I M Perfect lady

Tag: family

  • A Lady with Borders

    I listened to Dr. Laura Berman speak about “Borderline Personality Disorder”. It sounded so similar to where I came from, where the lines between what is your life and what is my life are blended, and how you can flip between like and hate in relationships, blaming the other for your actions. She was speaking to a woman whose husband had this and the husband blamed the wife for his cheating.

    Dr. Laura’s advice to the woman was that even if you are the only one that is sane and all are calling you insane, you are still sane. That for her to grab a hold of reality and not let go for it seems we can get sucked into their twisted reality and get very confused. And usually these types of individuals are married to or in a relationship with co-dependents who live to make you happy.

    I was glad to hear of this Borderline Personality Disorder, and I feel that it mirrors own life in how I used to blame my poor behavior as a mother on misbehaving children and how I also have lived on the other side of the coin, being a good daughter to make a good mother.

    This was an interesting view of my family and how they still are using each other to behave.

    I will get a good sister IF I be a good sister.
    I will get a good mother if I be a good daughter.

    This conjoined way of living is very weird to me now, and the insanity that ensues mind blowing, for they literally believe that they can control another’s behavior by their behavior.

    I am stunned to know that finding reality and separating bodies is what is needed, to stop bleeding into others lives or having their lives bleed into yours, that we need to find a way to stay completely in your own power.

    I also listened to Mark Nepo who wrote “The Book of Awakening,” and he spoke of a time when he lost his job and found out he had cancer, and at the moment when his life seemed to all fall apart at once, he found his soul, a part of him that remained untouched by the chaos.

    I get that.

    I felt that at the time my whole world fell apart that inside of me my soul awoke or I awoke to my soul. It was the only thing dysfunction hadn’t touched.

    I can’t be certain what my overall mental status was for 46 years or what conditions all in my family have, but this Borderline Personality Disorder seems to explain the sense of guilt I had when I wasn’t able to make them better, or the shame I felt for my father’s deeds, like we were all one big ameba.

    I woke up as a woman without borders!

    The past six years have been constructing fences, separating my flesh from theirs, my emotions and feelings being shanghaied by their lives, and learning how to be a lady with borders.

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  • A Liar too.

    There seems to come a time in each relationship where the titles and names do not matter, where instead lies the meat of the relationship, the giving and the taking, the feelings we feel in the wake of their actions, the way we are treated or the lack thereof, it is like we can finally see what it is we are tasting.

    I asked myself if lies was an ingredient in love and could not find one recipe of Love that included lies.

    Not the love of parents, friends, lovers or self. Lies and Love don’t match.

    I also know that all relationships no matter what kind are subject to renegotiations if and when the ingredients change of one party.

    There isn’t a relationship out there, as far as I can see, that holds this sacred space of no negotiation.

    To me, all relationships are fluid and are living breathing exchanges between two people, that will change as the individuals in them change, and in fact the relationship is only as good as the weakest one.

    The weaker one is the sum total of the relationship, for if the stronger one settles, so goes the relationship down to the lowest denominator.

    My experiences with dysfunction is the strong lower themselves to be okay with dropping down to the low level, it is seen as kind and loving and accepting, and to forgive all actions, and call it unconditional love.

    Unconditional love to some is allowing all types of negative behaviors to messy up a relationship and you are to love no matter what.

    The ingredients of dysfunctional love is that anything goes and all must be forgiven, and relationships are made of steel there is no renegotiation, and you and I are locked behind the wall of our relationship.

    The relationship between sister and sister in some is non negotiable.

    Between parent and child…

    That what started out has to remain, we are locked in forever, like a steel cage within there is no way out, we must forever and a day be held together, withstanding bad behavior for the cause of Relationship.

    Two victims behind the relationship cage.

    I say, that if one in the cage changes, the other gets to leave if the changes can’t be reversed.

    When one changes, the whole relationship changes. It isn’t a cage, but rather the dance within the cage.

    Some put high regard on the titles, Mom, sister, daughter, father, and I see the individual behind the title, and I believe that the sister is only as good as her actions in the cage.

    Lies are lies no matter whose mouth utters them.
    Abuse is abuse no matter whose bodies are delivering it. It is convenient only for the one who is doing the bad behavior to use the trump card sister, to put that out in front of the poor behavior.

    Well, in my world I have taken down the cages that held me in and I am free.

    I no longer will be victimized or blinded by a title.

    Actions are actions, lies are lies, and deceit is deceit.

    Setting aside the relationship and seeing you as you, lies are not becoming.

    No good can be grown from a lie.
    No self worth can be gained from a lie.
    No love can be sown from a lie.

    In my childhood family they live among the lies and are not even aware that who they are playing with isn’t so, raised in the darkness full of lies, it is their normal. They don’t even know they live a lie for they never lived outside of it. Lies is all they ever knew. They have said and do say, that my parents did the best they could, and they did. But their best is to present one thing to the front while doing something else behind the scenes.

    A lie I call it.

    Most will not deal with the ‘thing’ behind the scenes; they would rather just play with what is in front, the pretend relationship label. Father, Mother instead of really looking at the actions within the cage.

    What happens in the cage is what you have a relationship with.

    Action to action is how we dance and relate to each other.
    If one says a lie and the other does not see it, the lie still happens, one is just denying it.

    It changes the dance from love to love and trust to trust… to lie to love and what they want is for us to continue to trust them while they lie.

    How?

    What is the point?

    Who trusts someone who lies?

    I can trust that I will not trust you when you lie.

    I trust that I will tell you I don’t believe you.

    I will say love doesn’t lie.

    I wonder why you lie?

    I wonder if you know that our relationship can’t hold what you do?

    It almost seems that if you have to lie, you know that if you spoke the truth, that it would change what we have.

    Yet sadly the lie does the same thing.

    Whether you do something that would jeopardize our relationship or you lie about doing it, it matters not.

    You have breeched its integrity, you have changed its value.

    As a child, my relationship with both my parents changed at a very young age, the seed of mistrust, conditional love was planted. In order to remain in the relationship, I had to keep their lies.

    Keeping lies changes who you are.
    Keeping lies of another doesn’t make them better, brighter, loving, happy, kind and compassionate.

    Holding a bag full of lies makes you a liar too.

  • Meant to be.

    Motherhood begins in childhood, and womanhood starts there as well. The essence of who we are as a woman will directly relate to what kind of mother we are.

    There is no separation between woman and mother; the two are one.

    We don’t leave behind who we are as we take on the responsibility of a child, we simply add this to our ongoing relationships that are already in place.

    A child joins your relationships and will emulate them as he begins to create his own, he watches how you treat yourself and how you allow others to treat you, and it is from there that he learns self-care.

    My motherhood path began with me being a valiant co-dependent, a people pleaser and a whore for love and peace, there was very little of my life that was solely for me, most of it I lived for the benefit of others.

    All my decisions and choices were linked to someone’s happiness or love, I made choices based on whether I would lose their approval or not.

    When I stopped seeking approval and instead began living inside out doing what I loved, I began seeing a Me emerge, a separated unique individual, a self.

    As I grew into being more me, I no longer needed others to support me, and it set them all free to be them selves.

    My children were set free when I set myself free.

    My children’s lives returned to them and they too are now free to be what they want to be from the inside out.

    I am there to guide them to show they the lay of the land, but at the end of the day, they get to decide their fate depending upon the choices they make.

    It isn’t my life it is theirs.

    The freedom you give comes with self responsibility and that is what I believe the goal of each parent is, to make them ownership of their lives.

    To raise them to see the consequences from the choices they make, and to allow them to sit in the consequence is the learning of life.

    How we deal with all facets of life is how they learn to deal.

    How authentic we are, how loyal to self we are, where our integrity lies, all will be reflected back to us in our children’s lives.

    Mostly what we fail to notice is that our children’s lives will be lived as we live today, not our potential or what we plan to do, but as we do today.

    To raise independent children, be independent.
    To raise children who love themselves, love yourself.
    Who you are today is the pattern your child will follow, our footsteps are leading them into a life we have.

    We can’t do nothing and hope our children learn from our mistakes, we have to undo our mistakes.

    There are a few, a slight few, changelings of this rule, they are the exceptions not the rule, that will strike out on their own and redefine themselves leaving behind a family, I know this happens for I was one.

    I changed the family legacy by leaving instead of staying in the cycle of abuse/dysfunction and co-dependency; I had to walk out to save my self.
    Time will tell as my young adult children leave our home and set out on their own making choices, was there enough time spent with me to learn a new way of being or were their formative years to tightly ingrained.

    I sit here today aware that the woman who I was and the woman who I became, mothered the same children.

    How this will affect them remains to be seen, what pattern will they follow, how deeply were they affected by their formative years and how much of an impact has my freedom made?

    What I know for sure is that the more I remain honest with myself, the more I love myself, the brighter the second pattern is seen.

    To be the best mother ever is to be the best you can be with your self.

    Loving yourself enough to say no when you mean it.
    Loving you enough to put up boundaries to keep hurt out.
    Loving you to speak your truth always.
    Loving your self as you find your self in this moment, knowing you are a work in progress and be willing to do what it takes in each moment to stand with your self.

    You will then mother a child of strong courage to be who they were meant to be.

  • Show and Tell

    The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be. ~Socrates

    I looked up the meaning of the word Integrity and one of its meanings is to be in a state of completeness, undivided.

    My girlfriend said the definition that they are teaching children in elementary school, is that what you say, what you think and what you do all match.

    I had to let go of many relationships of people who were unable to walk the talk they talked.

    I am much more in awe of folks who have integrity and make no excuses even if what they are doing is unkind. At least they are not putting on a friendly face while acting poorly.

    If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it’s a duck.

    We get lulled by words and swayed in fancy sentences when actions are way off base.

    My husband knows a man called Snake, and he asked him how he got that handle? The man said he earned it. I like that. My husband went on to tell me this man spent time in jail for having a relationship with a young girl…

    If only we called folks by their behaviors it would make life a much easier way to navigate.

    “People show us who they are, Believe them,” is Maya Angelou’s quote.

    The key words are Show and Believe… it is as if the world is one big place of Show and Tell, but instead of bring something to show, we bring ourselves.

    We are all showing people who we are and they are showing us.

    It is not a game of pretending to be something different.

    Watch actions, how they display themselves and how they take care of their lives, they are on this stage called life being who they are, it is our job to believe what it is we see.

    How often do you give them the benefit of doubt? Whose doubt? Who doesn’t want to believe and why? What will happen if you believe? What will you lose?

    It is incredible to me now to not believe them. It is like they are screaming their truths and we are blocking our ears and shutting our eyes.

    “People Show you who they are, BELIEVE them.”

    We don’t want to believe who they are, for it will wreck our dream.

    The pain we are afraid of is the sorrow of our broken dreams.
    It isn’t so much that we lose them; we lose our dreams and our future.

    Yet what is the karma we are actually tending to?

    A lifetime of dancing with people who are disappointing, for they can’t measure up to what we hold in our minds, for we refuse to believe who they really are.

    It gets you so confused, that you then lose who you are.

    You are a believer of what is not.

    While extremely painful, it was very liberating to finally be able to believe in what people showed me. I love what is. I stay in step and in tune with the show and tell!

  • My grasp on Reality.

    “People Show you who they are, Believe them,” is a quote by Maya Angelou.

    I thought this was what my daughter needed to hear, when in fact I was talking to myself.

    I awoke to an eerie phone glow coming from the top bunk in the early morning hours, a signature sign that she is still engaged in ‘other woman’ activities.

    “They show you…” screamed out loud in my head.

    I have been twisting and turning this around and around like a rubics cube, trying to get her in one color.

    Who is being betrayed, who is cheating, who is getting lied to and who is doing the lying, what is reality and what is not, and why am I even involved again?

    Whose business is this, whose lesson, what is mine to see and be with and what is hers?

    The intricacies of this are not just plain white, there is a path, a beginning a middle and a predicted future (end).

    What am I failing to see?

    There still seems to be a juxtaposition between ‘other woman and girl in top bunk, but I have to go with reality, so other woman she now is.

    Failing to see this is to go against what is.

    No matter how she arrived at this job, she is fully working it.

    My mother’s greatest failings was not seeing my innocence fade, not seeing the changes that took place in my world, not walking with me as I stumbled affected on the other side.

    While my daughter has been pleading for me to see her an equal, I failed.

    I failed to see her dancing step-to-step, cheek-to-cheek and ear-to-ear, she is now his equal.

    My mother didn’t see my innocence in the act of abuse, but she also didn’t see the affects the abuse had on me.

    It is like she missed the whole thing, like it never happened.

    I wondered who my daughter has been truthful to all along, who she did not have to lie to, hide from or sneak out with, and it is him.

    Her and him have always been wide open, with each other, she has only changed in her previous relations.

    They still are together while she lies.

    Lies to me, in a letter that she wants to change. It is a lie.

    Here I somehow had this flipped around that she was lying to her self, making her self lower etc, when in fact what she is really changing is our relationship.

    She brought in lies, she lowered the level between us.

    It is now up to me to believe or not believe, to see or not see, to hear or not hear, to learn who she is.

    I can see now why parents feel betrayed, for the child lies.

    Why do they have to lie?

    Who are they trying to not hurt and why?

    Why does there have to be hurt and lying?

    I get so confused in this.

    When do people lie and why?

    Why can’t we just do what it is we are doing?

    Why must we stoop to keep it a secret?

    What are secrets and what is there purpose?

    Are there good secrets and bad?

    If we have a secret is it a lie about ourselves?

    Are we with holding a part of ourselves?

    And from whom?

    Is it possible that we are many people to many, or are we just one to all?

    My view of my daughter isn’t sitting at peace in reality.

    She lied to me and is now changing within our relationship? We started out as one thing and now it is turning different from the abuse.

    She is no longer the girl she was.

    She is different.

    When she changes do I have to?

    What do I do with her changing within our relationship, with her lies and odd behaviors?

    What is my response to this?

    I am not able to forbid it, but what do I do with it in my hands?

    In my hands is a daughter that lies.

    Yet what is the lie?

    Is she lying or am I?

    Did I lie to myself believing her words?

    Did I lie to myself when I didn’t want to fully embrace her new role with a married man? Did I lie to myself that she was innocent? When did I start lying too?

    It seems like this affair has us all liars.

    He lies to his wife, she lies to us, we lie to ourselves, why?

    To make it seem okay?

    To agree?

    To support?

    I want to know why I am lying?

    Maybe it feels better to lie, I feel in control, I feel less pain; it feels better to lie than it does to feel the relationship being changed.

    Lies are misleading statements.

    Liar is a deceiver.

    I still do not get why our relationship, the one between her and I has to change with this, I don’t get it.

    Why does she lie to me?

    Why does she try hard to act the same while acting different? Isn’t that what I am doing. Acting like nothing changed between us when it did.

    When I was lost before, when I couldn’t seem to find my way, I clung to reality, clung to actions, and they always showed me who they were, where their minds were, what their thoughts were thinking…

    What I can safely say today, is that her mind, thoughts, feelings and actions are with him.

    And the girl I knew is gone, my images, my view, my experience, my feelings of her have all changed.

    She lied…she wasn’t with him, but now she is, so is she still lying or am I?

    Am I lying that she doesn’t want to be there?

    Is lying a deal breaker?

    Is that her only offense?

    If our hearts and home are open, shouldn’t he be allowed in, can’t we get them out of the cell phones and into reality?

    Open house, open mind, open heart, open door; bring him in to the house in the light of day.

    Can I do this? Can he? Can she? Can We?
    Do we slowly pull this into reality, making it okay.

    What isn’t okay?

    Married man and single girl, I just can’t make that okay, it seems there is a law and morals and values in-between, and do I overlook that?

    How does this fit in our lifestyle within our home?

    Can we bring in this in and become accustomed to it?

    Over time does it fade and blend and not stick out so bad?

    Who will have to change to bring this in?

    Her or my husband and I?

    What an interesting social experiment, I just wish it wasn’t my daughter’s life and mine and my husbands.

    I can see the dynamics, the way the rubics cube works, trying to make one color, one family, one value, one moral, one reality and how it is impossible to fit.

    One of us will lose, the one not in reality.

    Reality wins only but 100% of the time.
    In my experience, there is a bunch of folks living in a land one step removed from reality, and it is I, the lover of reality, the seeker of the truth, that gets left off to one side… me and reality.

    I either gain the world or lose my grasp on reality…

  • Almost Ruined Christmas

    This Christmas finds me in a different spot, a place of being too tired to care about Christmas, where joy and love and peace would be found not having Christmas.

    It isn’t so much Christmas itself, but that I am the one to create the Christmas feeling and I am too tired to be of good cheer.

    It is like Santa lost his jolly.

    The desire and spirit within me has faltered along with my lost energy, and I feel the weight of responsibility to carry it all.

    Not sure why, perhaps because in the past I had the time and the know how, I simply did it.

    Now that woman is gone, she went to work.

    She is unavailable to whip up Christmas on the side.

    And I feel the pressure to bake, not the joy.
    I feel forced to do things I used to enjoy.
    It isn’t pleasure now, but added work.

    I found myself unprepared.

    Maybe it is time for traditions to change or be passed on.

    Fighting with, instead of succumbing to, what is.

    Letting go of orchestrating the family Christmas and bringing in new recruits.

    My new santa makers leave everything til the last, for there are still four days, I was told yesterday. I guess in a young person’s eyes, that is a long time.

    I think I will have to re-adjust my way of doing Christmas, it will be more inclusive and I will take a back seat.

    I just can’t lose my spirit for Christmas.

    Instead I will change the traditions, letting many of them go, bring in simpler things that keep the spirit alive.

    After all, a cookie is a cookie, and it is insane to think it will matter if it arrives or not for Christmas.

    So, we will be joyful with whatever we accomplish in the next three days. I must relax and let the it be as it will be.

    It will be much better than having a grumpy lady in our home for Christmas.

    And let me tell you, I was grumpy last night trying to be a Christmas baker after a long heavy day of mail.

    No more.

    We now have some grumpy cookies and if that is all that happens I am fine.

    Much better to be happy than grumpy with the trimmings.

    The trimmings got a hold of me and almost ruined Christmas.

  • “With Love always mom”

    As I began my workday yesterday morning, I am in high spirits using all my efforts to stay positive with the large volume of mail, willing myself not to get weighed down by the load.

    I am happy to start sorting letters, the tray is filled with colorful envelopes, and a gold one sits in front.

    As I pick it up, my eyes focus in on the familiar name, mine, and the handwriting is hers.

    My high spirits escape in one breath.

    The restraining letter meant nothing to her.

    The weight of the mail meant nothing compared to the heavy heart of disappointment.

    She did not honor me.

    I tossed it into my home slot, and continued on for a minute or two, and then the not knowing was too much of a distraction, so I stopped, opened it up and read.

    “Noel” is printed in fancy letters on the front, and inside the card’s message, “Wishing you peace, love and joy this Holiday Season,” and her added line, “With love always, Mom and Gramma.”

    It is ironic that what I need for peace, love and joy is for her to honor me, and yet she stomps down upon the restraining letter I sent and sends her usual card.

    Her love always is one that disregards my needs, my wishes, and me.

    I am not seen at all, as she continues on, her stride unbroken by my restraining letter to her.

    My last written words to her, my first in 6 years, was a plea for space, for her to honor and respect our silence…

    My last line was, “If you fail to honor our separation as it is, you are deliberately seeking to disrespect and hurt me; I will take it as such.”

    Her love comes in with disrespect and hurt.

    I felt it as I stood there in a mountain of mail holding a card that yet again doesn’t see me.

    Feeling abused on the inside, my feelings tore up, I tossed it back in my slot, and tried to gather myself back together to continue on.

    Her failure of honoring my words should not be a surprise, yet I guess I am the ultimate believer.

    Believing that one day she will see me, even as sit behind a wall of restraining words, that she will hear them and see me.

    See me telling her, you hurt and disrespect me.

    My words to her fall upon deaf ears.

    It’s like my needs were never written.

    Like a bad energizer bunny she keeps going and going and going.

    Her blind bullheadedness is abuse.

    She is bullying me.

    With words of love.

    Love that knows no boundaries.

    Love that doesn’t hear.

    Love of a bully.

    A one-sided affair.

    Being bullied by words of peace, love and joy.

    The juxtaposition, a card of noel, a Christmas song…carrying the tune she has always sung.

    Actions of hurt and disrespect signed, “with love always mom.

  • Cold without a Heart

    “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
    ~Confucius

    Going forward with your whole heart is heart breaking, for you are wrenching your heart out from all the people you gave it to.

    What I failed to understand that it isn’t so much as finding new steps, new friends, new routines, new traditions or even getting used to the new me, but rather the yanking and pulling on my heart as I leave.

    For it is impossible to head out ‘half hearted’ and fully embrace life, with pieces of your heart dragging along getting snagged on old memories.

    Even the good old memories feel tainted with fresh paint of recent events, their red marks slashing over familiar “remember when…”

    I saw myself in past Christmases, the gifts made, the parties held, the efforts bestowed, the carols sung, the decorations hung, gathering everything I could to drape a happy Christmas upon so many. It began when I was very little.

    Many holiday memories hold parts where I used to be, for them and for me.

    The years of the oldest shopping for the youngest began when there was just two oldest…and a lot of youngest.

    The years spent making and creating a new ornament for each.

    The years of opening my house, giving of my time, until nothing was left to give.

    My heart emptied itself into them, little by little, child by child, I poured myself into their lives, and now they are all gone.

    It feels that I am ripping my heart to pull it back inside, gathering it from places far and wide, in events, tucked in memories, sewed into projects, knitted into scarves, pulled from lives…

    You can’t take your heart back without ruining the old memories, when you take your heart back; they fall in a discarded heap.

    Heartless.

    The memories turn cold without a heart.

  • In Me

    “Once you know, you can’t not know”, is a quote I read, it’s the knowing that changes you forever.

    Knowing is different from hoping, wishing, dreaming or wondering, knowing trumps it all.

    I know what they wanted the most is for their lives to remain unaffected, to not let one shadow to cloud their whole lives, to be so strong as to not let it change who they are, and it didn’t.

    I have seen the evidence, but refused to see it, I have heard the silence and refused to hear it. I have felt the absence and wouldn’t feel it.

    Blindly not accepting what is.

    What I wanted the most was for the family to implode, for it to feel what I felt, the loss.

    Loss of love.

    Loss of trust.

    Loss of faith.

    The betrayal within the family.

    None of that happened, a bomb went off without flicking a hair or altering a stance, it was dealt with like a bad review, ignored.

    One bad review will not stop the many who are cheering and clapping as life goes on.

    It does play with the mind to see pictures of normal, am I nuts? Did I make this whole thing Up?

    What I see displayed around me today, all the unchanges, it has to be the same reaction repeating itself again.

    I can just see the tiny girl, speaking the unspeakable and nothing happens. Nothing. Life goes on without a hitch.

    You are left to deal and heal alone, unsupported.

    Unsupported you drop, you fall, you lose your way, your mind, your knowing, your trust and your faith, stripped naked of all you counted on…you begin again alone.

    ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’…oh I am strong.

    Also something that has been broken and glued back is stronger in its broken spots.

    My heart is stronger.
    My faith is stronger.
    My trust is stronger.

    In me.

  • Pick Up the Broken Piece.

    What a slow learner I am, how incredibly naïve and blindly stupid…I am surprised that I am just now catching on. How has it taken me this long, almost six years to figure this out?

    The pain I have gone through, the mental anguish and all the soul searching, and still I didn’t know.

    My family didn’t break apart, wasn’t destroyed and didn’t crumble under the weight of abuse, it wasn’t shattered, or flung upside right or mentally broken, only I was.

    I broke.

    In my head I had them all broken up like me, but they remain intact, a full family, minus a few.

    No worse for the wear, unscathed and unbroken, they are holding up strong as the same family unit, while I am broken.

    My brokenness is sharp, loud, and unwanted, a jagged point that doesn’t fit into the familiar routine.

    A routine I can’t remember, forgetting the lines and missing the steps, characters changing before my eyes, my script no longer matches theirs.

    When they laugh I cry, what they love I fear, when they gather I flee…I shout at their silences, say wrong words that jumble up the play.

    I am the heckler or a bad actor playing on the wrong set and ruining the show.

    When I am gone and silent the show returns to its familiar dialogue.

    I see the picture clearer now…I see me trying to direct a play in progress, wanting to hand out new scripts, change characters and lines, make it a horror movie instead of a comedy…

    What I have been trying so hard to do is change a play in progress.

    I have been wanting them to change so the broken me fits in…while they want me to return to the stage unbroken, healed, once again the old me.

    The spot is open, the stage is there unchanged all I have to do is not be broken and rejoin the chorus line.

    What I know to be true of all people who are abused within the family, it is not so much the first betrayal, but the second one.
    The second betrayal is that once you expose yourself and speak your words is that nothing changes, except that you are now alone and exposed.

    Kicked off the stage of your childhood home.

    I sit here dumbfounded at my naiveté how I foolishly believed that a child, even an adult child that was broke, would break the whole family, but my family marched on, again.

    No one stopped to pick up the broken piece.