Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day to one and all, whether you’re single, taken, or whatever in between!

I love Valentine’s Day. I’m really not a romantic, and quite frankly I find Valentine’s Day to be a little ridiculous. It is one of my favorite holidays, though. Woah, RaeAnna! Those are contradictions! I know! Thank you for pointing that out. I could give a rat’s ass about the romantic implications of the day; although, I have been very lucky in romantic partners making beautiful VDay memories. I love Valentine’s Day because of my dad.

There are loads of holidays with presents. I always had presents from my “parents.” The card signed Love, Mom and Dad in mom’s handwriting. Dad always asking “What is it? What is it?” as we unwrapped, and he’d usually be equally surprised at the contents. You know, dad stuff.

My mom didn’t do Valentine’s Day. She said nope. Every year, I always had Valentine’s Day presents. It was never my mom who went out and bought the candy and the cards. Something for Mom, something for my brother, and something for me. The cards were always from Dad. It was never big, but it meant the world.

My parents still live in my childhood house. In college, I was a few hours away. For the past four years, I have been out of state. The past two years, I have been across the country. Not a year goes by that I don’t find a card and candy in my mailbox at Valentine’s.

This year, my dad probably won’t be sending me a card. I’m not sad at all. I’m actually really excited because he’s flying to visit me for five days. It’s the first time he’s come to visit me without my mom. Not for the lack of want. You know that work thing… It keeps him pretty busy. I get to pick him up on Saturday. It’s the best Valentine’s Day present (coincidence) ever!

My Surrogate Family

A year and three months ago, I moved into my best friend’s family’s home – see previous post. They offered me a free place to stay as I transitioned into post-graduation life. It was supposed to be temporary, six months at most. Here I am, a year and three months later, still living in their home. There were extenuating circumstances, but eventually I will stop taking advantage of their never-ending kindness and room availability.

I thought living with a family would be weird; I hadn’t lived with my own in four years. I was an adult. I had taken care of myself. I had paid my own bills. I had not reported to anyone. I had lived with a man for years. What would I do with parents and a little sister?

To be honest, whenever I move out, I’m really going to miss my surrogate family.

I moved in, and it has never been weird. I don’t really know how to express my gratitude. They didn’t just give me a house and a bed. They gave me a family, a safe place, but most importantly a home. Now when I travel, I’m excited to come home and see the family.

For the first time in my life, I can be utterly and devastatingly me with parental figures. My surrogate mama knows EVERYTHING. I don’t know how happy she is with the knowledge of everything going on in my past, present, and future, but she has never stopped asking or caring. She tells me to go to the doctor, to go to sleep, if I’m being a pain in the butt. She worries I’m throwing away a very expensive piece of paper by bartending. If she hasn’t heard from me in a day or two I get a text “Dead in a ditch?” She doesn’t care what I’ve been through or what I’ve done, instead she accepts me, my quirks, my idiosyncrasies, and everything in between.

I grew up with a younger brother, who I adore. I, however, did not grow up with a little sister. A year and three months ago, I gained a surrogate little sister. She is now 17 and one of my favorite people. We are completely different and bicker like siblings. There have been so many days/nights we have crawled in bed together and talked/vented about our days, our boys, our lives, and all the things in between. When I don’t know what to wear she helps. She has a tendency to borrow my stuff without asking, but I actually love having someone to share stuff with. She has celiac’s disease, and so I have learned to cook sans gluten. It was rough at first, but now I do it without thinking! I found a little sister who I love to the ends of the earth. In the two years I’ve known her, I’ve watched her grow so much. It has been a blessing to be a part of her life.

My surrogate dad is quiet. I think it was four months before we had a conversation lasting longer than five minutes. We have bonded over the fact that we are the least picky eaters in the house. His love for his family and guitars is enormous. I have never seen a man so protective of his children; it has moved me to tears before. On my most recent trip he delayed his bedtime to check the air in my tires, as well as give me a talking to about leaving in the middle of the night. I adore his quiet yet stern presence in the house.

They took me in when I needed a safe place and a family. I couldn’t be more grateful for the love they brought into my life.

The Most Defining Moment in My Life

I know the moment I grew up. I can point to the second the trajectory of my life altered forever. In the grand scheme, it’s not horrific or brutal. In hindsight, however, it is one of the most painful memories I have.

It’s not a story I like to tell. There are so many harder ones I tell often and without issue, but those don’t involve my family. If it isn’t evident already: I have a lot of “differences” with my family, my mother in particular. Although they choose to believe I do it solely to hurt them, I don’t like telling stories which portray them poorly. Really I don’t write or talk about them much at all. The problem is I did promise honesty. The truth, in my case, isn’t a pretty family picture. The truth is, more often than not, a harsher representation of myself. In reality, no one is innocent, but everything is far more complicated than a blog can portray. I am a complex person, but so is every individual I write about. To each story they bring their own history, baggage, and personality. They have their motivations and feelings as do I.

I grew up knowing with an unshakeable faith my mother would protect me from anything. She was a tiger, a mama bear. She was the most powerful person alive if someone wronged her child. I could go to her for anything. If someone hurt me, she was the person I needed to turn to. She would believe me, even if no one else would. I heard that for the first fifteen years of my life, and I believed it with every carbon based part of myself.

I was fifteen and a freshman in high school. I was at lunch one day with my friends like any other day. The bell rang and we were on our way out of the lunch room. I went to a large school, and there were hundreds of kids leaving the cafeteria en masse. One of the school administrators was behind me and my friends were ahead of me. I felt a hand on the small of my back slide lower and lower and between my legs. I turned around and saw the school administrator. He told me to get moving.

I was shocked. I was confused. I felt guilty. I had also never been touched by a man or even a boy for that matter. I still hadn’t had my first kiss.

I sat through the last half of the school day trying to figure out what happened. I didn’t know how to feel. I just knew it wasn’t ok, but I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I wanted my mom to make it better.

That night I stood in the hallway shaking and told my mom that the school administrator touched me. I was scared to tell her even though she’d always sworn to protect me. That’s the moment my life changed. I heard my mom say one sentence I will never forget: “Well, we’ll see if it happens again, and then maybe we’ll report it.” My world fell apart.

I went to bed, turned out the lights, and cried myself to sleep. At fifteen, I realized I was alone in the world. If my mother didn’t believe me, why would anyone else? If my mother wouldn’t protect me, who would? If I wasn’t safe in my own home or school, where was safe? If I couldn’t trust my mother who swore to always protect me, who could I trust?

Parents: The Biggest Lesson They Never Meant to Teach Me

My parents have taught me many a life lesson. Some important like: keep track of your money or education is important or work hard or don’t commit murder. Some of them are crap like: don’t eat too much candy (not possible) or you’re too old to Easter egg hunt (I’ll die hunting those eggs) or good things come to good/patient people (nope life sucks and bad things happen/sometimes patience can lead to losing out) or grown ups act a certain way (grown ups act a certain way… in front of kids unless they’re boring) or family will always be there for you (biggest lie ever).

The absolute most important lesson I have learned, my parent’s accidentally taught me. I’m pretty sure they hate that I learned it. I think what they hate even more is that I live by it. I will never make my parents proud and I will never earn their approval.  It sucked learning this lesson. What was even harder was accepting it.

I tried so hard for so long to make my parents proud and earn their approval. In the general sense I have. I graduated high school with a great GPA. I attended a fantastic college. I graduated from said fantastic college. I have started a life and a career. They are proud and approve of my cookie cutter accomplishments. Those are not me. They will never be me. The things and accomplishments I am proud of, those are what make me me. Those things are the things my parents hate. I will never make my parents proud. If I do and say and write about what is meaningful to me, I will no longer have parents.

I have accepted that I am the family embarrassment. More over the fuck up. I am the daughter that had so much promise. I spent 17 years of my life being everything they wanted. And it was killing me. I can’t be that person. I never was that person, but I put on a very convincing mask. I had two options 1) Kill myself and forever stay the daughter they wanted 2) Take off the mask.

When I started taking off the mask, problems started: The last two years of high school are known as the trouble years. Let’s be honest, those were the years I was being beaten and raped by my boyfriend; parental approval wasn’t exactly a top priority. I also spent those two years realizing how completely unhappy I was pretending to be someone I’m not.

Then, I went to college. I let me loose. I love me. My parents love me in the sense that they love who they molded me to be. They love the memory of who I used to be. They do not, nor ever will, love me. They refuse to see who I am in my entirety. They turn a blind eye or ignore the things that epitomize me. I am not who they raised. Actually I am. They told me to be me. They just didn’t realize me was someone they hated. I am the daughter that is better silent. The beautiful daughter they created with my height and slenderness and striking blue eyes. I am the daughter who has the intelligence to speak three languages and a memory for trivia. I am the daughter who worked in downtown Chicago. I am the Cornell graduate daughter. I am the daughter who finally brought home a wonderful boyfriend. I am the daughter who can cook and sew and care. I am the daughter who will make a great wife. I am the daughter who will make a great mother. I am the daughter who is so very talented. I am the daughter who can play piano, flute, sing, and dance. I am the daughter who smiles. I am also the daughter who was raped. I am the daughter who talks about rape. I am the daughter who wears shirts that show off my back, and skirts that show off my legs. I am the daughter who calls people out for perpetuating rape culture and really any kind of unacceptable behavior. I am the daughter who took control of her own life. I am the daughter that won’t let anyone tell her what to do. I am the headstrong daughter. I am the daughter that clings to an ex-boyfriend because he saved me. I am the daughter who paid for her expensive college education, study abroads, her car, her housing, her health and car insurance, her cell phone, her books, her food, her clothes, her every possession, her every activity. I am the daughter who moved away. I am the daughter who has PTSD. I am the daughter who is crippled by fear. I am the atheist daughter. I am the feminist daughter. I am the daughter who isn’t afraid to say I am who I am. I am the family disappointment. I am the daughter who fell short of her potential. I am the daughter who has fucked up her future and doesn’t even know it. I am the daughter who can’t pull her head out of her ass and move on. I am a fuck up.

I don’t need my parents to approve. I don’t need to make them proud. Not anymore. I will always wish I could. I am strong. I am my mistakes. I am proud of what I’ve done and what I’ve been through. I can’t change the past, but I will claim it.