Fate: Our Destination

WRITTEN DEC 5, 2019

I made so many bad choices in my life, I guess that is how I got to my current destination. Now, I know the sayings the standard "hoo'ray" mojo, your current desitnation does not have to be your final desitnation. I am not sure if that is true for me right now... I am deep into my own pity party and don't really want to it to end. 

I don't think I can be ok. I don't think I want to be ok. I feel like I am just setting myself up for failure. Why would I keep doing that to myself? I have picked myself up over and over, and then one day, this day I made a decision that I don't want to do it anymore or ever again. 

Maybe I am unable to be loved, maybe I am unable to get past where I am emotionally. Maybe I can just accept that this is my fate, missing the people I love so very much and watching them do better, be better and go on without me in their lives.  

Maybe this is where I end up, maybe this is my fate, my destination.

Surreal Dreams or Nightmare Realities

Due to an imperfekt life and the choas that consumes me... This blog was never posted... I wrote this on September 5, 2019. Two weeks after my inpatient stay, and the day HE got on a plane to Tennessee for his first attempt at cleaning up. 

Ever have one of those dreams that seem so real that even when you try to wake up you can't? Or one of those days that you don't really know how you got through it because although physically present, you weren't fully there? My life in the last 3 years have had an over abundance of these kind of dreams and days. Sometimes I wonder and I ask myself "did this just really happen?"... here's one of those memories from recent times.
I would like to say it happened suddenly, I want to say I don't know exactly how it happened at all. Neither of those statements would be accurate though.

The downward spiral, my drug induced paranoia, my desire to be sober and my inner circle of people who were too caught it up in their own addiction and need to be relevant all helped me fall down the rabbit hole again. I know I haven't always done the right thing spoke kindly to others or was the best person I could be. But I have tried to be better, although the more I tried the worse people treated me. I used to cry myself to sleep, cry myself awake and whimper through the night. My nightmares became my daydreams and my horror was all I knew. 

Sobriety. It's a double edge sword to know that you chose not to be sober that you have been labeled so many things for a short term decision and that choice although is only consumed 1% of my life has given me the title that overshadowed any good deed or role I have held in my past. 

Sobriety is the town that my nightmares are set in, whether it be trying to get there, visit there or settle there. Sobriety is a lonely place and no one wants to go there with you, and the people that are there they don't want to welcome you, because you are a risk to their world. I packed my baggage and set forth for Sobriety. I wanted him to make the move with me. He had so much more reason to go. But maybe I downplayed my addiction and issues, I know I had to wean down and I didnt. I knew what would happen, I just forgot how severe it would be...I screamed for 48 hours...about everything and anything I could... It was no wonder he didn't want to stay with me to go with me... I couldnt even stand myself. He ran, I chased him. He tried to leave, I would cry. I became the girl who would lay down behind his car tires just to stop him from leaving. He hated me and how I acted and I hated that he could still get high why I say there waiting on him to pack and clean up with me, for me. It is so hot and tiring on this day, as I sat in the car. He locked me in, if I opened the door he slammed it shut. I knew he would leave me again in that parking lot If I stepped out of the car. I screamed and begged him toget back in the car to please hold me, love me, come with me not runaway from me. He told me to shut up, he didn't give a fuck, go fucking away forever he wouldnt and didn't want to be near me. My blood pressure was raising the heat was getting to me... If I woke up from the nightmare right at that second I would find my shirt to be soaking wet from night sweats. But it was a hot August Day in Florida and it was heat exhaustion I was feeling. I reached back and grabbed the rope hanging off the Shrimp trap, that my son and I had tied knots into on his last visit to me, the same day I found B shooting up in the garage and learned how serious his problem had became. The rope was still attached to the shirmp trap, I wrapped it twice around the headrest and locked the headrest into place. I wrapped the other end, a knotted noose that we slipped on to the pier column,  squeeze it over my head, and tightened it. I reached for the locked door to open it, I was going to open it slam it behind me and it would lock and this nightmare would be over. But something went wrong, no I didn't wake up and realize it was just a dream. I realized I couldn't reach the door, I realized the rope wouldn't give me the leeway to do it. It was tightly secured and locked around my neck. It wouldn't budge, and now I felt the sweat increase, my heart pound faster, and I feared my fate. He looked at me, he watched me struggle, I screamed for help. I don't know if I had a voice, I don't know if he could hear me out of the locked car, but he ran to the mail truck to a gold colored older model car several times. I picked up my phone I called my friend to please come help me, he opened the door and I begged him to help me and he said he couldn't touch me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to die like this but I realized he definitely wanted me too. He could still make it to the friend he wanted to spend the day with shopping pharmacies to fill his oxycontin script, driving him to Washington to re-up on Meth, I didn't want those things, I sat there in more pain, sweating more thinking of all I wanted was him to take me home and realize that this psychotic.meltdown was due to my sudden decision to be clean and now as I felt my bodily functions go I knew I felt dirtier and more disposed of them ever. I still saw him running from car to car, a women in a silver car handed him something he came to the car with pliers he cut the rope, I could feel the suture marks on my neck. I heard the sirens pulling up, I saw my friend, well the person I thought was my friend pull in. I lied at first and blamed him. I wanted it to be true in that moment, but I loved him and couldn't lie for long. I wanted to hurt myself for him, I wanted to make his life better, I didn't want to hurt him. And if I lied that only hurt him. He didn't want me, he would never want me again. So I told the truth and I wished more.than anything I had died. I couldn't wake up... This wasn't a nightmare, I wasn't having nightsweats, I wasn't in a dream this was my reality. I got a free 3 day trip to an inpatient facility.... He spent the next two days shooting up at the residence of the "friend" I thought I had. Turns out I learned a lot in those three days, one thing being that friend, the one I called, she wasn't my friend. She was my dealer and since February she watched the pot boil, and was giddy when it runeth over. He spent the next two days spending every cent he had, on dealers drugs and junkies... He visited me for 2 hours and told me how this was my own fault. He told me I did this to myself and I had to fix me. He told me all I had when I got out was him and "OUR" best friend. I nodded in agreement. He loved me... He cared... He was the only person that showed up in those 3 days. Maybe it could be better, now. I thought maybe I could be fixed and get to sobriety- for sure he would come with....  When I was released, I waited 2 hours for him to come....but all I knew is no one else would get me anyways.

For the Person in my House, with Him, Hurting Me.

I was suspicious but once again wanted to be crazy not right. Do you know he had me conviced I needed inpatient therapy? That you werent REAL, I made you up, according to him you were MY fantasy. I cried at his words, at him telling me lies that would hold so much weight in my life. It wasn’t until the neighbors started talking to me that I knew I was not the only one who saw you. 

I know why you like him, I know why you want him, it’s for the same reasons I love him. The reasons I stayed so much longer than you wanted me too. I want to blame you, I want to blame anything but him... but the truth is you had no loyalty to me, you didn’t promise to do this to me, he did. I can only blame him. He taught me the difference between lust and love, and chose lust over love. I thought him and I chose love, he chose lust with you over love with me. I didn’t see it coming. I would have never thought you’d exsist in our perfect for us relationship. 

I wonder if he makes you feel like he does me, does he tell you how pretty you are? How soft your skin is? Does he compliment your eyes?  Your hips? Does he look at you when he says I love you? Is he promising to marry you? Does he talk about wanting a baby  and how cute it would be? Does he talk about running away? Going to Church? And what’s next? Does he tell you that your the best ever? That he’s never been more comfortable with anyone else? That he needs you like he needs air? I guess I want to know does he tell you the same lies he  tells me? 

I am sure you are a good person, but I think he deserves better. Someone who would have made him do the right thing not accepted and encouraged him to do the wrong thing. He deserves someone who will make him a better person, someone who will put his reputation before theirs. Someone who will love him and be there unconditionally. Someone who respects him, herself and the other people he cares about. I anxiously wait for you to be that person, I wait for you to make it right... you haven’t to date. I am not stupid I am a realist, I know people fall out of love and meet a someone, and I support that...I don’t support doing it in a manner where others are destroyed. 

We have many names for you in his and my conversations, even though you don’t exist. You are the outsider, the ghost, the  closet keeper, IT, the reindeer game teammate and the one no one understands: the person under the bed. 

 I do not believe you live under my bed, let’s straighten that up. I know you have been in my bed, I have seen you there, I call you that because to me you are a monster. You have taken part in making my dreams, nightmares.  You have helped suck the life out of me, and couldn’t respect yourself, me or him enough to be patient or proper. 

He still denies you. I can drive down and find him not at his home but yours, and he still denies it. He has let you interfere and damage so much, he listens to you carefully, respectfully and acts with effort on your behalf. I am not a saint. He was unhappy and seeked happiness in something that wasn’t me. And I brought this upon myself, he says. I agree to an extent, I should have respected myself enough to leave. I should have not begged,  not pleaded, not threw myself for his mercy and I shouldn’t have turned a blind eye,  not for someone who no longer loved or wantedm me but would even consider being with someone like you. I will be ok, in time. I will never be the same, or love this way again but maybe that’s a good thing. As you for you and him, you two were meant for each other. 

KNOW BETTER-DO BETTER-BE BETTER

I know I am not wanted, but I am not ready to leave

Yesterday, I learned more of where I am not welcomed, wanted and needed. Maybe it’s my own doing, maybe like my sons father tells me it’s my karma, maybe it’s my punishment, or lessons that God feels I need. I don’t know... I truly no longer care. I go through the motions, strive to do better, be better accomplish more, but until others get past the past I have no chance. That doesn’t fall on me, I often hear that “once you get back to a better place, things will change...” it’s not me that hasn’t tried, it’s not me that chose a treadmill... I have done all I could and can. You either help or hurt the cause.... I tried. 

I sit on a supervised visits with my daughter and timer, not because I deserve it or because I get paid to do it, but because it’s the only way to see her. I received 19 texts in two weeks from my sons father telling me how much more I am worth dead. I don’t stay alive and call my son nightly to hear his dads opinion, I do it because I love my son. I have received word of my “cousin” offering to give me the gun if I kill myself because it’s what I deserve. I don’t take him up on his offer because I know he’s a sicker for saying it and wanting it than I am for being where I am. I know the difference between loving my daughters more than anything, more than hating someone else. 

I have been shunned and isolated because of what I admitted when I was wrong, and stopped fighting the lies based off of those truth when others feel the need to focus on my shortcomings not their own. 

I don’t have much of a family, which baffles me when we can cover for those that have had violent crimes against our own and others. I fell short of the pedestal. I make mistakes but I try and correct them. Maybe I am misunderstood, maybe I am misunderstanding. I am only as good as what I have and I no longer have anything. 

I am hurt I am sad and I appreciate everyone thinking that I will be fine just because I always have been... I am not fine. I am not going to hurt myself or do anything “stupid” I refuse to give anyone that satisfaction.  

I died yesterday. Obviously not physically, I can’t physically because my children would only hear one side. And it’s not the right side for them to hear. I am ok. I am sober. I am not suicidal or depressed or illogical. I am hurt. I am alone and I am scared. I am more disappointed in others than I am myself.  

https://www.youcaring.com/thechildrenofmelissafrederickfagan-987147

For you, In Spite of Everyone Else... Love, Mom,

For Makenna

Tomorrow, May 21, 2018 at 7 pm my beautiful blue eyed baby girl will graduate Nease High School at the University of North Florida Auditorium in Jacksonville, Florida. I will not be in attendance. Against my desire, I am honoring her father and hers decision to “stay away.”  My daughter who will graduate 17 years to the day of her father and my divorce, does not want me there. She is graduating in spite of me not because of me. 

I was 22 when I had Makenna, I wanted her more than anyone can imagine. I wanted her to be Karissa’s best friend, counterpart and to complete her father and my family. It was a difficult pregnancy, and she had some health issues, but she fit her place in, her purpose was clear. She changed the world from birth. I nursed Makenna exclusively for 1 full year. She is the only one of my 4 children I was willing and able to do this for. Maybe it’s why I felt so close to her. Maybe it was because I knew she was meant to be regardless of the state of my marriage. She was made to be my daughter, Karissa’s sister and one day so much more. 

Do not get me wrong, I love Karissa very much. More than most and if you ask her she will tell you she’s “moms favorite. “ Somedays it’s true. But Karissa was always so independent, sassy, the center of the universe. Makenna, although loved just as much had a different captivating quality as she often stood in Karissa’s shadow, she watched more and took it all in. Where Karissa would copy bad habits, Makenna would consciously avoid them. 

It was on Makenna’s first birthday that her dad confessed his indiscretions, and 2 months after that I didn’t love him and he filed for divorce. I tried working a normal office job, but childcare was costly. I worked at a preschool, and went to school at night. While my best friend, and 12 years later my sons father, helped with the Girls. They lived with me 10 months a year and left on Summer to visit their dad. It was then I also took on being a cocktail waitress (not a very good one) in addition to the schools. 

Karissa was always very popular, even in preschool. Makenna was the child who always got bit. She never bit back. She just learned to stay away. 

In the first grade, she learned her greatest asset. After Karissa was diagnosed with dyslexia, and we realized it wasn’t about her applying her self at all. Makenna went full force with her academics. Where Karissa was athletic, outgoing and popular. Makenna was studious, intelligent, hard-working and scholarly. Even when In trouble and Karissa didn’t know to shut up, Makenna always did. She never challenged me. 

In the 8th grade I had a conversation with Makenna about trying to find her the right fit for high school. Karissa had left the year before to make better friends and decisions, and it was now just me Kenna and Cam. Makenna was picked on throughout her child hood. But she was so much stronger than her sister and I in that situation. Where we would choose to avoid and move to start over again. Makenna didn’t she went through the the daily motions, graciously. 

Look I wasn’t the worlds best mother, I made LOTS of mistakes, probably more than most moms. I could give excuses or reasons or blame my childhood, but the fact is why I made them doesn’t matter just that I did. However, I did NOT make nearly the amount of mistakes others claim I did or for as long as they say. 

When Makenna chose the IB Program at Cocoa Beach High School. We couldn’t imagine the joy it would bring her. She made friends, and had people to sit with at lunch, she had other kids “just like her” that she bonded with. Ironically her IB project was a blog, and later inspired me... (You’re Welcome) 

This is about the time I met my still, yes still, husband and youngest child’s father. He claimed to love Makenna, he even split the cost of her first homecoming dress just so she’d have the one she wanted at $150. And although things didn’t get worse immediately, ultimately that homecoming dress changed out destiny. 

Makenna was more my co parent to her brother, I didn’t realize it then mainly because I took it all for granted. When we moved in to “his” house it was a relief, for a second then Makenna found out I was pregnant. She wad furious, in hindsight she was furious because she all this time sat back and watched and knew what was too come. I ignored all the warnings in the want of no longer being a single mom but a family.  In the end it was me wanting to be a family that cost me my family. After Nina was born we made changes to alleviate Makenna’s responsibilities in helping with the little and being more of just her. I thought she was doing great, I though we all were doing great. Then came the rabbit hole, due postpartum, wrong medication an egotistical doctor and a husband with a god complex. It all went down the rabbit whole. When things started to get bad, I sent Makenna to stay with a friend in order to keep her in her school. All I wanted was to keep her in her school. I didn’t think about the perception or feelings that she would have from that. I didn’t think of the opportunity I was allowing for those that tried for so long to fight for her for money credit to come in and use what I thought was the right thing against me. 

The first thing her father said when they changed our custody was “what about the child support?” Not what about seeing her brother, or maintaining

 a parent child relationship like I did all those years I heard how much they hated him. Not once did they get to go a week with out calling/answering his call, not one holiday did they not speak to him, not one school function did I not invite him too, inform him about, it ask him to attend. Not on from the one year old room through the Tenth grade. 

Yes I had full custody of Makenna from 1 years old until 16 years and 2 months. I did every school project, book report, drive her to and from school, helped secure her scholarship, was there for her first 5k, brought first day and every other day school clothes, I helped her with party favors, birthday cakes, holiday presents, study... I did all I could for those 194 months to make her want for nothing. To over compensate my short comings and faults. I was blessed with a dad who did financially contribute $700 a month of based on his $30k a year salary when we divorced, for 12 years. When he made $146k I asked for nothing more, he asked I take less. When the judge awarded me $1300 a month based on his $171k salary, I took only $900 of it. I provided the childhood, he financed it. Then when I fell down the rabbit whole he took our daughter not to what she needed but what he wanted. He told her things that are NOT true. I know he doesn’t know the truth because he’s never asked for it. He tells her my psychosis was street drugs not that it was antipsychotics that he knows had the same affect on me in the past when he had me put on them after her birth. That is how he was able to advise on what I “should get” to others. 

But again I am not innocent my psychosis and separation and fall down the rabbit hole and well chasing the white rabbit, those I let get the best of me. I shouldn’t have sent Makenna away when things got bad, I should have went with Makenna. And every day I regret that decision. If it makes her feel better to not have me at her graduation, I didn’t fight about it, I didn’t cry or beg or act out, I just said “Ok, Kyle.” 

 But... I want to say this to my daughter: 

I am so proud of you and your achievement, how you have overcome every obstacle in your path, from womb to date. I love you very much and not one day goes by that I don’t miss you. You seem happy, and I am glad. You haven’t opened my Wednesday emails in about a year and it’s been 606 days since you spoke to me. I know you don’t forgive me, but I forgive you. You won’t understand that today but one day when you are a mom, I promise you will. As you walk the stage and graduate and continue your education, I hope that you grow to think, learn and know beyond what you have been told. I love you. Cameron loves you. You will change the world, and to me you already have. I didn’t give you up Makenna because of you anf your sister and who you are I was convinced I was a good mom. I am sorry if you think I was not. Nothing I did was with malicious intent. I am sorry, I am so sorry. But Makenna, I will not let anyone be convinced that you are doing this in spite of me. You are the reason it’s been done I can’t take that from you. I can only take the belle to the ball, I can not make her dance... but I will watch in awe from afar as you do it.