Sitting In a glass house

Some of my earliest memories as a child did not come until my sister sat me down one day and asked me if I remembered anything of what we went through as toddlers. I told her no. She looked at me like she’d seen some kind of ghost and shook her head before asking me to sit down. Looking back on it now I had no idea that she was about to jar my mind for the memories it surpressed to protect me for years. My sister is almost 20 years older than me so she started with when I was a baby still in my moms belly. Of course these things I would never remember but I appreciated her starting from the very beginning.

My parents were a terrible fit for one another. The kicking, the fighting, the screaming, and the fear that festered from their less than holy Union was hard to hear. My fathers temper was horrible. He emitted a fear in people that I didn’t think was possible. To this day as a 26 year old woman I still feel the uneasiness of him whenever I am around him. When my mother became pregnant with me my father did not want me. He told her to end the pregnancy; thank god she didn’t. But her pregnancy wasn’t easy. He would punch her, beat her, lock her in rooms, and call her names. She wanted to call the police, but he was the police. She became closed off and quiet but that did not stop the abuse.

I came into the world 3 months too early due to her stress. Having me almost killed her. I had to stay in an incubator for 3 months due to my lungs not being fully grown. Everyone was so scared.

When the doctors finally cleared me to be discharged I was still so small I could Fit in the palm of your hand. I was too small for baby clothes so my mother had to buy porcelain doll clothes for me to wear until I grew.

My dad leased a beautiful home In Bedminster New Jersey. It had a long driveway, a large backyard with flowers and a swing set in the back, and an enormous front yard. Looking in it would seem wonderful and perfect, but inside the house chaos ensued. And it went from being beautiful to being a prison. If my father got angry he would remove the locks from the widows and the doors and we would be trapped inside. My sister would often take me up to her room, shut the door, and turn her music up really loud to try to drown out the screaming; many times it didn’t work. I love her for trying though.

When my mother finally mustered up the courage to leave she took my sister with her. Scarily, it became just MW and my father. My mom didn’t come over and she rarely called. I was under such strict control and was so afraid to anger my father. Again, I never realized just how terrified I was until I grew up. I couldn’t process or understand the fear as a kid.

Pets became my coping mechanism but thinking back now I never should have brought them into that household. We had a beautiful cockatoo named Asia. As a baby when my mother and sister still lived with us my mother would let her out while my father was at work and she would play hide and seek with me around the furniture. But once my mother left he put her in the basement, constantly in the dark. I still cry as I reiterate this because she was the sweetest friend to have. I would sneak into the basement and pet her. She would always say my name and I would talk to her. I knew that she was sad. One day I wasn’t lucky and my father heard her say my name and he got angry because she would never say his. He punched her that day and my beloved friend passed away. I never even got to say goodbye. And it continued this way. I got a cat named meko. He went to the bathroom on the floor and I tried to clean it up before he got home but he still noticed. That night he had his friends over, grabbed my cat by the neck and threw him 20 feet into the woods. I never saw my cat again.

A few years later I aspired to be an equestian. I took lessons and got very good over the next 8 years. But one evening I was finishing up practice and I fell off of my horse. My father came and and beat my horse with a whip. He was gravely ill. He was given medicine and got better, Praise the lord.

By the age of 11 my father picked us up and moved us to Anthem Arizona. I had a dog at the time and hated leaving my home to go somewhere I had never been. The house was beautiful and things were okay at times but his temper was still beyond reproach. Aside from facing racism in Arizona though I loved the state, I never saw my horse again; I’d lost the sport and the animal I loved. My mother still didn’t call much and that sent me into depression.

4 months later my father dropped me off with two friends and never came back. It turned out that he was on the run for some time for embezzling money. The state seized all of our assets and when I got sent back to my mother I saw my father in a car chase with the police in Phoenix Arizona. I had no words for anything that had happened. I started receiving calls from reports and broadcast news stations that wanted a story on the daughter he left behind but I was in no shape to do those things.

Through time my father and I’s relationship got worse and my relationship with my mother was no better. My sister and my dog were my best friends. I struggled all through grammar school and high school before finally finding myself and making peace with the past and appreciating it for all that it taught me. Sadly those memories will haunt me forever but I have overcome a lot of my hardships and I no longer live in that glass house with stones weighing my pockets down. I have a few cats, a man that loves me, and I am finding a faith in god I never knew before. So as I continue to grow I carry all of those lessons with me, imperfections and all.

God bless everyone who has ever experienced hardships, has ever been trapped in a glass house, or believe that they are broken or damaged because of their past.I am here to tell you that you are beautiful, you are perfect, and we are strong!