Even Shady Pasts Can Lead to Bright Futures

Posted by Erin W.

This post has been a long time in the making. The story is hard for me to look back on and harder to tell, so please bare with me and be gentle in judgment.

In a lot of ways I'm like a first time mom with Kairi. There are a lot of very public ways, like that I breastfeed Kairi and I didn't with Gracie, I babywear, I co-sleep... There are a lot of very different mothering techniques (I guess) that I am using this time round. But there is also one very big, very private way that I am a first time mom...

When I was in high school I liked to party. I skipped school to go smoke pot until the principal threatened to suspend me for skipping one more time. Even then I still left campus to get high at lunch. Just after I got out of school Jason and I got together. I was 17 at the time and still smoking. He smoked then too. It wasn't a huge part of our relationship, but it was there. We moved in together after 8 months with no savings and crap jobs.

After a few months of living together, things were getting rough financially. The job Jason had been working for the past 6 years (on and off, mostly on though) refused to give him a raise. When the state raised the minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.85 his boss told him to consider that his raise. One day, Jason found an easy fix to our money situation. He had bought an ounce of pot off a friend for $80 and had another friend who wanted to buy half of it from him for $50. This friend had another friend who wanted to buy the other half for $50 as well. Jason made $20 out of the deal and went back for another. And that's how it started.

At first Jason and I both kept our jobs. Over time I traded up jobs and was making more money, and over time he was making bigger deals - eventually quitting his job and becoming a full time pot dealer. For a time it was fun. We constantly had friends coming over, we always had money, and we were always partying. But over time I began to develop an allergy to THC, so smoking was no longer fun for me. And the constant flow of people coming over was no longer close friends, but distant strangers who didn't want to visit and have fun - they wanted what they came for and then wanted to leave. Not only that, but they had no respect for any kind of house rules. Looking back, I don't know how I expected them to, but at the time I was pretty worked up over it. But we still always had money and I still enjoyed spending it. After a while Jason was making enough selling that I was able to quit my job and never look back. This went on for 3 years.

When I was 20 I got pregnant with Gracie. During my pregnancy I tried to talk Jason into quitting and getting a job. He kept saying that he was trying to save up enough money that we could make due on it for a while before having to go back to work, but the money kept getting stolen, or a deal would go bad and we'd be out $500 for it. It was always 1 step forward and 2 back where the saving was concerned.

Gracie was born in the end of January '05. While I was in the hospital my family asked me how we were going to make due. They didn't come right out and say it, but the urged me to try to get Jason to find a job, and for me to do the same once I was able to. I talked to Jason until I was blue in the face about it, but he had just lost a big chunk of the savings in a bad deal and thought he could for sure get it back within a couple of months.

I know what everyone must be thinking. I know what I am thinking in hindsight: Why didn't I just leave? Take Gracie and flee? It's not that I didn't love her enough - I just kept believing that Jason would quit after "this next deal." Finally one night in April I made a decision: if he doesn't get a job within 2 weeks, I'm gone. That's it.

10:00 am, April 12, 2005 - The next morning....

BANG BANG BANG BANG!

The loud, hard knocks at the door shot my out of my bed like a bullet from a gun. I had had it up to here with all these inconsiderate druggies waking me up! I didn't even put on my glasses. I looked out the window in the door and saw several people standing on the porch. As I went to unlock the deadbolt the banging on the door started again, this time shaking the house. I stepped back just in time to see the door fly open sending splinters from the door frame across my living room, one slicing my hand open as it flew through the air.

"Get on the ground! Get on the ground NOW!," screamed the 6'5" 300 lb policeman in the front. Immediately I was on my stomach with his knee hard in my back as he was putting handcuffs on me. I had just barely missed the swing where Gracie, then 2 months, was sleeping when I hurled myself to the ground. Within seconds there were 8 men in black in my house rummaging through my things. One policeman went to the bedroom and gently and politely asked Jason to roll over onto his belly on the bed so he could cuff him.

Almost right off the bat they took Jason to the police station. I stayed behind to stay with Gracie until a Child Protection agent could come get her. I begged the officer in charge to remove my cuffs so I could feed her and change her diaper. He said he was already doing more than he should by letting me do those things in cuffs, so it was definitely a no-go on taking them off.

You know those movies where there is an explosion and everything goes in slow motion? The ones where you see everything slightly blurred, debris flying everywhere, blinding light bending your perception on things? That's what those moments felt like to me. The only completely clear thing I remember from that whole morning was sitting in my rocking chair, holding my daughter who through the whole thing did nothing but smile at me. She had the biggest smile on her face the whole time, even as I handed her off to the social worker. The memory of that beautiful, bright, toothless grin will always be tainted by the hazy memories of that morning.

Immediately my mother made arrangements to move back to town so that she could become the guardian of her granddaughter. I thank my lucky stars every single day that my mother dropped everything in her life and spent her entire retirement to get here so Gracie wouldn't have to be in a foster home with strangers.

Gracie lived with my mom, her Mimi, for 10 months while Jason and I worked hard to complete the treatment plan laid out by the social worker assigned to our case. Jason had to go to rehab for a month, we both had to go to group counseling for drug addicts and abusers, I had to go to counseling to work through my enabling issues, we went to parenting classes and additionally attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings every night we were able. We worked hard to turn our lives around.

But our social worker was new - we were her first case. Prior to becoming a social worker she was a foster parent. She got the kids who were in the worst conditions and as such was out for blood on her first run. She needed to make an example out of someone, and we were that someone. Now, I'm not trying to play the victim here. We wouldn't have had to deal with her like we did had we not gotten ourselves in the position in the first place, and I will be the first one to admit that. That being said, the woman really was out for blood. She kept our case open for 2 years. After the initial 10 months of work we had to do to get Gracie back home with us, we were subjected to another 14 months of hoop jumping. She even removed Gracie from our house for a month again because we had it sprayed for bugs.

One night we were at a friend's house eating dinner when I got a call on my cell phone. It was Carol, our worker. She called to tell me that a woman within CPS, but not in her department had audited her cases and told her that our case was to be closed effective the following week. When we went to court to close the case Carol was not there, but her supervisor was there in her place. She apologized on behalf of CPS for keeping our case open so long (it is customary to keep cases open once the child returns home for 6 months. Some have to stay open longer, but only those who aren't cooperating.)

Since then we've been working hard to keep turning our lives in the right direction. We got a foot up in the process of getting Gracie back, but that was only the beginning. Since then Jason has stayed at the same job for 4 years, a job that gives him raises as deserved (for the most part). I got the first job I could get my hands on while we were trying to get Gracie back. I worked for over a year and a half at McDonald's, working to become a manager. Then I went to work at Chili's where I stayed for 2 years until I started school and found out I was pregnant with Kairi.

It's been a long, hard road and we missed a lot of the parenting experience with Gracie as a baby. She lived with my mom from the time she was 2 months old until the week after her first birthday and then for a month the following summer. A friend of mine is constantly laughing at me on Facebook because I'm always making comments about what new things Kairi is doing. "You sound like such a new mom!" she tells me.

And in a lot of ways I am. But I am loving the experiences I am going through with my kids. I have learned from my mistakes and because of them I know that I will never take my children for granted like so many parents do. I am cherishing every single moment I have with them because I know what it's like to go without. A friend of mine told me throughout the whole ordeal, "I don't know how you do it. If that happened to me, if I was separated from my daughter, I'd go crazy. I'd either be in a mental facility or I'd kill myself." At the time all I could tell her was that I knew I had to be strong for my daughter so I could get her back. Recently someone sent me an email with a picture in it. The picture said, "You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."

In my life I have few regrets. In a way I don't regret what happened because the change made us better parents and better partners to one another. I think that we are amazing now. (Not to be cocky or anything, but I really do.) But the most heartbreaking regret I have is how the change came about.

I realize that my story will turn some people away. Some people just can't get past what we did to get where we are or how we've lived our lives. I would love to say that it's fine with me, that I don't care. But I do. In a lot of ways it makes it feel like all the work we've done to better ourselves for our family has been in vain, that we're still nothing but a couple of pot-peddling druggies. But in the same respect I can understand. A lot of people have not walked in the same neighborhood as what I've gone through, let alone the same path or shoes and it is hard for them to see what motivated me at the time. I'm in no way defending my actions at the time or trying to say that I had the right motivations, but I have always ALWAYS loved my daughters and so has Jason. We have lived through one of the most heartbreaking, life-altering experiences we will probably ever go through (fingers crossed) and we are better parents for it.

I appreciate you taking the time to read my story. I've tried writing this out time and time again and just have never found the right words. Even now I'm hesitant. But I over the past few years I have met families that have been in the same type of situation and sharing my story has seemed to help, to give hope or if nothing else to give a sense that they're not alone in the battle. I hope that maybe someone in need of help will see this and see that it can be done, it's not a never ending battle (even when your social worker has a personal vendetta against you) and in the end there is hope for change and strength.

Birthday Surprise

Posted by Anonymous.

Yesterday was my birthday, I am 30 years old. I am the high school student who was in forensics and band, never went to parties, and graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA. I have 2 children (ages 6 and 2) and have been married for 9 years. I have a good job, a good life, a good husband. I don't party, don't drink, don't smoke. For my birthday I wanted to do something I have never done before. I knew that before we were dating my husband had done it only once or twice, and I just wanted to be able to say I'd had the experience. That I had tried it. I only casually mentioned it to him, that I was just curious about what it felt like and he said he could probably get some if I really wanted to. That was the end of the conversation, I didn't really believe he could. And then he brought some home from work, I didn't even recognize what it was when he showed it to me, LOL. So last night, after the kids were in bed, we went out to the garage together. You should have seen us, neither one had a clue if we were doing it right. And then we had great sex and went to bed. I can't tell anyone, I would NEVER tell anyone, so I am sharing it anonymously with you internet. I am 30 years old and last night I smoked pot for the first time.

**Postscript: please don't judge me in the comments, this is a one time only experience. End of story. Neither one of us have any desire for this to be a repeated event. I am happy that my only time getting high was with my husband, in the safety of our own home.

Cool Or Cruel?

Posted by Anonymous.

By the night of my 8^th grade dance at the end of the school year, which marked the elusive transition from middle to high school, I was already experimenting with drugs and alcohol.

Nothing major really, just drinking a few hard lemonades at a friend’s house while hoping I looked cool smoking that cigarette. My cousin and I had snuck out while we were camping with the family to sit by the river at night. We happened to encounter two gothic girls smoking pot out of a socket while listening to Marilyn Manson. We both smoked it, got a little buzzed and giggled in the dark as we walked back to our tents hoping we wouldn’t get caught stepping on stick or rustling some leaves.

Nothing major really. But the night of our dance I wanted to “have fun” and I thought all the older kids probably party on prom night and damn it, I wanted to party too. After all, I had always associated being “mature” with partying. So I ingested about 12 pills of a cough suppressant in hopes of “tripping” while at the dance. I soon found myself vomiting in the bathroom, covered in sweat and gaining attention from other girls in the bathroom. “Are you okay?” asked a blurry dark haired figure. “Must have ate some bad chicken” I told her the best I could in between heaves while I tried not to look at the little red dots floating in the toilet water and stomach bile. The assistant principle soon stood outside the door of the stall. She wanted to take me into the office where I could “lie down and sit in the A/C.” I couldn’t even walk to the office by myself and I don’t even know who helped me slump my way over there. They called my parents, (well .. my mom and step-father,) who soon picked me up. They told my parents they thought I was on ecstacy and that they might want to take me to the hospital to be sure. My step-dad slung me over his shoulder and carried me to the car. He fiercely interrogated me, asking me what I took, who gave it to me, saying he was going to kick their ass, etc. They didn’t take me to the hospital though. After being carried to my room, I laid down in my dress and asked him if I was going to die. He laughed a little and said no, I was probably just going to sleep for a while.

We talked about it the next day but I was never in trouble. They expressed their concerns, and admitted to some experimentation of their own. OK, not really experimentation. Usage. My own parents told me if there was a drug I wanted to try, to please let them know and they will get it for me. I mean, after all, they used to be big “rock stars” and all.

They didn’t want me to get hurt, or get ripped off, or buy something laced and be in a safe environment. I actually thought it was cool at the time. Can you really blame me? At 13 I was allowed to drink in my own house, as long as I didn’t leave and it was a widely known fact that I smoked pot in my room sometimes with friends. My stepdad and I even smoked together on occasion. That following Christmas I told them I wanted to try cocaine. I was 14 and it just so happened that they had some. I did one line and we laid on the bed and talked about the high and how “cocaine was an evil drug and isn’t really that much fun anymore…not like it used to be. But that the real high comes from ecstacy.” Naturally, I wanted to try it. We made plans and my younger siblings stayed at friend’s houses and me and my mom and my stepdad did ecsctacy together. I ate a bean and soon felt the “ecstacy” of ecstacy. We listened to music and sang and dance and snorted more beans throughout the night. We didn’t go to bed until daylight. I was barely 15. In total we did ecstacy together at least 6 or 7 times before I went back to live with my dad who has no idea anything like this ever went on. It just feels like such a weight now that I am older, a whole 21 years of age. It doesn’t seem cool anymore. It seems FUCKED UP. And I’m not saying that I had a bad time when we actually partied, it's just weird now. And I don’t think just on my end. Whenever I go home to visit there is always this weird awkward moment when I am introduced to one of their new friends in a party setting and they bust out a mound of cocaine or crushed up beans and snort a line right. In. Front. Of. Me.

And why shouldn’t they? I have done it with them. I just wish that I could have the balls to tell them that I feel ….not right ..about what happened. Part of me wants to forgive them and say it was a mistake and part of me wants to let myself sob and ask them how they could put me in harm’s way like that? How they could voluntarily retire from being a parent and try to become a cohort? I have been in denial about the fact that this is an unusual and somewhat sad situation of a parent/child relationship. When my friends would bring it up in conversation, I would defend and protect them because I didn’t want anyone to think badly of them. They were trying to be cool and understanding, but really it warped my outlook on life from a young age. So now here I sit at 21 years of age resenting the fact my parents tried to let me experiment while so many people resent their parents for the exact opposite.

Outside The Bubble

Posted by C at This Matters This Day.

Liz Lemon has done it again. Put a window on something that, in retrospect, felt close to the truth…

Last time was the reunion episode. Weeks later, when wondering idly why some people from high school still haven’t ‘friended’ me – when they had friended others. Not just ‘the popular kids,’ but even kids more off-the-grid, now FRIENDING the ‘popular kids.’ Then, the episode came back to me.

Liz was at her reunion, and discovered that she was mean in highschool. That her reverse-snubbing, her snub-or-be-snubbed was NOT invisible. That the popular kids didn’t like her because she wasn’t likable.

I laughed and payed no real attention. Thought it wasn’t one of the better episodes.

Later – much later – weeks later… **gasp** …

When you are 15-16-17, sharp-witted and imagine yourself slightly better than those around you – the prettier ones, the more together ones, the ones who aren’t so afraid of trying, of proving themselves, of fitting in… ooops.

You become Liz. Snarky, with thinly-veiled quick-witted asides that are – oops again – sarcastic and more than a little mean.

I thought then that those honor role kids just didn’t get me. The truth was something else. I just didn’t want to play. And thought I should get by on my (under-appreciated) looks and (underexercised) raw intelligence.

OK. So flash-forward. Now those same kids – the ones who tried? Who made it all important when, I, in my infinite wisdom (and 2.75 GPA) suspected it wasn’t? Those kids have kids. And their kids are in private school. And they play with my kids. My kids who are woefully unprepared.

I could list the reasons why, or how they are unprepared: mom works, mom is scatter-brained, mom is not wealthy, mom has no idea what the rules are… but the truth is this: Mom doesn’t want to play.

On last night’s 30 Rock, we saw the return of Dr.Drew Baird. (Moment of silence, please, to acknowledge my disproportionate love of Jon Hamm…) The premise was that he is so good-looking that people expect little of him, and fill him with lies. So he’s a doctor that doesn’t know the Heimlich, is awful in bed, and cannot play tennis – and has never waited in a line.

Again, good show. I laughed. I was mad that Jon Hamm was leaving again, (c’mon Liz! Do you HAVE to be the bearer of Truth?) and I laughed harder when Jack Donaghy explained The Bubble and the loss of the Bubble. I laughed ‘cuz it was funny, right? A ridiculous premise?

Oh, shit. I laughed ‘cuz it’s True!

At the risk of being exposed as more narcissistic than I feel (although I guess even narcissism has its roots in self-loathing, but I digress) – I was driving home from my son’s third grade play almost in tears and realized… ooops… I GOT IT!

Now, the almost-tears were for a number of reasons. Chief trigger was that the set looked great. I had derided the moms that made a big deal of the set – thinking that this is third grade, they are walking up to microphones, the play isn’t blocked, each character is shared by six kids, etc. And TWO of my props were rejected as inadequate, and my son’s Zukerman costume was Not Quite Right, even though we got the same Farmer Costume memo as every other mom.

The secondary trigger was the Perfect Moms who told me afterward that my son was great – Moms whose children I did not know, moms themselves whose names are filed somewhere in my back brain where they cannot be accessed as I am trying to anonymously high tail it out of a multimillion dollar performance facility (where my son just performed a walk-up-to-the-mike rendition of a play written for about 8 kids along with 59 of his closest friends.)

You see, friends, I lived in The Bubble. Because while high school may not be kind to the I-think-I-am-prettier-and-smarter-than-you-so-I-flirt-too-much-and-laugh-too-hard-when-I-get-the-grown-up-jokes-of-the-AP-English-teacher-and-treat-everything-with-a-note-of-disdain-and-irony… your twenties? Especially if they got to occur in the nineties? In your twenties, folks eat that shit up.

All the sudden – for a minute, maybe, or for something like six or seven years – I was IT.

I ran in a circle with famous people for a college internship and later, I had a great job. I had loads of friends, I had loads of sex, and I had great hair. I dressed well and drove free German cars. I was connected. Professionally, personally… I felt untouchable. I flirted as I breathed. I got promoted. I worked way over my head, and I gathered in large chummy packs at the neighborhood bar in the tony neighborhood… that I walked to.

Because no one ever accused me of making things look easy, I assumed my aggressive wheel spinning and frenetic pace meant I really was working hard.

I assumed, that somehow, without actually working for it… I had earned it. I believed my press.

My eventual husband believed it, too – he would say later that his initial impression was that I was ‘out of his league,’ he imagined that I had it together – because there was so much of it, and it looked confusing to the outsider.

I was In the Bubble.

And inside, it actually was confusing. But it was contained, somewhat.

All that happened, besides growing up and getting married and having kids and folding into private schools (quite by accident, but again I digress) is that I outgrew the bubble. And now? 40, with those intrepid kids in tow … the bubble is gone.

The mess is no longer contained by the walls of the bubble, and I am exposed to the (god love him, still-with-me) husband. I am invisible among those working harder, with more qualifications and a more complete rule set. My confusion confuses them. They expect more of themselves… shoudn’t I?

Inside the bubble was better.

So, somehow? Now, I guess? It’s time to grow up. Or at least fake it a whole lot better.

Ergg.

Found

Posted by Anonymous.

I know I shouldn’t have. But when his sister and I connected on Facebook, I couldn’t help it. I had to look. Sure enough, he was there, his twinkling eyes and impish demeanor smiling back from 96 photos.

My first thoughts? He’s packed on about 50 pounds since the last time I saw him – and I’ll admit that I took delight in this observation. His fiancée, the girl he chose over me nearly four years ago, is plain, frumpy, and chubby. Smirk.

And feel? How did I feel? I felt nothing -- no sorrow, no longing. A little surprised, and glad even, that he’d accepted my bid for online friendship. Our breakup was disastrous, and I willingly accept the blame for that because I very nearly lost my damn mind. You never really know what you’re capable of and when he left me I discovered a brand of crazy I didn’t know existed. I don’t have many regrets, but my reaction to that breakup is one of the few things I wish I could change about my life.

And if I’m to be completely honest, I wish I hadn’t found him again. Not for the typical reasons – I don’t want him. I’m engaged to a man who makes me deliriously happy and provides for me in exactly the way I need it. He supports and motivates me, and is the reason I am (physically and emotionally) in the good, sweet place I am today. He is my heart, and I am eternally grateful that I was able to endure such heartache because doing so brought me to him.

No, I wish I hadn’t found the ex because it has created sadness in a different way. I’ve spent a lot of time on Facebook lately, looking at photos and profiles of people I used to know. It’s caused a lot of memories to burble up. Places I used to go, things I used to do, people who once were close friends. It’s made me homesick, and I haven’t been able to shake that feeling for five days now.

It’s made me feel old – that my youth is withering away. Four years ago I was a 23-year-old-woman with the world at my feet. And what a world it was! In the aftermath of that breakup, I got to know two people who are now my best friends. I won awards for my professional work. I went back to school. I learned how to accept and forgive. I realized that I deserved more than what I was being given from certain people and jobs, and I discovered how to stand up for myself.

I’m more settled now. My friends have children. I have a mortgage and a wedding to plan, not to mention three future stepsons. I dream about children of my own.

In many ways my life is just beginning. But a part of it is gone that I’ll never get back.

Quarterlife

Posted by Anonymous.

I'm 25 now.

It took me a little while to type that sentence. There's this distaste that enters my mouth whenever I write it or say it. I feel like that it should be the start of a longer sentence: "I'm 25 now, and I dally in Europe with my girlfriends." "I'm 25 now, and I own a home." "I'm 25 now, I have a wonderful partner, and we're discussing marriage." "I'm 25 now, and I know what I'm supposed to be doing with the rest of myself."

The fact is that the sentence is what it is. I'm 25 now. I don't dally in Europe with my girlfriends. I don't own a home. I don't have a wonderful partner, and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing with the rest of my life.

Some have said that I am going through my quarterlife crisis. Logically, I know that it applies to me and that this is partly true, but being the one living the quarterlife crisis is different. I've always been the one in my family who has known what they were going to do. I'm the academic one -- that's the label given me by my family. I'm not the pretty sister, or the edgy sister or the hippie sister. Those never belonged to me, and I never aspired to those labels. I have always known what I was going to do with the rest of my life -- I knew what path I was going to walk. My family and friends knew me as a decisive person where my schooling and career was concerned. I didn't need a partner or dates because "you're so, so smart."

I landed an entry level job in my competitive industry of choice right out of college. I got a promotion to my dream position not long afterwards. And I thought that this was all I needed -- this job that challenged me and took up so much of my time. And then I turned 25. I got depressed, almost mournful. Nothing satisfied me. I felt restless and purposeless for first time since my freshman year of college. I realized that I got depressed when my job went into it's "slow period" for the year. I didn't realize that I had invested myself so heavily in my position until this bleak onset that came on suddenly. I've scared myself... I figure it's because I didn't have it there to keep me occupied.

So I'm doing little things to change me. I'm looking to buy a one-bedroom condo -- something small and economical where I can entertain. I'm supportive of my best friend, who now has less time for me since she recently found a partner. I'm trying not to work so much. I'm trying to date. I've looked into grad schools. I don't want to be "invincible" again, but I'm frustrated feeling this way. I'm going to go my doctor to discuss what's going on with me. I don't think this is depression, but I don't know, quite frankly. I'm tired of 25.

I just hope that 26 gives me back my sense of purpose. But if it doesn't, what will I do?