The Cold Hard Truth (About me that is)

Ryan and I were having this thought provoking conversation today, and it giving me fuel for blogging. Thus, the following was inspired...(its a long one)

I am the oldest of four, though I do have an older step brother whom I have rarely seen. When I was a kid, I was Daddy's girl. I never had the relationship with my mom that I did with my dad...don't know why. My sister (the second oldest) and I were very well behaved kids, we were very well behaved teenagers too for the most part, except for those moments of hormonal teenage passion where my mom and I would scream at one another (which my dad would never put up with.. "You don't talk to your mother that way!") They both had a bit of old fashioned in the blood, and that's probably where I got it.
My dad was an alcoholic when I was a kid, but I have almost no memory of that, except for one time at night when we went in the car with my mom to collect him from jail. He had been thrown there after smearing a motorcycle while intoxicated. The rider, luckily, was unharmed.
My dad was always pretty open with us kids about his recovery, and when I was 12 I remember him showing us his little AA coins and whatnot. I think it deterred us from ever being drinkers.
Sometime late in elementary school things started to change around our household and were less peaceful, but it didn't really come out (or I didn't become as aware) until I started junior high. My Dad had lost a fairly decent job, and wasn't really very motivated to find a new one. When he did, it did not exactly pay all the bills. Mom started having to pick up the slack, and she was not happy about it. She had been working to help already, and doing most caretaking of us. My dad was a lazy soul. He would sit on the couch in front of the television and scream at us if we got in his way. He would holler at us to do the dishes and whatever, and he would never lift a finger around the house, whether he was working or not.
He always let my brother slack, and put the pressure on us girls to take care of things domestically. Since Mom was around less and less, we did more and more. I'm not really upset or sorry about that. We weren't slaves, we still got to play. We could seriously scrub a house I'm telling you! I am to this day however, really sensitive when I am at Mom's and my brother is sitting on the couch in front of the tv, barking orders. I just don't have any of it. I swore a long time ago that I would never be that kind of a wife who waits on her husband hand and foot, not because she loves him, but because he is too lazy to get off his ass and do anything for himself.
We had the same neighbors until I was 11. They moved right before we did, but the eldest daughter and my sister stayed close friends, and later in high school, they moved nearby again, and the two girls started meeting up in the mornings and taking the bus together.
My sister was two years behind me in school, so at this time she was in the fall of her senior year, 1995. My brother I think was going to alternative school, he wasn't around all the time, and my youngest sister Whitney was 6.
I happened to be moving to the east side of the state at the time, and I didn't live at home, but I was sick so I was hanging out on my moms couch when all the craziness broke loose.
I don't know where Whitney was. Mom came home with Chelle, which I thought was weird because it was a school day. They looked really serious, and asked me to come out to the car. They wouldn't tell me why, and at this point I was pretty sure someone had died.
My dad worked nights and was asleep in the other room.
Finally I relented and went to the car, and there the whole story came out.

Apparently my Dad had written some scandalous letters to my sisters 16 year old best friend. He slipped them in her pockets in the morning. The first time she didn't tell anyone, but this time she couldn't keep it to herself anymore, so she SHOWED the letter to my sister on the bus. My sister made it to her homeroom before she collapsed in a weeping mess. They had to carry her to the counseling center, where they then called my mom. From school my mom went and talked to the mother of my sisters friend, and everyone decided that the girls father would never find out, (and as far as I know he still never has) because he would shoot my dad. Not an exxageration.
I never read the letter (thank you merciful God) but it must have been extreme from what my mother told me.
As soon as this all happened we found out that my Dad had been making passes at the neighbor for 15 years. He also got frisky with the woman I used to babysit for, and she confided in my best friend, who held it in guilt and agony for three years before it all came out and she felt safe to reveal it.
The shit hit in the fan in all sorts of ways.
My dad and I had had our issues, as all kids and their parents do, but despite his shortcomings, we got along rather well. I could always ask him questions about books and religion...I was always allowed to make up my own mind about things, though he encouraged me to believe in something. Both of my parents wanted us all to go to college and drove it in unmercifully. So far it hasn't worked very well. I always thought things were ok though. I mean, I was 19 and my parents were still together, which was not to be said for many of my classmates. (Although we did know how to communicate the most through YELLING!)
I guess I was wrong.

There was always pornography in our house. I know, because the neighbor boy and I stumbled across it when I was about 6 and we were digging around in my parents room where we weren't supposed to be. I found it again when I was in junior high. I forget how or where. All I know is, it was hiding in our house. I instinctivley knew that it was something to be hidden, so I put it back wherever it was.
I have often wondered, how it made my mom feel to have my dad looking at pornography. I mean, after four kids you aren't the gorgeous bodied 20 year old you once were. You can tell yourself its no big deal, but deep down it has to undermine your sense of worth. You know, men always want women who are these young, thin creatures. That's just the way it is, and that's not who you are anymore. Your worth is in your looks.
Now the truth comes out that he has essentially been playing around throughout their entire marriage? Yeah, it was a blow.

I went home, was fine for a few hours, and then started freaking out at about 10p.m. At around 2:30 I ran into my roommates bedroom, who subsequently took me to bed with some tea and spent two hours trying to calm me down. Eventually I did settle. I never had an episode like that again. It's hard not to feel like everything you've ever been told has been a lie. You're mother has value, you who are an extension of her have value, women have value.
I've had a lot of time to analyze this, and my reactions to it. It was 11 years ago now.
It affected my relationships with men, a lot. God was really good to me though, and quickly brought me these amazing solid guy friends who helped me heal in a lot of ways. I wonder what its like for girls who don't have that?? I do still have occassional moments where I feel not good enough. I am not as good looking as I used to be, and once in awhile that is the thing that eats at me, but its gotten better.

My mom was always working very hard, and drumming it into us to work very hard, and this just solidified that. She felt betrayed, and she had been hanging onto the marriage for awhile, trying to keep it afloat. So essentially she had been taking care of us and herself alone anyway. There was no support. We were taught that, we needed to make a life for ourselves without the contributions of others.(At least thats how I took it) Fortunately (or unfortunately! ha!) I have never been very good at that. I have always ended up in seasons of letting people help me. I am a very poor solo entity. I just keep trying though. I have this mad need, this crazed desire to be able to do it all by myself. The fact that I keep failing is the perpetual thorn in my side.

We haven't been very good at letting men do things for us. One time, not so very long ago, I had a friend in town and a few of us went out to eat. He happened to sit next to me, and he pulled out my chair. I just stood there gaping like a buffoon. I did have a friend I used to hang out with all the time who would take me to movies, and open doors for me, and it was really good for me to let him, but that was awhile ago, and now if a guy tries to open a door for me, I have to make a conscious decision to step back and let him (if I even catch it in time). Close friends too, its different. For the most part, if I have been even moderately interested in someone, I have had even more of a need to protect myself, which means that waiting for someone to open the door for me is weak. I do fight this mentality, but I have been single for eons, and I am used to doing things for myself, so part of it is simply habit.
I'm not as messed up over it as I used to be, but I am afraid that in the future I will learn some way it has affected me that I did not know about until I got into a serious relationship.

Every girl has her story. Sadly, most are worse than mine. Some lucky ones are better, but they all mold us, and we have to work hard to let our guards down. Even now I am asking myself...Should I be letting my guard down as much as I am? Pain and heartache could be just around the corner, but so it goes. As Lance would say; "Just live life Amanda, just live."