2015 To Now

2015 – It started out well enough. We were doing monthly early intervention for Bella and she was doing great. Ville was doing wonderfully in school as well. Then, in May, Darryl got arrested. I was at work and Ville had gotten up late for school, so he stayed home. He talked back to his dad and his dad smacked him for it. Generally, we don’t spank the kids, but once in a while, if we’ve gotten onto them over and over for the same thing we do one tap. He called me and told me what happened, so I didn’t think anything of it. I got home and everything was fine. The next night, shit hit the fan. DCF and the cops showed up at my house at 11 pm. Darryl was at work and Ville was at his grandmother’s. They questioned me and I told them that, “of course the kids were never hit in any way except for spanking,” and “no, Ville had absolutely no marks this morning.” WTF? It was an awful experience. Darryl left work when I called him and went to his mom’s house and sometime early the next morning, he was arrested and charged with child abuse. It was a long year. For months, he wasn’t allowed to see the kids. He missed his daughter’s first birthday. I had to record a lot of her firsts because he wasn’t allowed to see them period. Finally, in September, after he was formally charged and sentenced 5 years probation, he was granted supervised visitation. That went on for almost a year, until mid 2016, when he was finally allowed to return home. It was an extremely hard year. At first, he wasn’t allowed to work, then he surfed through several jobs. They withheld adjudication, so from what I understand, he won’t be considered a felon after probation, but it will still take a few more years for the arrest to fall off his record. Despite all the bad, some good did come of it. Our relationship was tested, more than it ever had been before. I had no help. Actually, that’s not completely true. While Darryl couldn’t help for a while, my coworkers, friends, and the kids’ godparents helped immensely. I got thrown into single motherhood overnight. I was definitely unprepared to become a single job household. Yet, I managed. I can only attribute that to God for putting the right people in my life during this time. Ville reacted horribly. He began talking back and acting out in school. It wasn’t until they set me up with an in home counselor that I was able to help him manage his behavior. Bella was only 10 months old, but even she felt the stress of the situation. She’s been daddy’s girl since day one and she was quite confused as to why daddy wasn’t coming home. Darryl was terrified that she was going to forget him. I had just moved to a new store the weekend before he got arrested, so there was just so much change happening at once. I was stressed to the max. I will admit, that that year and a half really changed us all. When he moved back home the summer of 2016, we were both so used to being “single” that it almost destroyed our relationship. He had begun counselling, which did actually help him a lot with his actual issues, and when he came home it was like we were starting a new relationship all over again. We had become different people, given the situation we were forced into. It took a lot of time and work, but eventually we fell in love all over again. Today, he is still in therapy, and we both continue to grow, both individually and as a couple.

2016 – When 2016 first started, we were still in the middle of dealing with DCF. Then, in March, my car broke down. Like, so bad it was worth less than the repairs. From March to November, we had to ride the city bus or bum rides from people. It was embarrassing, but also quite humbling. During that time, I had to take control of my store, when my boss’s daughter got into an accident and was in the hospital for two months. It’s literally my job to take over when the manager is out, but apparently I impressed a lot of people with how easily I took over. I wound up getting an extra raise out of it for two years straight. I’m thankful, but I really do what I do because my boss is amazing and she has done a lot for me. I would pretty much do anything for her. The weekend of July 4th, 2016, Darryl got to come home. As I said, it was a rough transition. He hadn’t really had to be a “dad” for so long, he was kind of lost at first. Then there was the issue of us. We had drifted some during our time apart. We sought out help from our pastor friend and with lots of dedication, we started falling even more in love than we had been. By the end of 2016, we were doing much better, we had a car, and we started planning for the future.

2017 – Last year started like any other. We were basically just trucking along for the most part. We used our tax refund to catch up on all the bills that were still behind from the pervious two years. Of course, that’s when shit gets bad again. We always had issues in that house, where if too many things were running, the breaker would shut off. By too many things, I mean three or more. It started in Ville’s room, so we learned how to move things around to make it work. Well, at this point, the ac wouldn’t stay running in the living room, so we moved it to our room. Then, it started to shut the entire house down from being in our room. We were frustrated, and started looking into moving. We knew it would take time to save up a deposit, but we also knew we needed to move quickly. I prayed and prayed, and one day, while I was looking through Facebook, I got an alert that a home had been posted for sale in one of the groups. I shrugged and figured it couldn’t hurt to at least ask if they were willing to do rent to own. I knew there was absolutely no way we could come up with a down payment to get a mortgage, so I didn’t really think much of it at first. Then, I got a message that they were willing to RTO. I was shocked, and then and there, I knew this would be our home. God had answered my prayers. Darryl was skeptical, as things didn’t go our way most of the time, but we went to look at it anyway. It was a 3 bedroom, two bathroom single wide. It needed some work, but in doing that work, I figured we could make it our own, plus learn how to fix stuff and work on a house. We filled out the application while another family looked at the house. I was beyond nervous, but I continued to pray. The next day, we were approved. The owner asked how much wof e could afford, and we agreed on $1000 down and that we would pay the same amount monthly as we were currently paying for our rental. By the grace of God, things worked out, despite a couple set backs with the HOA office in the community. It was a dream come true when we met up at a local restaurant to sign the papers and we walked out with our new house keys. Today, we have lived here for 8 months. It’s been a little bumpy, since neither of us know a lot about fixing stuff, but we’re learning together, and it’s brought us even closer. We moved in July 1st, almost a year to the day that Darryl came home. We accomplished so much in that year. I hated that house that we were renting. It was tiny, a health hazard, and just a miserable place for the four years that we lived there, but it did pain me as that was the house that held so many memories of my Liam. That is the only thing I miss about that place. I may not like that our home now is in a community park, but it’s ours. Once it’s paid off in about 3 or so years, we can move it wherever we want. It might look like a dingy trailer from outside, but it’s ours and we love it. Most of the rest of last year and early this year was us making our house a home. We had two dogs when we moved here. Chobi, I got from my boss in February of 2016, in hopes that she would be helpful to Ville with what we were dealing with. Emmett, we got in August of 2016 because Darryl decided he really liked this tiny puppy. They were instant friends. Then, in August of 2017, the kids’ godmother gave us her dog, Athena. Emmett became Ville’s lap dog and Athena became attached to Darryl. Chobi likes her space, but she is stuck to me like glue when it rains. The hardest part of last year was September. Darryl was hospitalized in the week leading up to hurricane Irma striking. I spent the week leading up working 40 hours+ so everyone else could be prepared, then trying to prepare our home, for the first time ever as an adult. It was honestly scary, and I’ve lived here my whole life. I was here when we got destroyed in 2004. I walked home in the rain in 2016 while Matthew was sliding us the coast. None of that scared me, but this behemoth that was headed our way, while I singlehandedly had to prepare my own home was terrifying. He got out of the hospital a day before it hit, the same day we closed the store. We went home and I cooked and got as prepared as I could get us. That night was the scariest night of my life. The eye came right over us, and that part was around midnight to 2 am. None of us slept. The wind shook our home and I was certain either the roof or the entire trailer would go flying at any moment. The power went out as the eye moved on past us. My work family and I texted all night, updating and checking up on each other. My dad and his family actually called at one point too. I don’t know what time it was, but eventually the wind died down, as we went to sleep. All we had, thank God, was some damage to the skirting on our trailer. We had no power for fours days, but we were safe. It was quite a surreal experience. After that, we’ve continued to work hard at maintaining our home. Nothing major has happened since then, aside from what I wrote about yesterday. This month started out rough, but it’s getting better already. Throughout these last few years, we’ve learned how to make things work and more of how to budget. Above all else, we’ve learned when to just lean on God and trust that He always has us. I really needed to learn that, and I suppose, since I had nowhere else to turn at times, that that was a huge part of His plan. Life is good. God is great. As always, until next time. <3<3