It's Time to be Grateful

Although I am probably facing more struggles than I ever have, I know that I am a strong individual and take a lot for granted. I conceived two boys and some people can't conceive at all and that's also something I take for granted a lot. Once when I was at my ex-boyfriend's house, his uncle and his new wife came by. At one point we were talking about the birth of my ex-boyfriend and his sister and the new wife just breaks down crying. Later that evening I was informed that she couldn't get pregnant. I too had that fear after the surgery I had when I was 14 so when I conceived and birthed my first son, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Not only was I happy I could conceive but I was happy my son survived his birth since his brother prior to him did not make it due to umbilical cord strangulation. I've been complaining a lot because of my son's terrible twos and I'm just happy that I have that to complain about. I still wouldn't trade it for the world.

In addition to my sons, there are a lot of things in life for all of us to be grateful for. The fact that after three years I've successfully enrolled myself in college while being a mother of a soon to be two-year-old, pregnant, homeless, and going through a divorce. I continue to prove to myself through the specific experiences of homelessness and abandonment issues, I've always been determined enough to succeed educationally on and off for ten years. I'm grateful for the fact that I now have this blog and it is becoming a big part of my life. My goal is to take up blogging as a serious career which I have already been taken steps to do so. This blog has been a great venting platform and positive way to express me while dealing with my depression. I will continue to update this blog even after the course I created it for ends. I'm grateful for many things, the list goes on.

Some good things that I have started taking in are the act of meditation, the Baha'i faith, and "me time". While I haven't gotten to the "me time" part of that yet, I know how important it is to incorporate that soon. I will be a mom of two soon and it's going to get a whole lot harder to get some "me time". Meditation is also something I can absorb wisdom from and decompress a little. It can be hard to find time to meditate as a busy mom and student, but even five minutes a day has been helpful to me. Meditating slows my thoughts and regulates my mind. The Baha'i faith is something I am just discovering as a description of what my beliefs always were. Lately, I've been feeling forced to do things against my morals and the Baha'i faith is finally something that I feel I can claim to justify my morals to the government with the rules against vaccines. I am unable to enroll my son into daycare because I don't believe in immunizations and I finally found a belief that I can claim so that I don't have to vaccinate my kids and that is being Baha'i. If I incorporate more of these good things, I will be able to open my third eye to all that I take for granted and I will give thanks to the creator.

Bahaullah Friends

I Need to Push Through

This week was one of the hardest weeks of my life. As a 6 month pregnant mom of a 23 month old son, I am not only dealing with homelessness, but I am also dealing with extreme anxiety and depression. I'm feeling like I have no options and it hurts to breathe. Midnight on Saturday, October the 13th, I was told by my mom that I could stay with her at her friend's house. I was already staying at another one of her friend Maria's house, but Maria has a cat and a dog, I am severely allergic and have been dealing with many nights of waking up not being able to breathe. I suffer from asthma, eczema, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), fibromyalgia, and post par-tum depression. Living at Maria's house on two matching love-seat couches pushed together in the living room with no privacy, wasn't good for me in any way, shape, or form.

Knowing that my health was suffering and my comfort was at risk, my mother told me to stay with her at another one of her friend's houses named Scott. I agreed and began to pack my things excited to live with my mother again and excited to live in a house where there are no pets. My little sister, Maritza, who now has her license, picked me up in her boyfriend's car and helped me moved my things to Scott's house. Afterwards, we hung out for a little while at her college, Curry College, with my son and ate ice cream as we waited for my mother to be ready for us to pick her up with the rest of her things. When my mother was ready, she called my sister but kept insisting that my sister drop me off at Scott's house before picking her up; we could hear it in her voice that she was slurring her speech. My sister and I didn't listen as the car wasn't hers and she was paying for gas.

When we arrived to my mother's location, we noticed the stench of alcohol falling off of her. Immediately, I became infuriated, my mom has relapsed after telling me she's been sober since December of 2017 in an attempt to get my youngest sister out of DCF's custody. When we arrived back at Scott's house, my mother and I started to put away our things and blow up the air mattress that we would be sleeping on together, my mom was making the bed and I was sitting near at the kitchen table sore for pulling a muscle in my back from all of the moving. As my mother made the bed I noticed that the bed sheet was on the wrong way so I told my mother and her response was " Why don't you shut the fuck up and make the bed yourself? If you don't like it then you and your son can leave." Wow, I am still shocked as I write this with tears overflowing my face. Infuriated I responded and said "I can't my back hurts to even bend, I threw it out earlier lifting the microwave by myself." Honestly I am so overwhelmed at this point that I don't even remember every word that we exchanged.

Finally, it reached the point where my mother crossed the line and yanked my son up by his arm almost dislocating his shoulder. I saw red because once you mess with my kids, I don't care who you are. Adrenaline kicked in and at this point I grab my son say to my mom " You better not ever touch my son like that again or you won't see him for 15 years just like you kept me from my dad for 15 years. He came out of my pussy not yours and I'll be damned if you think you can disrespect me just because you're my mom! THIS IS MY SON!" I don't know what she responded with but the arguing started to go back and forth and my son was already hysterical from the yelling and being yanked. Out of no where my mom shoves me with my son on my right hip and I shoved her back. 

From that point on, the shoving turned into her fighting me with my son still on my hip at 6 months pregnant. I was kicked, placed in a choke hold, and punched repeatedly in my left arm while trying my best to shield my crying son and my stomach. My son was also very sick and I refused to leave into the cold at midnight with no place to go and no money, I called the cops. Until the cops showed up the yelling continued and I was escorted out of the apartment with my son and my some of my things and placed safely in the back of the cop car. I called my husband and him and his father hopped right on the highway from Rhode Island to get me from the station. Vomiting from the severe anxiety and sore all over,I stayed over the weekend, yet I am still not welcomed there because of all of the back and forth I did with possibly divorcing my husband.


Now that I am in Boston, I went to police station today to get the police report and broke down crying as I explained to the officer what happened Saturday. The kind police officer gave me $25 so that I wouldn't be stranded and have a way to school and the crying persisted as I thanked her. I went to the Social Security Office afterwards to try to retrieve missing social security cards I needed in order to try to go to a shelter even though I was told by my previous case worker that I would no longer be eligible for any homeless shelter from 12 months because my husband didn't fill his one requirement of getting a job and supporting me. This placed me in a further depression, I called my husband because I realized I was missing my birth certificates and I need them to apply for any type of shelter and I was going to have to do it without him this time if I wanted a chance. My husband and I had another heated argument about me not being able to stay with him and again, I lost it.

I started hysterically crying and the guard told me to take the phone call outside since it was becoming too heated. I hung up and said "I hung up anyways." Still angry and hurt, my number was called and the woman at the counter tried to calm me down and reassure me that everything was going to be okay. I felt hopeless but her words helped because I'm on the verge of being suicidal but I can't take my life because I have my kids. I am now at my college writing this blog and cramming in last minute assignments before my 2:30 English class, because despite all of this, I will STILL rise to the top.

Alcohol Savior

Throughout most of my teenage years, I suffered from verbal, physical, and mental abuse as well as homelessness. Currently I am homeless again and I have more positive hope than ever before that I'm going to swim to the top of this deep blue sea whilst surrounded by great white sharks. My mother is a recovering, severe, alcoholic. She's been drinking since her adolescent years and it's almost as if alcoholism was passed along as a family tradition. Knowing that fact, I know that I too could easily become the version of my mother that I hated.

Initially, my mother's downfall started with the breakup of her 16 year relationship with my ex step father. Though they never married, I only knew him as "daddy" and until this day I call him daddy. We were living in Fall River, MA. My mom, daddy, and two younger sisters Maritza and Mayra-liz. Mayra-liz was one years old at time, Maritza was twelve years old, and I was 14. I remember seeing the last day daddy let my mom abuse him as he walked out of the bathroom with his hat slapped over his eyes after a stretch of loud physical commotion. Afterwards he left, to Georgia. He left his family behind and I became my mother's new punching bag. That is when we moved in with my mother's mom. Abuelita or Wella for short. Shortly afterwards, Wella died and my mom faced homelessness for the first time with her daughters. My mom didn't handle any of these traumatic back to back events well at all and became a severe alcoholic who is now recovering because of my youngest sister being taken away by DCF. She has since been sober for a year and has been my boulder through my current struggles and tribulations. 

Life has literally come full circle. It is thanks to my mother's mistakes that I can healthily choose how not to follow in her same footsteps even when given the same circumstances. Currently I am going through divorce and as mentioned before I am also homeless again. I, like my mom was, am a homeless mother going through a difficult breakup. I could easily give into an addiction like alcoholism, but instead I am using it as a motivation. That is why I've enrolled myself back into college. I'd rather setup a better future for my sons then to sit around and feel sorry for myself. Although I do have days where I want to end my life and days where I doubt myself; but I look at my kids and I see that I would be a bigger failure if I took any sort of step back.

 My mother may not have always been there for me then, but she is there for me now; more than anyone in my life ever has been. She's been my support financially and emotionally even though she too has a lot on her plate with trying to get custody of my sister back and sleeping in a room she pays rent for. However, somehow, she makes a way even when me or my ex husband can't afford diapers she will find a way to get me some. When I'm crying late at night she picks up the phone and keeps me grounded, and she plans for ways on making the future better, and we together, learned how to speak positive things into existence. There is power in words. Part of that power has allowed me to be where I am today even though it is certainly not my final destination.