Living with the Grandparents

        At first living with my grandparents was a relief and fun. We redesigned my old room, went grocery shopping for the things I liked, and other fun things. I was signed up for tutoring for math, I did AWANAS, hung out with my best friend Alina, and had regular chiropractic appointments for my Fibro. It was so much fun the first couple of weeks. But I wasn't allowed to talk to my "boyfriend" and if I wanted to, I would have to ask to use the phone, I had no privacy while talking to him, or anyone for that matter. I had to sit in the living room, the dinning room, or the kitchen to talk to anyone, and if I wanted to talk to people on the phone in my room, the door had to be open. NO PRIVACY! I look back and think, "I didn't have many things that needed to be private back then anyway.", but it's not the fact that the contents of my conversations needed to be private, its the idea of being able to talk freely about anything and anyone, without being judged by my grandparents. That is all I wanted.
       You know what the weird thing was? I wasn't allowed to talk to my mom for four months.... Now most people would be grateful of that, but my mom and I did (and still do) have a great relationship. The crap I've been through in my life, has made my relationship with my mom stronger, because she and I went through the same crap together (Well most of it anyway). So for me not being allowed to talk to my mother was torture. There has always been something between my mom and my grandmother.... I can't really talk about that, but lets just say because my grandmother needs to be institutionalized, she has affected my mothers life drastically, and not in a good way either.
        I remember this one weekend a little after not seeing or talking to my mom for four months. My grandparents seemed to have found their sense. My mom took the CTA down from the city, where she was living, and she came to stay the weekend with my grandparents and I. They let her use their 2000 Pontiac Bonneville, so she could see the kids,("the kids" = my siblings) and pick them up from school. Well, the day that my mom was in town, I had a hair cut, so my grandmother took me to my haircut, and then we went to this cafe/restaurant called Honey (the only reason why I remember this place is because they had an AMAZING vanilla bean cupcake...i kinda have a cupcake obsession. A really good place to get something to eat by the way!), anyway, my mom called my grandmother to ask her where I was, because my mom made dinner for me and the kids, and my grandmother if she wanted any. Well, my grandmother flipped out, and was telling my mom to get out of her house, and she wasn't welcome there, so on and so forth. It was like she didn't even remember that my mom was staying there. Now, you may or may not be wondering where my grandfather was, but he was in Australia on a business trip. So as my grandfather tried to calm my grandmother down over the phone, my grandmother was driving like a crazy person...oh wait! She is crazy! (She should have had her licence taken away years ago.... there was this one time where she was messing with the radio on the way to taking me to school, when she nearly crashed into a STOPPED garbage truck.... that bad.). While my grandparents were talking, I was begging to see my mom. I even threatened to get out of the car at the next red light. Come to find out, my grandmother wasn't even driving us home.... she was driving us to her therapist's house (COMPLETELY UNETHICAL!!!). My grandmother's therapist couldn't even calm her down. She drove us back home, after my mom had left to take the kids back to Jason's house, and when my mom came back to get her stuff and say goodbye, she was surprised to see that there was a church friend of my grandmothers and a police officer there. To this day, my grandfather is still convinced that my mom was the one who called the police. They act like I wasn't even there to see this event occur. I think to myself "HELLO? I WAS THERE LISTEN TO THE PERSON THAT IS NOT CRAZY AND THAT WAS THERE!!!!!!!". Thankfully they don't read my thoughts. But sometimes.... oy vey. After that whole incident  my grandparents gave my mom the car (she didn't even want it, but they insisted), my mom took it, but didn't know at the time that it was a trade. Me for the car. Had my mom known that was what she was doing, she would have refused the car, and taken me right on the spot. Ever since that incident, when I was living with my grandparents, I wasn't able to talk to my mom for another month, and vice versa.
        Anyway, so during the time I wasn't able to talk to my mom, she had been picking my three siblings up from school, and hanging out with them. Please don't think that my mom didn't want to pick me up. Because she really did want to, but because she signed guardianship over to my grandparents, and they wouldn't let me see her, she couldn't pick me up. After my mom figured out that she wasn't going to be able to see me, (my grandparents told her that I was busy), my mom got into a fight with my grandfather in the school parking lot. Nothing physical... but "sticks and stones" were thrown through the air.
        Picture this for me. Battle field. My grandparents in the northern squadron
, and my mother in the southern. My mother and her army of friends who knew everything that happened inside Jason's home. My mother and her army wearing purple tunics (my mom's favorite color as well as my own), and sharpening their swords, stringing their arrows. My grandparents with their army of "friends". My grandparents (as much as I love them), lied to their subjects, to their friends. Told them that my mother didn't know what she was doing, that she was irresponsible, and that she was going to screw up my life. They lied so well, they made the subjects think that my mom was a evil, inhuman, and self absorbed person. Then there is me... I'm the battle field. The land that has caused so much chaos. I'm stuck in the middle. I always have been, even before my mom gave my grandparents guardianship  I probably always will be. I'm the land being fought over even now.
        After a month of not talking to my mom, and not seeing her, I was finally allowed to see her again. By this time, my mom had a new boyfriend Jerome. He was Filipino, and really cool. My mom and him moved in together, and soon, we (the kids and I) were staying at their apartment every other weekend. I enjoyed those weekends. Even though the apartment was small. I got to chill out, and take a break from my life. I was able to argue with Chloe again, and spend time reading with Norah, and ruff house with Ethan. But when I got home...I was the only child once again. I was the bored child. Things got better after I was able to see my mom.
        Another problem is I wore many masks. The mask I wore around my friends at school, the nerdy nice one. The one I wore around my grandparents, the perfect christian one that helped her best friend become a christian, and wanted to start a bible study. The one I wore around my mom, the complete opposite of the one I wore around my grandparents. There were more masks, too many to remember, and they didn't decrease or vanish until I moved to Arkansas a few months ago.
        There was a on going court fight between my grandparents, the guardian ad litem, and my mom. Finally, they stopped fighting for me, and allowed my mom to take me back. I left their home in June of 2009. Because I was leaving, and because they wanted me to continue to talk to them, they bought me a phone, a phone that i would have for 4 years.

"Jesus love's the outcasts. He loves the ones the world just loves to hate."-Relient K
That's all for tonight. I'm taking my blog one chapter at a time, and my life one day at a time.
Thanks for reading and goodnight!
~Amanda
        P.S. To the right is a picture of the car my mom was "given"

My Name is Amanda

        There is a lot going on in my life....Just know that much. I'm stressed almost all the time, whether it's school or friend and family drama, or just my drama it doesn't matter, I just need to vent and rant. I think this blog will help. I can put my feelings, and my thoughts into words, and if I have to, emoticons. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for my life, and the people in it. It's just sometimes my life is a never ending road, with bumps, ditches, and pot holes. (Does that make any sense?). It wasn't all bad though, there were some smooth patches of freshly poured asphalt, but for the most part it was bad. I warn you now, not everything I write makes complete sense, I'm just hoping that someone, somewhere out in this large world will understand.
        You are welcome to think that what I tell you in this blog is a lie, but it's not. It's my life story. It's my feelings and emotions. It's my thoughts and my dreams. It's my version on the planet that you and I live on. (again does that make sense?). So let us begin from...well, the beginning.
        It all started on a hot summers day in 1998, July 21st to be exact. In Bartlett, IL, a suburb of Chicago. I was born in a mid-wives home. There were very few people there. My mother Colleen, my aunt Julie, my other aunt Mary, my grandfather Tom, my grandmother Janet, my mom's friend Megan,  the midwife, and I'm pretty sure there were others, but I don't remember who else. The one person I know wasn't there... was my father. You see, my mom and my father weren't married when my mom got pregnant with me. I'm the "oops baby". I'm not ashamed of that, in fact I'm proud of that (I'll explain later.). My mom was young, just barely 21. My father was just a kid himself, he was 19, and according to my mom he was a total douche. But I wouldn't know and don't really know now if her assessment was/is true.
         I'm going to jump a little into the future, a little after my birth. My father had been in and out of my prenatal life, as well as my life in general, and finally after a few months of this BS, my mom had enough. She was done with him. So she told him that he was no longer welcome at my grandparents house (where my mom and I were living at the time), and if he wanted to see me so bad, he would take her to court and fight for me. Well he left, and never came back. He didn't take my mom to court, he just...left.
         By the time I was two, my mom was getting married to another guy, his name is Jason. The wedding was beautiful. We moved out of the suburbs, and into the "Windy City" of Chicago. We lived in an apartment, in a semi-busy neighborhood. Don't ask what side or district I lived in, because I really don't remember. A few months before my mom was married, she conceived yet another child. This child would be my little sister Chloe who was born April 19, 2001. She has dirty blond hair, and hazel/green eyes. Everyone thought she was so adorable, everyone except three year old me. I suppose in my less sophisticated three year-old brain, I was probably thinking something along the lines of "Who does she think she is? Stealing MY spotlight!". I "hated" my sister so much, that one day, I decided to just bite her on the cheek... yes the cheek, and to this day, I can not live that down.
        My mom has told me in the past that after Chloe was born, things in the marriage changed. The Jason she thought she knew, wasn't anything close to the Jason that she was seeing, back then. He started to show his true colors, but my mom really didn't see it at all then.
       We would go down to see Jason's parents down south in a small town called Colfax, IL, and even though I was young, I could see a change in tone whenever I came into a room. (Before I continue, I left out a tiny bit of information that is kinda helpful in the story... When I was conceived my mom was in a on/off relationship between my father, and a on/off relationship with Jason, so for a long time, everyone thought that I could be Jason's. I looked so much like him when I was younger. BACK TO THE STORY!). Later in life I figured out why I could tell there was a tone change every time I walked into a room when all the adults  (Debbie (Jason's mother), Rick (Jason's father), Jason and my mom) were in the same room. Because nearly every time I walked into the room, Debbie would open her mouth and make a comment about how I couldn't be related to Jason. Despite these comments, Jason's family loved me.
        Some months later we were in the middle of moving back to the suburbs, and we were living at my granparents house in West Chicago. Now what I'm about to tell you might sound weird, and believe me or not, but it's all TRUE. My grandmother was and is mentally crazy, and should be institutionalized. I love her but she should. Sadly, my grandfather doesn't see it, mainly because the crazy is starting to affect him now too. Anyway, one day my grandparents were watching me and Chloe, while Jason was job hunting and while my mom was cleaning houses. Well it was lunch time, and my grandfather was working in his office, and Chloe was asleep, my grandmother wouldn't give me a cookie... now three or four year-old Amanda did not like that...so what does Amanda do? She hits Janet. Janet snapped.... and started to chase me around the house, trying to bite me. My grandfather didn't realize what was going on until I ran in his office. Now my grandfather was being chased by my grandmother, because he was running around with me. Even after all this madness, and after my grandmother succeeded in biting me, my grandfather still didn't see the fact that my grandmother is CRAZY!!!!! *sigh* To this day, I wonder if he'll ever see it, or if he'll be changed by her completely.
        Let's take a short trip in the Tardis to the future, to the date 04/23/03. The date that my little sister Norah was born. She has blond hair and blue eyes just like her dad. Jason had gotten a job at a design company, as well as picking up some extra design jobs through his own design company. We had moved to Elgin, a suburb about an hour and a half from the center of the city. My mom quit her job, to be a full time mom, and to home school Chloe and I. There were some marriage problems bubbling up by the time Norah was one. By this time, I had to start growing up, because even though most of the adults in my life hadn't started to see it yet, my mom and I did start to see that Jason was abusive. Mom and Jason started fighting more. Most nights, my mom would make dinner for the girls and I, and bring it up to the playroom, which was on the same floor as the bedrooms, then Jason would get home, and then they would start to argue about money. Have you ever noticed that nearly every time any couple fights, its always about money? Well anyway, when they would start fighting, it was my job as the oldest to protect my sisters and distract them from the fighting, and take them to my bedroom if I felt it was needed. Now my mom didn't make it my job. I made it my job. Nobody had to tell me to do that job. But I felt that part of that job was locking my sisters in a room, and then going downstairs where my parents were fighting and put a stop to it.... well every time I tried to execute that plan, it always flopped.
         My mother had conceived one last child, and gave birth to a red hair and blue eyed boy on May 3rd, 2005. Ethan was by far the cutest little boy. My mom swears that he was flirting with the nurses within the first couple hours after his birth. Which would explain a lot with how he is now. My parents were trying to sell the house, and move into a town house in a better part of town. Jason had lost his main job. We were living pay check to pay check. We finally got out of that when Jason got a job at Abbott.
        In 2007, I started going to public school, starting in the third grade. Can you imagine? Not going to school a day in your life, and then being put in school? I was excited, but felt like a cat in a dog show.... I got lost on the campus my first day. I didn't even know who my teacher was... How sad is that? Not to mention the fact I had refused to read at until the end of the second grade. I didn't know any multiplication tables. I made one friend, Rebecca. Rebecca and I were attached at the hip... until her parents moved her out of the district. When I found out at school, I cried like a giant baby during class. Her dad gave me a number to contact her at, and then after talking to her for a month, the number was disconnected. I haven't heard from her since, and I honestly don't think I ever will. I didn't have a best friend at all that year. I had a lot of friends. Just no besties.
       After moving to the new house, and after everything seemed to be okay and getting better, my parents started fighting again. My grandparents didn't even see that there was fighting going on. My aunts and uncles, and family friends saw it. But my grandparents didn't. After 9 years of non stop fighting and three kids later, my mom filed for divorce, and at first she moved down into the home office, and made that her bedroom. The fights continued, and my mom moved out of the house. We saw her every other weekend, and Jason's grandmother came up from Colfax, to take care of the four of us kids while Jason was at work. My mom and Jason made up, and my mom dropped the divorce charge.
       They worked hard on their relationship. They went to counseling . My mom went to real estate school. After 6 more months, my mom and Jason got into a heated fight. My mom sent me upstairs with dinner for me and my three siblings. I kept them safe from the fight, and distracted them. I bathed them, did the pajama routine without my mom, we brushed their teeth, and I put them to bed. Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed and had fallen asleep, (or so I thought), I heard screaming and banging from downstairs. Not the kind of screaming and banging heard when your parents were having sex (btw I didn't know what sex was yet, I'm just saying it wasn't that.....). The screaming was between Jason and Mom. They were not only hurling insults through the air toward each other, they were hurling picture frames, a guitar, and nearly a Apple desktop. This racket woke up not only my self, but Chloe, and I think Norah. They came into Ethan's room (where I had fallen asleep trying to get Ethan to fall asleep earlier that night), and I told them to go back to bed, and I would go take care of the yelling in a minute. After checking to make sure that Ethan was still asleep, I crept down stairs, and went to the office. Jason had just come out of the office, and told me to go back to bed. I defined him, and ran past him. I opened the office door, to find my mom crying on her air mattress.
        You know that saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words cannot hurt me?" well first it's completely wrong. Words do hurt, they stab us in places we didn't even know exist. Second, my mother has a severe case of Fibromyalgia. If you don't know what that is, picture a wet suit two sizes too small. Now fill it with sharp pebbles and rocks. That's the daily pain of a Fibromyalgia patient with medication. If it's cloudy or the weather changes from cold to hot or hot to cold suddenly, add two giant boulders to your back along with the wet suit filled with rocks. Now speaking from experience  because I also have Fibromyalgia, it's painful. So when the average person is stress, there is tension in the muscles. Tension in the muscles from stress plus Fibromyalgia equals PAIN.
       Anyway, with the hurtful words exchanged between my mother and Jason, my mom was in so much pain. My sisters and I climbed up on the air mattress, and hugged my mom, and shot Jason a dirty look. He left back upstairs to the master bedroom, while we stayed with my mom. She and my sisters were asleep, and I went upstairs to get my pillow. I saw Jason in Ethan's room, staring down at him. I told him to get out of there, because I didn't want him to make Ethan cry too. I think back to that moment, and think "Ouch... nice burn!", but in reality it was disrespectful. I can honestly say that I have no regret saying that. He left Ethan's room, and I watched him cross the hallway into the master, and close the door.
        I went down to the office the next morning to see just how bad the damage was. The guitar was smashed, a light bulb was broken, a small picture frame was stuck in the wall, there was glass on the dinning room floor, with wine stains on the ceiling from the initial fight, when Jason threw the wine glass at my mother. I wonder a lot lately what my mom ever saw in Jason. She saw someone who was playing the lead role of a lie. The lie is his life. His life is a lie! He isn't as perfect as everyone thinks he is. He has many masks. One he puts on when he leaves for work each morning. One he puts on when he hangs around his children. One he puts on when we are alone at home, with no one else to stick up for us.
        The times between that fight, and what I'm about to talk to you next are a bit hazy....I honestly don't remember much. All I remember is that it was bad, and school was a way out. The teachers were great, but the school counselor... not so much. I'm going to skip to the part that I really remember. The divorce.
        Since that fight, my mom filed for divorce.She moved Ethan into me and my sisters room, moved me and her into the master bedroom, and Jason into Ethan's old room. My mom had a night job as a waitress, and her car was braking down. Jason said that she could use his car, but one night, he parked it on the street in a different part of the neighborhood  and hid the keys from my mother. She knew where he hid them, and she was running late for work. She went into his bedroom and tried to grab the keys. This is after she had put my siblings to bed, and while I was in bed, writing, with my dog at my feet. What I'm about to tell you I heard it happen but didn't see it happen. She was about to get the keys, when Jason grabbed her, and pinned her to the ground. Now my mom wasn't a very large or strong woman, She was under a hundred pounds, and she was 5 foot 6. Jason on the other hand was broad shouldered and strong. She was pinned, and had the keys in her hand, Jason was digging the key into her hand, trying to get the keys out of her hand. My dog Rockstar, ran to go and help my mom, because he could tell she was in pain. He ran to go help her, but he came back shortly, I'm guessing because Jason shooed him out of the room. Mom had finally gotten out of Jason's grasp, and she yelled to me "Amanda call 911!" I was standing in my bedroom door frame, with phone in hand, frozen. My mom ran into the bedroom, trying to close the door behind her, but she didn't succeed. Jason looked like a angry bull, and with the stance of a football player, about to ram his opponent  Jason came running toward me, and hit the phone out of my hand. Then he ran, almost cowardly  back to his bedroom. My mom closed the door, and locked it. Surprisingly through all of this my siblings were still asleep. My mom used her cell phone, and called the police. When they got there, my mom went down to open the door for them. They politely asked Jason to open his door, and the male officer went in to collect Jason's statement, while the female officer collected my statement and my mothers. This was not the first time the police had been called to the house. There was a night, when Jason came home drunk, (or to me he smelled heavily of garlic, and my mom said he was drunk), and he came into my room, was touching me inappropriately. Nothing extremely major or anything, but still inappropriate. Then he hit me. My mom came inside from smoking a cigarette  and called the police. Jason hid on the back porch, when they arrived, and he got yelled at for hiding. He was nearly arrested, but not quite.                     The police officer collected my statement, and my mothers, and my mothers, and the police officers told Jason to stay away from my mom and I. It was a Sunday night, and it was three in the morning. when the police finally left. I fell asleep at 4, and had to wake up at 6 to get to orchestra practice.
 She moved me out of the house, and temporary signed guardianship over to my grandparents.
     When all of this happened, it was early November during the fifth grade. The next afternoon I came home after school one day, after I had made plans with my new "boyfriend" to go do homework together at the doughnut shop around the corner. I walked through the door, and went upstairs to my room, and saw that my clothes were in plastic bags. My mother informed me that I was moving into my grandparents house for a little while. My two best friends Leesa and Holly, they knew what was going on with my family, and they came over to help me get my stuff together. My mom signed temporary guardianship to my grandparents  while she figured out what to do with herself. My siblings are blood related to Jason, and since I wasn't I could leave. (even though we truly wouldn't know that he wasn't my dad until a few months later). My grandfather came with his red Dodge 2008 or 2007 pick up. We loaded my belongings up, said goodbye to my mom, my siblings, and my mom. Later that night, my mom and my dog Rockstar were escorted out of Jason's house by the police, and my mom went to a friends house.


      I think that is enough for one night. If you think this is drama, you haven't seen anything yet. I'll post more soon.

Thank you for reading,
~Amanda