Hello there, it’s been a while, and in true returning from ghosting fashion, I am here to either share something vapid and meaningless, or something raw and deeply personal to justify my lazy pen name. (Honestly, I think this will be a weird combination of the two, so let’s roll back the way back machine and go for it!)
When I was 2, my mom married the man who became the father of her other children. His disgusting behavior combined with her weak spirit is actually why they got married, but that’s actually a side note in today’s tale. This horrid man was absolutely evil, and from the age of 2 until I was about 11 or 12, he abused and tortured me in every way imaginable and unimaginable (unless you’re also a monster then, kudos I guess?): physically, emotionally, psychologically, and even yes, sexually.
I legitimately had no childhood to speak of, because when he was done stripping me of my innocence, and finally sent to prison for - you guessed it - being a monster; not only did my mom stay married to him for a while to preserve her reputation, she paraded me around telling anyone who would listen to the horrible things that happened to me (while she stayed clueless) and how helpless and needy she was without her husband. That is of course, when she wasn’t laying in bed feeling sorry for herself and leaving my damaged self to take care of her other children. It’s actually a wonder we don’t all have serious criminal records, thinking about it, so, gold star us.
This monster my mother married, was a special sort of monster by the way. He was a Good Christian Man who believed in the bible and all its teachings. He was a true man who was the head of his household, and his word was law. His wife’s role was to submit to him, because The Bible Said. Never-mind that he was unemployed more than not, he was a man, so he was in charge. And to make sure everyone who came to the prison cell he called his house knew, he painted a large sign the went across the entire top of the garage saying “As For Me and My House, We Will Serve the Lord”
Even after he was in prison, and I had finally convinced my mom to divorce him, the sign stayed. Staring at me, mocking my pain every time I left and entered the house. It was totally irrelevant that there was only one or two safe places in the building that didn’t scream with the memories of the life he forced upon me, the sign stayed. Years after the divorce I begged her to go through with, I finally was able to convince her to take down the sign, and years after that, long after I moved away, she eventually painted the entire house a brand new color and changed the front porch.
Fast forward to today, and there is still a couple people in life from my childhood that 1) know me from my disaster child/teen era 2) know the broad strokes of why I was such a train wreck for so long, but for the most part people only know me as the cynically cheerful weirdo I have grown into being. My first ever roommate is one of them, and lives just a few mins away from me so we see each other regularly. She is also one of like 5 people allowed to acknowledge my birthday, but because she loves me, she finds loopholes to make me not cringe.
A couple of weeks ago she found a kitchen decor sign that she gifted for me, and it is perfect. So perfect and she doesn’t even know exactly how much, since she met me post-sign at my mom’s.This sign reads, and now hangs above my double doors leadings out into my backyard “As for me and my house, we will serve tacos. Salsa 24:7”
The monster is long out of prison, I have a lifetime restraining order against him, and last I heard he’s dying of cancer in a local hospital, so he can no longer hurt anyone else in this lifetime. That doesn’t mean it didn’t take a lot of therapy, drug use, bad decisions and then more therapy to heal from the scars, but he didn’t win. His disgusting religion doesn’t have a chokehold on me, and my child is one of the finest examples of good person you will ever meet, without the fear of damnation for making mistakes or not following the code some dead dudes decided on forever ago.
So, for me and my house, we’ll serve tacos. ;)
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