the lawsuit. altough i never did hear anything of it after the deposition i had gone to in newark where a translator and such had been called in.

during this time i had met up with matt and we started going out. this was august 2005 that we got together. my mom hates matt no idea why. mom didn’t like the fact that i started to sleep over at his house and we went out for dinner and all that fun stuff. well i never knew when i was going to be home. she didn’t like that. oh and she grew even more livid when she figured out

i was sleeping with him…….shhhh…she still doesn’t know about the 28 year old i had slept with…he was the first guy and i was stupid and careless…….but anywaysmom never said much to be about never telling her when i was coming home. she knew my cell phone number and never called to ask. matt and i went out shopping for her birthday present and for the twins because it was mothers day weekend and my moms birthday was the day afterand the twins the day before. i left early in the morning and matt and i went to store after store looking for the right gifts. we got back home to his house about 8 pm. my mom never called me at all during this time. then about 9 pm hits and she calls me all pissed off. i was getting ready to leave matts house by this point. my mom is screaming at me to not come home. don’t bother she has had enough of me.

i got home anyway. i walk in the front door and shes screaming at me that shes had enough of my shit and to get out. shes had it. get out and never come back. she slaps me in the face. i threw her birthday gift at her and i ran up to my room crying. my room had been torn apart.clothes thrown on the floor the bed was unmade and the mattress on the floor. i grabbed a bag and i threw some clothes into it and she comes up stairs still yelling at me that i must be doing drugs. what happened to her child. why couldn’t i be more like mandy. i grabbed my stuff and i went out to the car and go in. my dad never did anything to stop my mom from doing it. he looked scared of my mom. i called matt and told him mom kicked me out. thats how i ended up living with his parents for almost 2 years. i went back to moms that monday and she begged and pleaded with me to go back and i just couldn’t do it. she kept saying she was sorry that she had a bad day friday and she didn’t mean it. she found out her aunt elsie had been really sick and was dying. she ended up dying memorial day weekend that year. i didn’t go to the funeral because i couldn;t bring myself to do it. mom hated me even more for not going.

it seemed like anytime i went to my moms after all of this happened i just could not forgive my mom for doing what she did to me. she turned my whole world upside down. i have spent the last 3…wow its been almost 3 years….3 years may 12…….3 years trying to pull myself together and move on. my mom doesn’t want to move on. she likes to cling to the past and throw it in your face. back in september we had a fight about that and i refuse to talk to her. she cant let it go and move on then i cant forgive her that. if she cant accept that i am turning my life around and enjoying it then she has a problem.

i try to maintain a relationship with my dad and the twins. mandy and joel i get along with really well. we do stuff together all the time. with the twins i think because they still live at home they are afraid of what could happen to them if they try to do what i did and defy mom.

i’m going to end here for now. i’m sure those of you who have read this and made it this far are probably getting bored or are tired of reading this. i needed to get this out and into the open. it feels a bit better to have said this much. because it feels like some of the weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.