Late Bloomer

I am writing this knowing you will probably never see this. But if I can't say it to you, then I need to be able to say it somewhere cause it's killing me.

Your girl's birthdays are both this month, so it is especially heavy on my mind.

I have worked through a lot of different traumas in my life, I had to learn to cope with many things, and even more-so had to learn the art of forgiveness, especially towards myself.

But losing you two permanently is something I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with.

I was always used to the mom roll, as I was a type of mother to my sisters growing up, and was raised with a christian family so marrying young and having kids right away seemed natural.

But unfortunately drugs became a part of mine and your dad's relationship pretty early on, and we struggled with addiction during the 5 years we were married.

It started with pills but moved to harder things pretty quickly. After the marriage ended when I left with you guys I still struggled off and on.

Indirectly that's how I lost you the first time.

It took a year of a lot of self-work and growth to get you back, but I did.

Losing you this time was especially rough. It was my fault though, I shouldn't have lost my temper.

Let me back-track a little bit...

After I got out of treatment in 2016 I was doing really well. I got a job as a peer support supervisor at a recovery facility, and I was really happy helping people and being of service to others. Life ended up taking me to another job, but this was full time. My family didn't live near me so I was pretty much on my own with you guys.

It was pretty difficult because you two were both in elementary school at the time and I worked an hour and a half later than when you got out of school. I got you guys a phone so you could call and talk to me on your way home, but unfortunately you started getting into trouble once you actually got home. Lighters were played with, boys were invited over, ect...

I didn't want you to get hurt so did the only thing I could think to help keep you safe, I called your grandma (on your fathers side) and I told her I would agree to let you girls go to school in her town for a couple years till I could get more stable and afford a baby sitter, plus I felt you would be safer at a school in such a small town.

The biggest downside is that you would live a ways from me. But we agreed it would only be till middle school.

I will be the first to admit it felt like I was losing you all over again after fighting so hard to get you back... I fell apart. I started using again and struggled to stop because I didn't yet know how to function without you, as an individual person. I never gave myself that chance because I had you so young. Sure, lots of people have kids younger than 19 and 21, but still I never gave myself the chance to be independent or even to grow up before you came into the world.

So I just let myself fall apart. It didn't last though, but it seemed like well or not, our visits and phone calls were getting further apart, and so did the time we could talk on the phone. In fact when I started bringing up you guys coming back, suddenly there were always reasons you couldn't visit, and our calls were being monitored.

Then Covid hit and things just ground to a halt, no visits, 3 minute phone calls, or no answers. I tired many times to reach out to your grandma asking her to come have a talk with me about you coming back down but she ignored every message. I was still recovering and getting to a fully stable place so I did not push. Then I had some very unproffesional and shady things happen with the apartments I had been in for 5 years and I was forced to have to move out.

I moved to a different city, but not into my own place because I had to find new work so was in-between jobs for a bit. Again why I wasn't pushing to get you down here too bad. I wanted to be completely secure in my choice to bring you back, but had some steps I had to start back over. We needed a house.

That's when all the shit really hit the fan.

TO BE CONTINUED...