Monday, August 18, 2014

Family First

In a journal entry from the spring of 2012, I tried reasoning with myself as to why I should be grateful for the situation I was in.  I failed miserably at convincing myself.  My folks had screamed the exact same statements at me over the weeks before that – he had me living in a nice house, had a live-in nanny provided for my children.  I was set up to be able to work hard for him, and everything at home was handled so I didn't need to worry.  My wifee, my folks’ bottom, had given me a pep talk over text earlier that week as well.  She could tell I was slipping.  She had reminded me that it was my responsibility to go hard for my children, to provide for them because I was all they had, they were depending on me.

I wanted to desperately to believe what they told me.  And so I took their words and wrote them down myself as one last attempt to prove to myself that I should be happy.  I told myself that H had everything planned out and taken care of – I didn't have to worry, I could go to work and focus on making as much money as possible.  My entire life was set up to accommodate me working.

The power of the mind never ceases to amaze me.  It is amazing and terrifying at the same time – the things you can convince yourself are true and necessary.  If you work at it long and hard enough, you can carve a new pathway in your brain – you can change your entire belief system, your whole structure of priorities, and your complete outlook on life.  And what is most amazing to me is you can make all these mental changes to fit your reality, and in the end you can justify your actions as being for the good of your situation.  You actually start to believe that the reality you've created is the best option out there.

I never went into that household with the expectation of sacrificing my family to serve a new master.  I never went into that situation just readily accepting the fact that I would stop being a part of my children’s lives.  I went in thinking that by choosing up with H, I would be able to make more money to provide a better life for my children.  I moved across the country thinking that by distancing myself from my turnout, I would be giving my children a safe home once again.

Little by little, my time with my children was consumed with H’s demanding work schedule for me.  Most nights were 10-12 hours long, sometimes up to 16.  I would spend two hours in the afternoon with my children when they got home from school, and we would eat dinner together before I went to sleep.  I would wake up after they were in bed and head out for the night.  I wouldn't be allowed to come home usually until long after they had gone to school the following morning.  I would sleep a few hours and then spend my day running errands, going to the gym, etc.  I would be in Vegas like this for 1-2 weeks at a time.  I would then inevitably end up getting arrested and spending 12-18 hours in a holding cell with 25-30 other girls at CCDC.  H would post my bail first thing in the morning but I wouldn't be released until mid-afternoon.  I would come home, have to shower and eat, and head right back out onto the strip.  Then I would typically leave town the following day, meaning I would work the casinos until mid-morning and then head home to pack and catch an afternoon flight.  Being up for 24 hours at a time was standard, and several times where I would be up for three to four days at a time, fueled by energy drinks and fear.  

Being OT meant being completely gone from my children for seven days at a time, which felt like an eternity to me.  Most months, I was gone every other week.  The night I would return to Vegas, H would pick us up at the airport, collect our traps and take us out to dinner.  It was always the longest dinner in eternity because all I wanted to do was go home and kiss my babies.  And that was literally all I would have time to do because then I was sent right back out to the casino that night.

The year I was with H, I had less than a week off, mostly holidays, and my daughter’s birthday.  The time I had off with my children, I was usually so exhausted that we did little more than hang around the house.  And while my physical exhaustion was depleting, it was being emotionally drained that was most damaging.

Forcing myself to believe that I should be grateful for this life I was being given permission to have only lasted so long.  I came to a breaking point where I realized that the reason I was so miserable was because I was not there to enjoy the very reason I had started all this in the first place.  I wasn't going to pay a nanny to raise my children for me so I could work – it was so completely backwards to me!  I wasn't going to pay to live in a house I couldn't enjoy because I was always at work!  And I most certainly wasn't going to pay a person who did everything in their power to drain me and isolate me from my babies who were my motivation to get up every day.

It was at that point that I realized that I had completely lost focus of what was truly important to me, and why exactly I was working in the first place.  While it appeared, from one perspective, that my folks was providing a life set up to accommodate my needs – in reality my life was set up to accommodate HIS needs at the expense of my own. 


There are still days – even two years after I left – that I am still so angry at his selfishness and his complete disregard for my children’s needs (never mind my own).  But I am mostly mad at myself that it took me so long to wake up and realize how far I had shifted my thoughts, that I actually believed I was doing what was best for my children.  I can only be so upset by the situation, as I have to remind myself that I learned a painful lesson about what is most important to me in my life, and what things I will never be willing to sacrifice again.  It is because of that experience that I have learned so much about the importance of being present for your children, and taking a close look at my actions and how they ultimately affect my family.