Pop!!!
I am always in my bubble. Never wanting it to pop because I am so afraid to meet new people or see the world outside of my form of reality. I am so terrified of the way other people see me.
My name is Diane. I am a middle-aged African American who is still trying to figure out this thing called life. I have three kids, two girls and one boy. All three have different dads. No, I am not promiscuous, it just did not make any sense to me to have another child by the same guy who was not doing anything for the one I already had.
My life has been led by many mistakes, mishaps, and bad decisions. I love my life but I can't seem to find a happy medium in it. I'm trying to find my own peace.
Maybe my life started out with a bit of tribulation and just trying to smooth out the rough edges is a job in and of itself. To start off, I'm trying to figure out MY meaning of love.
I hate love. I mean, what is it really? A reason to be treated like an ass, ignored, and called names? Seriously? It is just plain crazy to think that someone, anyone, can really love you unconditionally besides your kids and maybe your mom. Who even knows if dads have that ability at all. That is a sad truth in itself. Love will make you kill someone and even kill yourself, now, damn thats strong or crazy. Maybe love and crazy are the same thing. Whoa, what if? That will explain a lot.
Let's see what ole Webster says about the word love.
Love:an intense feeling for something or someone else
Well that can be cramps. I'm thinking that is what real love is, just plain ole cramps. Webster knows nothing.
Maybe I'm crazy and that is why I hate love. Maybe I am the reason that love makes no sense. Or maybe it's the men in my life that I choose to let in my life, try to rule my life, and then kill my life as I know it. The girls are just the same. They don't love anyone but themselves. Afraid to be the bisexual being that they are because they don't want to be judged. What makes it worse is they have time to judge other bisexual or lesbians who are being real with themselves. I am damn near a senior citizen and still havent found real love that lasts forever. What is really going on?
Truth of the matter is my life has nothing to brag about, in fact, most nights I think about ending the whole breathing oxygen job. My life has been a struggle from age 5, and then it seems to have gotten worse. The people I let into my life are always hurting me. I don't play the victim. I shake it off and move to the next monster in different skin. Funny thing is, at first, they don't seem like monsters, but after a while there comes the pain, the scars that seem to never heal. When I walk in public, I pray no one sees them, I pray that they do not show as clearly as I see them in the mirror.
I think the people who are not in this world have it made. The ones who left me, I envy them. Although I don't know their story either. But I believe if you are somewhere that no one can hurt you anymore then you are in a happy place.
PAST LIFE
Going to my grandma's house was the best every weekend until my parents split. I think when my parents split, that took away protection. Anything could happen to me then and did. Kids are amazing. I feel as if I went around like nothing was going on and I hid it well. I remember the late nights when an older cousin would come into the house at night. How he got in there I really did not know. I think my mind has skips in it though, because how would he know to come for me? So when did this actually start, 4 maybe 3.
I'm not holding grudges, because I know from a psychological point, for it to happen to me, it must have happened to him. WOW, where the hell were the grownups? I guess having their own parties or what have you. Either way, there are a couple of memories that come to mind when I think of the first monster in my life. The time I started to get breasts, the time I started getting pubic hair, the time he put his penis in my mouth for the first time, the first time I ever saw sperm, and the last time it happened.
He used to always suck on my breasts, even when I had not even bumps. As they gradually grew he sucked them more and harder. I think he was really enjoying them, of course he was, though I had no idea how. He would pull on them like he was really trying to detach them from my body. That might explain now why I just prefer them to be licked, don't you new monsters get any ideas. Once they got to where I had to wear a training bra, he was like "damn, they are going to be big". Well what do you know, sometimes monsters are right for the wrong reasons. My breasts are pretty big, not huge, but aggravatingly big.
Most of the time what happened, happened at night, where the light was not as bright, but this particular time it happened at his parents' house. I was watching his baby brother, I really don't know why. Maybe this is what I tell myself. Like I said my memories are in bits and pieces and the main ones do stand out. The reasons why I was at a certain place at a certain time seem to not be as important as what happened. This time it was day time and I was in his mothers bedroom watching his baby brother. I don't know if i went to change the pamper or if i thought he was up. He was asleep, so I went to leave the bedroom and next thing I know, there was the monster. I'm not going to lie, I think I grew to like it, but I was just a kid. Anyway, he came and I was up against the dresser. He then placed his hand inside my shorts, inside my panties, and inside my clit. He was rubbing it back and forth. Once he got inside my panties, his remark was, "oh so we are getting some hair down there". Monsters. All they think about is pleasing themselves. Maybe that's what makes them monsters.
Now this memory may not be for the adults who can not understand what can happen when you are not watching your kids or who your kids are around. No one was in the house but me, or so I thought. My grandparents were always outside doing yard work or working. My monster turned out to be looking for me. Well he must have been looking for me, and he found me. I was coming out of the bathroom and he pushed me back in. I knew what was up but did not expect what was about to happen. He pulled down his pants, and his penis looked like a straight arrow. At that age, I think I was 9, I did not know what was going on. Right now, I know he was erect. Anyway, he asked me to put it in my mouth. I'm thinking all before he would just rub it against my private part, why does he want me to put this in my mouth. I remember the taste of the hair and to be honest, I even remember the smell. It was of some type of body smell mixed with a little bit of sweat. And he pushed it back and forth in my mouth, I don't know if he climaxed or not, that memory is something that I can not recall. But that was really something that made me feel dirty for a while. I wanted to tell someone but I didn't want to get the monster in big trouble. Which, in my day, meant buttwhooping. So I just kept that to myself. I don't know if it ever happened again, but I know I felt like crying at the moment and wished it would never happen again. Maybe he thought he was teaching me something. I don't know.
One night I was at my grandma's house and everyone was asleep. I slept in between my cousin and my sister, so how he knew it was me, I will never know. I felt someone tap me on my back, when I woke up I saw that it was him. He asked me to follow him and I did. We went into the bathroom, I guess that was our spot. He told me to lay on my back, and so I did. He pulled down my panties. They were at my ankles. My gown was up past my breasts, which were not developed yet. He rubbed his penis between my legs and I felt something wet. Next thing I knew he was pulling his penis. He was going up and down and faster and faster, then there was white stuff all over me. My chest all the way down to my private part had the white stuff on it. I'm not going to lie, I really thought it was lotion or milk at first. Then, I was like where in the world would he get milk from. He didn't go into the kitchen, I didn't see him with a jug or a cup so it must have been lotion. When I took the reproductive class in middle school was when I realized that it was sperm.
I was 14 years old when this stopped. And I'm the reason why it stopped. I was babysitting some cousins, and the door was locked. But you know cousins who grow up together know each other, so when the monster came to the door, my baby cousins did not see a monster, they saw a cousin and let him in. He led me to an empty room and proceeded to take my pants and panties down my legs. I didn't want to yell, because I did not want to scare the kids. In my mind, I was just hoping it would hurry up and end and he would hurry up and leave. Next thing I knew, I saw him putting on a condom, I thought, oh my God, are we about to have sex? Apparently so. He got on top of me, and tried his hardest to put it in. I don't know if it went in or not, I do know that it hurt like hell. Then he got up and left. The month after that I missed my period and the only thing that was going through my mind was "what if i'm pregnant by my cousin, this is all my fault. How can I look my aunt in the face?" Luckily, I got my period that month after that. I avoided the monster from there on. There was no way I was going to be the one who messed up the family by having a baby because I can't control a grown ass man. Me being 14 made him 21. I just thought about that. HE WAS A GROWN MAN!!! A MONSTER!!
Monsters come in all shapes and sizes, so don't just think that the monster is always older than you. I'm sure I have been a monster to some of my cousins too. And I know it started while a monster was being one to me. I have apologized to them, and I still have not forgiven myself for doing it to them.
All of my life, people seem to think I have a mean look. Maybe this look is to prevent the monsters from even approaching me, I don't know. But I realize that a mean look stops no REAL MONSTERS.
I still tried to have a normal life outside of what was happening to me. My mother had a monster as a boyfriend. He was really scary. Well not when he was happy, but when he got mad the whole house seemed to turn red, and then my mom would come out the room with a black eye or two black eyes. Then the house would become a normal color again. I remember we were coming home from a store, and on our way into the house, the neighbor asked mom if she was going out that night. On the way in the house, the monster started to yell at my mom. I don't know how she got in the room with him, but they were both in the room and I heard a loud scream. Turns out the monster hit my mom with the heel of his shoe in the eye. She kept screaming that she had to go to the hospital, but he had her hostage in that room. He kept telling her she could die for all he cared, and I believe he meant it. I was too scared to call anyone, I thought the monster would kill me too. But my older sister was brave. She jumped out of the window and ran to call my grandaddy. My grandad came and got my mom out of the room from that monster. What I understand is that monsters understand monsters. That monster who was trying to kill my mom knew that her dad was a senior monster and that he would literally kill him if he would not let him get his child out of that room. That monster let my mom out of that room and my grandad made sure that he left the house. My grandma had to take my mom to the hospital in a hurry. Her eye was huge and it was bleeding real bad. I never understood as a child how she could let someone do that to her and still be with him. But now I do. If you are brought up by a monster, then that is what you will be used to. Normalcy depends on how bad the monster is to you. Like I said, her father was a monster. Her father used to hit her mom too all the time. He even went so far as to abuse her sisters and brothers. He literally shot at all of them. So to know your past is to understand your present and to change your future.
Most of the time, we end up with a person who is similar to our parents. So, if your parents were good to you, you will know how to choose a spouse, lover, or partner. But if your parents were monsters, then all you will end up with are monsters unless you actually know what not to look for, and how to break the chain.
To this day, my mom has nothing bad to say about her father, and to me that is something scary. To live that long with a monster and see what that monster has done to you and your siblings and your mom, and still have nothing bad to say about the biggest monster in your life. JUST SCARY
Back to my life of monsters. As I grew older, I learned to stay away from people. All people. Unless it had something to do with work, I was home. I spent some time in the military, there were no monsters that I knew of there. Whew, dodged that bullet. I actually enjoyed it. Little by little I began to get out of the shell that the monsters in my life put me in. I thought that was it. I thought that there were no more monsters. They all were gone. I would hang out and go to parties. By the time I got out of the military I thought I had found a new me. A life without monsters. Well it did not take long for one to find me, or shall i say i found him.
I was at a cousin's house when I met him. The relationship was kind of fast. Within a month we were going together, or calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend. Within six months, I was pregnant. I'm thinking this was a happy occasion, but who knew when the monster would appear. At six months pregnant, we had this big argument. Next thing I knew, there was the monster. He dragged me into the house, and continuously hit me. I then tried to escape out of the house. I was next door to my cousin who saw that I was in danger and she happened to see my brother. My brother then came into the house and got the monster off of me. I was terrified. I thought I was going to die that day. Thanks to my big brother and my cousin that I didn't.
Remember when I said that I did not understand why my mom still stayed with the monster?
You can never understand anything unless you are in it yourself. I don't even know why I still stayed with the monster I was with after that. I knew from experience that it would happen again. I knew there was a big danger that he might kill me next time. It is almost as if I did not love myself, or did not love myself enough. Sometimes we blame ourselves for the things we go through. And sometimes we are right. That first time was definitely not my fault, but everytime after that , I feel it was my fault. It was my fault that I put my kids through the torment of a monster. It was my fault for continuing a cycle that I knew was not healthy. I will never be able to get that time back, and to my kids, especially my oldest, I apologize for that.
I was with that monster until he cheated on me and I almost killed him in his sleep. Well, not almost killing him, but I hurt him pretty bad. See, sometimes a monster will make you into a monster no matter how hard you try to keep it inside. And it's sad that that was the reason why we broke up. Not because of my kids and what was going on in the house was not healthy but because of my pride of having a man who cheats on me was not going to continue.
After that breakup, I found it better to just be by myself with my kids. I could control myself most of the time, but I can't control how someone else acts.
Last monster in my life I really did not know. I saw his work, though, and to this day I will never forget it. I had a great friend. She was someone who I'll never forget. We would go out and hang sometimes. I met her at work. She was so young and she seemed so sad. She had recently lost a child, but I could tell that that was not where all her sadness stemmed from. She put me in the mind of myself at her age, just a little lost. Like I said we were real close. She started hanging with this monster, and although she couldn't see it, I saw it. I saw what he could do to her. Most monsters' reason for hurting you is because they ;love you, at least that's their reason. I loved her like a baby sister. She was my heart. I told her he was a monster. I told her he could really hurt her. I explained to her about the monsters in my past. What all I've been through with monsters like that.
To this day I don't think she really thought he would hurt her, but I will never know because he killed her. That was the saddest day of my life. The monster killed my baby sister.
Monsters do not have the name monster on their forehead. Sometimes you won't know until it's too late. And sometimes our past won't let us see the person for who they really are. If you have not experienced love, you are truly not going to know what real love is. Before you try to love someone, first, try to truly love yourself. I am still trying to do this.
Somedays I go without thinking about this, but some days this gets me down. The fact that my feelings are warped because of what I've been through.
