It begins...

Hope. Confusion. Want. Frustration. I have an varying amount of emotions flowing through me right now about the job back home opening up for Corey. I so very much want to look out the window and see the bluffs, go down to one of the rivers and teach Logan to fish. I want to face the demons that are laying just below the surface there.

Many of my reader know I left LaCrosse and really till Logan was born never looked back. After all what the hell did I have to look back to? Family, not hardly. Friends, nope not really. My best friend I met 2 weeks before I left there. There are the fringe who have known "me" since I moved there in 1990 and I will consider them a form of a friend. But no one really knew me, I just couldn't afford to let them. Once you lose the security, or in my case never had the security from the family there is no room to let total trust to someone on the outside. Did I yearn for that BFF kind of friendship, sure. I was alone but never allowed to be lonely. But, I still hope to go back there, and soon to live even for a brief time. I am so conflicted by memories of the past they make me confused as to why on earth I would want to go home. I want to put the past to bed, I have moved on from most, but feelings still linger. I have such frusterations because I feel like the past sometimes takes over. The feeling of lonlyiness, the PTSD, the anxiety, why would I want to face it. Without facing it head on, I fear one day when I let my guard down it will control me. Going back stronger now, and not as a child with nothing to hold on to
could change my life for the better. I know no one lived the idealic life, if you say you did you are lying and in denial. Something was not perfect, something you want fixed in your past is there.

Pushed to be perfect, fighting against it all the way (for the record still not perfect and happy as hell about that!!!) Case in point beauty pageants...fucking HATED them!!!! I went so far as to put the glow in the dark alien key chain in my up do for evening gowns when "mommy dearest" wasn't looking in '96. She was none to thrilled by that, I on the other hand was in stitches. And there was that little scuffle I had with another contestant in '93 that cost me the crown (thank GOD!!). I guess they frown on you defending you little sister from another in your age group not her own. Not like I threw a punch, just said girl up against the wall...Modeling was another of "mommy dearests," ideas yea I hated that too. 5foot 2inches is not a sexy height, period. I had to beg to not have the contract renewed. High school Pompoms was a fricking nightmare so we won't go into the hazing those nasty little demented peons did to me while the coach was MIA. I will however thank those wonderful College boys who went to go get me food and drink while I was stuck in my room with the banged up knee from the peons pushing me down the flight of concrete stairs. No, I would not fit into your mold, and it appears I am the better for it. Wresting Cheer leading was a bit better till I took a stand against one of my JV girls getting sexually harassed. The rest of them hung me out to dry. Yes, I left, but I was also working at the radio station and thought that it was more lucrative to work there than slap a mat for ungrateful assholes (most not all). DECA, Theater, clubs up the yin yang, still I was the odd duck out. Oh don't get me started on the love hate relationship I had with the theater! I will say without the freedoms I was given to go into the theater damn near anytime I wanted or the pool, I would have been a different person I think. Not in a good way. I think the command I had of all things from acting to tossing up a set, and staging lighting with the guys were the one time I felt at home.

So what is the point in all this disjointed rambling, what the hell does it have to do with the present. Without even touching on the "family" aspect those with keen deduction skills can guess I cut my teeth and became the hard ass I tend to come off as cira 1990. Yes, by then I realized even my own mother would sell me out for convenience to herself. Even at the cost of her daughters innocence. There really are no bright memories in the 1980's for me. Actually more of those had I not over came them I would be in rehab, institutionalized, or dead type memories. I know I am a buzz kill sometimes. IT is these memories of Joey putting the blanket over my head and laying on my 5year old body till I couldn't breath and passed out only to be kicked back to conscousness again that I still deal with. Hearing my maternal Aunt's husband tell his brothers, and friends that I was "easy pick in's" because my mom and adopted dad weren't paying attention. And sis they ever take advantage, of many of us in that bloodline. I am the only one who spoke out, took me 18 years and finding the strength from Corey to do so but I did. No one paid attention, or didn't care. My own mother took him in to her home after their apartment burned down while my sister was still living there in the early '00's. Yea, she believed me alright case in point her actions right there. Or when she called me in '04 when justice came full circle and the grim reaper came to take him, she wanted me to send my condolences to my aunt. I realized right then and there in his passing that my mother knew the whole damn time. Not just what Billy and Joey did, but about him too.

So she is not the reason I yearn to go back. I want to face the past with the strength I have found through getting away. None of those wrongs can be righted or avenged. I realize though painful they have shaped me as a person, I have the choice to stand up and say I am not afraid or cower and let fear consume me. No way, if not for myself for my child.

I look at myself and what I was. Born to a teenage hussy who's sperm donor gave me up to an alcoholic pothead that was dumb enough to marry my mother. I was never treated like a Tabbert by the majority of that family either I still make some VERY queezy at rare events I attend. To be fair some have gotten better seeing how I turned out, but some will always be tools. Within a year he and my mother were divorced, and he was off to rehab. For the longest time my Stepmother hated me too, that stopped around the time he stopped payin g child support for me. Coincidence? I know my stepsister sure did telling me she wished I was dead every time she had a chance behind her mothers back. She's a peice of work all of her own. We'll leave it at unique...I want the good ones to see how someone who was set aside can do right and raise a child in a loving way. Let them enjoy his company, and let him enjoy theirs Up North.

Bio Dad's side of the family. Wow, hmmmm. Grandma, little kooky, but has a huge heart. Hates my mother (can't blame her). Tom almost 50 and lives with her. Missed my wedding because he was spreading ashes of a dead GF out west. Umm got married in Vegas folks...however he did totally make it cool when he came to the luchon we had at Jerry (adopted Dad house). Grandma didn't come because her dog had the shits, I kid you not (this would be the same dog she would in a later Christmas card describe her mauling death on Mother's day, Like I said big heart, little kooky)! All those tight knit Tabberts that were there as a family reunion that just happened to include me didn't know what to do with the cool male version of me with bitchin hair arrived with the rest of the carbon copies of my family that were in the area. I will admit, I would go back to LaCrosse to hang with this family, the one I have blood but no leagal connection to. Steph never misses a beat emails, acknowledges Logan which is so important to me. To have my son accepted the way I never was with what I thought was family. I would also say even with the weirdness of the situation Tom (bio Dad) and I can shoot the shit for hours. We may some from opposite ends of the spectrum but the Zeiment's are all exceptionally bright and beautiful and I have a blast in those few conversations I have with him. The whole taking to Logan thing was pretty neat that happened on Father's Day. I know I will never be Daddy's little girl, I was no ones. But Logan has always been mesmerized by Tom, and Tom seems authentically touched by this. Ok his grandson was carrying his HS picture around for weeks and talking to "Grandpa Tom" may have had something to do with it! I want them to know Logan well, not just a couple hours once a year. I want him and grandma to eat pineapple together and talk about dogs. Steph and him to talk about books. Buzz, Anne, Sym, god only knows what but I am sure it will be brilliant!

I want to hike, bike and see the leaves change. I want to live vicariously through my son who is protected and loved in ways I only wish I could have been. I want him on my home turf, safe and loved. Sure I can do it anywhere just getting him to Kindergarten without someone touching him or handing him off will be so big for me. I am within days of that goal now. But to keep him safe where I was left for dead will for me would help me know it doesn't have to always happen. I may not be the perfect mother, far from it, but I can keep my baby safe and loved where I never was. I know I am shrink chair worthy to those reading this disjointed ramble. But to me it makes sense. Bring him home, keep him safe, make it right. Raise him safe and loved, why is that crazy?

I don't even think Corey knows how important the prospect of moving back even for a little while is to my psyche. Sure I will survive without the move too, but I think it would be healing.