Frank's Journal 02/16/12-

February 16, 2012

You might wonder why I want my own page on our blog. Truth be told this is my blog, even though it is shared by the others. It's one woman's endeavor...it's my endeavor. The Other Girl had her own journal, for awhile; so I thought I might give it a shot. A "me" place, for when we are me.

I made The Other Girl start this blog, I feel I am the one responsible for her demise. There is a certain amount of guilt that comes from the destruction of a core, or at least who we've always understood to be our core. Chances are the abuse from our childhood started earlier than we can remember, and she may not even be the core. Who can tell. There are so many of us. I have been, in the past, merely the one who cleans up the messes and helps us get back on track. Now that I have more freedom to be me I am finding myself to be absent too much of the time, much to James' displeasure I am sure.

I recall a conversation we had with The Father, sometime a couple of years ago, the same time we discussed with him religion, and the abuse from our childhood, asking him questions about The Mother and religion, and I got a chance again to really start breaking down the barriers among us, and with him for the first time.

We asked The Father about his inability to see how sick The Mother was. Just based on the things we knew. She had got fired from a home for the handicapped where she worked when we were young for allegedly mistreating the mentally handicapped kids. She's never been stable. He had to have seen it, we told him.

He discussed and mentioned things about coming home from work to find us in a high chair, food stuck to our face, diaper unchanged all day, which might explain potty training ourselves by the age of one (we are told). We're guessing he really didn't say too much about it, we know that she would have thrown a fit if he would have criticized her; it's a "great" trait of hers.

We have memories of being told, by The Mother, that while living in a trailer house the early years of our life before we were even six year old, that we would run down the hallway, and for some reason miss it entirely, smacking our head into the wall. If you were to ask her about it she would claim this happened many times before moving back to the farm. I don't believe her anymore. Like the grown woman who is bruised because she "ran into a door handle" or "fell down the stairs", I know it's a cover for abuse. I know enough about her, her nature, and the abuse we can remember so far, to know that it's not unlikely. Sometimes it's hard to look at her, that she used to injure us and has made up this lie...that she has convinced herself it is the truth.

But she is our mother, and I know she came from a childhood of abuse herself, I can forgive her, but I can never forget, we can never forget.

Perhaps this would have been better as a blog post.

~ Frank