Freedom

 Freedom

Touch the sky

soar free from doubt and fear

leave worry behind

reach towards the unknown

clutch not to old plans

for they are chained to the ground

dwell not on past events

for they suffocate bright futures

a better place awaits 

where dreams fill open minds

love runs like water

smiles shine bright as stars

let soar your hidden hopes

free your tangled spirit

play amongst the clouds

and touch the unknown sky.

My dad never tried to contact me after I moved up to Buena Vista.  I made excuses for why I could not return home for the holidays, and the only person who seemed to care was my mom.  She would tell me that my dad missed me and that he would be happy to have me home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I knew he was indifferent.  This wasn't the first time I spent the holidays without my family.  I had been living on my own off and on since I was 16.  This was however, the first time that it was possible for me to return home and yet, I made the decision not to.  Holidays are a crazy concept.  If you have a family that you love, then they are a time of love, joy and sharing.  If your family is too far away for you to spend time with, then you are reminded of how much their presence is missed and how important they are to you.  If you don't have a family or you have a family that you dislike, then the holidays simply remind you of what you are missing.  People constantly ask; "where is your family?  Why aren't you with them today?"  It becomes tedious to constantly make up reasons why you can't spend the holidays with your family when really it is because home is no longer a safe place for you to be.  For me, holidays are simply a nagging reminder that my family isn't a positive presence in my life.

A couple days after Thanksgiving, my mom came up to visit me.  She showed up smelling like alcohol.  Her incessant trips to the bathroom only reinforced my suspicion that she was not sober.  She told me how great things were at home and how good Rich was doing in Salida where he had recently moved.  By this point, I knew not to believe her skewed perspective of our families well being.  After she had gotten a bit braver from the alcohol, she began to question my motives for not wanting to come home.  What could I say to her?  I love my mom; I always will.  I never wanted to hurt her, but she could not accept that I had chosen to walk away from our family.

"You abandoned us.  You have been abandoning us since you were 16.  You had such a great life.  We have done so much for you.  We gave you the freedom to travel the world.  You  are so selfish.  Family sticks together.  You owe us more than this."  I could see that there was anger and pain behind her words.  I could also hear that my father was speaking through her.  Her words were no longer her own.  I tried to explain that I did what I had to to move forward with my personal healing.  I tried to explain that I loved her and was tired of hoping for change that wouldn't happen.  I tried to tell her that this wasn't an easy choice.  She only heard that I was giving up on the family and abandoning her.

"You are being a selfish bad daughter.  Your role is to be there for us whether times are good or bad.  That's what family does.  Your dad is changing, he's getting better.  Your brother did so much for you and this is how you repay him.  You had a good life.  We gave you a good life.  How can you do this to us?"  My mom couldn't see past her own hurt to realize that I was doing the only thing that would free me from the grasp of our dysfunctional family.  This was the only way I could save myself.  I tried to remember the mom that sang me to sleep at night and protected me from any harm that might come my way.  I tried to remember that the woman standing before me had been taken over by the abuse of my father.  I tried to separate myself from what she was saying to me, because it was not what a mom who wanted the best for her daughter would say.

"I love you mom, but I have to do this for myself.  I want to keep a relationship with you, but it would have to be separate from dad and Rich."  She looked at me like I had stabbed her in the stomach while looking her straight in the eye.  She looked at me like I was the one person responsible for all her pain.  It took all I had not to turn back on my decision and apologize for being selfish, take her in my arms and tell her that everything would be alright, that I would come back home and that we could all be a family again.  I loved her so much and wanted her to be o.k., but I knew that the price I would have to pay would be a sacrifice of my own healing and happiness.  I was no longer willing to sacrifice myself for my family.

I watched my mom drive away back to her abusive home.  My heart burned with regret, maybe I could have done more.  There was nothing more I could have done.  She had made her choice. She would sacrifice everything to be with my father; her freedom, her voice, her happiness and her children.      

Up in Smoke

Wanting to cut off all ties with my family, I began to think about what it would look like to be alone in the world.  Although the help that they gave me had been very conditional, it had still been some form of assistance.  This decision would mean that I would be cutting myself away from every safety line I had, dependable or not.  My solution to not receiving help when I needed it, was to never need it.  I had to shed all of my vulnerabilities and become entirely independent and self sustainable.  Being weak or needy was not an option.  For this, I thank my family.  They forced me into becoming the strong and independent woman I am today.

While I was traveling the world moving place to place running from my family, I was only making myself weaker.  I had no comfort, no support system and no financial security.  This may have been an immediate escape from my family, but it was not helping me to become permanently independent from them.  It was only wearing me down to the point that I would be forced to crawl back to them sick and broke taking whatever help they would give me to get back on my feat.  I was still at their mercy.  If I was going to make this a durable break, then I was going to have to start leading a life that I could maintain.  I needed to develop comfort, a support system and financial security for myself so that I would never have to ask my family for help again.  This is what I have spent the last two years developing here in Buena Vista.

Although Rich had provided me with a roof over my head and my first circle of friends in Buena Vista, it became very clear that he was still not capable of being the supportive brother that I so needed.  He had begun to drink again, which was never a good combination with his explosive personality.  As his mood and health began to decline, I made the distance between us larger and larger.  After 6 months, we hardly saw each other any more.  I heard reports from friends that his behavior was becoming worrisome and that he was beginning to pull away from his healthy relationships.  I had not returned home for Thanksgiving or Christmas making my decision to separate from my family indisputably evident.

On my birthday, I had a small party with friends after which we were all going to a local bar to see a band.  Two weeks earlier, I had started to see this guy Mark and he was coming as my date to the party.  My friends had put a lot of effort into making my party enjoyable and we were all in a state of bliss as we entered the bar to begin our night of dancing.  Mark and I were dancing together when I saw my brother, who I hadn't seen in a few months, approaching with a dazed look in his eyes.  He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me away from Mark, but I refused to go.  He stormed off into the back of the bar.  My fear began to escalate; I knew how much Rich hated to be disobeyed and the alcohol in his system would only increase the unpredictability of his reactions.  Panic was beginning to close in on me.  Breathing became a heavy burden and my head began to swim with the flight response.  I just wanted to leave.

"No Erin it's your birthday.  He won't do anything.  Lets stay and have a good time."  Mark calmly convinced me to continue dancing, and for a few moments I was able to relax back into the fun evening.  Fifteen minutes later I saw Rich barreling through the crowd back towards us.  His eyes were watery with alcohol and they burned with rage.  This was the look he got when he had found a target for his anger.  He grabbed my arm and pulled me aside before lunging at Mark and shoving him in the chest.
"Are you Fucking my sister!!? Who do you think you are?  You Dumb Fuck!!"  Rich was spitting in Mark's face burning him with his fire ridden eyes.
"I'll take you right now you mother Fucker, lets go.  Do you want to fight!!?"  Rich shoved Mark again as Mark stood there completely bewildered as to why this person he had never met was threatening to beat him up.  Knowing that Rich's rage had nothing to do with Mark, I stepped in between them as my friends tried to pull Rich away.  I looked right into Rich's face and asked, "What are you doing?  Rich, what are you doing?"  I tried to sound as calm and caring as I could to prove to him that he had no reason to act this way.  My heart completely stopped in my chest as he made one move towards me and then backed away.  My body could no longer stand up against my panic.  I began to hyperventilate and darkness was closing in around me.  There is no way to describe a panic attack other than complete loss of control.  You can't breath, you can't talk, the world goes bright and silent around you, you can't see or hear anything but fear.  People try to talk you out of it, but you can't hear them.  Your world is consumed by panic.

While I was outside leaned up against a car gasping for any tiny amount of air I could get, Rich was inside starting a fight with one of my friends.  I found out later that Rich had to be escorted out of the bar and asked to never come back.  This was my brothers last birthday present to me.  This was the last interaction I have had with him in over a year and a half.     

Friendship

The easiest thing to do after being hurt is to build really high safe walls around yourself.  To tell yourself that you don't need or want anyone around you.  This mind set makes you feel better about being let down by the ones you love.  There is no safer place than locked away in your own little world where no one can touch you.    

In reality, we are all alone.  There is no guarantee with any relationship.  The only person who you can always count on is yourself.  You are the only person who will be with you from the beginning until the end.  You better know yourself well, like yourself, get along with yourself, respect yourself and depend on yourself, because nobody else will ever walk in your shoes for you.  As soon as you start loving yourself, being alone doesn't scare you as much.  In fact, being alone can become the only thing that you do well.

To a certain degree, I have forgotten what it feels like to be in close relationships.  I feel more comfortable being by myself.  People scare me.  They are so unpredictable and inconsistent.  When I finally got my dog Jack, I began to realize what makes humans so much harder to have relationships with.  Jack is very consistent.  If I am good to him, he is good to him.  Our interactions are based on current situations.  Humans are not like this.  You can love someone with all your heart and treat them as good as you know how, and they can still turn around and bight your hand off.  They hold on to past events and allow them to control their interactions with people in their present.  Even though you are good to someone, they may be incapable of being good to you because of some unrelated event in their past. There is no magic formula to human interactions.

After deciding to step away from my relationship with my family, I stopped wanting to develop lasting relationships with anyone.  They were too much work.  Why would I ever put that much effort into something that would just end anyways?  I had wasted so much energy and love trying to change my family and develop healthy relationships with them that I had nothing left to give anyone else.  I assumed that relationship meant loss of self and I was tired of losing myself in other people.

My friendships that have developed here in Buena Vista are beginning to change my opinion of close relationships.  Friendships are the best way to begin to trust people again.  The saying, "you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family" is over played but very true.  You can choose your friends, and your choice of friends reflects on what kind of friend you are capable of being.  If you choose your friends wisely, you will be receiving and giving equal amounts of support and caring.  If you are incapable of being a good friend, then you will also be incapable of finding good friends.  I have found amazing friends here and they are helping me to take down my giant walls one brick at a time. 

Quiet Solitude

It's a weird feeling not knowing where to turn for support and comfort, because the people who are supposed to give it to you are actually the ones causing your distress.  Coming back from Chile, I had no money, no job, no home and no family.  This is why it is so easy to go back to the ones who have hurt you, because without them, you are entirely alone.  Is it better to turn to people who cause you harm for the support that you need or to face the world on your own?  Two years later I am still wondering if I made the right choice.  There are many days that I cry myself to sleep wondering if I was better off in an abusive family than spending Christmas alone and receiving no phone calls on my birthday.  Even though I was the one who walked away from my family, there wasn't much of a family left for me to walk away from.  Support was only an illusion.  Although the lack of its presence was now more apparent, I really hadn't had much of it to begin with.

I couldn't stay in Monument knowing that my parents were living their lives around me without being a part of mine.  At this point, I had been moving so frequently that I didn't have a very stable friend base in Colorado to turn to.  Most people had no idea what had been happening in my life, because I had been so secretive and did a spectacular job of putting up mile high walls around myself.  The only option that I could think of was to go and stay with my brother in Buena Vista until I had enough money to pay rent somewhere.  Even though my subconscious knew that this would not be anymore successful than all my other attempts to reconcile with him, I had to believe it would be.  I had no where else to turn.

There was a slight hope in me that the saying, "sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you start climbing back up" would apply to my brother.  Maybe this whole situation with him losing his wife and everything he had then getting a restraining order placed against him would wake him up to the person he had become and push him into changing.  I just want to scream when I think about how many times I went back to my family thinking things would change.  Anyone who has loved someone who gave promises of change but never kept them knows how hard it is to give up hope that someday the change will actually be made.  Just the tiniest sliver of hope can keep you hanging on.

I moved to Buena Vista and moved into a closet sized room in brother's house.  I have to thank him for giving me this opportunity to get back on my feet.  Without his generosity, I don't know where I would have gone or what I would have done.  He helped me to get my first job in town as a dishwasher at a Thai restaurant and introduced me to many people in town.  But, like every other time that I began to rebuild my relationship with him, the honeymoon period only lasted a few months.   

Lifeless, Loveless, Hopeless

 Life is passing by

birds are flying

pages are turning

populations are growing

bridges are burning

people are

living, loving, hating

floating through life on a pointless path

all spinning together in a muddy mess

getting dirtier with every thought

progress evolves into destruction

destruction crushes hope

hope carries life

life is smothered out

all continues

lifeless, loveless, hopeless.

 

Anybody who has been left by someone they love knows the piercing burn of rejection.  Thoughts go through your mind like; what more could I have done, was it my fault, is there something wrong with me, am I unlovable.  To this day, I have moments where I cannot fend off my poisonous self doubt.  Maybe it was my fault that they treated me this way, maybe I deserved to be abandoned, maybe I am unlovable.  My most daunting task is trying to remind myself everyday that I did not deserve to be turned away by my family. 

When I arrived back home, my mom sat by and watched as my dad told me that I was not allowed back into their house until I apologized for betraying him.  I was going to have to sit across from the man who had driven away with all of my mom's money, claiming to have never wanted the life he had with us, stating that he had never loved her and was grateful to be rid of her and the life she had trapped him in and apologize for not making an effort to contact him while I had been trying to soothe my alcoholic mother out of the depression he had put her in.  There are absolutely no words for what I felt as my mom, who I had loved and supported through all the times my dad had left, sat there and watched me walk away from the house not saying one word to defend me.  She would always choose him.  No matter how many times he hurt us and left us, she would always choose him over us.  I lost part of my soul that day and I guarantee it will never be replaced.  My own mom turned me away when I was broke and sick and homeless because my dad had told her to.  She had put the illusive love of an abusive husband over the love of her daughter.       

At first, I could not stomach apologizing to my dad.  I went to an old friends house and stayed there while I went to the doctor and regained my strength.  I sat in my grief trying to contemplate my next step out of this predicament.  There was only one possibility.  I was going to have to go into that house, apologize to my heartless father, get all of my life possessions and walk away for good. 

As I walked up to the house, my whole body was quivering, my heart was pounding and my mind was pulsing with doubt.  As I walked through the door, I turned off my conscious mind realizing that I was about to do something that would betray all of my values and self respect.  Sitting across from my dad looking into his disapproving cold eyes, I told him the last self sacrificing lie that I would ever tell in self preservation.
"I am sorry that I betrayed you. I never meant to take mom's side.  I was here with her, seeing what she was going through and I tried to do what I could to help.  I didn't do it to hurt you."  He gave me a slight nod and a distant hug telling me that I was welcome to stay in the house as long as I needed.  I left a week later with all my belongings and would not return to that house until they had both moved away.  This was the day I lost my mom to the unrelenting grasp of abuse, she would never be her own person again.