Inconsistent

People always say life is what you make it, however I FEEL, life is partially what happens to you, and partially how you handle it. "We're a product of our up-bringing", but we're also a product of how we decide to live our lives after our parents are done doing their job. I've become a firm believer that even those with the worst childhood, can DECIDE to make the best of adult-hood. You do determine your fate, but your circumstances will always be a part of you.

I grew up the majority of my life without my father. Infact, I cringe when people refer to that man as my "dad". While he may be a father, he was far from a dad. My parents divorced when I was...three? Maybe a little younger, I cannot even recall. HE moved hours away, and rarely had the time to see us. It was always on terms of convenience for him. I grew to resent him with each passing year. Whenever I think of this man, I think of the most disapointing experience of my childhood. Said "man" was on the other line of my telephone telling me he was coming to get me. He was taking JUST ME. This was beyond exciting for me. My sister has grown up with countless medical conditions and for much of our childhood was the center of everyones day. Constant doctors appointments, care and concern consumed our lives. For HIM to be coming to get just me...well I felt special for the first time in a long time. As soon as I knew he was coming, I was done swimming, which happened to be my favorite hobby at the time. I had to of been nine or ten at the time. He wouldn't be there for six hours, but I waited intently on the couch with my bags packed. I didn't even eat dinner. Roughly five hours later HE called. He wasn't going to make it. He just couldn't leave work...or some nonsense that really hurt. The man owned his own business. Really...couldn't leave? You waited five hours to tell me? It was then I decided he was not a father. He was the kind who tried to call when you were in trouble. He once told me I was grounded over the phone...I hadn't seen him in over six months...was he joking? By age eleven it was set in my mind I wanted nothing to do with him, and at age tweleve I completely stopped calling him dad, stopped visiting even when it was convenient for him, and stopped caring, or so I thought.

The truth is, when your a little girl and "daddy" leaves, and acts as though you are a convenicnce, it hurts you, it changes you. I couldn't come to face this until I was an adult and really had the capacity to see what he had done to me. I wanted a daddy, I wanted to be loved and feel important, but it never happened. For the next couple years, I saw him only from the window of my hosue while he pulled up in the drive way to pick up my sister, when he FOUND THE TIME. I was okay with that. I wanted nothing to do with a man who found his children to be a convenience.

I married my highschool sweetheart at eighteen. Our relationship had always been rocky. He joined the army two years prior and had just returned from a fifteen month long deployment, in which our relationship was even rockier. For the most part, I spent everyday that I was his wife, doing all the things I felt a wife was supposed to do. I cooked, I cleaned, I did the laundry, I laid out his clothes, I left him sweet love notes in his ruck when he had to go to the field for days on end. It never seemed to be enough. He spend much of his time working, and the rest playing poker at the bar. I faught with him over it, but ultimatly I settled. I settled on the fact that this was my reality and I'd rather have my husband at the bar playing poker and drinking while I sat at home, then not have him at all. We had a child a year and a half into our marriage. And the day my son was born I could think of nothing other then the fact that I hoped my husband would be the kind of father neither he, nor I ever had. I knew he was an absent husband, but I prayed to God he would never be an absent father. I convinced myself I could deal with being home alone while he was out, as long as when he was home, he was the best damn father he could be. I could endure the lonliness of deployments and bar nights, so long as my child was happy with his father.

Infact, even after the divorce papers were filed and delivered, one day he would love me and want to fix things, and the next he would hate me. Sometimes he wanted me back, and sometimes he wanted to put a knife in my back. I found myself on a constant emotional rollarcoaster, and it wasn't until reacently that I COMPLETELY stepped off and decided I had- had enough. More inconcentiencies.

Here I am a thirteen months past the birth of my son and I have never felt more like that twelve year old before. My [ soon to be ] ex husband lives in TN, and my son and I in Michigan. He was deployed just a month after baby bear was born. And returned just past his first birthday. Since then he has been in Michigan once. He spent a couple hours with our son the weekend he was home. He is coming back again this week, and I am anxious [and less then overjoyed] to see how much of an effort is put it. I know he has good intentions. But unfortunatly I don't think his intentsions always show. He loves our son...he really does. But I'm not sure parenting is at the top of his list of priorities. It seems that he too has found time with his son to be more of an "at his convenience" kind of thing- Which of course was my worst fear. I don't want this cycle to repeat itself, but I'm not exactly sure if there is anything I can do to change it. I am the best mother I can be. My son comes before anything in my life, and I would never change that. However, I know first hand what it is like to have an amazing mother and an absent father. There are some things money cannot buy, and two awesome parents are one of those things.

Now that I am "seperated" from the man I have invested seven years of my life with, I find it so hard to trust anyone. Every man I have given my faith and trust too, have eventually dissapointed me, broken my heart, and abandoned me. I feel as though this is my fate, and I wish there was a switch I could flip to end this madness. My wall is up. I feel like there is no reason I should ever let it down. I feel like letting people in, will just lead to repetition of let down and hurt...and let's face it, who wants to be set up for pain? [Unless it's a tattoo of course...]

So my question is this...
The msot important men in my life have always made me a convenience, let me down, and eventually left. I find it impossible to trust, and even harder to let people in. When does this stop, and how do I learn to trust again? At what point do I get to forget this hurt and move on to find someone who will never make me feel this way? Do such men exist? Is there something wrong with me...? I want to be able to open up and trust again, I don't like feeling permanently damaged. I constantly find myself questioning the sincerity of people around me. Words are so easy to say....but to mean them...that's another thing. And I want someone to mean them.

I can only hope as my journey continues, I find the power to knock down my own walls- open up, and trust someone again. I am the kind of person who loves with everything inside of me, and I do not want to watch another man DESTROY everything inside of me. I'm trying to figure out how to make the correct choices, so that my childhood no longer depicts my adult-hood. Best wishes to me, huh?

Oh well, that's my thought for tonight!

As Always,
AA