My sister posted on Facebook in reference to it being three years since our father died. I totally forgot about that. I honestly can’t understand how her heart can ache for him as she said it does or how anybody else can miss the guy. Have they forgotten? Have they forgotten how he allowed his wife to abuse his children? Whatever Dureen wanted, Dureen got. Had that evil bitch begged him to take us out in the backyard, kill us and bury us, he would have gladly done so. That’s the type of guy he was. He totally allowed himself to be Dureen’s piece of clay to shape and mold at will. He had absolutely no backbone of his own.

I can never and will never forgive him any more than I will forgive her. When my mother one day decided – hey, let’s give up on our daughter and let’s send her away – he readily went along with it. They BOTH threw me into the hands of strangers, most of which was crazier than they drove me.

However, people totally have a right to feel how they feel just as I have a right to feel how I feel. It isn’t that I have a problem with how they feel, it’s that I don’t understand it. But not understanding something doesn’t make it incorrect. It’s like how people can’t understand how I can be agnostic. Well, they may not understand, but it doesn’t make me wrong for not knowing for sure if there is or isn’t a God. All I do know for sure is that if there is a God, I blame that God for allowing those who have abused me to abuse me AND get away with it, just as much as I blame the abusers themselves.

He wasn’t just an enabler, though. He did enough shit all on his own, both to me and my siblings. I clearly remember to this day being woken in the night by the sounds of him beating my much older brother and sister’s asses with his beloved belt.

I realize that if I haven’t been able to forgive my parents, the people in Arizona, and a possible God after all these years, then I more than likely never will. I’m not even sure I want to. Wouldn’t my ability to forgive such atrocities mean I’ve gotten much too soft for my own good? I feel like I wouldn’t have much self-respect if I could forgive those who have crossed the line to such a degree as they have. To me, there are things to forgive and then there are things that aren’t appropriate to forgive. I understand, though, that everybody has different tolerance levels and that different people have different definitions as to what’s forgivable and what’s not, and that’s okay. I’ll never hold it against anybody for what they believe or what they forgive as long as they don’t try to make me into them. I just might not get it is all.

I have often wondered, regardless of what other people feel, think or believe, just how would I react if there really was such a thing as an afterlife and my parents were waiting for me there when I die. Would I want to throw up at the sight of them? Would I want to kick the crap out of them? Or would I cave into the soft side I try not to cave into in real life for my own good, and walk into their open arms? That is assuming they really were open and not pointing a hateful and condemning finger at me for being unable to forgive them.

Well, I can’t speak for the afterlife because I don’t know if there is one, and if there is, I don’t know what it’s like till I get there. I can only speak for this life, and in this life, I make absolutely zero apologies for how I feel. As a therapist once told me, there is no right or wrong way to feel. Just let yourself feel whatever it is you’re going to feel. Oh, I will. She can rest assured on that one.

Later…

Yesterday I finished the proofreading of my old journals. The question now is whether or not I want to make them available to the public, or just stick to the current year. Right now I think I will just stick to the here and now because nobody really seems to be interested in the past anyway.

It is looking like Hoodie is going to live after all. We’re not sure if he really got sick or if he just got depressed or what his problem was. While he still seems a little off, I don’t see him dying anytime soon.

As for me, it is so nice to be back to my old self and it is so nice not to be afraid to be left alone like I was for a while there when I felt at my worst. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like being alone as much as I used to, and I also wish Tom didn’t have to work so much, great money or not. But at least the anxiety and other symptoms I had when I was on too much medication are gone and I haven’t needed a chill pill in 3 months.

I have two appointments on the same day – March 24th – with the podiatrist and the ear specialist.

In last night’s dream, I was living in the house that I grew up in which was next to my maternal grandparents. My grandmother was still alive in the dream, too.

I was home alone when I glanced out the kitchen window and into the backyard and saw a guy in his late teens or early twenties wrapping a small child in a blanket that he had either killed or knocked unconscious. I was terrified that he might have spotted me and that he would break into the house before I could call the police. I seemed to know this guy and suspected he had harmed other children in the past. I tried to console myself, telling myself the doors and windows were locked, but deep down I knew he had his ways of getting into any house he wanted.

I called the police on a landline and the woman that answered asked me to take a picture of myself and send it to her, assuming I was on a cell phone that could do that. Just as I was trying to tell her that I was on a landline, I heard sirens come screaming down the little dead-end road.

I jumped up and flung the front door open and screamed for help just as paramedics rushed to my grandmother’s house next door. I figured this was it for her and that she was probably dead. Realizing I was dressed only in my bra and panties, I ran upstairs to throw some clothes on, terrified the guy might break into the house before I could get dressed and get help. I awoke to realize I’d left the front door wide open.