Chapter 2
Even to this day, I am petrified more than I even want to admit that if I do not be "Little Miss Sunshine" 24/7 that I will be rejected without a shred of a doubt and that I will never be able to the person that I need to be. On DailyKos, I am known by many people as the "Pootie Queen" as I do so many diaries of cutesy cat photos and I have been "Little Miss Sunshine" in these diaries for so long that no one ever doubts that I must be very, very happy. This is a persona. I have not been that person in quite a long time, if ever.
My first husband, Byron, only married me for a green card; although I did not know it at the time. I believed that he really did love me. If he had really loved me, he would never have had me leave my daughter, Frankie, with my mother, give her custody, then be completely jealous of every minute I spent with her. Of course, he started accusing me of having an affair the morning after we were married. After over 2 years of listening to how I was cheating on him, even when I was working 2 jobs and 16 hours a day, I broke down and finally decided that if I was going to be accused of it, I might as well commit the sin and cheated on him with my former boss. I am not proud of making that mistake; however I did it and I can't change it.
Unfortunately for me, my mother, once she had custody of my daughter decided to find a way to gouge me left, right and sideways to get me to pay for almost everything in her life. She went, bought a mobile home, decided that I needed to pay for it, as well as her washer, her computer and so forth. Almost every penny that I was making was going right to her. She stated that she was going to work it out with Domestic Relations so that I was not giving the money to Domestic Relations but straight to her. She stated that it was all taken care of; however it was not. To this day, I still owe Domestic Relations money. When my mother lost custody of Frankie, she still expected me to pay for everything; however at that point, I was paying Domestic Relations and did not have the money to pay for her mobile home, her washer and her computer. Up until the day she died, she accused me of stealing her life and livelihood and being jealous of her. I think that the main reason for that is my father's continuously pitting us against each other.
Part of the reason that I not able to have a successful marriage with Byron was that we were never on the same page. He did not understand what I wanted and needed in my life in order to make me relatively normal and did not want to under any circumstances. Byron was busy working either second shift or he was busy working the weekend, which wasn't helping matters any, as then we were not spending any time together. Honestly, if Byron had been willing to spend actual time with me and not be always at work or with his mother or somehow ignoring me, we would have been in better shape, and maybe even had an actual marriage.
I know that it sounds like I am complaining; however if it were not for the path I took in my past, I would not be on the path that I am on now. Unfortunately, we are definitely having financial issues; however I am very happy to have the husband that I do have now. My life would be incomplete without Joey. I love Joey with all of my heart. He knows about my past, and he has told me that it is OK, and that I can survive my past no matter what! He has been able to mellow me out for the most part and he has been my rock.
Of course, his sister, Shannon, believes that I am the cause of everything bad that has happened to her family from the beginning of time until now. I am trying my damnedest to make sure that she knows that I am not the cause of all of her problems; however when we do not speak, that is a bit difficult. I am not ashamed of who I am or where I came from. I see no reason for being ashamed of it. My past makes me who I am.
Chapter 3
I do miss Frankie more that anyone would ever believe. I became pregnant by accident when I was living with a guy who expected me to support him, his brother, his mother and everyone else in his family. I refused to support his entire family, so he broke up with me. He was a guy I met while I was calling bingo in the apartment building that my mother and I lived in. This was an handicapped/elderly apartment building and he and his mother came over to the building twice a week, every week to play bingo and he and I met after I started calling bingo for the building. He talked me into moving into his apartment with his mom and his brother.
Once we were living together, one night we spent some alone time together and the next month, after I moved back in with my mother, we figured out that I was pregnant. I told him that I was pregnant and he told me he didn't care, that it wasn't his, and so forth. I spent the nine months figuring out how to deal with Frankie and how to deal with my seizures and keep Frankie well during the pregnancy to make sure that she did not inherit my seizures or any birth defects from the seizure medication.
Frankie was born on October 27, 1994 at 11:27PM after my labor was induced. She was born in perfect shape and she was completely brilliant no matter what. She inherited her mother's brains, rather than her father's. It did tear me apart to allow Frankie to stay with my mother; however I was stupid and married Byron.
The custody arrangement was supposed to be temporary because the house that Byron was living in and wanted me to live in was not going to be livable. There was no heat and no hot water and the house was in one of the worst areas of Philadelphia, so Frankie would not have been able to go outside at all. Of course, the fact that I was working every day and Byron was making sure that he was not picking me up until 11PM every night didn't help matters any. That was the whole reason that I agreed to letting my mother have temporary custody of Frankie.
Byron was supposed to work on finding us an apartment that would be affordable and that we would be able to have Frankie in. His decision was to move us into an efficiency apartment into which we still could not have Frankie because his brother moved into our kitchen. The rent was a whole whopping $225 a month and he thought that it would make everything wonderful. I didn't think that it did because even though the apartment was right around the corner from my mom and Frankie, my mother moved Frankie into this mobile home that she bought and Frankie wasn't right around the corner any more.
I was only able to see Frankie one day a week, which was, at that point, on Tuesdays and she was in school, so I would get to my mother's around noon, clean her house for the 4 hours that I was waiting for Frankie, then get to spend all of an hour with Frankie before I had to take the last bus home. My mother was spending from 6AM until 9PM on the computer 7 days a week. That is the whole reason that Frankie was taken away from my mom. At the time Frankie was taken away from my mom, I was working Monday to Friday, and the bus was only running out there on Saturday, so I was still only able to be out there one day a week. I was trying desperately to spend the time with Frankie; however I was spending every minute from the time I got to my mom's until the last minute before the last bus went past cleaning the house. I never was able to spend any time with Frankie. This tore me apart and I know that it tore Frankie apart as well.
I spend every day of my life wondering how badly I emotionally and mentally screwed Frankie up because of the way things turned out.
Frankie and I over Christmas
Frankie and my mother
Frankie School Photo
Frankie being silly
In order to read the first part of the story, please look here