Outsider

Funny thing about memories, they come whenever they damn well please. I've had ice cream trigger an awful event from my past, try explaining to a bunch of parents and kids why you're breaking down in the middle of an ice cream shop. One time my husband and I were looking for a tack strip at a hardware store, and when I found them I had a panic-attack. Random.

Like today, while I'm doing better than yesterday it's still a struggle. Fresh off a depressive mood each step-forward is a shaky one, and memories wait for me at every turn. Growing up I was always the outsider, not by choice and I didn't isolate myself. (I did later in life around the teens, but I had my reasons).

Before then it was a gradual thing. See, after Dani, my mom, had my younger brother and sister, and married their father, my stepdad. Things started to change. For starters, I was the only one with a different last name. You wouldn't think that would make a difference, and at first it didn't. We lived in California around other family that shared my last name. I had my aunts and cousins. No big deal.

But when we moved to Pennsylvania and we were surrounded by strangers that were meant to be family(stepdad's family)—strangers that shared my family's last name but not mine—I started to feel like an orphan. An extra wheel that was tagging along. I despised my last name and how it made me stick out among the people I called family. I was treated different, not by my extended family(my stepdad's family are wonderful, cheers to my Aunt J & Uncle C). No, it was my mother, her husband and their two kids that treated me. . . different.

Everything I did pissed off CJ, my stepfather, and that would cause him to yell at Dani. Who then would turn on me. Try being a 4^th grader in a new school, a new town, and every little thing you do is wrong. Not just wrong, but apocalyptic wrong. Destruction of life wrong. Live like that for a few years and you start to get jumpy. I second guessed everything I did, and resorted to locking myself away in my room. They couldn't blame me for something if they didn't see me.

When the two of them divorced, and Dani became a single mom I thought for sure things would change. . . They did. Somehow I became even more of an outsider. Believe it or not things got a lot worse.

As I look back I see all these small events, big blow ups, and all the stuff in between. The bigger picture is laid out before me, and what I see breaks my heart. This is what I was reflecting on in the shower this afternoon. I played through the times I was left out of the family—when I was cast aside, and I realized that there is more of those moments then I care to ever admit, but there is one that stands out today.

A single moment that has me feeling sorry for the little girl I was. It brings tears to my eyes even now, and I can feel the slow crack of heartbreak forming inside my chest.

After Dani kicked CJ out she kept my brother and sister close to her. They slept every night in her bed, falling asleep as they watched TV. This continued well into their late teens. Hell, my brother is now about 26 and I wouldn't be surprised if he still sleeps in her bed. (no, he does not have a mental handicap. He's your standard twenty something guy. Messed up, right?)

Most nights I tried to join them, but Dani would always send me packing, using the statement, “there's no room for you.” So I would slink back to my room holding back tears. Crawl under the cold empty covers and snuggle with whatever I could. There I would fall asleep, alone in the dark. Listening to them laugh and talk about the characters on TV.

At one point I started waiting till they fell asleep. Then, with pillow and blanket in hand, I would make myself a little bed beside my mom's on the floor. I would snuggle close against the base of the waterbed just under the edge so I could be as close as possible. The oldest child reduced to sleeping on the floor to get some recognition they belonged. How sad is that? My heart quivers and bleeds for any child that needs to live through that—a child that is forced to feel those type of emotions.

Sleeping on the floor didn't last long, Dani would wake up every morning and yell at me. So I stopped sneaking into her room to be apart of a family that didn't want me. Instead I isolated myself. I learned to become my own best friend and family. I lived alone in a full house, and cried myself to sleep often.

Today, as I sit here writing this, I ask the same maddening question I always do. Why?

Why was I forced to live like that?

I'll never get an answer, I know that but I still can't help but asking. . . Why?

#HugYourChild

~Jax~