My father is a generous person. Throughout my life, I have witnessed this in many ways, in my own needs, and for those around me, that my father has bent to give his best assistance to by offering his financial help, or his physical help. He has always been the one family member that all of us could count on to not only take the time to listen to something that you needed to get off of your chest so to speak, but also the one who would take your sadness or anger and show you it can be laughed at, if you dress it up a bit.
As a girl, my sisters and I were not prissy in a sense of having it "all" but we were usually one of the first in the crowd with whatever was the new fad, more or less in thanks to my mother's love of shopping, but more to my father's willingness to give. My ballet lessons started when I was just a little girl with freckles and pigtails and ended when I had boobs and make-up... all lessons supplied with the prettiest leg-warmers, bodysuits, leotards and shoes.
My parents divorced, for many reasons, when I was eighteen. Their divorce was not average. Most couples end up hating or taking or fighting. My parents remained friends. There were several cook-outs that I can recall either at my house or my Dad's, that involved my mom coming with one of the several men that she had relations with after, no hostility involved. My Dad had a few relations, only one that lasted for a bit of time. She left his side because of her need to have my mother paying her own way and my father's reluctancy to do so. He supported my mother from day one. He paid her rent, utilities, food, insurance, bought her a car cash, supported her cigarette 1 pack a day habit, bought her wine, paid for her expensive hair products, took her on vacation, let her do her laundry at his house, and she often sleeps on the couch while watching all of her recorded programs on his wide-screen television while drinking his wine. They do not have sexual relations. It is just the weird way that it is. Throughout their divorce, I cannot count how many times I have listened to the comment "seriously?" when trying to describe their relationship. A bit unusual to say the least.
Some would say that my mother is a mooch. Others would say that my father lets her walk on him. And then others would just assume that there was more to their relationship that we all just do not know about. All perceived notions are false. Their lives are this way because that is what they have chosen for themselves and are comfortable with. They are not trying to fit into any mold and in doing so catch the opinion of anyone looking for ripples in the normative that they need to cut out with their "reasonings" and whatnot.
I have not asked my father for financial help in the past. My mother seemed to take up that spot of energy in him and I was young with enough of my own world-conquering inspirations to work three jobs if need be. My first marriage went horribly wrong and I never asked for any help, even when my ex husband basically stripped me of everything that I owned including my kids. My second husband put us in an abuse shelter and then I lived in a Salvation Army for over a year... did not ask my father to pay for our rent in some "normal" life setting. No, I was bad-ass enough to work as a single mom, taking on all of the responsiblity of being analyzed by every government agency as to my worthiness as a person, after all, and I did so amazingly well... better than well. My first apartment was in a low income complex, equipped with cockroaches of many species, even in the refrigerator. The furniture that I collected from flea markets and yard sales I carried up to the second story apartment on my back alone. I did it on my own. I did it by myself with two kids and a psycho ex stalker to top it off, thousands of miles from my family... for years.
My father sent me money a few times during these years. However it was more like happy money we are not going to have our electric turned off money. It was not often and I do not think that I asked for it, he was just being generous. During my second marriage, towards then end, we were living in a motel for 6 weeks after being evicted for the who knows how many-eth time, and my father helped us with a deposit on a rented house near to my new job that I finally landed with help of an agency that was trying to get me away from my abusive ex. It was maybe a thousand dollars that we asked for, and we lived in this house long enough for him to abuse us with a few mentioned situations that are explained in our permanent restrait order... like throwing a chair across the room, with me in it... and locking our small pre-school aged children outside while he smoked crack in the bathroom with a woman while I was at the hospital. I was not sick, however, I was saying good-bye to my dying grandfather. These episodes are written in the facts sheets of several investigating agencies that got involved at that time. So that amount of rent money that my father let us have to move out of the motel and into this house seemingly was for nothing... as our marriage did not last for more than six months after.
Several years following, my father jumped in to help me again. Ricardo and I were living happily with the kids in our later low income apartment complex, where we met, and the ex got word of our relationship and our location and was due to fly into town immediately in his words "to kill me because I was a good for nothing whore" so we needed to move over night. My father helped with another down payment on a deposit and we moved. Our new place had holes in the actual walls... was not top of the line by any means... but it was ours for another seven months or so until we left for Mexico.
Exactly how many times my father has helped us pay thousands for airline tickets has not been kept track of, but it has been many. The kids and I live with him now, have taken over his home as six kids will do. Grocery trips and water bills and phone charges, all considerably more than if it were him alone in the house. Of course there is appreciation in this even though we do not like it any more than he probably does. We do not like to feel dependent on anyone. We want to be on our own, making our own decisions, living a normal life with normal struggles. We are like fat cats here, sedating ourselves with chips and hostess cakes in front of the electronic technology as we do not have means to leave the house such as a vehicle or ability to make money to change things. It is a circle of dependency that my father is generously permitting so we survive yet another month, week, or day... it is all starting to run together as nothing changes.
Being free, being independent... something I have longed for a long time... not so easy to find. Once, when receiving court mandated counseling after my abusive second marriage, we came to the conclusion during our home visited session, that I have a problem with men controlling me, owning me, and me letting it happen. I really dont think that I purposely let it happen though. Actually I think that I am quite the opposite. I proved that I could provide and build my own life... Is it really my consequence to carry on my shoulders that I am a victim of domestic violence? Yes a victim. That word carries with it a code that has been established that says, survival is first, do what you have to do. I sure do have that ideal mastered. Give me the opportunity, free from ownership or control from all the little loops that are made to jump through, and wow, she is free. And... I am really good at freedom, accomplishing great strides.
Generosity was the topic however I do not want to stray too far into the depths of my mental variations as to why I am where I am at right now, at the mercy of the opinions of even my own children now that look at me as if they are waiting for me to "do" something. That leads me back to my original thought of why have I stopped writing... I lost my sponsorship. There is a lot of confusion in that topic for me, mainly because my father is, or was, my sponsor, or rather, my husband's sponsor. That pot at the end of the rainbow where Ricardo comes back to the USA with the appropriate legal rights on a paper, and we drive off into the sunset with the kids and start a new life full of stability for ourselves... yes that is the final wish. The confusion is why. I am at a loss because of the dependency, the generosity, the needs, the wishes, the anger, the future, that what do we do now worry, and that haven't we truly had enough emotion... it has frozen my mind for some time. Am I not worthy of being free, or that it is not part of the equation but that of trust, as I am a bouncing ball in a tight hallway... even if those closing walls were, or were not, due to my construction.
Live with your consequences, make your own way, you made your choices... all words from people that were not by my side in the past, but now are quick to recommend that I be on trial. It angers me, and anger can be debilitating to a point. Freeing myself of that weight alone is a task that I am just about there, working it out, finding how these people are usually hiding many of their own faults behind your obvious-to-everyone-trait, sticking out like a bruised face... oh no sorry about the transparency... I really am a stronger person than you and it took me some serious thought to examine your life, because unlike yourself, I do not judge others... but I am finally there, able to let go of the opinions of the trial that I am on. Choices are a wonderful thing, when and only when, they are offered. Another's fortune does not always coincide with your own. Acceptance that there are details that some will never understand for all who do not need to be apart of the trial of judges that are completely out of place in their involvement should therefore not be a part of my decision making as to what we are going to do to rectify this sudden loss in our future's only hope.
Generosity goes a long way when you are in need. I wonder who is going to ever take me seriously when the obvious puts me into a bad light. I have a father, who has this generous bone that has earned the "talk of the town" as being unusually generous, opposite of stingy... and yet, he does not want to sponsor my husband. The main inspiration for searching for our rights against the government and to find unity in others was from my father's own advice. Who will ever take us seriously now?
This is not to down my father, this is to show my own battle with what I am faced with. I am heavy with pressures, emotions, confusion, and now I am in a position where I need to reach out to a stranger to offer us that freedom that we need to start our life as a stabile family. It is difficult to reach out when I feel like I am being told that we are not worthy. It is a circle that I need to break somehow so that I can save my family. I am having a hard time initiating that reach, especially from a house that I rarely have opportunity to leave from as I do not have transportation. My kids are depending on me to pull a miracle out of my ass.
That is where we are at right now. In a state of looser-ville... and we do not want to be here. Where we are... and where we "could be" given the opportunity to fly. My family has such extreme potential. We are not loosers, not one of us... how do I begin to get this stage of the waiver process accomplished without turning crazy. I do not know. The confusion and anger as to why we are not able to just finally have a chance at being a normal family is something that makes me feel like giving up. That then would be a consequence for me, not the previous... giving up, which I have not ever done in my life, even though I could or should have... I feel close to that option. I am tired. Giving up will mean separation from two of my children permanently. We would live in Mexico with or without residency availability for us. We may loose the children's education in the process. Our health would be extremely compromised. The birth of our baby this October would too be a whole "walk the plank" experience in its own, as a 42 yr old woman with previous c-sec... it is, like I said, almost debilitating and immobilizing. We will overcome.... one more time.
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