trapped in a soap opera

not really an entry mostly ch1 cont

i dont really have anything to write about today--cept the fact that i want to throw my PC through a window. anyway, so this is a continuation of chapter 1.

CHAPTER 1 (cont.)--DAD

Ok first of all let me preface everything i'll write about dad with this. Dad has changed a LOT in the last few years. He has worked a lot on his anger problem, and how he treats ppl. i just wish that this turn of events had happened years ago.
when i left off yesterday i was talkin about dads emotional status and about the whole room thing. well shit, i cant figure out how to string this all together so ill just start with random memories and see how it goes from there. i remember my dad bein silly every once in a while--putting on funny masks and jumping out of dark rooms to scare us. i remember him playing april fools jokes on us in july--coming in our rooms before we were awake enough for our thinking processes to be working and telling us to hurry and get up cause it was snowing. I remember him knocking the case of VCR tapes off the top of the TV in a fit of rage. that was the thing about him, you never knew how he was going to react or how he would be from one minute to the next. I remember going camping and hating leaving because hes always end up pissed cause the car wasnt packed right or we werent gone by a particular time. it was a living hell getting ready to go on a trip, and the first day or two there until everything was in place and he had relaxed. I remember him and mom fighting threatening divorce over an arguement that started cause the rearview mirror had been moved out of place and not put back when mom drove the car. but of course when my brothers and i fought hed yell at us for fighting about stupid things--hey look in the mirror dad. dad and i never got along really cause i was the only one that stood up to him. id get up in his face and yell at him even at 7 or 8 yrs old. i remember one time when he was yelling at me about my attitude problems and stuff yelling back "well i got them from you" course then i was sassing him and got in more trouble. i dont remember what the fights were about but i remember making him so mad twice that he slapped me. one time it broke a blood vessel at the corner of my eye--i think i said i was playing basketball and the ball hit me. the one i do remember is the time when i was supposed to be cleaning my room one morning, and instead of doing so, had crawled up under my desk and went back to sleep. usually i was pretty good about staying just conscious enough to hear the footsteps coming down the hall and get up and look like i was doing something. that day i didnt . i had locked my door. by the time he discovered it was locked i was too afraid to open it cause he was really mad (i think i really cant remember why i didnt open it) maybe he opened it with a nail (one of those circular indoor locks you can pick easily), or maybe kicked the door in i really dont remember--but i do remember gettin thrown on my bed, and him sitting on top of me punching me in the back of the head/neck several times. i believe i probably fought with him about something in between those two things (door bein opened and the other) but i really dont remember for sure (i was fairly young maybe 12 or 13). when he was done he removed the whole locking mechanism from my door (and every other part except the door knob itself) so for years afterwards, i not only couldnt lock my door but it swung open whenever the front door opened or closed or the airflow in the house changed.
Now i know that victims of abuse--however few times it may happen, tend to blame themselves, but let me emphasize that's not what im about to do. im not excusing him because of this just attempting to explain that out of 5 kids all boys exept for me, and one a stepson, one a problem child, that i was the only one he ever raised a hand to. pure and simple like i said before i was the only one who would stand up to him--hed get angry and id end up in his face infurating him even more. that makes no excuse for what happened but just acknowledging my part in it.

i never felt like anything i did was good enough for him. he was a perfectionist, my view of my room bein clean and his were very different. i remember one time in high school--i was 15 i think in 10th grade. i decided that year to take the ACT just for the hell of it (i think my secret is i like to take those tests just to see how i do so i dont freeze). I got the results back and i had made a 30 on it. i told dad, he never said anything about it. here all my friends and teachers at school (it was a very small private school) are acting like im a genius and that i should go be a rocket scientist or soemthing (which was not true im just good at standardized tests) and my dad couldnt even manage a "good job" that was for the most part what life with him was like. somehow i just never felt like anything i did was good enough to win his approval.

i remember one time sitting in my moms lap in the rocking chair after dad had yelled at me (i was little maybe 7 or 8 i think) i remember her rocking me and saying "now you know your daddy loves you" the truth is though i dont think that i did. i did but i didnt (well run into this again when we get to arthur). i knew deep down somwehre inside me that he loved me, but it was really hard to believe it because of his actions every day. dad was always mad it seemed. if he wasnt fighting with me, he was fighting with mom. someone was always yelling it seemed like.

I remember we went on vacation one time and tom stayed home (brother right above me, moms from her first marriage). we came home early, tom was at work and the living room was a disaster--apparently the guy had put chicken manure on the fields behind our house--and that room stunk the least. he had every intention of cleaning it up before we got home but surprise we were home early. dad went into a rage--threw all of toms stuff out the front door and onto the lawn--was pretty close to threatening to kill him when he got home. we all packed up in the car and went looking for him (minus dad that is) coaught him just as he was about to come home from work, warned him, then we all went to my grandmas house to stay for the night.

dad was a "my way is the only way" person. course im hard headed and was born bossy and extrememly creative. slowly dad and life wore that away though. no matter how hard i tried to stand up for myself, and not let things get to me--secretly they did. i just wanted to be accepted, loved. because dad was the one i couldnt get this from i was fighting on the outside, and dying on the inside. i almost never cried--there was no way in hell i would ever let someone know they hurt me--i was tough. i was just one of the boys--even though i know it wasnt true it always seemed like he loved them better than me. maybe it just seemed that way because they usually went along with him and so they got yelled at less. someone wrote about this and i agree--sometimes you think that ppl are saying all this bad stuff about you, but a lot of times its you telling yourself thats what theyre saying...anyway i wish i could smoke in here--i tend to chain smoke when im writing about shit like this but oh well, and its freezing outside too. well got to go anyway, back in a flash (like it makes any difference to you cause youre reading this after the fact).

Ok all that said, remember what i said at the beginning, and the entry i made a few weeks ago about the question he asked me. we actually get along fairly well now. im just not sure that im ready to answer that question. im not sure that it would make that much of a difference now. i married him twice. my first husband was the perfectionist part and the second was the opposite but the same--it became a question of reconciling what i knew in my heart with his actions, and i got up in his face with some bad consequences. but thats for another day. my point is that other people and situations have continued what he started--and those wounds are much more fresh so im not sure that talking about the things he did would solve anything. who knows maybe eventually i will.

the other thing id like to say is that even though i allowed these and other events to shape who i am now. the main responsibility falls on me. i touched on this in "my epiphany" if i blame others for what and where i am then it means that i have no chance to change, because i have no control over them or the past. well i need to end this i guess because it is really long. there are so many other things i could probably say, but i touched on the main points and i think thats enough for now. got to take a shower and get ready to go to work anyway.
later
Joy