Do I Belong?

So then it was a lonely existence at home. Never really belonging and yet never sure I wanted to. My life was sad at home. We didn't care about each other much or if we did it was not like what I read about. It was stressful. My home life didn't improve. In fact when my father was around it was a harsh life. He was a strict parent. Birthdays were not really fun. Although my mother did make cake and do parties when she could. It seemed as though we were all really alone. Kind of like our own country.

If something happened out our house my father took to the willow branch. It was sometimes a lot of spanks, and you didn't forget the pain. I don't remember that we were allowed to express much in the way of feelings. This is when I started to hold things in my heart. I do remember my siblings always saying I was tenderhearted except they changed it to something else. It was not a nice thing.

My life it seemed would be destined to be lonely and isolated. That's what I always felt at home. Not at school. We had something at home that we called Saturday at the fights. That was the place where you were allowed to express the feelings ... it was fighting each other. So mainly the emotions were raw, hurtful, and angry. I knew in my heart that it wouldn't solve anything so I have very few memories of fighting back. I mainly took the beat downs and tried to live through the pain.

I do remember other things about that time too. Like we went to a Lutheran Church. I loved Church. It was fun to hear bible stories. I think my favorite ones were David and Goliath and about Ruth. I dreamed that someday I would be like both of them. Being able to not be a victim of life but being a survivor and then an overcomer. I didn't miss much church it was another outlet for me to live my life and be who I was. I think this is when I started turning to God. To thinking that he was out there and he cared about me.

While at home it was always stressful and harsh church and school were carefree places for me to be. I still used books to be in a different place. Memories get clouded with time but you know I think about the times my father would be so drunk he would kick us out of "his house". My mom who didn't have a driver's license or car would call some one and we would go there for the night. Then she and my father would make up and we would go back. It was a pattern of love and hate between them. One that is not healthy for any child to be around.

It got where we would sometimes sleep with clothes on and jackets as when he told us to leave we could only take what we had on. The rest belonged to him since he had bought it. Scary for a kid. My mom did her best and I think it that time of growing up it was what you did. You didn't get a divorce. You stayed together. No matter what. The holidays were like that too. I remember one Christmas the church brought over presents for all of us seven kids and when my father found out my mom had to call them and have them come get them. He wouldn't take charity from anyone. It was life. It was reality but it was, what it was.


I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.  -- Agatha Christie 


If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.  -- Frank Clark

This scripture is one that I love. It means so much to me. When darkness surrounds me, when I feel like giving up and I have and will... I try to remember this. For he does have a plan.. 

Jeremiah 29:11 - 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'

One of my favorite songs growing up.. I feel like this really fit my life and my family. Still does sometimes.

Simon And Garfunkel I Am A Rock Lyrics

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.