"Spread your wings and prepare to fly for you have become a butterfly. . ."
The house I grew up in was loud. My father was a ghost. My mother was a homemaker. We used to have a rope tied to a tree and used it as a swing. It was right around the corner from my grandparents. We slept on the living room floor when we first moved in. My older sister’s room was the size of a small closet. We lived across the street from a church where my little sister and I would ride our bikes every day after school. I had to tape my bedroom window to prevent dirt from blowing in on windy days. There was a giant bay window in the living room where you could see the lights from the college campus just a few blocks away. Our neighbors always played their music too loud on the weekends. Every tree on our block was always lush and green while ours stayed dead all year around. At nineteen I moved out. The house I grew up in was not a house, but houses, and the family that lived in these homes was far from picture perfect.
Now, before I stir the pot once again with my big mouth I just want to state that I probably had one of the best childhoods anyone could ever ask for. Meaning, I had food to eat, a bed to sleep in and clothes on my back. And my intentions with this blog are not to blame or bash anyone. This is not a “feel sorry for me” piece of writing. I hate being pitied. This is something that I need to do so that I can move forward with my life and keep the light I have above water. The last thing I want to do is come off like a selfish, ungrateful, horrible person. That being said let us begin.
The man who provided the necessary goods for my conception was named Benjamin Rivera. He and my mother were married for thirteen years, but it wasn’t all wedded bliss. He was very physically abusive during their marriage. I only have maybe two or three memories of him that I keep in the back of my mind to remind myself that at one point I had someone I called “Dad”. Eventually my mom divorced him and remarried. She found love in the arms of a red neck man with a lot of love for Jesus. I don’t think we knew what was in store for us with this one.
He was a hard working man but he always had his head in the clouds, always thinking of ways to make more money. Too bad when we actually had extra money to spend it was never managed well, which, defeated the whole purpose of making extra money. Hearing my parents constantly fight over it was something I could’ve done without.
If I could describe what life was like living there in one word it would have to be “controlled”. Everything we did, said, thought etc. was put under strict rules. We even had to have permission for something as simple as going to a school dance weeks in advance because it was like trying to get security clearance for the C.I.A., a long process which took longer than any decision process should. I eventually stopped making attempts trying to make friends because I knew about the three ring circus I would have to perform in if I ever wanted to see them outside of school. To make matters even more complicated, they enrolled my little sister and I in homeschooling when we moved to Portales back in 2005 in the hopes that we wouldn’t become corrupted by the temptations that apparently lurked around every corner in that small town. Needless to say, I was miserable day in and day out with being homeschooled. I learned nothing and spent most of my days lying around the house. After three years of learning nothing I finally got my High School Diploma via GED classes at Clovis Community College.
It would appear that my parent’s plan to socially and emotionally stunt us would succeed, but I was not the type to do anything I didn’t want to. I started to rebel in so many big ways: sneaking out, coming home drunk, meeting boys and lying about my whereabouts sometimes was only the beginning. Thinking about it now, I feel like I wasn’t a rebel without a cause. I knew exactly what they were trying to do and I was simply refusing to lie down and take it without a fight. Their attempts to keep me from being “corrupted” only blew up in their pretty little faces when I came out to them at seventeen. I’ve already discussed this subject in a past blog so I won’t bore you with sounding like a broken record.
It takes two to tango and while my stepdad owned some fault to destroying my self confidence and self respect I found myself particularly mad at my mom. The woman I looked up to for so many years didn’t stand up for me once. Not once did she care to see how I was doing. Not once did she speak up for my behalf. And even if she did, she sure didn’t do it in front of me while I was silently dying inside. I was so hell bent on trying to get out of that house that I decided to move in with a boyfriend at the time knowing that living with his abuse would be better than being stifled by my own parents. I didn’t need saving by God I needed someone to save me for the moment because I forgot how to do it for myself.
Older now, I can kind of understand and see what their plan was for us. All they wanted was for us to grow up into upstanding adults of society. They succeeded; I just think they went about it all the wrong ways. They tried so hard to keep us from all the bad things in the world that they didn’t plan on us actually going out and looking for it. You can’t keep people under your thumb because at some point they’re going to start pushing back.
I spent years in my own head trying to work through all these issues. It’s been a very exhausting battle; a battle that I almost lost a few times with a high body count from all the toxic people I had to cut out in order to move forward. As much as a struggle as it was, I can’t help but be thankful in some way. I had gone from an angel who got his wings clipped to finding my shining star and now I can honestly say that I have entered the next phase of my life. This star has evolved into a butterfly and I feel so much happier flying freely in the sun. I’m ready to let go of all those ill will feelings and put them to rest. Forgetting what has happened in our past is the easy part. It's the forgiveness part that is a little trickier.
Xoxo.
B.
