8:03 a.m. - 2002-06-24
a little (figuratively) about Tara
i guess the fun in talking about yourself unguided is deciding where to start. what seems applicable or what kind of background information is too much or too little is sort of a delicate balance i suppose.
i grew up in north central MA. my parents were far from rich and for the most part scraped to get by most of the time. i'm an only child, though, and never really 'wanted' for anything. i was indeed spoiled, i guess you could say because if my heart wanted something, my parents would find a way to get it for me. when i figured this trend out, i stopped asking for things and making things so obvious. they really couldn't afford it.
my dad is an alcoholic. most of my dad's side of the family has some issue or another with alcohol. my dad and my grandfather may as well be clones, but i was the first grandchild, so i'm sort of grampa's girl... he'd probably die trying to do things if i asked him. my mom was pretty much codependent with my dad until i learned about codependency and talked to her about it. but growing up that was way different. listening to her make excuses for the night he'd throw things and break windows or flip the kitchen table and break dishes... or just yell and scream... he never hurt either of us, he doesn't believe in it. i think he'd kill himself first.
so obviously, i did not have the fairytale childhood. i was withdrawn, and shy up through about the fifth grade. i stayed in my room a LOT and read my books or wrote stories almost constantly. at the time poetry was my forte as well. anything that helped me escape from my reality, anything that could take the edge off sitting in my room and waiting to hear my dad's truck drive in the driveway and then waiting to see if tonight would be another fight or if it would be a quiet night. i guess thinking back on it, i worried about it a lot more than i realized back then. i suppose it was just a natural reaction. i hated the yelling. hated tryign to help my mom clean up the messes he would make from throwing things or whatever he did on given nights... because she'd never let me help her. and he'd always be on his couch when i walked through the den to the kitchen and i'd avoid him... which was bizarre but i think understandable.
my dad wasn't -always- a monster. i should make that clear. i used to go to work with him all the time or help him fix a car or do something in the yard. we used to go shooting together and stuff like that. i was daddy's little girl for a good portion of my early life, but as i grew up and life went on around me i guess we grew apart. i still love him, but at the same time i hate him for being the person that he is. i don't have a good relationship with my dad now at all. in fact, i'd go as far to say that my dad and i are pretty much estranged but that is something that he instituted between us, because after my mom kicked him out, i kept trying to keep in contact with him but there was no return effort and then two christmas's ago i went to the bar (because that's the only place you can ever find him) to invite him to christmas at my house and he basically looked right through me like i didn't exist. and so ended my efforts to make peace with my dad. i'll wait now until he's damn good and ready to make the effort. that might never be because he's too pig headed to realize he's in the wrong again. he's still not understanding why my mom asked him to leave. he doesn't see that his lifestyle is not one that promotes a healthy marriage or a healthy relationship in any way. he doesn't understand that he's an alcoholic and needs help. but i often wonder if there's hope for him, and everytime i think about it i'm sad, because i don't think he'll ever -want- to be different. he thinks he's okay. i wish he'd look at himself from the outside and realize what he's done to our family.
my mom on the other hand... she and i were always close. she was like another best friend when i was in school and for a while after. life changed for both of us though the summer she kicked out my dad. that was a few short months after my wedding. it was rough for me, which i never really understood why because i was one of the ones that believed she should have kicked him out for good long before (he had been kicked out twice to my recollection while i was growing up, i remember them both because i remember her taking me to visit him while he was at work...) but i think my relationship with her changed at that point just like my relationship with my dad did. of course my mom changed too. she went from fiercely independent and outgoing to someone who barely ever leaves the house nor the side of her computer. she's bascially cut herself off from outside, real life and chooses to whine about it than do something about it. she claims there's nothing to do (i could have told her that) and no one to do it with (which is probably due to the fact that she didn't stay in contact with hardly any of her friends during her depression period after she kicked my dad out). she complains about money, and lack there of but isn't willing to travel a little bit further for more money (i think she'd get paid much better if she got herself a job in worcester or something but apparently that's too much travel) i don't know. it just seems like a lot of whining and no action. i know that i do this too sometimes but at least i eventually -do- something about it. i can only hope she does.
so my family is dysfunctional. it's no secret. i'll tell anyone anything they want to know about the dyfunction or even the special kind of love that dysfunction breeds. that love being the fact that i hate my father with a passion but at the same time i love him so much i'd probably fight to the death to protect some shred of his honor.
i'm no good with loud voices, yelling, violent arguing, unless i'm on the yelling end. if i'm on or near the receiving end, i start to shake to death and basically, if it gets to be too much for me i automatically, and instictually fold inside myself until i can't hear it anymore. a tactic that i never realized i did until it went too far one night while i was still living at home. it's a scary thing to be trapped inside your body and be able to see the people around you but not being able to hear or respond to them. to pull away from them when they try to reach out to you and hug or touch you... it was painful to be there, and i don't know that anyone will ever understand that situation... i don't.
i, consequently, have somewhat of a swiss cheese memory of my childhood. i remember distinct blocks of it but i have mentally buried a lot. Stephan tries to poke at those things something when we have a session and a few times i think he tapped some of the recessed memories. i used supression for anything awful in my life. when i broke up with one boyfriend (whom i cared for very deeply) i was depressed for weeks until i boxed everything up and basically wiped my memory of everything we did together clean. it sounds unbelievable, impossible, but i somehow managed to pull it off. so successfully that once i had come to terms with myself (post-high school) i had a very difficult time putting the pieces of that time period of my life back together again. there are still somethings that i cannot recall, but i depend on the pictures and memorabilia i have to help me remember.
i often wonder what's hiding in the darkest parts of my brain. but then again... i wonder if it's better to leave that stone unturned.
in the fifth grade i remember making a conscious decision not to be shy anymore. up to that point i had two friends, and one had just left for a different school so i was down to one. i loved her dearly but i was sick of being the shy girl who got picked on all the time, or, worse, was simply invisible. it was in Mrs. Goff's english lesson that i made the decision. i have a perfect image of the moment right down to the fact that she was wearing a white sweater over a light blue shirt that day... it's strange how we remember some of these things.
this was how i came to be friends with Sammer, my bestest friend now. she was popular back then (she always has been...) and i started hanging around with her. things just went from there and she helped shape me into what i am today, personality wise. i love her for it.
i was always a good student. never in any trouble. was a peer leader in high school, member of the national honor society, on yearbook staff and best of all, was in the colorguard for the marching band. i was always busy, always surrounded by people that were fun but always driven to a goal. up until the seventh grade i wanted to be a writer. i had even started writing a 'book' but quickly lost my nerve when one teacher shot it apart like mad. i didn't have the self-esteem back then to pick up the pieces of my broken story and move on. and she had been vicious, not even nice about anything... that ruined writing for me i think. i wish it hadn't. i wish i could still have the discipline to write like i did back then.
i soon became enamoured with accounting and basically threw myself into that, straight through college. my college existence was pretty boring, comparitively to other kids who went to UMass Amherst. i didn't party. i didn't stay out all night. i didn't do all those things that you're "supposed" to do during college like discovering yourself and the world around you. instead... i did work, and lots of it. and when i wasnt' doing school work i was working so that i could GO to school. i don't know that i'd do it differently if i went back and got to do it all over again...
i met louie my second semester freshman year when i had been forced to come back home and take a semester at the community college. i hated being there and the classes were all a joke to me. i got a 4.0 without batting an eyelash at any of the work. but louie was perhaps one of the best things that happened to me that semester. it was love at first sight for me and i ended up asking him out. we grew close really quickly and about a week after our first date was the first time he told me that he was going to marry me in five years... i, at the time, laughed at him and told him he was crazy. true to his word though, five years after our first date we got married.
louie and i were just abotu married from the start. at least that's what our friends were always saying. we were cute. i loved him, he loved me and life was good even when it was bad. we made it through four different roommates in college and hardly no bad times between the two of us. by the end of college though i was antsy. i was stressed with the end of the semester, graduation, and starting work with CSC which included an 8 week trip to IL which would mean i wouldn't see him at all really. i had been restless and not very happy with him that semester. i broke up with him shortly after graduation. telling him i needed time off and so did he.
i missed him that summer and as it turns out we ended up back together when i got back and life went on it's merry way. i suppose i did give up a lot for him, but i guess that's what we do for the people we love. but i didn't know myself then, i didn't want to i guess. i was probably scared. i suppose being and working in the IT field i started realizing that i needed to know about me so that i could be who i was and use my talents to get me where i want to go in my career while being true to myself. i don't ever want to be fake to excel... it's not worth it.
we got married on March 25th, 2000 in the gymnasium where i had asked him out on our first date. the wedding was fun, we had a spectacular time, we went to disney (4 days on land, 3 at sea) for our honeymoon, we came home to lots of presents and almost immediately after began looking for a house to call our own. We moved into the house of our dreams in August that same year. i'm willing to guess that life started changing shortly after that. my commute to work was longer, which made my days longer having to cook and clean when i got home at night as well.
and when i got laid off from CSC things started changing some more. by this time i had found and been exploring the D/s websites en force. i had been working with Stephan for many months (nearly a year), i had been working with Jeff since that January including working on GIVE for him. i had already become restless in my life, and had already used louie to exploit and explore my new found knowledge of D/s and sadomasichism. i think the layoff and the subsequent month and a half, almost two months off made me snap though.
a lot had happend up to that point anyway. louie and Stephan never really got along because suddenly the jealousy gene woke back up in louie and i can't say that i blame him really but i always hated that gene, and for no logical reason the time i spent with Stephan i didn't see as a problem nor did i really see it as getting in the way with anything that i did have with louie. i guess i didn't understand his jealousy especially since most of the time i only went out with Stephan on the days that louie was doing something anyway.
and jenny was up that summer too... and i spent a LOT of time with jenny, so when i got laid off it was like an extra bonus time to spend with her and Stephan. i guess what happened was that Stephan had shown me freedom by exposing me to myself and the things that live inside of me. the freedom of being a woman, and being owned and giving up the responisibility for myself to someone and just living life for all that it is. that didn't fit very well with what i was currently living and it caused upheaval.
when i finally did get employment, it made things worse because i had very late nights and i was travelling further and by the time i got home i didn't want to even see the mess in the house or the dishes stacked in the sink or the lack of food in the refrigerator. louie and i argued a lot more. he wanted me home and didn't seem to understand the need for me to be at work late at night, even a few nights where i didn't get home until nearly 2am. on the weekends he had his own stuff to do so i'd go out with Stephan and Jenny instead of sitting at home, and that bothered him... he didn't offer to change his schedule though either. just wanted me to stay home...
eventually i had had enough fighting. i love him too much to argue with him like that. to bring that constant pain to him like i was doing every day just by being there. i decided to look for a new place and move out. by that time i was not wearing my wedding ring anymore. i had thrown it at him in an angry fit one night and told him he can't ever take away my memories or my love for him... it was really an awful time in my life, one filled with confusion and high strung emotion. i was torn between hurting inside myself and knowing that i was hurting him, not wanting to hurt either of us anymore but still not understanding why he couldn't understand the things going on in my life, because i did try to share it with him, tried to explain it to him, but he was just too absolutely vanilla to understand all of it and he definately had zero interest in anything i had to say after a discussion about polyamory.
so basically my storybook life which was headed for marriage, a house, 2.3 kids, a dog and 3 cats or whatever it is, disappeared in a puff of smoke. i was lucky to have jenny and Stephan at that point, though by the time i moved out it was Stephan that was mostly supporting me and i was lucky. after a while i adjusted to my life and i'm happy with what i have. i'm happy with the things i do and do not have in my life. as always i want more, and i seek to understand my behavior about things.
i seek forgiveness. i seek apologies. i seek to understand the actions of others. i seek to grow and become someone better than i am now. i seek to make Him happy in all that i do and all that He asks. i seek more friends and more time which to spend with them.
there's a lot of crazy crap that goes on inside of me. i'm still sorting it all out. we've managed to tap into a lot of anger that i have surpressed and i'm not surprised really where it's outlets have been. i, like most anyone else, have a lot of things in my past i need to work on, and i'm trying.
eventually, maybe i'll even be able to understand myself so that these entries won't need to be so long :)
