Chapter 2: Growing Up

....when my father split from my mother It was around that time that we started the "cycle" as I like to call it

my mother.....

despite all her faults...

was a great mother

the best i could have hoped for really...

.. but ..

her choices during my childhood left a profound mark on my life....

when the cycle started my mother was just a newly single mother with 3 children and a 4th on the way....

so to try her best to take care of us she started working 2 jobs...and sometimes of she can handle it a 3rd

..yea.....she was a staunch supportor of the strong independent female movement

but honestly looking back I can see how it all took a tole on her....

she believed that she should be able to take care of her kids without outside help....

But because of that when no one was looking or when she saw that she was alone...

I saw the tears...

I saw the frustration.....

I saw the helplessness...

i also saw when she picked up the bottle for the first time...

I saw a lot too much for my age yet I couldn't look away....

.....I should also mention that I am my mother's only son

the rest of her 4 kids was girls.....

and while my sister grew up with everything they wanted from their fathers

I had none of that.....so everything I had came from her sweat and tears

also while my sister's father provided everything that my sisters wanted.....they never provided with what they needed...

...so while they showed off their new electronics and toys.....

..... my mother was in the background on the phone with the landlord begging for an extension on the rent...

.....or sometimes while my sister's would be gone with their father's for the weekend..... I would sit with my mother in the dark.....because she didn't have enough money to pay the light bill.....

....at that time i would see her battle silently with herself.....

....before ultimately giving a big sigh and pich up her phone.....

....she would talk with someone briefly and then shower and wait for them to show up....

only when it was close to time they would arrive would she ask me to " please play outside for a little bit "

...when i leave i see the guy arrive.....and i see when he would leave a few hours later

I would see the power back on....

.... but my mother in the shower for and hour and hot steam billowing out from under the door... music turned up loud

But between the songs... during that little break I would hear the soft crying...

I didn't now at the time.....

back looking I really wished I could have done something....

anything... to stop her from going down the rabbit hole that led to her lifestyle and chioce later...

.....to support and take care of us we moved....

.... a lot..

at first it was just to find more affordable housing on her income while taking care of 4 kids...

but as we grew older...

the demands and expenses kept coming..... to the point that little by little I saw my mother had become a shell of her former self

I had no idea on how to stop it because by this point I was still too young and i only knew her love as a parent and I clung to it like a lifeline.....

Seeing her become like that hurt more than a little bit...

we moved around so much that it seemed like every year or ever 2 year we would need to move again

I not talking and moving to a different side of the city

no I mean move to entirely city's miles away or to another state

It was increasingly hard on me to make friends....

.... after my 2nd move I knew deep down what was the point in making friends if as soon as we became friends I would have to move again..

So with each move I became more and more closed off the everyone who wasn't my immediate family

... even then it really only extended to my mother as by then I held resentment for my sisters.....for always flaunting their relationship with their fathers in my face...and all the thing they bought them

..... but....

really ...

in my opinion ....

.while although things was not really all that great.

one man changed everything

to this day I honestly don't know how my mother met him

all I know was that from day one he was no good

He was just a little to close to all my sisters....

and for some reason really wanted to be my friend or get me to like him

....but than the drugs started.....

and everything changed

back than he was some low to mid level drug dealer and he would always have different drugs spead around the house.....

it didn't matter in what form it was.....he did and he made it all...

right there on the family living room

But it was want he would do while on those drugs that help shape me.....

...he had somehow gotten my mother addicted to a certain drug..... and in the new state she found herself in... at the time she clung to him and that... " release " of you will.....of all her life's frustration...

and she fell hard

Not to the point where she lost all her jobs

....but at home

.....she just wasn't " There " anymore

It was also during this time that the guy made his move.