Barely Living the America Dream (23)

Life definitely changed after having Little Man but not that drastically, not for a while. I would get used to being a stay at home mom and I didn’t mind at all at first, there was something magical about caring for a new born. Little Man was so little and he was the perfect baby, slept through the nights, never really cried a lot and when he awake he some how knew how to entertain himself, and that was something that would stick with him as he got older.

Jonsey was working at the same distribution center, same shift and with the only car we owned. With only one car and I hadn’t gotten my driver’s license yet, so I spent a lot of time at home and in just a few short months it would start to get to me.

We didn’t really know anybody there in Georgia, we had no church, we only knew the in-laws but that was it. I would be at home by myself with just Little Man and the TV. I think this is when my obsession with the show FRIENDS and Seinfeld started, there wasn’t much else to do but watch TV and surf the internet. I would join a Taste of Home Bulletin Board where I met a ton of good ladies that became pretty close to me and soon they were my friends, the only interacting group of friends I had.

I remember at one point the adopted mom contacting me but I don’t remember how it happened or why. I remember trying to contact the social worker that had handle the case with the three girls before I left home, I remember talking to him and I remember telling him what was going on at home or what had been going on when I was there. I told him there were some concerns and he even told me that after I left home he would make follow up visits with the girls and they would act strange and he had an idea something was going on.  But, he went on to tell me that there wasn’t much he could do and that he was no longer on the case.

Somehow the adopted mother found out that I had been talking to him and I guess that’s why we were in touch again. She was angry that I would do such a thing, that I would go and talk to someone about what was going on at home. I remember there being phone calls and emails between us but they were never nice or fair. I remember her talking about wanting a relationship and such but she wanted it on her terms, like were negotiating a peace treaty or something. And of course there was no apology for what she had done to me, no admittance to what had happened, nothing.  Just like everything else in her life, she wanted what she wanted and she wanted it her way, under her own terms and if you couldn’t do anything the way she wanted, she didn’t want to have anything to do with it or you at all.

So, like always, I had to stop talking to her, I was a mess, I was angry and I couldn’t be like that, especially while trying to take care of a newborn baby. Little Man didn’t need that kind of mom and I honestly just couldn’t deal with the stress and pain from fighting a pointless battle with someone who wasn’t willing to surrender and be reasonable.

As the year went on though, I would struggle with the post partum depression, something I knew about and had read about while being pregnant but didn’t recognize the symptoms as it was happening. I would start to eat out of my depression and boredom. I was home all the time, except for the occasion trip to the store. I had nobody to talk to or interact with, nowhere to go and I guess mentally I was realizing that reality of the current circumstances but didn’t know how to correlate it with post partum depression. I never had negative feelings about or geared towards Little Man though, he was what kept me going. But, I was putting on weight fast though, but it never dawned on me that it was probably from the countless of regular sodas I was drinking every day. I just didn’t really know then what I knew now about calories and stuff. All I knew was that I was an adult and I could eat and drink anything I wanted but I never realized that I was taking in more than what I was putting out physically.

Everything else though in life was going good, it kind of felt like we were living the American dream.  Dad worked, Mom stayed home and took care of the kid and when we got a chance we would do things as a little family. We would go visit nearby parks or go to the Motor Speedway to check out the free stuff to do. All was going fine aside from me fighting a dark demon called depression under the surface but again, I didn’t really know what was what I was dealing with and I wouldn’t know that until years later.

But, our happy little life would soon come to an end. In the summer of 2003, Jonsey would come home from work with a sore back one day. He insisted on going to the doctor to get it checked out since his work was paying for it anyways. The doctor said he probably just pulled a muscle though and that it would heal up with time. But, Jonsey acted like he had broke his back or something. He would find excuses to call in to work and not go in and what started out as it being just one day, eventually turned into enough days that landed him without a job period. To this day, I’ll never understand why he did that, he had pulled a muscle, not become an invalid. So, before we knew it, he was without a job and there was not a single source of income coming in whatsoever. The bills were not being paid at all and I guess he just thought they would pay themselves. He would try to find a job but only managed to land a job selling Kirby Vacuum Cleaners and pay was based on commission only.

The guy who was the sales rep for Kirby somehow met me and he was more convinced that I could sell a Kirby better than Jonsey could. He said I had people skills and had a better handle of myself. So, he insisted that I go with him to go sell Kirby’s and Jonsey and I switched places. He would stay at home with Little Man and I would go to work. The sales rep was a very kind, Christian man and he did what he could to help me out. He would encourage Jonsey to be looking for a job though, something Jonsey didn’t really do. While I was gone during the day selling Kirby’s, Jonsey would stay at home and do nothing, literally. I would come home at the end of the day worn out and the house would be a mess, nothing was being done while I was gone.

In July it got to the point where something had to be done. The sales rep guy was convinced that Jonsey wasn’t doing his job as a provider and he told me that if this is how he was or had been in the past, it was never going to get better from here on out. He knew what kind of person Jonsey was and he told me that if I was his daughter that he would encourage me to leave him behind and move on. He said I had potential and that I could work but he knew that I would end up doing it on my own one day.  Jonsey had ample opportunity to land a job, we had a car, we weren’t that far from the town that had all kinds of places but Jonsey wasn’t trying hard enough. We had a neighbor willing to babysit Little Man so he could go and find something but he always came up empty. At one point, I was convinced that he wasn’t even going at all.

I thought about what the sales rep said and had told me and kept it in the back of my mind. The sales rep had told me that if it came down to it, he would help me get a bus ticket to North Carolina. I didn’t know where else to go, I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t know how to get in touch with anybody I knew in Houston and it seemed like the sensible thing to do was go back to N.C. where I had a church and knew people.

Sooner or later, the bills just got too far behind and there was hardly enough money for groceries. I remember we had to go to a food pantry to get food until we could get on food stamps. But, then the electric bill got behind and then there was that day when I came home in the middle of the day and the power would be off completely. I don’t remember where Jonsey was or where my baby was, just that the house was empty and dark. I knew that this had gone too far and the only thing to do was just cry. It was July and hot as could be. There was no way I was going to be able to spend a night in the trailer with a baby, it wasn’t safe. I remember calling up the in-laws and begging to spend the night at their house and we were allowed to but we would have to leave when they did the next morning for work.

The next day we would go back to the trailer and I would start packing Little Man and I’s things. I had decided that we were going to leave. It had become obvious that Jonsey wasn’t going to step and take care of things and I like in times past wasn’t going to bail all of out of his mess.  I couldn’t keep doing this with my life, I was supposed to be married to someone who was supposed to take care of his family and provide. I was all for working and getting a job myself but for me to work all day and come home to a mess and no solution the problem was just too much.

I called up Jonsey’s dad and step mom in Florida, I told them that I was packing what I could and that Little Man and I were going to North Carolina and that I was leaving Jonsey for good. Somehow they convinced me to stay long enough for them to come up and get us and bring us back to Florida where they lived and worked. They said I could live with them until I figured out what I wanted to do. And so that was what we did. I started packing up everything that belonged to Little Man and I and they came and got us and we never looked back. I was so frustrated and hurt that it didn’t bother me that I was leaving my husband behind. In my mind, he wasn’t being a husband, if he really loved us and knew what he was supposed to do as a provider and a father, he would have not put us in that position at all.

Until next time, be blessed and inspired to make a difference.

~The Adopted Child