My husband and I met and had one thing that both set a fiery blaze in our stomachs. We wanted to live for us. In his hometown where I moved two years after meeting him, both of us were very fortunate and were able to find great paying jobs; not good, great. Even after a motorcycle crash left him in bed for almost a year, finding work was never a challenge to me. Neither was buying anything the family could ever need or want. Erick and I didn't have time to read labels to see ingredients, never mind snuggling to watch a movie or discuss issues that were arising. Between both of us working full time and paying a hotel to get private time when our schedules allowed us to; we were slowly burning out alive. Our guts told us the truth- to get what we wanted we needed to drastically change our lives.
My parents, through strained relationship and bitter heartaches, are still my parents. When I was younger, I wasn't the easiest teenager to mentor. Stubborn to the core, defiant in any way I didn't agree with. Which in regards to my folks, meant religion. My father desperately wanted to be an elder in his Jehovah's Witnesses. Everything I did reflected through him, no matter how much nonsense it actually was. He had been denied through my older sister's actions, mine and eventually by my younger brother and mother. The way I saw it then and now is that they never wanted him as anything of prominence in their church. The powers that be ensured that any actions taken by anyone in relation to him would prove their case and shame him in the process. This gravely hurt the former marine, something my father would never completely heal from.
My mother was an enabler. In the good as well as the bad. She enabled me to be strong headed, stubborn for the right reasons, and clever. She enabled me to live the way I wanted when my father disagreed by placing me with my uncle. She was there when she could be and when she could secretly through the dark passages between my father and I. She could never stand her ground against him in regards to his lifestyle or children. He spoke and she obeyed, especially with the religion. Slowly over the thirty three years that unraveled in their marriage, they struck a common core, now both have a voice to some extent.
They moved here in 2010; Rogersville, TN. A small town in upper-east tn of approximately five thousand people. The town dots the map with a variety of resturants and shops, with three highways crossing over to more important towns and cities. The came in an RV, which is were they lived for a little over a year. On the empty, flat parcel of land that my father had bought to situate their ending home. their two dogs in tow, mom and dad settled like pioneers. Pioneers that spent the last three years traveling between MA and TN to scout land and religious opportunities. They hit the goldmine in Rogersville. A fresh start away from their old congregation, after all the children were raised and left them harshly, or were pushed away. From a crumbling financial situation they faced after medical problems and age crept up to them. Their medical issues were just a drop in the bucket to our decision to join them, but that drop was heavier then even I had anticipated.
My mother and I have a very special connection. She was not only the driving force behind my personality, but the cheering squad in any decision I've ever made. Her health was deteriorating, due in part to her body, but mostly her mind. All my life I lived within thirty minute drive of her, so moving to Boston was tough because I no longer was there to talk in person with her, but worried about her constantly. When she and my father moved almost nine hundred miles away, it was frustrating and scary for me. What ifs flooded my mind on a daily basis.
A needle on the sidewalk in front of our house in Quincy one day solidified my sentiments of leaving. My children were walking home from school past drug dens, prostitutes and drug dealers. My husband and I never saw one another, and although we made a lot of money for the house that had been handed down to my husband for generations, none of our bank accounts stayed above anything lucrative enough to show it. The cost of living was atrocious. We paid a quarter of our annual take home pay for property taxes. In return, we would park on the street; IF they weren't doing construction and there was an open spot. We had things stolen constantly off our front porch. One item in particular memory was an air conditioner out of our window. At night people would send the two dogs we were allowed to have into barking fits through sirens, gunshots and drunks passing by. There were rules for everything and against more. One sunny summer while having a BBQ, a Frisbee landed on a retention wall to our neighbors. The old wall couldn't take the pressure under my daughters weight and fell in crumbles. Erick went to the neighbor and offered to fix the wall but needed persmission to enter his property with over 400 lbs of concrete needed to do the job. He was firmly told no. That was our final straw. The weight of what surrounded us finally took its toll and obliterated our aspirations of making our dreams come true.. there.
We started packing. Mountains of boxes in each room, a job offer for me meant that Erick would have to leave his lucrative job that he had a degree for. Yet it also meant a dream being fulfilled. We were leaving, and the only sadness that anyone mustered was his mother for leaving her family home. I left one month before Erick came to join me. He wanted to give an accurate notice to his employer, and give me time to find a home and secure my new job. The first few months were the hardest we'd ever faced. We did not have one another to lean on other then the side of a phone call. My mother and I were far from close, but bringing her with me meant help with the children and a second opinion with decisions that would affect her as well as us. We were staying with my folks in the camper they still had on their property. I had the support of everyone, until Erick joined me.
........ to be continued
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