Some thoughts...
I have alot I need to get off my chest..so just bear with me. This is not an angsty post, or a rant, just a post to shed some light on my past and alot of things that you guys may or may not know about me. This post is probably going to come across as being disjointed and following an inconsistent time frame, as I will be hopping back and forth between past and present events. Just try to follow along. It's a long entry, but it explains alot..
I guess what triggered this post is well, a lot of things. Feelings about my current situation, about how others view me, about, well, a lot of things. I guess what is really upsetting me is how quick people are to jump and say that I am immature, or spoiled, or a rotten brat, or other things like that, things that I'm really not. I'm not as immature as you guys like to think, infact I act a lot more mature than most people my age. I have been through alot in my life and it's all shaped me into who I am today. I guess for this to make sense I'll have to go back abit, and explain some things about how I grew up, and what I have went through. I do not expect you guys to understand this stuff, just how I do not expect to understand some of the experiences you guys have had. However all I ask is that you maintain an open mind and atleast -try- to understand what this feels like for me.
When I was younger I was exposed to alot of things that most kids my age didn't have to deal with. When I was in elementary school, infact, even before that when I was in kindergarten I was fully aware of my family's struggles with money, and with eachother. I saw alot of things first hand which my peers wouldn't see until they were much older, if even at all. My uncle was, at the time, a serious alcoholic and every time he would come over along with my aunt and grandma, big fights would erupt throughout my household. I watched the rift between my dad and his sister grow bigger and bigger, and I saw first hand all the pain that it caused us. Whenever they did invite us to thier house, it was only to brag about how they have this and that and we don't. As for my uncle, he was borderline abusive. He often 'played' rough with me which lead to several bloody noses now and then. He would get drunk and yell at me, my family, anything that crossed his path. His drunken antics caught up with him though, and he began to have serious health problems. When I was maybe 7 or 8 or so, he got up off the couch, walked towards the kitchen, then doubled over and began to vomit blood right infront of me. So at a very young age I saw the harsh effects of alcoholism. Trust me, seeing your uncle, no matter how much you may resent him, puking blood right infront of you is an image that WILL stay with you. However our family problems at the time were bad, but not too bad. Our financial problems were another story. We had come to this country as poor immigrants, and within 4 or 5 years we already owned a home. However our happiness was short lived. My dad's employer had decided to just fly away to some tropical island for a vacation, leaving my dad high and dry for a few months. That's how it started....bills piled up. Credit cards were used to pay off other credit cards. Our life came spiraling down. I was still in elementary school when this was happening. I was a little girl, but I wasn't stupid. I saw that my family was falling apart. My parents were always arguing..dad was always yelling..mom was always crying. Our money issues started to consume us and become the only thing on our minds. Then it started. Bill collectors began calling and being very nasty and hostile with us. 'Bitch', 'Lazy mother fucker' and 'bastard' were all terms that were slung at my parents. I remember watching mom pick up the phone one day, and I could hear yelling on the other end of the line. I watched it go on, watched her face contort into this pained expression...watched her hang up the phone and then start crying. Even at that young age, I understood the great hurt that money can cause. This scenario repeated a few times until it became an unspoken rule in the house to never pick up the house line, and use only the business line whenever we needed to get intouch with one another. The horrors of being harrassed by the bill collectors sunk in so deep that even to this day we do not pick up the house line. It is there..it is functional, but we have become conditioned to never, ever use it. I watched our family continue to spiral down into financial despair. In school, I had no friend in which I could confide these fears and feelings to. These were all just happy kids. They didn't know what 'bankrupcy' was, they didn't know who bill collectors were, or that they even existed. They didn't know about anything that I went through, and in turn thier very lack of knowledge isolated me from them. Thier life consisted of toys, hopscotch, and birthday parties. Mine consisted of coming home to a broken family, worrying about where we will get our money from, and living in fear of the repo men coming and taking everything from us. I was stripped of my child hood innocence. So young, and I had already been exposed to the harsh reality of life. Those bill collectors didn't care about anything but the money that we owed them...to them we were not a struggling family of four just trying to live from one day to another, we were horrible delinquents who deserved to be punished severely. We eventually were driven to file bankrupcy. We managed to get by okay. The bigger stores like Sears let us keep all our appliances, even though they were unpaid. We kept the cars. We kept the house. All we lost was a camcorder. A shrewd loan shark company had lent my father money, but they wanted collateral incase said money could not be paid back, so mom put up her camcorder. Sure enough, a couple of big repo goons showed up on our doorstep to take our camcorder. A camcorder that was worth maybe one or two hundreds at best.
However our bankrupcy in 1998 did not fix things. Our credit was ruined, and our lifestyle continued to deteriorate. Fast foreward to today and we still have rather poor credit (although mom and I do find amusement in the fact that her credit number is '666') and we still have lots of debts. However our family situation as deteriorated even further. Every day they fight..every day I come home to 'Look how much your brother spent again! He's going to ruin us!", "Look how insensitive your father is being" and "Look how irrational and crazy mom is acting". Everyone is at everyone else's throats. So much so that last year my parents nearly got a divorce. The amount of love that remains in this family is like a thin veil..it's there...but just barely. All they do is fight, but then again, that's all they ever did. I grew up in a broken family. We are all still together, but we are still broken. Just because you can take the pieces of a shattered vase and glue them together so that the vase appears to be whole means nothing. It's still broken. It will never be 'whole' again. Over time those cracks will grow, and eventually you won't be able to put it back together anymore. That's how this family is. I have been coming home to this broken family every day now for the past 16 years, although for about 4 of those years, in the beginning, things were abit better. I remain strong though, and I try so desperately to keep us all together. I try to save the family as much as I can, and I am doing so currently with these fundraising commissions. I do not enjoy the work. I do not enjoy having to crank out sketch after sketch with the mortage payment deadline creeping up on me so fast. It's emotionally and physically draining, but I am doing it anyway, regardless of my personal comfort. I am doing it because I love my family. I am doing it because I want to help us. Now you tell me how I am immature. I took the most massive burden in this household, paying the mortgage, all by myself because I love my family and I want to help. We are facing forclosure on our house and I am doing all that I can to avoid that. My parents worked too hard for this house, and I want them to be able to grow old and spend thier last moments in this home, as a family. I have taken on the burden so that they can have that, so that they won't have to grow old in some cold, sterile nursing home. Very few people that I know who are my age would do this. No one I know in school has had to do this, or would do it. So tell me again, how am I immature? I think that sacrificing all personal gain and comfort and taking on the biggest family burden ALL BY YOURSELF is the most noble thing you can do at ANY age, much less at 16. A $2,300 mortgage is no small task. I know many adults who struggle with such a payment.
If you think that I am immature because of the things I talk about, well then think about this. Yes, I talk about boys, school, and cars, among other things. Does this make me immature? No. Yes, I like cars, especially luxury cars like BMW and Mercedes. Does this make me spoiled or immature? No. I like these cars, yes, but I do not expect my parents to buy me such a vehicle. I DO want to drive a BMW 3-series, but you know what? I want to WORK for it. I have grown up seeing how hard my parents struggle for what little we do have, so do you think I am that insensitive to heap a $15,000 car on them as an additional burden? If I get that car, it will be because I worked hard for it and paid for it with my hard earned money. And in that case, there is nothing immature about that. There is nothing spoiled about working hard to buy something nice for yourself. Now, if you have gripes about me chattering away about boys, again, there is nothing wrong with that. Yes, I am single. Yes, I hate it. Yes, I would like to have someone special in my life, and I do flirt alot and chase after boys, but again, how does that make me immature? Because I have feelings and *gasp* needs, I am immature? I have been through alot of hardships in my life, and have been very deprived of love and affection from family and the opposite sex. To be quite honest I don't even know quite how to react when a guy DOES take interest in me, since that is such a foreign experience for me. I have had only two boyfriends in my life. That is it, two. The first one was great, and that was honestly the happiest four months of my life. The second one was a jerk. He treated me like utter shit, and I was his girlfriend only in name. He cheated on me, was verbally abusive and borderlined on being physically abusive. I was caught in that on again off again 'relationship' for almost 8 months. If you think that I am too immature to handle a relationship, or that I only want sex, you are wrong. I have been on both sides of the fence. I have had a good, healthy, functional relationship, and I have been put through hell and treated worse than a mangey dog. And surprise surprise, as much as I chase after boys, I'm still a virgin! I could have easily lost my virginity at age 13 to a guy who I was 'friends with benefits' with. But I didn't. I refused to have sex with him, and in turn he tried to rape me. I defended myself and was able to get away. I've had many chances to have sex, but honestly there is only ONE person that I was involved with that I would have willingly had sex with, and he knows who he is. So even with boys, I am mature and responsible. I'm not some cheap hussy that will let anyone screw my brains out. Yes, I chase boys and I flirt alot, but what I am looking for is not some cheap thrill or fling, I want a relationship. Believe me, I know more about how to have a good, healthy, functional relationship than you guys can imagine. My own 23 year old brother often approaches me seeking help when he's having relationship problems, and I always am able to fix things. Don't think that I just want a boyfriend so I can have sex and enjoy the 'physical pleasures' that come with having a relationship. I fully understand the emotional aspects of it and am certainly mature enough to handle that properly. That is also the reason why I date older guys. They are mature enough to understand what I am looking for, and most of the ones I have met are looking for the same sort of relationship. So no, just because I chase boys does not mean that I am immature or 'easy' and only looking for one thing.
It just really does bother me when people make judgements about my character without even knowing me. I've heard some of the things that are said about me, and about how people think I am immature, irresponsible, and without morals or decency. And you know what? That hurts, especially since I couldn't be farther from the truth. I am a lover, I am a fighter. I'm a sister, a daughter, a friend. I am all those things and more. I am not immature, I am not immoral, and I am not 'easy'. To all those who think that about me, it's your loss, and if you could open up your minds and your hearts and really try to get to know me, you would realize how wrong your assumptions of me really were.
Take from this entry what you wish, I just needed to shed some light on this matter. Love me, hate me, this is who I am and that won't change.
I guess what triggered this post is well, a lot of things. Feelings about my current situation, about how others view me, about, well, a lot of things. I guess what is really upsetting me is how quick people are to jump and say that I am immature, or spoiled, or a rotten brat, or other things like that, things that I'm really not. I'm not as immature as you guys like to think, infact I act a lot more mature than most people my age. I have been through alot in my life and it's all shaped me into who I am today. I guess for this to make sense I'll have to go back abit, and explain some things about how I grew up, and what I have went through. I do not expect you guys to understand this stuff, just how I do not expect to understand some of the experiences you guys have had. However all I ask is that you maintain an open mind and atleast -try- to understand what this feels like for me.
When I was younger I was exposed to alot of things that most kids my age didn't have to deal with. When I was in elementary school, infact, even before that when I was in kindergarten I was fully aware of my family's struggles with money, and with eachother. I saw alot of things first hand which my peers wouldn't see until they were much older, if even at all. My uncle was, at the time, a serious alcoholic and every time he would come over along with my aunt and grandma, big fights would erupt throughout my household. I watched the rift between my dad and his sister grow bigger and bigger, and I saw first hand all the pain that it caused us. Whenever they did invite us to thier house, it was only to brag about how they have this and that and we don't. As for my uncle, he was borderline abusive. He often 'played' rough with me which lead to several bloody noses now and then. He would get drunk and yell at me, my family, anything that crossed his path. His drunken antics caught up with him though, and he began to have serious health problems. When I was maybe 7 or 8 or so, he got up off the couch, walked towards the kitchen, then doubled over and began to vomit blood right infront of me. So at a very young age I saw the harsh effects of alcoholism. Trust me, seeing your uncle, no matter how much you may resent him, puking blood right infront of you is an image that WILL stay with you. However our family problems at the time were bad, but not too bad. Our financial problems were another story. We had come to this country as poor immigrants, and within 4 or 5 years we already owned a home. However our happiness was short lived. My dad's employer had decided to just fly away to some tropical island for a vacation, leaving my dad high and dry for a few months. That's how it started....bills piled up. Credit cards were used to pay off other credit cards. Our life came spiraling down. I was still in elementary school when this was happening. I was a little girl, but I wasn't stupid. I saw that my family was falling apart. My parents were always arguing..dad was always yelling..mom was always crying. Our money issues started to consume us and become the only thing on our minds. Then it started. Bill collectors began calling and being very nasty and hostile with us. 'Bitch', 'Lazy mother fucker' and 'bastard' were all terms that were slung at my parents. I remember watching mom pick up the phone one day, and I could hear yelling on the other end of the line. I watched it go on, watched her face contort into this pained expression...watched her hang up the phone and then start crying. Even at that young age, I understood the great hurt that money can cause. This scenario repeated a few times until it became an unspoken rule in the house to never pick up the house line, and use only the business line whenever we needed to get intouch with one another. The horrors of being harrassed by the bill collectors sunk in so deep that even to this day we do not pick up the house line. It is there..it is functional, but we have become conditioned to never, ever use it. I watched our family continue to spiral down into financial despair. In school, I had no friend in which I could confide these fears and feelings to. These were all just happy kids. They didn't know what 'bankrupcy' was, they didn't know who bill collectors were, or that they even existed. They didn't know about anything that I went through, and in turn thier very lack of knowledge isolated me from them. Thier life consisted of toys, hopscotch, and birthday parties. Mine consisted of coming home to a broken family, worrying about where we will get our money from, and living in fear of the repo men coming and taking everything from us. I was stripped of my child hood innocence. So young, and I had already been exposed to the harsh reality of life. Those bill collectors didn't care about anything but the money that we owed them...to them we were not a struggling family of four just trying to live from one day to another, we were horrible delinquents who deserved to be punished severely. We eventually were driven to file bankrupcy. We managed to get by okay. The bigger stores like Sears let us keep all our appliances, even though they were unpaid. We kept the cars. We kept the house. All we lost was a camcorder. A shrewd loan shark company had lent my father money, but they wanted collateral incase said money could not be paid back, so mom put up her camcorder. Sure enough, a couple of big repo goons showed up on our doorstep to take our camcorder. A camcorder that was worth maybe one or two hundreds at best.
However our bankrupcy in 1998 did not fix things. Our credit was ruined, and our lifestyle continued to deteriorate. Fast foreward to today and we still have rather poor credit (although mom and I do find amusement in the fact that her credit number is '666') and we still have lots of debts. However our family situation as deteriorated even further. Every day they fight..every day I come home to 'Look how much your brother spent again! He's going to ruin us!", "Look how insensitive your father is being" and "Look how irrational and crazy mom is acting". Everyone is at everyone else's throats. So much so that last year my parents nearly got a divorce. The amount of love that remains in this family is like a thin veil..it's there...but just barely. All they do is fight, but then again, that's all they ever did. I grew up in a broken family. We are all still together, but we are still broken. Just because you can take the pieces of a shattered vase and glue them together so that the vase appears to be whole means nothing. It's still broken. It will never be 'whole' again. Over time those cracks will grow, and eventually you won't be able to put it back together anymore. That's how this family is. I have been coming home to this broken family every day now for the past 16 years, although for about 4 of those years, in the beginning, things were abit better. I remain strong though, and I try so desperately to keep us all together. I try to save the family as much as I can, and I am doing so currently with these fundraising commissions. I do not enjoy the work. I do not enjoy having to crank out sketch after sketch with the mortage payment deadline creeping up on me so fast. It's emotionally and physically draining, but I am doing it anyway, regardless of my personal comfort. I am doing it because I love my family. I am doing it because I want to help us. Now you tell me how I am immature. I took the most massive burden in this household, paying the mortgage, all by myself because I love my family and I want to help. We are facing forclosure on our house and I am doing all that I can to avoid that. My parents worked too hard for this house, and I want them to be able to grow old and spend thier last moments in this home, as a family. I have taken on the burden so that they can have that, so that they won't have to grow old in some cold, sterile nursing home. Very few people that I know who are my age would do this. No one I know in school has had to do this, or would do it. So tell me again, how am I immature? I think that sacrificing all personal gain and comfort and taking on the biggest family burden ALL BY YOURSELF is the most noble thing you can do at ANY age, much less at 16. A $2,300 mortgage is no small task. I know many adults who struggle with such a payment.
If you think that I am immature because of the things I talk about, well then think about this. Yes, I talk about boys, school, and cars, among other things. Does this make me immature? No. Yes, I like cars, especially luxury cars like BMW and Mercedes. Does this make me spoiled or immature? No. I like these cars, yes, but I do not expect my parents to buy me such a vehicle. I DO want to drive a BMW 3-series, but you know what? I want to WORK for it. I have grown up seeing how hard my parents struggle for what little we do have, so do you think I am that insensitive to heap a $15,000 car on them as an additional burden? If I get that car, it will be because I worked hard for it and paid for it with my hard earned money. And in that case, there is nothing immature about that. There is nothing spoiled about working hard to buy something nice for yourself. Now, if you have gripes about me chattering away about boys, again, there is nothing wrong with that. Yes, I am single. Yes, I hate it. Yes, I would like to have someone special in my life, and I do flirt alot and chase after boys, but again, how does that make me immature? Because I have feelings and *gasp* needs, I am immature? I have been through alot of hardships in my life, and have been very deprived of love and affection from family and the opposite sex. To be quite honest I don't even know quite how to react when a guy DOES take interest in me, since that is such a foreign experience for me. I have had only two boyfriends in my life. That is it, two. The first one was great, and that was honestly the happiest four months of my life. The second one was a jerk. He treated me like utter shit, and I was his girlfriend only in name. He cheated on me, was verbally abusive and borderlined on being physically abusive. I was caught in that on again off again 'relationship' for almost 8 months. If you think that I am too immature to handle a relationship, or that I only want sex, you are wrong. I have been on both sides of the fence. I have had a good, healthy, functional relationship, and I have been put through hell and treated worse than a mangey dog. And surprise surprise, as much as I chase after boys, I'm still a virgin! I could have easily lost my virginity at age 13 to a guy who I was 'friends with benefits' with. But I didn't. I refused to have sex with him, and in turn he tried to rape me. I defended myself and was able to get away. I've had many chances to have sex, but honestly there is only ONE person that I was involved with that I would have willingly had sex with, and he knows who he is. So even with boys, I am mature and responsible. I'm not some cheap hussy that will let anyone screw my brains out. Yes, I chase boys and I flirt alot, but what I am looking for is not some cheap thrill or fling, I want a relationship. Believe me, I know more about how to have a good, healthy, functional relationship than you guys can imagine. My own 23 year old brother often approaches me seeking help when he's having relationship problems, and I always am able to fix things. Don't think that I just want a boyfriend so I can have sex and enjoy the 'physical pleasures' that come with having a relationship. I fully understand the emotional aspects of it and am certainly mature enough to handle that properly. That is also the reason why I date older guys. They are mature enough to understand what I am looking for, and most of the ones I have met are looking for the same sort of relationship. So no, just because I chase boys does not mean that I am immature or 'easy' and only looking for one thing.
It just really does bother me when people make judgements about my character without even knowing me. I've heard some of the things that are said about me, and about how people think I am immature, irresponsible, and without morals or decency. And you know what? That hurts, especially since I couldn't be farther from the truth. I am a lover, I am a fighter. I'm a sister, a daughter, a friend. I am all those things and more. I am not immature, I am not immoral, and I am not 'easy'. To all those who think that about me, it's your loss, and if you could open up your minds and your hearts and really try to get to know me, you would realize how wrong your assumptions of me really were.
Take from this entry what you wish, I just needed to shed some light on this matter. Love me, hate me, this is who I am and that won't change.