P-P-F

I was 9 years old in the summer of 1991. My dad and I had bounced back and forth every few months; living with either my Aunt Beth, or my Uncle Keith. Luckily, they happened to live right next door to one another, so everytime we'd get kicked out of one place, it wasn't so difficult to move to another.
Both homes, had a set of siblings, and myself having lived most of my life separated from my sisters, my four cousins and I became a tight-knit brood. We cared for each other, in a way that you'd only really know by our love for tormenting one another.

Unbeknownst to me, during this time my father was doing alot of drugs. It took me a long time until I realized it. In fact I think it was during an argument between my uncle and my dad, that I overheard my uncle call my dad a crackhead. I didn't really know what that meant, but I knew it was going to result in us moving. Again. My uncle made my dad leave that night, and being a 9 year old, I remained loyal. So, when my dad had to leave at 2 am, and him not being clear minded, he let me go with him.
And, for 4 nights in succession, we were completely homeless.
The first night, we slept in a park. We climbed the jungle gym type structure, and my dad used the clothes he was wearing to blanket me; the only form of shelter he could provide.
When the police came through the park, my dad panicked, and instructed me to hide in a giant bush near the center of the park.
I hid in there for what seemed like hours. Bugs, prickly stems and all. Looking back, he probably went to get a fix, smoke a rock, or whatever he did. But I sat there. And eventually he returned telling me he'd been hiding not too far and watched the bush I was in the entire time.
I slept on the wood structure that night, and when the sun rose we made our way across town.
My dad managed to steal two bicycles from two different houses overnight, so we had our own form of transportation.
We rode all around town, doing whatever it was we needed to do. I'd distract the store clerk, while my dad stole cigarettes (before gas stations wised up and kept them all behind the counter)
We'd hide the bikes in random fields,walk to store parking lots and tell people sob stories for money.
My dad would go up to strangers, tell them our car was out of gas and we could use a dollar or two to put some in the tank so we could get home. I guess the story is alot easier to believe when you've got a kid with you, but I'll never forget the looks in peoples eyes as the dug through their pockets, wallets and purses, handing over what little change they'd see fit to spare. I was ashamed, so I'd often hide behind cars or trucks so the people couldn't see me. (I still have an issue with pride, and asking people for things)
It got to the point where people stopped giving my dad the money, so he made me ask them. Because people would give it to a kid. I was instructed to cry, because it would make people feel bad.
I don't think my dad ever knew that I wasn't just pretending to cry.

We snuck into an apartment complex one night, and I slept inside of a utility closet, curled up next to an old "Eureka" vacuum. I can still remember the brown-ish and white colored vaccum bag with the dingy orange cord.
My dad said he sat outside of the closet all night, to make sure noone got in there to hurt me, because I was afraid. But, I'm not sure that he didn't run off to buy more drugs with the money I'd lied for.
One night, I slept in a black womans car. She was the wife of my dads' dealer, and my dad left me with her "husband" to go "buy food". She had other kids there, alot of them, and they weren't very nice to me. I remember she didn't want me in her house, so she took me out to her car, opened it up, told me to crack the windows and lock the doors, and my dad would be there to get me as soon as he got back.
To this day, if I'm in a car by myself at night, I freak out. I lock the doors, no matter the neighborhood, and with my head I pace back and forth, waiting for whomever.

On the fourth night, we slept in a laundromat. In the bathroom. Earlier that da my dad and I had went there (laying ground work) and he asked yo use the bathroom. He took the key to the bathroom off the keychain the attendant gave him, along with the key to all the washers.
So, when we returned later that night, and that attendant was gone, he used the key to unlock the bathroom so I could sleep. While I rested, he emptied out almost all of the washers' coin slots.
When he woke me up in the middle of the night, weighing me down with quarters, I remember feeling more shame than I've ever experienced.

After that, we managed to get one of my cousins to agree to sneak us into the house late at night, where for about a week we slept in the basement.
Eventually we moved into a trailer with some friends my dad had from his teenage days and their family.
I remember walking out to pee one night, and seeing the friend of my fathers, having sex with his own daughter, who was barely older than me.

It wasn't long after that, that my aunt found where we'd been staying, and took me to live with my grandma. My dad went to jail, and things were never the same.
The loyalty I had for him, developed into resentment, which, I ultimately let go of.

I started school in a new area, and my grandparents were wonderful. During my second or third week, I was approached by a kid that had also just started at a new school, and..had previously gone to the same school I had the year before.
He pushed me, and kicked me. And told me that my dad stole his bike over the summer. He'd just gotten it, for his tenth birthday.

I made it my goal to never have to answer for any one elses' mistakes. And, I made it a life standard, to never have to ask anyone for anything. Especially money.

I swore I'd never let drugs destroy me. And, for many years refused to do them, or even be around them.

In those days when I found myself hiding in bushes, and utility closets, sleeping alone in strange cars, and begging people for money so that I could eat, I remember being afraid. I remember feeling alone.
And, it's something that's followed me from that moment, to the very moment I write this.

My psyche creates this world, where all I can do is lash out at myself. I get a moment of sadness, and it goes from one moment to a string of moments. I can't be sad at jsut one thing, if I'm sad, I'm sad about eeeeeeverything.

Last night, my dog that I've had since I was 12 years old started having seizures. One minute he's okay, and the next minute, I'm witnessing heart breaking moments as my dog squirms and yelps on the floor.
I've never really had any significant pets, other than him. And, it's been a 14 year long......friendship.
It's weird how you don't realize just how important something is until its' fixture in your life is threatened.
I guess, I've spent all this time writing about not having any friends, that I've neglected the fact that...while he's just a dog, he's been my friend. He's been with me through everything i've experienced since 1994.
Theres been times, he's been my only friend. Which, somehow equates to him being my best friend. And, I love him.
And, now that I'm worried so much...it's like I'm going through so much.
I find myself thinking about things in my life I wish I'd changed. People I wish I hadn't forgotten.
Friends I wish I hadn't lost.
Ways I wish I'd mended.

I find myself thinking back to my youth, dissecting every event, and finding ways to attribute my failures as an adult to those things. Something I've grown successful at.

I found myself balling, and praying. Funny, how you only pray when you need something.

The thought struck me again, that my path cannot continue in this way.

I spend so much of my time, downgrading myself and my life.

And there are two reasons I do this.

A) I still hate being alone. I feel like this equates to being worthless. Like I don't matter in the world.
I know this isn't exactly fact, but how does one change a lifetime of issues, when the same cycle repeats.

B) I don't like asking people for anything.
And, it seems thats all my life is these days. Asking people for favors. Or chances. Or hope.


The times when you want to be smothered, and helped, it seems like theres noone there. And, then when you don't, it seems that its available at every corner.

I look at so much of myself, and I wonder where I managed to lose the good things about me. When did I lose my sense of humor? When did I lose that part of me that made people want to be around me?
When did I become...this.

I couldn't even tell you the last time I wrote a blog that was funny.I used to be funny. Now, it seems my blog is like the example they give you of someone you need to call Charter for.
"Reach out and help"
I'm sure there's a thin line between being able to be sad and express it, and being in a depression, or needing help.
I guess I don't feel like I need help, as much as I feel like I just need a break.

I thought I'd found my break, my good thing. And it seems like it's slipping through my fingertips, and I don't know how to capture it.

And everything, piling ontop of each other, my dads medical problems, my workplace woes/financial concerns, relationship ups and downs, my health, feeling trapped at home, and now my dog about to die, is causing extreme overload.

I spend so much time trying to convince myself that I don't need people, that I fail to realize just how opposite the truth is.

I don't really know why I blogged about all the things I did.

In summary, (lol)
There's alot of really stressful things in my life right now. Theres alot of situations I wish were different. There's a person I really wish was here. And, there's a dog that I wish was doing better.
And, theres me.Whom I wish wasn't so hard on himself.


My past is scattered. It's sad, and it's been something that haunts me still. I gotta move onward.
My present, is difficult, strenuous, and hard. I need to find comfort.
And,I need to remain focused so that my future is something more.
I'd like to be someone that other people can ....love. And, I'd like to be someone that I love too.