It's a sunny day after the storm

I have no idea who took this photo, but it is just perfect! Kudos to you!

It’s a sunny day after the storm. More than one kind of storm. I was going to say, more than one kind of storm I’m afraid. But you know what I am not afraid anymore. Kind of sad but not afraid any more.

I tried to talk to my mother once again. I failed miserably. Let me rephrase, I failed to get the response I so dearly wanted. What I wanted was a straight answer. Something she seems incapable of giving. Earlier this year she had said that she never wanted to speak to me again if I placed the dogs in rescue. Then she called me up again and threatened to put a restraining order on me.

The question I had asked her is “do you want to continue to have a relationship with me?”

I did get this roundabout answer that I was her daughter so what did I think.

Wow, what do I think? I think she has been a miserable manipulative lying monster throughout the entire ordeal.

Of course she tossed in the “you almost killed me again” I really should tape these conversations. I am thinking I will start to. Hmm, wonder what the legality of that would be. Oh linda is sure to get on the phone immediately and tell her I am going to tape her. Hurry hurry, you squealing pig of a person.

Tad bit of anger there. My bad.

As to how I almost killed her. Yes she was speaking literally. I almost killed her by removing those poor flea ridden worm infested dogs from her place. By the way I removed them by request. Her request. Which of course she is denying now.

My God I am so confused. This past year lie after lie after lie after lie has bubbled up to the surface of this toxic waste dump of a relationship. Now I am wondering how much of my childhood is real and how much is based on a lie. Or a myriad of lies. Here is the big one. The real heartbreaker. Did my dad leave us, or did he simply go on ahead to make a place for us and she refused to go. Did my mother steal my time growing up with my father?

Did she do this? Then lie about him not wanting me. Did dad forget me in a car, or leave me in the car to die when I was a little girl? Or is that some twisted lie too? What was I to my mom? A meal ticket for afdc, a weapon to use against my father, or a little girl to be loved. What was I? What was I? What was I?

What about the good memories are they all lies too? What is real?

The hateful things people do to their children never ceases to amaze me. A note to anyone in the midst of a divorce or separating from your life mate who has children. Do not use your kids as weapons against your mate! Doing so is selfish and hateful. Allow your kids to know both parents, who they really are, not some distorted picture you painted of them.

I wonder If there would be a police record of my being shut in that car so many years ago. I think I’ll make some phone calls and see what I can find out. Not to push it in anyone’s face. But for me.

I called the cop shop where these incidents allegedly happened. The said it would be no problem to go through the records. That the records went back that far and that I could look through them. Sounds like a day trip to me. Not sure when I am going to take it but I am going to take it. I don’t know; it may be a total waste of time. I am not ready to deal with it just yet.

I wonder what Aunt M can tell me about her childhood. Be interesting to hear a different perspective.

Maybe I am trying to make excuses for my mother once again. But I don’t think so. I am trying to understand the dynamic that helped to make her the way she is; and has been.

There Is nothing I can do about the way she lives her life. But, perhaps I can understand it. And in the process heal my self.

What a waste.

I have taken steps to help myself. I started with a wonderful therapist this past week. One day one step at a time. Hey if things are becoming too much or you just need a safe place to vent or sort out your life. Find a reputable therapist and go for it. There is no family or career crap tied in there. It’s a safe haven. Patient confidentiality and all that.

If you are suicidal or homicidal and don’t have a therapist, call the suicide hotline. You can have peace in your head, you can deal with emotions without them totally overwhelming you with static and pain. You are worth it. No matter what some other sh*t has said.

You are worth it. There is peace on this side of death. I know there is, I’ve had glimpses of it this past week.

There is life without total rage, static, pain. There is life with peace, joy. Not all the time, but in balance; and survivable.

Life is a journey, each day holds a new promise
Mary E. Robbins & the Hairballs
Robbins Run Ranch:
307.788.0202

It’s 1:43 a.m. on October 30, 2008.

All hallows eve. Halloween has been one of my favorite holidays my whole life. Maybe I’ll dress up as something and go people watching. I love to see all the different costumes. The kids trick or treating is one of the major things I miss from living in town. I loved watching them. Giving the parents cider and the kids candy.

Mom used to decorate the south wall of our living room in the house on the hill. I loved that house. My childhood home. No paint on the outside walls, but love inside. Halloween, Christmas, the first day of school; those were special days. Making scrapbooks with Cambell kids and vegetables, number flash cards, a toy cow that mooed, a tiny piano. Playhouse downstairs. Johnny Quest on Saturdays. That program scared me so much I felt like monsters were going to come through the basement door. And they did. Human monsters stealing food from our freezer, chasing after a young girl with sexual intent.

Mom was always worried that someone would snatch me up and take me away. Afraid to let me go and visit my father. Who knows maybe I wouldn’t have come back. Might not have been a bad thing. The monsters were already in our house, by invitation. One of Uncle Gene’s strays. I’m not sure what to call the men he would show up with. They never really seemed like his friends. I don’t know. I do know one of them was a sexual predator. I know this because he came after me when I was a very little girl; in our milk barn. The creep’s name was Bill. I remember he had a mustache and very dark hair. Not black hair but very dark. He was white. Younger than Uncle Gene I think. I was small enough that I fit through the hole in the barn wall left by a missing board. I must have been 4 years old. I am not sure how long Uncle Gene and the monster were there. I don’t remember ever seeing that monster again. Uncle Gene never did anything like that to me. Just screamed and yelled, over and over and over and over and over. You never knew what would set him off.

The other monster is dead now. He died in a jeep accident in Turkey. He had gone into the military after high school. I remember that. I was somewhere under 9 years old when he came after me. I crawled under a bunch of mattresses and box springs that were leaning up against a wall in our basement and hid. His name was Hanson. He was the son of one of my mom’s friends. I think he was 8 or 9 years older than I was. I am not sure; maybe older. I am not sure. I remember when he died, not the date but being told that he died a week or so before he was coming home. In a jeep accident. I wonder how many other young girls he went after before he died. I wonder how many that other monster went after. I didn’t tell when I was a child. I just ran and hid.

I wonder why I can’t remember 2nd grade. Its as if the year just disappeared.

Grandma used to make me pretty little dresses for the first day of school. So pretty. Mom made me a sewing box once. I loved it. Sour cream cookies and thunder storms. Granddaddy longlegs and rain. Tiny glass Siamese cats, glass horses, dolls on a shelf. Pillows with fringe. Bandaged legs, and tree fans to swat the flies away. A lion water fountain and the Scottsbluff zoo.

Black and white mechanical rider horse. Bonanza, Gunsmoke, High Chapparel, Combat, Bewitched, Ed Sullivan. Bit’s and pieces of childhood. Mexican music as I was playing by the barn with my troll dolls. I always feel happy when I hear Mexican music. Happy memories of early childhood playing in the warm sun. Safe in the sun. I hid their toys under a board once. Felt guilty about it forever. Felt more at home with Hispanic people than white ever since I was a child. Ironically I am a light skinned white. I had deep red hair, brown eyes, very white skin, and millions of freckles as a child. My hair has darkened, and is now flecked with silver, eyes are still brown, but behind glasses now, way too much fat is hiding my body, still have very freckled arms, although they are darkened somewhat from repeated sunburns over the years.

Have had one skin cancer taken off my face so far.

I have been trying to remember some positive things from my childhood. There was a lot of sh*t, but there were some good things too. Sometimes I wish I had died in that car wreck when I was 14. I woke up so angry in the hospital that I was still here. I didn’t want to be in this body any more. Sometimes I sound like such a whiney sh*t. A whiney tired sh*t.

A whiney tired sh*t that has shut down. Not bathing, buried in food, hiding in the TV, not sleeping for weeks. Actually it has been months since I have slept very well. On the edge of completely flipping out. Flipping back and forth around and around; from angry to a rage, to numb, to so sad, to controllable crying, sit and stare.

Doesn’t really matter whether the tv is on or not. Just sit and stare. Haven’t let myself think about all that insulin in the frig. Best not dwell on it now either.

I remember one Veretekk online meeting where Tom was just livid because some guy he had been working with checked out. He was so pissed that the guy cashed in his chips. I wonder just why he was so pissed. Because he missed the guy, or because he was powerless to stop it from happening. It is a b*tch to be left behind.

People freak out over people punching their own ticket. But you know no one knows what’s going on with that person besides that person. You can’t stop it as an outsider. Yes everyone else is an outsider in this event. Death is a very personal thing.

If I knew for sure that there was peace, internal peace-rest, on the other side if I punched my own ticket. Nothing would keep me here. Nothing.

I know it’s not my time yet. I nearly made it out of here when I had that bowel obstruction. I remember that peace. I crave it now. Total peace, and no it wasn’t the morphine. I had morphine after my last surgery and it didn’t have that effect. Total peace. So wonderful.

I remember that another time. Beautiful darkness; so totally black no light at all. Sinking farther and farther away, then some screaming emt dragging me back to the surface. Dragging me back to the surface light. Dragging me away from no pain, beautiful darkness, and peace to pain and years of physical recovery; and emotional turmoil.

F**king people think they are helping and all they are actually doing is prolonging a prison sentence. Trapped in a decomposing body ensnared in a tornado of emotional pain. Raw jagged pain.

I never knew who that EMT was. That is probably a good thing.

This planet is really beautiful. So much beauty, so much pain.

Life is a journey, walking on a razor's edge, the thin line between life and death
Mary E. Robbins
Robbins Run Ranch
307.788.0202