Since I've always been quick with an opinion an old friend once lost and again found suggested that perhaps I should share with more people my commentary. Never being one to pass on a challenge I thought I'd give it a whirl.
There are some things that just break your heart so completely you’re not sure what to do with them.For me it’s a world of sadness mixed with anger and confusion.More than twenty years ago I met the woman that I would have a love hate relationship with, a woman who I would come to think of like a sister.It’s amazing what people can do and how they can always leave me speechless at times.When I first met her I didn’t like her too much.For one thing she was taking away my best friend in my mind and for another she acted more like a boy than a girl, but who was I to judge. I had spent my teen years and my early twenties just trying to figure out who I was so perhaps she was the same.I watched as my best friend in life married this woman, while I was still unsure and uneasy and their first months of marriage were not easy either.He became sick with Mono and instead of wanting him to rest she had him running her paper route she did for extra cash so she wouldn’t have to.Then when they would fight she would want me to take her side and stand with her, something I couldn’t possibly do at that time, but over the years I came to like her and love her.Trust me when I tell you for me that wasn’t easy either.I watched as she spent every penny he made and at times she would even joke about having the money he hadn’t even made yet already spent.I still tried to tell myself he had married her there must be good and I had come to like her so I had hoped in time she would settle.She had the American dream at one time.She had a nice house, a nice car; if she hadn’t spent wildly she could have even stayed at home and raised her children.She really had it made where most of us are concerned.Again though she had him moving from place to place since she was never really happy with the homes he would buy her even though she helped pick them out.I guess that should have been a clue that she wasn’t happy with herself.Perhaps it was a silent cry that the rest of us just couldn’t possibly hear.She moved him to Ohio for a while.A son was born to them there.He was the light of my parents and my world.With his birth came the desire to move back closer to home and family.So back to Fort Wayne they came.The house they moved into was in a nice location and should have been good enough to raise that little family she claimed she had wanted for so long.Every weekend though she would want me to shop with her and we would sunrise to sunset.The whole time we shopped that poor little boy was in a car seat.I suppose that didn’t matter too much when he wasn’t able to walk, but little children need stability and they need to be able to run and as he got older you could tell he hated being in that van.There were times I didn’t want to go, but my family kept saying just keep the peace for his sake.I stopped her once when her little boy was about two from smacking him in the face.I suppose that should have been another warning sign.As the little boy grew the financial tension in that house grew.When we would shop she would start telling me how they didn’t have money for diapers or shoes or this or that.So I would buy them.Funny thing was same day she’d buy herself a new CD later in the day.Seems she always had money for what she wanted.I remember the night my best friend showed up at my door and said it was over.He had all he could take.My world changed that night.It was as if a part of me broke right along with him and I needed to make it all better.I didn’t want to lose her as a friend but then how could I stay friends.I was determined to try to be there for her and him.I still wanted to have faith that there was good in her.By this time there was a daughter too so she was the mother to a boy and a girl.Surely that would keep her occupied.When they divorced against my urging him not to he let her have basically everything for his children’s sake and he walked away to try to start his life over.He believed just like me that deep down inside surely she would be a good mother so it was for the best of his kids.There were things she promised to pay in the divorce she never did.Child care was to come out of child support yet she never paid it when he had the kids as she was supposed to do.She worked for a while.I remember once I was studying for a test and she called me because she was having chest pains to come get her for work and take her to the hospital.Her brother and all her supposed friends had refused to come get her.I guess they knew what I figured but I wasn’t taking the chance that it could be real because I did love her.I do love her; I just don’t like her very much these days.When we got to the hospital they tried to make her comfortable and it wasn’t long till I learned the real reason we were there.An old tactic she had used a lot in the years I had come to know her was getting sick when she was fighting with her significant other.In this case her girlfriend and her were fighting.They had a huge fight the weekend before.My guess is her girlfriend was tired of footing the bill for her ride through life.As with everyone she dated this was the love of her life.There couldn’t possibly be anyone else like her and it was making her physically sick.It is a tactic she uses too.She is good at the illness and crocodile tears as I’ve found over the years.I still tried to have faith and be her friend.My heart wasn’t willing to believe she could be so fake and I did love her.When she lost her job from calling off work so much and probably from attitude she told me she never planned to work again.She didn’t want to.I just shook my head as I thought back to a day she stood in my mothers’ living room and told her what bums she had in her family for not working when they could and wanting other people to support them.I guess instead of believing that she must have actually been jealous that they were not working.There are so many incidents I could go over.So many things that just make me shake my head but it was becoming very apparent to me that she came first in her world.It didn’t matter as long as she got what she wanted who got hurt and unfortunately that includes her children who have watched a slew of people come in and out of her life.They have watched as she put those people before them.One Christmas it broke my heart as she dumped them off at my parents and said she wasn’t going to spend any time with them over Christmas he could have them because she was going to LaPorte with her girlfriend to see her children for the holidays.Her girlfriends’ children were adults.How could any parent willingly give up holiday time with their kids?They are not little that long.Then there is the Christmas she had her son committed to an institution for a week, went and picked him up on the 23rd of December and got in a fight with him and had him recommitted till after the New Year.During that time she didn’t visit him very much either.She wanted him to respect her.Well respect is earned and she sure wasn’t doing anything to earn his.She let girlfriends’ she would date slap her children around.That one killed me.If I ever saw an adult slap one of those kids I’d knock them flat on their ass no matter what the kids were doing. Yes that includes if I saw her do it.It’s a good thing for her that last year when she decided to get him down and beat him on the ground that it was her mother that called the police on her and not me there to see it. The story would have ended a lot different.The things those children have seen in their lives adults shouldn’t have to see.They have been subjected to wild parties, drug dealers, junkies… multiple moves which keep them from making friends.It makes me sad and sick hearted to think about it. They shouldn’t have to live like that.They don’t want to live like that and hopefully the court system will be smart enough to see through her bullshit and give them to him.I have no faith in our system though.The woman has had police to her address multiple times; had her son on the ground beating him; and has done a countless amount of other things including siding with a woman who was threatening her son (When he was 11).Yet our courts still haven’t seen fit to remove them from her care.These agencies are so screwed up and they wonder why kids go missing and dead yet they don’t see anything wrong with any of this?I guess they are too busy going after the parents that actually care and try to teach their children right.She’s never going to take accountability for what she owes or what she’s done.I’ve come to that conclusion.She’s even trying to get him to pay $4000 she spent last year back to the government that she owes them and she won’t think twice about it if for some reason our government keeps its standard of stupidity and makes him pay it. She’s on probation and yet she goes anywhere she damn pleases and it doesn’t seem like much of a punishment to me.It’s a small town and female probation officer, who she may know may be the reason why she’s getting away with little punishment.Who knows?It’s not right.She has practically bled her mother dry financially too.It’s a pity that she would do that to her but I guess if you care so little for anyone other than yourself it doesn’t matter.I like her current girlfriend.She seems like a sweet kid.I just hope she buckles up for the ride because it’s going to get bumpy.A leopard can’t change its spots.It might hide its’ spots for a while but trust me she’ll get burned and used.I wish I didn’t feel that way.I feel like the woman I knew died because the woman I thought she was probably never existed and I’m sure she may see this or be shown it or read it and it may piss her off.I don’t really care to tell you the truth.I fell off her radar a long time ago.She’s not who I thought she was.She in my mind right now is a user and a liar. I wish she could do something to change that but recent events have proven it may never happen.Her son is a good boy.He has anger issues but hell I’d have anger issues if I was him too.He just needs to learn to use that anger constructively and not destructively.He needs to let it make him stronger.He is loved more than life and no matter what anyone else says he is a good kid.So it’s been a heartbreaking journey of twenty years.Here is hoping that sometime this year the healing can begin for all.
