This is the continuation of the
diary I started yesterday.
The early 80's are sort of a blur to me. I worked hard not to remember much of it because it was painful. I'm going to get into the bad choices I made as an adult and how it affected me and my children. This isn't easy, but it's necessary.
We had been poor for the better part of the 70's. In the late 70's my mom met a guy and married him. She doesn't talk about it and I don't ask, but I think at least part of the reason she married was for financial security. That, and to give us a father figure. It didn't last long. My Mom got divorced in the early 80's and I believe she fell into depression and despair. I don't know for certain because she was never professionally treated. I know for certain that she never dated again, and to this day she is very happily sans partner. We were even more poor than before, because my former stepfather had run up a mountain of debt and left my Mom holding the bag.
(more below the fold...)
Our caregiver passed away when I was 13 and we kids were left alone. My Mom was still working 40-70 hrs per week depending on the season and she was also going to night school off an on to become a CPA. We were really too old for a babysitter but not old enough to be left to our own devices as much as we were. We were good kids, didn't get into trouble, but we lacked direction and the guidance we probably needed. My brother and I both learned to run the household. Oh, my Mom paid all the bills and all, don't get me wrong. But she was gone all the time and I learned very quickly how to do all the laundry, cooking, and cleaning to take some of the burden from her. My brother became the man of the house by doing all the "manly" chores and repairs. He bought an old beat-up 1965 Ford Thunderbird, got a job at a local grocery store, and spent every spare minute and dime restoring the car. Oh, the things I could tell about that car. We loved it, and still have a lot of great memories associated with it. When I was 15 I started working too at a local dairy/pig farm. I made less than minimum wage as an "independent contractor". It was all good, because I could afford to buy my own clothes now and save money for a car. This was the beginning of our independence, or so we thought.
Some folks in the other diary were curious about my reunion with my father. We had heard stories about him over the years. All through this time my mother worked hard to make sure we had a relationship with my paternal grandparents. They didn't live in the same city but they were close. My Mom took us for every major holiday to visit them, and my grandparents and aunts and uncles always welcomed my Mom with open arms. So every year or so we would hear of the short visits my Dad paid. He never came to see us, and he never stayed for more than an hour or so. He brought his new wife and three kids, and I think it embarrassed him that his new family would see just how poor his parents were. In my 16th year my grandfather became desperately ill and died in the hospital. My Dad and his wife came to the funeral. It was the first time we'd seen him in years and he was still larger than life. My Mom swallowed her bitterness and was actually quite cordial to the two of them. They invited my brother and I to come visit for a weekend. I didn't really want to go but my Mom thought it would be good for us. So he picked us up the following Friday. We drove to his house in Dublin OH. I'll never forget pulling into his driveway and seeing this huge, beautiful house. Oh I didn't belong here, and I knew it the minute we got out of the car. My Dad showed us around the house and in the garage was my mother's Corvette. Yes, the same car he took when he left us now belonged to his new wife. She was keeping it as a collector's piece. My resentment started there. The whole weekend was a complete nightmare. My Dad proudly showed us his $75,000 monthly paychecks. That I'll never forget. My Dad hounded my brother non-stop about joining the military. It builds character you know, and every male in our family had done his four years and my Dad expected his oldest son to comply. Me, he had not much use for. I was a female, therefore not as important. He told me to lose weight and dye my hair a different color. He took us home on Sunday and told my Mom that he was happy to show us how a real family lives. I cried and cried and my Mom told me I didn't have to ever go back. I didn't see my Dad for another two years. And my Mom stopped trying to get him to pay child support. It was useless. I think to this day he still owes her around $100,000.
My brother graduated from high school and did end up joining the military. He joined the Marines with his high school sweetheart and I don't know how they ever pulled it off, but they were always stationed together. They ended up getting married and having two babies together. So he was gone, and I lost a big part of my life.
I decided to attend the local Joint Vocational School for my last two years of high school. Back in those days it wasn't cool to do this, and the home school didn't support the students at all. We were ostracized but I didn't care because I had plans. I graduated in the mid 80's with honors and planned to attend college in Columbus. It was so difficult but I did finish college. I worked 40+ hours per week the entire time to support myself. And I partied a lot. My Dad had promised to help with expenses but he never came through. He sent me a check for $100 once and that was it. We lived in the same city now but I barely saw him.
After I graduated I came home for the summer to rest, recuperate, and to decide what sort of job I wanted to take and where it would be. I had hopes of moving back to a large city but it didn't work out that way. I met a man who was several years older than me and fell in love. Good grief, I was so ignorant. I was marrying a man just like my Dad but I didn't recognize it until years later. All I could see was a successful man who wanted to spend his life with me. My Mom warned me but I didn't listen. So we got married and I became a baby factory. (My Dad, btw, gave me away at the wedding at my request and then I never saw or heard from him again.) I had two children within 6 years with two miscarriages in-between. I didn't have to work so I never did. My life centered around a very demanding husband and two children that could only depend on me.
Then the bottom fell out. My husband quit his job with the family business (a chain of several large grocery stores), took severance pay, and decided he wanted a different career. The sad part is that he wasn't suited to any other career. The money eventually ran out and I had to go to work. I had no real work experience and there were no jobs locally that matched my degree. And by then I had lost the ability to keep up with current technology and my skills were useless. So I took shit jobs that, if I was lucky, paid $5 or $6 per hour. All the while my husband kept nagging me to make more money, gotta make more money. All the while he was spending money that we didn't have. He truly didn't know how to be frugal, how to deny himself the things he wanted. He bought clothes and cars on credit while the kids and I went without. He definitely kept up appearances so that no one would guess that we were in trouble. He finally decided to try to go back to the family business but they wouldn't take him until he paid back the severance pay. Of course we didn't have it, so the family business was out of the question. By the time I decided to leave with the kids I was emotionally beaten, and I had allowed myself to be controlled to the point that I didn't know how to think for myself anymore. I ended up moving with the kids back to my mother's house. My husband and I divorced and history repeated itself.
During this time the local steel and coal industries imploded. There were two major breakdowns, once in the 80's, a short rebound, again in the 90's it just collapsed. Mills closed, coal mines closed, and there were layoffs everywhere. There were thousands and thousands of people out of work. Everything suffered. The schools lost tax revenue, the cities lost tax revenue, nobody had any money so businesses began to close. We could drive past the local banks and see lines of repossessed cars. There were notices in newspapers every week of houses being auctioned by county sheriff offices to recover back taxes and bank loans in default. The Mall and WalMart opened and more local businesses closed. To apply for a decent job meant that you were competing with hundreds of other people. There was always, always someone more qualified, had more experience and better skills. There was a mass migration to other more prosperous areas in the state and nationwide. My city went from a population of 16,500 to less than 6,500. This was typical of every city in the area. I didn't leave. There was no way and nowhere for me to go. Happily, my mother was finally prospering. She finally finished school, became a CPA, and started making good money. It still wasn't what the men in her profession were making, but it was a hell of a lot better than it was before. And she was my rock. Without her I know I wouldn't have survived.
Since this diary ran so long, I'll finish tomorrow....