I had been so hurt and destroyed in my life I felt I may never love or be loved. I was raised by a true Mommy Dearest, Physical, Mental and Emotional abuse, but this is a whole story in and of itself. My Mother passed at age 72 in October of 2009 and for 4 years before her passing we were the best of friends, she would have given the shirt off her back yet suffered from what I saw almost as survivors guilt for that time period. I loved her very much and I feel really good and happy about our relationship when she passed. Unfortunately I do believe she came back into life as I stopped feeling her about a year after she passed, she definitely still had lessons to learn. So I will continue with what I think so many women can relate too.
By age 15 I was pregnant and by age 18 I had 2 children, the Father left me when my second daughter was born and 3 days old and while it was difficult, it was a huge transition and I did it. By age 19 I bought my own Mobile home, car, worked two jobs, one as a Kitchen Supervisor for a large Retirement community and a manager for Taco bell. Prior to getting my car I had to take the bus drop off my girls at the YMCA daycare and then take buses to job back for kids and my Mom watched for my night job at Taco bell, it was rough! What a difference a car makes lol.
The Father of my children while in California had access to my information and used my credit to charge up a bunch of credit cards, Jewelry and used my car as collateral on a new car loan all without my knowledge until I got a call that my car was being repossessed because he didn't pay his loans so I then got legal advice to A. Claim Bankruptcy and B. File for Divorce through the Court and take an ad out in the Newspaper to keep him from protesting it. I did all this and moved on.
After about 8 Months of living in my new home, I started dating, a hard thing to do with two small children. By this I was almost 21, it was the summer I think July and I would turn 21 in September but I had made very good friends with my neighbor I will call Ellen and we set up a Volley Ball net and she got a Keg of Beer and lots of people were partying when two young men came up and asked if they could join in and one of them was really cute. I will refer to Really cute as Man, Later that evening Man went home with another girl and while a bit disappointing I still had my girls of course. The next morning Sunday, Ellen and I were sitting outside sun bathing when we heard a woman screaming cuss words and then we saw it was coming from the home of Man and then furniture, a TV went flying out the door and wow she was one angry gal, I didn't know when it would stop but eventually she drove away. Over the next few weeks I saw Man on and off out side and then was I was invited to a party and he showed up there.
We talked and drank beer and ended up my first ever skinny dipping event, in this beautiful large blue pool, naked and close to each other. We started dating after that pretty steadily and I met some friends from his home State as we went to a party at their place, I saw Man standing in their kitchen and a little gal with short hair poured a beer over his head! I found out from his friends that this was his ex fiance and she lived with him intending to Marry him but he cheated on her so much she left him. Wow, here she is the little spit fire who was doing all this damage and ranting and I now didn't blame her at all. Man did not want to talk about this so I let it go. There are so many amazing moments that tied Man and I together but I am only going to give you the most significant one to save time and you will have to imagine the rest lol.
One afternoon after Man had been drinking a lot, he wanted to take another out of town friend up to the Mountains and he was driving his Jeep. No I should not have gotten in the Jeep with a drunk driver but I did, he drove I was in the back and his friend in the passenger seat. All the sudden hes was gone, no driver, in a split second he had lost control and flew out of the jeep and when I looked down I saw he was attached by a flip flop on his foot, being dragged closer to the edge. His friend froze so I jumped from the back to the front and carefully brought the jeep to a stop from almost going over the cliff while keeping him from being run over. Scary thing we,he, should have died but we didn't. He asked me to continue driving and show his friend the mountains while he sat in the back drinking and I am sure he needed it because once home and able to see his back where he had been drug several feet was a GIANT Mouser or road rash that covered a very large area of his back. I had him stay at my place while I nursed him back to health and well eventually we got married.
By age 15 I was pregnant and by age 18 I had 2 children, the Father left me when my second daughter was born and 3 days old and while it was difficult, it was a huge transition and I did it. By age 19 I bought my own Mobile home, car, worked two jobs, one as a Kitchen Supervisor for a large Retirement community and a manager for Taco bell. Prior to getting my car I had to take the bus drop off my girls at the YMCA daycare and then take buses to job back for kids and my Mom watched for my night job at Taco bell, it was rough! What a difference a car makes lol.
The Father of my children while in California had access to my information and used my credit to charge up a bunch of credit cards, Jewelry and used my car as collateral on a new car loan all without my knowledge until I got a call that my car was being repossessed because he didn't pay his loans so I then got legal advice to A. Claim Bankruptcy and B. File for Divorce through the Court and take an ad out in the Newspaper to keep him from protesting it. I did all this and moved on.
After about 8 Months of living in my new home, I started dating, a hard thing to do with two small children. By this I was almost 21, it was the summer I think July and I would turn 21 in September but I had made very good friends with my neighbor I will call Ellen and we set up a Volley Ball net and she got a Keg of Beer and lots of people were partying when two young men came up and asked if they could join in and one of them was really cute. I will refer to Really cute as Man, Later that evening Man went home with another girl and while a bit disappointing I still had my girls of course. The next morning Sunday, Ellen and I were sitting outside sun bathing when we heard a woman screaming cuss words and then we saw it was coming from the home of Man and then furniture, a TV went flying out the door and wow she was one angry gal, I didn't know when it would stop but eventually she drove away. Over the next few weeks I saw Man on and off out side and then was I was invited to a party and he showed up there.
We talked and drank beer and ended up my first ever skinny dipping event, in this beautiful large blue pool, naked and close to each other. We started dating after that pretty steadily and I met some friends from his home State as we went to a party at their place, I saw Man standing in their kitchen and a little gal with short hair poured a beer over his head! I found out from his friends that this was his ex fiance and she lived with him intending to Marry him but he cheated on her so much she left him. Wow, here she is the little spit fire who was doing all this damage and ranting and I now didn't blame her at all. Man did not want to talk about this so I let it go. There are so many amazing moments that tied Man and I together but I am only going to give you the most significant one to save time and you will have to imagine the rest lol.
One afternoon after Man had been drinking a lot, he wanted to take another out of town friend up to the Mountains and he was driving his Jeep. No I should not have gotten in the Jeep with a drunk driver but I did, he drove I was in the back and his friend in the passenger seat. All the sudden hes was gone, no driver, in a split second he had lost control and flew out of the jeep and when I looked down I saw he was attached by a flip flop on his foot, being dragged closer to the edge. His friend froze so I jumped from the back to the front and carefully brought the jeep to a stop from almost going over the cliff while keeping him from being run over. Scary thing we,he, should have died but we didn't. He asked me to continue driving and show his friend the mountains while he sat in the back drinking and I am sure he needed it because once home and able to see his back where he had been drug several feet was a GIANT Mouser or road rash that covered a very large area of his back. I had him stay at my place while I nursed him back to health and well eventually we got married.
This is a photo of my Mother and I getting ready for the wedding, my Mom has since passed so this photo does still mean a lot to me. Things were fine except for the fact that Man's Mother I will call Dee, hated me, Dee never wanted Man to marry a woman with Children. Dee told me once that when my marriage fell apart because it would fall apart, I could send her son home to her postage paid. Couldn't please her so I had to stop trying. Our marriage was good for about 2 years until Man wanted to start his own business. I was the only one with a steady job and steadily counted on pay check. This Business thing changed him and not in a good way. I was making all the payments on the property we were buying together and many other things.
Before we married Man had told me he did not do sick people nor Hospitals because Dee was sick his whole childhood and his Gramma had raised him. I didn't think much about this until I found out I was sick. In 1985 I was told I had Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia a blood Cancer that goes into remission but not like other Cancers, it never goes away. Man had changed and was so angry all the time, abusive with me mentally and emotionally I could do nothing right. Then my oldest daughter, I again having the only stable job was required to work one night a week and on this night I would, with out fail get a call from him or from my daughter. He would say "you need to get home and take care of your own kids" my daughter called and said "he through a pencil at me and it stuck in my arm", the next call "you need to help me Mommy he is chocking me!" By the time I got home the phone had been torn out of the wall and was laying across the room. The second I walked in he said "see ya" and was out the door. My daughter told me he had put his hands around her neck and lifted her off the floor along the folding doors in the hall near the kitchen, she had red fingerprints and hand marks on her neck. Then she said that after she called me he ripped the phone out of the wall and through it at her. I was in shock.
I knew life could not go on this way much longer, I had friends tell me they had approached the door but because they could hear Man yelling and all of us crying they didn't knock. I tried talking to Man but he blamed me for everything, I just wasn't good enough no matter what I did it was wrong, my children were suffering and I was too scared to tell him I was sick, I didn't know what to do. Man had a worker I will call Mak who was sitting outside to scared to knock on the door when I went outside of it to get my kids to the bus, All 3 of us were crying and eventually Mak asked if I needed someone to talk too, and boy I sure did. Mak introduced me to his Sister I will call Jane and her and I became fast friends. Jane even let me stay at her place when I was having my first Biopsy done of which I never told Man about. I then found out I also had Pernicious Anemia and needed injections every two weeks that I could be taught to give to myself at home, I opted to have them done at the office to keep Man from knowing. I decided I really had to talk to Man because things were getting crazy, I turned to drinking and staying away from home as much as possible and could not take this life any more.
I approached Man and said we need to talk, he asked me sarcastically about what, I told him that this life we were living was not a Family and I could not allow him to abuse my daughter ever. I said to him "Do you love my children?" He just said what a stupid question, so then I said "are you going to adopt my girls and give them your last name" (thinking this might bring them closer) and he replied "Hell no!" I said why, why would you say that and he said these exact words to me, "because I know if I did that you would divorce me down the road and make me pay child support for kids that are not mine!" Oh I broke, I instantly broke inside, first I could see his Mothers face when he said the words, then I was so hurt that he didn't trust me and then it was just a huge hole in my heart that told me I was defeated, his Mother won, he won and I am getting my girls the hell out of here and safe. I applied for housing and found a small house to move into and moved out with my girls. I couldn't talk to Man anymore because of how hurt I was and I do think I instantly fell out of love with him after he beat me down with his words. I knew a lot of people were using different drugs, mostly Marijuana which Man had a plate filled at all times slid under the coffee table, but I started hearing that Man was also trying Cocain and I did feel if this was true it could have been part of the changes in him.
I know Man thought I was having an affair yet I wasn't, I was too sick to think about anything like that. While Mak suggested that I try and make Man jealous and that might bring him around, it didn't. I tried a few times using Mak as the bait but no go. The only thing Man said to me was "why will you go fishing with him but not me?" I told him in so many words that Mak didn't yell at me constantly because everything I did was wrong! Mak had bought a burned out Motor home from where he worked for like $200.00 and really fixed it up. and my girls and I loved going camping and were invited on pretty much every local trip Mak took but the long distance ones he went with his friends. I didn't care because I knew there was drugs and booze and craziness going on I was fine not being around!
Man knew something was wrong because when he would see me he would say "Jesus your way too skinny, you need to eat something!" I was caught off guard one day when I was shopping a month or so after I moved out and a woman walked up to me and said "hey I know you" I said really from where, she said "from a wedding photo of you in the bedroom of this guy I am dating" I just said oh really okay well how did you meet him? She said she was a Bar Tender and met him at a bar. I got so drunk that night and had Mak and Jane drive me to my old home to confront Man and well it didn't go so well. I should never have gone there drunk but I did and I was angry and upset he had moved on so fast and that he had ruined our lives as he changed into this thing I didn't recognize yet here I was and then Man called the police on me, when the police came they told me that according to Man I no longer lived there and he could have who ever he wanted in the home and there was nothing I could do about it. So we left and I remember saying out loud as I cried, "My fairytale is over, it is really gone."
Man called and told me I had to get an attorney for a Divorce and I was getting nothing, we had purchased some property together for future plans of which I mostly paid for since he never held a steady job and I was being told if I wanted out I walked away with our cloths and the girls bunk bed's. I did get half the profits of the sale of the home we shared, I demanded that since I put the down payment and paid for new carpet when we moved in. Basically I got my down payment back, I couldn't fight any more so I agreed to his terms but it killed me to give up that beautiful property knowing I was going to be living where we bought it and he was moving away, I was used to being bullied by him and didn't know how to fight it. I would come to resent this for sure. Later it was so odd that I got a call from Man from the police station asking me if I could pick him up as he had gotten a DUI. I had to go wake up Mak and ask him to come inside with my girls and I went and picked him up intending to drop him at the house but he demanded screaming at me that he wanted to go back to where the cops made him leave his truck. I tried to talk him out of it but he told me to shut the F-up so I dropped him at his truck. Nothing was ever talked about this, so odd?
Mak and I became close friends as I did with all his Family and He helped me a lot, I rented the garage where I was living to him for some extra money and he mowed the lawn and did a bunch of stuff for us. My parents owned a home in the Foothills not far from town and my brother had been living there but was moving so my parents asked if I wanted to move up and I said yes it was beautiful up there and of course Mak came with. Let me tell you somethings about Mak, he was cute, he was built and he was awesome but he had a drug problem and when there is drugs there is lots of booz and trouble. He wanted to marry me and save me and I told him then I would never marry again, I liked my freedom and besides it seemed people changed when you married them, so he could be part of the deal but not the package. We remained in each others lives for 23 years and the unexpected happened but that is to come.
Man found a new girlfriend I only saw once, she was crying the whole time and I had no idea why? It was Christmas, my kids bought her a box of Candy and she did nothing but cry the whole time. Man was his usual self giving me dirty looks and and treating me like I did something wrong, they were getting ready to move out out the State and Man let me know he was selling off everything we owned and I had to purchase back any of my things I wanted, I did get some of my things back but I paid for them. They needed the money to move. I was supposed to sign some documents to get the property I gave up in his name only but nothing ever worked out, he sent me on a wild goose chase from place to place that had nothing to do with the deed. It turned out he had sold the property to some mutual friends and they had a Title company contact me with the proper information about where to go to sign the documents and I made an appointment and signed away something I looked back on and could not believe I let Man bully me into. Most women want to get as much as they can out of a Divorce but at the time I just felt doing what he demanded was the easiest least stress filled way to go about it, but I did resent him for the bullying and I really didn't know how much until many years later. We Divorced in 1986 and in 2009 my world turned upside down again.
I have lived for years off on with transfusions, Hospitalizations, Treatments, Injections, Surgery's and the removal of Lymph-nodes when the Leukemia was acting up and always on this or that medication. I also knew from a fall I had taken in 1983 that I had Spinal Stenosis in the Lumbar spine and then more MRI's showed stenosis in all three Cervical, Thoracic and Lumbar making many activities very painful. I went many years with just thinking this was it, this was my life and wondering why God had put all this on me. I had a very rough childhood and looked back on the times I blamed God and even told him I hated him for what he was putting me through at age 10 or so, I felt I had a hundred or more reasons to Hate God and I was sick of going to Church and coming home feelings so empty inside. In the year 1995 I was really struggling with who I was and why I was here, What kind of God would do this to me? From here on this subject, please see my Spiritual Journey for more on how I became Spiritual and the Awakenings that changed my life forever.
In February of 2008, something new started happening and I was unable to stay awake, I started falling asleep while people were talking to me and I started sleeping around 20 hours a day. No one could wake me up. By this time we had moved to a Farm and I loved the farm life, it was a lot of work but Mak did most of that. We share a room with separate beds to this very day and from here on out, I swore the traditional anything was not for me. Mak and I were many things to each other and I would say at this time best friends was a good description. He would get ready to leave for work and then come to my bed and ask if I needed anything, did I want to get up and the answer was always the same, "no I am too sleepy" My Doctor could not figure it out but knew I had gone down hill so much I actually needed a wheelchair as I could not stand for long nor walk without help. A friend had sent me a book in the mail about the Thyroid by Edgar Cayce, Mak had woken me up and said you got a gift in the mail from your friend, I woke up and opened it and looked at at thinking what on Earth did she send me this book for? I opened the book almost in the middle and it said ADRENAL GLANDS and it jumped off the page at me, it was as if it the words had changed to Fire and I could see it all, I asked Mak to take me to the Doctors right away, I had called the first
endocrinologist I could find in the search box on my computer and she saw me that day.
I had developed Addison's Disease, I was so close to death but didn't realize it. It took my third appointment in 3 weeks with her for her to ask me if I had listened to anything she told me and I told her I really don't remember being here nor what you have said to me. The Doc got a bit angry with me and told me I was so close to dying and if I didn't do everything she told me I would die. I am now steroid dependent for life, I have to wear a medical ID Bracelet, carry a shot and instructions in my purse in case I have an Addisonian Crisis which pretty much means I pass out and hit the floor slurred speech and other lovely side effects, along with an ambulance ride to my favorite place, just kidding.
The worst part of all of this was my memory, I had lost so much of my memory. I couldn't reconcile my mind with where I was and where I thought I should be. It is now June of 2009 and I am trying to understand where Man is and what is really going on here. It was as if I had just seen Man a few weeks ago looking like he did when I met him. I had so many memories flooding me about the Dating period of time with Man and then the actual day of the marriage but the rest was spotty and I couldn't say anything because Mak was here helping me and I could not really remember much about anything. Mak was driving me to the Doctors office one day and I said to him "oh wow they sure did tear that big building that used to have the funny signs on it down awful fast", Mak looked at me like WHAT....? Then he said "Sandi, that building was torn down about 4 years ago" I was shocked, I disputed that I had just seen it a few weeks ago and thought he was yanking my chain, but he was telling the truth. I had to keep a lot of this too myself about Man and my feelings about why he was not there because I came to realize it was all inside of me no matter what this was no one else's reality and I was not going to hurt anyone.
I had decided I needed to reach out to Man, I could not manage all the missing memories and the feelings that I had recently seen Man as the young Man I knew. I had no idea how I was going to do this but I figured it would come to me. Then one day my oldest daughter asked me if I remember that woman Man had brought to our house, that she remembered her being kind of Artsy Craftsy and wondered if I knew anything about her whereabouts or if she was on Facebook. My daughter is a beautiful Artist with several Art sites and a site on Etsy where she sells many pieces of her Art work. I told my daughter I did not know but would check it out. You see I knew God would guide me and here I was searching for her and I found an Article on her that said she was going through Cancer so I was not sure I should even contact her. Then I saw her on Facebook and she had joined a Gym and while I thought if you are physically able to go to a Gym, you are way ahead of the game on me for sure, the only exercise I can manage from all I live with is walking and a few things like some sit ups in bed lol. ! However I told my daughter about her site for Nuances a little store she owned and my daughter went over and liked her page and I started searching more.
I happened across a photo of Man with his Sister and I was shocked. You have to understand with my memory loss I was not seeing things in the future but as they were in the 80's and not the present so when I saw this photo of Man I was in tears, this was not the fit, blonde haired blue eyed guy who was so cute and desirable, this was so hard to reconcile with, while I knew we had all aged, somehow it was difficult for me to surrender to the reality. No one believed I had 9 grandchildren, a Granddaughter that is 22 and one great granddaughter who was 8 mos. old. and I was pretty proud of that. I think seeing this picture helped because it really help the thought process that the memories that were over 25 years old seemed to me to be a few months old. Difficult or not, reality is reality.
Man and I had a Honeymoon like no other, I mean you couldn't even write what happened on our 3 week camping trip (honeymoon) I remember his sister telling me, no way she was going to have a honeymoon where people waited on her and she could lay by the pool and that I was nuts for the kind of honeymoon I was going on. It was a kick in the pants and I wouldn't trade the memory for anything. I was curious as to whether or not he had ever told this gal I had met only once, this gal he married the TRUTH about why we separated and once he cheated with the Bar Tender we Divorced and the abuse to my children I wondered so I wrote to her telling her I wanted to apologize to Man and wanted her okay first because I wanted to be respectful. What I really wanted was some answer's but I would take her approval as a sign this was the right thing to do.
She read my message and said to me that she had End Stage Breast Cancer, she and Man were going through a lot. I was trying to correlate her actions and her words when I read "BTW, I forgave you a long time ago", at first I was a little irritated because I didn't know her and she didn't know me so I was not sure what this was about but I played along. I mean end stage Breast Cancer means death and what do you say to that. I will live with Cancer until it takes my life and I will live Addison's and the many other illnesses until they take their toll, but end stage gives a 5 year at best outlook and I can not confront a person who is telling me this stuff about themselves, I immediately prayed for remission and a long life for her, it almost makes this Journey petty yet again I am, she is, we all are Human with a Soul. I don't believe that I deserved to sell my own home and put all the money I had from a settlement from my back into purchasing our home and paying off the property and getting nothing, but look 30 years later does it really matter? No, not at all, only matters if anyone is interested in the truth.
I sent a fairly long apology letter and told her I was afraid that Man's Family was upset with me (in my mind because if he didn't tell her the truth he didn't tell them the truth, Who knows what they were told) she responded that she was sure they were not upset with me and that to write whatever I wanted and she would deliver the message. I did write an apology letter but felt so bitter about every word because I really had only one thing to apologize for and that was being upset that I had not gotten an apology from him! I prayed on this and I asked the Angels to send me a sign that would help me to understand better what I expected and what was fees-able. Then it came, the Blue withered box with the words "Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free...and ...Realizing you were the Prisoner" How profound but true.
I can Forgive Man so I can move on. It makes no difference to my life if Man was deceitful to his wife and Family, my actions are what I am accountable for and I have forgiven myself and forgiven him. It had not occurred to me at the time that he never confided in me what changed him, why he was so angry volatile and I know now that something had to be going on that caused the changes in him so just like I felt I couldn't talk to Man about what I was going through perhaps he had his reasons as well as to why he couldn't talk to me. I move on now knowing I am human and things will pop up here and there around this subject but I get it now and am able to move forward. What a gift however I also never forget that I am human and when I back slide I have to understand the idea of perfecting, not being perfect. Just remember that the Prisoner is you and forgiving yourself can be harder than forgiving another so try really extra hard to understand what I said about being Human and during those times you backslide feel free to come and read this page again and as often as it takes to be in the best place you can be.
I also want to add that Mak had asked me to marry him at least 100 times over the years and asked one more time if I would marry him several months after I gotten out of the Hospital. Mak had been drug free for about 10 years at this time and had stopped drinking about 2 years before this time. My Mom had passed in October of 2009 and we married November 24th, 2009 after knowing each other for 23 years. He is a blessing to my life as he does anything and everything for me. I admit he has always been in love with me but I have always just loved him, now I can say I love and appreciate everything he does for me, he puts up with a lot with my illness and no matter how many times I am in the hospital he is there as often as he can be and is really my best friend. I am very lucky to have him.
Living in Love and Light always.
Sandi~
Before we married Man had told me he did not do sick people nor Hospitals because Dee was sick his whole childhood and his Gramma had raised him. I didn't think much about this until I found out I was sick. In 1985 I was told I had Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia a blood Cancer that goes into remission but not like other Cancers, it never goes away. Man had changed and was so angry all the time, abusive with me mentally and emotionally I could do nothing right. Then my oldest daughter, I again having the only stable job was required to work one night a week and on this night I would, with out fail get a call from him or from my daughter. He would say "you need to get home and take care of your own kids" my daughter called and said "he through a pencil at me and it stuck in my arm", the next call "you need to help me Mommy he is chocking me!" By the time I got home the phone had been torn out of the wall and was laying across the room. The second I walked in he said "see ya" and was out the door. My daughter told me he had put his hands around her neck and lifted her off the floor along the folding doors in the hall near the kitchen, she had red fingerprints and hand marks on her neck. Then she said that after she called me he ripped the phone out of the wall and through it at her. I was in shock.
I knew life could not go on this way much longer, I had friends tell me they had approached the door but because they could hear Man yelling and all of us crying they didn't knock. I tried talking to Man but he blamed me for everything, I just wasn't good enough no matter what I did it was wrong, my children were suffering and I was too scared to tell him I was sick, I didn't know what to do. Man had a worker I will call Mak who was sitting outside to scared to knock on the door when I went outside of it to get my kids to the bus, All 3 of us were crying and eventually Mak asked if I needed someone to talk too, and boy I sure did. Mak introduced me to his Sister I will call Jane and her and I became fast friends. Jane even let me stay at her place when I was having my first Biopsy done of which I never told Man about. I then found out I also had Pernicious Anemia and needed injections every two weeks that I could be taught to give to myself at home, I opted to have them done at the office to keep Man from knowing. I decided I really had to talk to Man because things were getting crazy, I turned to drinking and staying away from home as much as possible and could not take this life any more.
I approached Man and said we need to talk, he asked me sarcastically about what, I told him that this life we were living was not a Family and I could not allow him to abuse my daughter ever. I said to him "Do you love my children?" He just said what a stupid question, so then I said "are you going to adopt my girls and give them your last name" (thinking this might bring them closer) and he replied "Hell no!" I said why, why would you say that and he said these exact words to me, "because I know if I did that you would divorce me down the road and make me pay child support for kids that are not mine!" Oh I broke, I instantly broke inside, first I could see his Mothers face when he said the words, then I was so hurt that he didn't trust me and then it was just a huge hole in my heart that told me I was defeated, his Mother won, he won and I am getting my girls the hell out of here and safe. I applied for housing and found a small house to move into and moved out with my girls. I couldn't talk to Man anymore because of how hurt I was and I do think I instantly fell out of love with him after he beat me down with his words. I knew a lot of people were using different drugs, mostly Marijuana which Man had a plate filled at all times slid under the coffee table, but I started hearing that Man was also trying Cocain and I did feel if this was true it could have been part of the changes in him.
I know Man thought I was having an affair yet I wasn't, I was too sick to think about anything like that. While Mak suggested that I try and make Man jealous and that might bring him around, it didn't. I tried a few times using Mak as the bait but no go. The only thing Man said to me was "why will you go fishing with him but not me?" I told him in so many words that Mak didn't yell at me constantly because everything I did was wrong! Mak had bought a burned out Motor home from where he worked for like $200.00 and really fixed it up. and my girls and I loved going camping and were invited on pretty much every local trip Mak took but the long distance ones he went with his friends. I didn't care because I knew there was drugs and booze and craziness going on I was fine not being around!
Man knew something was wrong because when he would see me he would say "Jesus your way too skinny, you need to eat something!" I was caught off guard one day when I was shopping a month or so after I moved out and a woman walked up to me and said "hey I know you" I said really from where, she said "from a wedding photo of you in the bedroom of this guy I am dating" I just said oh really okay well how did you meet him? She said she was a Bar Tender and met him at a bar. I got so drunk that night and had Mak and Jane drive me to my old home to confront Man and well it didn't go so well. I should never have gone there drunk but I did and I was angry and upset he had moved on so fast and that he had ruined our lives as he changed into this thing I didn't recognize yet here I was and then Man called the police on me, when the police came they told me that according to Man I no longer lived there and he could have who ever he wanted in the home and there was nothing I could do about it. So we left and I remember saying out loud as I cried, "My fairytale is over, it is really gone."
Man called and told me I had to get an attorney for a Divorce and I was getting nothing, we had purchased some property together for future plans of which I mostly paid for since he never held a steady job and I was being told if I wanted out I walked away with our cloths and the girls bunk bed's. I did get half the profits of the sale of the home we shared, I demanded that since I put the down payment and paid for new carpet when we moved in. Basically I got my down payment back, I couldn't fight any more so I agreed to his terms but it killed me to give up that beautiful property knowing I was going to be living where we bought it and he was moving away, I was used to being bullied by him and didn't know how to fight it. I would come to resent this for sure. Later it was so odd that I got a call from Man from the police station asking me if I could pick him up as he had gotten a DUI. I had to go wake up Mak and ask him to come inside with my girls and I went and picked him up intending to drop him at the house but he demanded screaming at me that he wanted to go back to where the cops made him leave his truck. I tried to talk him out of it but he told me to shut the F-up so I dropped him at his truck. Nothing was ever talked about this, so odd?
Mak and I became close friends as I did with all his Family and He helped me a lot, I rented the garage where I was living to him for some extra money and he mowed the lawn and did a bunch of stuff for us. My parents owned a home in the Foothills not far from town and my brother had been living there but was moving so my parents asked if I wanted to move up and I said yes it was beautiful up there and of course Mak came with. Let me tell you somethings about Mak, he was cute, he was built and he was awesome but he had a drug problem and when there is drugs there is lots of booz and trouble. He wanted to marry me and save me and I told him then I would never marry again, I liked my freedom and besides it seemed people changed when you married them, so he could be part of the deal but not the package. We remained in each others lives for 23 years and the unexpected happened but that is to come.
Man found a new girlfriend I only saw once, she was crying the whole time and I had no idea why? It was Christmas, my kids bought her a box of Candy and she did nothing but cry the whole time. Man was his usual self giving me dirty looks and and treating me like I did something wrong, they were getting ready to move out out the State and Man let me know he was selling off everything we owned and I had to purchase back any of my things I wanted, I did get some of my things back but I paid for them. They needed the money to move. I was supposed to sign some documents to get the property I gave up in his name only but nothing ever worked out, he sent me on a wild goose chase from place to place that had nothing to do with the deed. It turned out he had sold the property to some mutual friends and they had a Title company contact me with the proper information about where to go to sign the documents and I made an appointment and signed away something I looked back on and could not believe I let Man bully me into. Most women want to get as much as they can out of a Divorce but at the time I just felt doing what he demanded was the easiest least stress filled way to go about it, but I did resent him for the bullying and I really didn't know how much until many years later. We Divorced in 1986 and in 2009 my world turned upside down again.
I have lived for years off on with transfusions, Hospitalizations, Treatments, Injections, Surgery's and the removal of Lymph-nodes when the Leukemia was acting up and always on this or that medication. I also knew from a fall I had taken in 1983 that I had Spinal Stenosis in the Lumbar spine and then more MRI's showed stenosis in all three Cervical, Thoracic and Lumbar making many activities very painful. I went many years with just thinking this was it, this was my life and wondering why God had put all this on me. I had a very rough childhood and looked back on the times I blamed God and even told him I hated him for what he was putting me through at age 10 or so, I felt I had a hundred or more reasons to Hate God and I was sick of going to Church and coming home feelings so empty inside. In the year 1995 I was really struggling with who I was and why I was here, What kind of God would do this to me? From here on this subject, please see my Spiritual Journey for more on how I became Spiritual and the Awakenings that changed my life forever.
In February of 2008, something new started happening and I was unable to stay awake, I started falling asleep while people were talking to me and I started sleeping around 20 hours a day. No one could wake me up. By this time we had moved to a Farm and I loved the farm life, it was a lot of work but Mak did most of that. We share a room with separate beds to this very day and from here on out, I swore the traditional anything was not for me. Mak and I were many things to each other and I would say at this time best friends was a good description. He would get ready to leave for work and then come to my bed and ask if I needed anything, did I want to get up and the answer was always the same, "no I am too sleepy" My Doctor could not figure it out but knew I had gone down hill so much I actually needed a wheelchair as I could not stand for long nor walk without help. A friend had sent me a book in the mail about the Thyroid by Edgar Cayce, Mak had woken me up and said you got a gift in the mail from your friend, I woke up and opened it and looked at at thinking what on Earth did she send me this book for? I opened the book almost in the middle and it said ADRENAL GLANDS and it jumped off the page at me, it was as if it the words had changed to Fire and I could see it all, I asked Mak to take me to the Doctors right away, I had called the first
endocrinologist I could find in the search box on my computer and she saw me that day.
I had developed Addison's Disease, I was so close to death but didn't realize it. It took my third appointment in 3 weeks with her for her to ask me if I had listened to anything she told me and I told her I really don't remember being here nor what you have said to me. The Doc got a bit angry with me and told me I was so close to dying and if I didn't do everything she told me I would die. I am now steroid dependent for life, I have to wear a medical ID Bracelet, carry a shot and instructions in my purse in case I have an Addisonian Crisis which pretty much means I pass out and hit the floor slurred speech and other lovely side effects, along with an ambulance ride to my favorite place, just kidding.
The worst part of all of this was my memory, I had lost so much of my memory. I couldn't reconcile my mind with where I was and where I thought I should be. It is now June of 2009 and I am trying to understand where Man is and what is really going on here. It was as if I had just seen Man a few weeks ago looking like he did when I met him. I had so many memories flooding me about the Dating period of time with Man and then the actual day of the marriage but the rest was spotty and I couldn't say anything because Mak was here helping me and I could not really remember much about anything. Mak was driving me to the Doctors office one day and I said to him "oh wow they sure did tear that big building that used to have the funny signs on it down awful fast", Mak looked at me like WHAT....? Then he said "Sandi, that building was torn down about 4 years ago" I was shocked, I disputed that I had just seen it a few weeks ago and thought he was yanking my chain, but he was telling the truth. I had to keep a lot of this too myself about Man and my feelings about why he was not there because I came to realize it was all inside of me no matter what this was no one else's reality and I was not going to hurt anyone.
I had decided I needed to reach out to Man, I could not manage all the missing memories and the feelings that I had recently seen Man as the young Man I knew. I had no idea how I was going to do this but I figured it would come to me. Then one day my oldest daughter asked me if I remember that woman Man had brought to our house, that she remembered her being kind of Artsy Craftsy and wondered if I knew anything about her whereabouts or if she was on Facebook. My daughter is a beautiful Artist with several Art sites and a site on Etsy where she sells many pieces of her Art work. I told my daughter I did not know but would check it out. You see I knew God would guide me and here I was searching for her and I found an Article on her that said she was going through Cancer so I was not sure I should even contact her. Then I saw her on Facebook and she had joined a Gym and while I thought if you are physically able to go to a Gym, you are way ahead of the game on me for sure, the only exercise I can manage from all I live with is walking and a few things like some sit ups in bed lol. ! However I told my daughter about her site for Nuances a little store she owned and my daughter went over and liked her page and I started searching more.
I happened across a photo of Man with his Sister and I was shocked. You have to understand with my memory loss I was not seeing things in the future but as they were in the 80's and not the present so when I saw this photo of Man I was in tears, this was not the fit, blonde haired blue eyed guy who was so cute and desirable, this was so hard to reconcile with, while I knew we had all aged, somehow it was difficult for me to surrender to the reality. No one believed I had 9 grandchildren, a Granddaughter that is 22 and one great granddaughter who was 8 mos. old. and I was pretty proud of that. I think seeing this picture helped because it really help the thought process that the memories that were over 25 years old seemed to me to be a few months old. Difficult or not, reality is reality.
Man and I had a Honeymoon like no other, I mean you couldn't even write what happened on our 3 week camping trip (honeymoon) I remember his sister telling me, no way she was going to have a honeymoon where people waited on her and she could lay by the pool and that I was nuts for the kind of honeymoon I was going on. It was a kick in the pants and I wouldn't trade the memory for anything. I was curious as to whether or not he had ever told this gal I had met only once, this gal he married the TRUTH about why we separated and once he cheated with the Bar Tender we Divorced and the abuse to my children I wondered so I wrote to her telling her I wanted to apologize to Man and wanted her okay first because I wanted to be respectful. What I really wanted was some answer's but I would take her approval as a sign this was the right thing to do.
She read my message and said to me that she had End Stage Breast Cancer, she and Man were going through a lot. I was trying to correlate her actions and her words when I read "BTW, I forgave you a long time ago", at first I was a little irritated because I didn't know her and she didn't know me so I was not sure what this was about but I played along. I mean end stage Breast Cancer means death and what do you say to that. I will live with Cancer until it takes my life and I will live Addison's and the many other illnesses until they take their toll, but end stage gives a 5 year at best outlook and I can not confront a person who is telling me this stuff about themselves, I immediately prayed for remission and a long life for her, it almost makes this Journey petty yet again I am, she is, we all are Human with a Soul. I don't believe that I deserved to sell my own home and put all the money I had from a settlement from my back into purchasing our home and paying off the property and getting nothing, but look 30 years later does it really matter? No, not at all, only matters if anyone is interested in the truth.
I sent a fairly long apology letter and told her I was afraid that Man's Family was upset with me (in my mind because if he didn't tell her the truth he didn't tell them the truth, Who knows what they were told) she responded that she was sure they were not upset with me and that to write whatever I wanted and she would deliver the message. I did write an apology letter but felt so bitter about every word because I really had only one thing to apologize for and that was being upset that I had not gotten an apology from him! I prayed on this and I asked the Angels to send me a sign that would help me to understand better what I expected and what was fees-able. Then it came, the Blue withered box with the words "Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free...and ...Realizing you were the Prisoner" How profound but true.
I can Forgive Man so I can move on. It makes no difference to my life if Man was deceitful to his wife and Family, my actions are what I am accountable for and I have forgiven myself and forgiven him. It had not occurred to me at the time that he never confided in me what changed him, why he was so angry volatile and I know now that something had to be going on that caused the changes in him so just like I felt I couldn't talk to Man about what I was going through perhaps he had his reasons as well as to why he couldn't talk to me. I move on now knowing I am human and things will pop up here and there around this subject but I get it now and am able to move forward. What a gift however I also never forget that I am human and when I back slide I have to understand the idea of perfecting, not being perfect. Just remember that the Prisoner is you and forgiving yourself can be harder than forgiving another so try really extra hard to understand what I said about being Human and during those times you backslide feel free to come and read this page again and as often as it takes to be in the best place you can be.
I also want to add that Mak had asked me to marry him at least 100 times over the years and asked one more time if I would marry him several months after I gotten out of the Hospital. Mak had been drug free for about 10 years at this time and had stopped drinking about 2 years before this time. My Mom had passed in October of 2009 and we married November 24th, 2009 after knowing each other for 23 years. He is a blessing to my life as he does anything and everything for me. I admit he has always been in love with me but I have always just loved him, now I can say I love and appreciate everything he does for me, he puts up with a lot with my illness and no matter how many times I am in the hospital he is there as often as he can be and is really my best friend. I am very lucky to have him.
Living in Love and Light always.
Sandi~