My body; a temple.

I've always known just how my parents met. But maybe I didn't know just how. But you hear the stories. Theirs, was one of the story book sorts. My mom was the last daughter of a well respected man in her town, a hard working family, daredevil, bar-bruiser brothers and great sisters. Sisters who migrated abroad early in life, many cousins who married well. My father was the second to last brother of a well-respected man in his town. Many brothers who painted the town red, bruisers, druggies, a father with MANY connections.

Amidst all this nobility ..there was of course, a lot of domestic violence. It seemed to be a staple in each home. Husbands took advantage of their too-good-wives, some had women outside and children to follow suit. The slackers drank their paychecks away and that was life.

They said...my father saw my mother once. Just once. He knew who she was, she knew who he was. Once, was all it took for him to end up at her house, with the words to my grandfather (RIP) .."I want to marry your daughter."....They were both just barely 21? Maybe. My father was a trouble maker and my mother was the good daughter. A natural nurturer. A special breed of woman. But it was arranged, and from the moment it came down to the final hour, she said (and I heard this depiction many years later)...she didn't want to marry him. She could spy him from a hole in the floor of their home and she just ...Cold feet perhaps? Who knows.



Watching my parents as I grew, I vowed I'd never let a man hit me. Ever. I'd quicker kill him than allow it to happen. Needless to say, my father did hit my mother, and back then, we were too young, too small to stand up to him, for her, with her. As the years rolled by and we moved to the States, my father and I butted heads a few times, and in that; being that I moved out early in my life, he'd take some of that aggravation out on her. We never let him live it down. I've gone toe-to-toe with him on several occasions and will again.

But with that my mother stuck it out with him for whatever her reasons, I took it upon my self to live my romantic life almost the same way. One boy, one girl. Most of my relatives are the same, they've been married for 50..60 years and had that history together. The men now look onto their wives and KNOW, not think, but know the shit they put up with for those decades. The shit they endured with children and jobs, and the drama. Maybe some of them would appreciate it now, and then others would revel in that aged arrogance they are now marinated into.

Because of that; I guess I never allowed myself to become physically attached to many men. Chris is my second of just the two in my life. My ex was my first. But I had met Chris first. I had that same sight. I saw him and I felt something. I knew i wanted to be with him. But he didn't see me the same, maybe. Or so I believed. Because I moved on after I told him I liked him (yeah it was pretty sappy the way I did it.) but he just didn't get it. And I let go. Not completely because I kept his number and I wrote about him a few times while my life had unraveled with another. And in that unraveling did I fall back into Chris. He caught me and held me under the salvation of his own rooftop of safety as my world came crashing down. He would ward his creepy friends away from me because he wanted me for himself.

He said everything a man would say for a woman to just crumble for him. He waited for years and until I was no longer attached to someone else to tell me how he felt, how long he'd felt that way and just how he felt. Cliche to the WORD.

I mean, I partied like a mother fucker while I was growing up and after I moved out. I worked hard for a great income and I partied every weekend. BUT I never once brought a guy home with me or went home with another. I danced my ass off at clubs, at house partied, at the bars. Whatever. But I never gave my number out, I never kissed enough to tell (or not tell) and I never allowed myself to be taken advantage of. In any way. I never got emotionally attached to any of those people because my focus was on me. My life, my family and my body was something SO sacred to me. Would be something special to the man I decided to spend the rest of my life with, would be something I gave to him and only him.

I wasn't a prude but I wasn't a flirt. I wasn't a tease. I was out to have a good time, not fill a void in my life. because to me, back then, my life was complete. I had a great family that supported me, a place I could call my own and a car that I could be where I wanted, when I wanted. I didn't go to school and get my degrees like everyone else. I missed out on the college experience but I experienced life.

And once I decided to be with that one person back then, I thought it was the right time, because I was ready to be with him for the long haul. 2 years down the road, when he decided to mess hi life up, I was strong enough then, though not independent as I was, considering I had just been laid off from my first and only job after 14 years. I left. And then I went back, and I left again. With no aching heart of what if. I was saddened, yes. But it's now 4 years later and I hadn't looked back as much as him. He's still waiting for me.

Now, I'm lovestruck on the seemingly wrong person who under appreciates me. I'd drained 5 years into a relationship that hasn't changed save for my giving us our daughter. Needless to say. I worked hard at my personal life. I cherished my body though I didn't treat it as a temple. I drank like a fiend and I partied with the rest of them. But I worked out like a beast. I enjoyed my life growing up and I admired my choices then. I like that I was careful with the men I chose but not necessarily the men I chose. Lol.

But I'm not dead in the ground yet. I want to pass that strength on to my daughter, to love herself and her body like I did mine. To care for it as it will become and to make sure others respect it. Because if she doesn't, no one else would see why they should.

Fear of an unknown.

My friend's last entry made me want to share it with Jaiden's father. Why? Fear. Fear that this is what could possibly happen to my own child in the future if he doesn't get his act together. And I know how he would take it. As a grand assault on him personally. Like he would DO something along those lines to cause out child to make such decisions based on him, perse. And it wouldn't be like that.

It would just mean she's learning what a lot of things are with the way WE are. HOW we are. How we act. She's already seen us fight once and now every time we're together and talk, she assumes we're arguing and she says "Stop fighting." ..it's gone as far as her saying it at my parents' home while she slept over there. He seems to either thing I'm challenging him or it's something personal. And maybe in hindsight I want him to wake up and realize just the type of parent he is and the parenting, or lack thereof, that he does, WILL in fact affect this child.

So after some contemplation, I decided against it. I decided to just keep my thoughts to myself and my focus on me and my kid. Why? It's really all I can do. She said it best in saying "It's not my job."...and in all actuality, it's not. I do what I need to do. But I can't be Daddy too, I can only hope I do the right things, make the right choices when it comes down to things that affect us both. That means where we live, my job, her education and my love life, if there ever is to be one. I can show her how much a mother, a woman can love herself, by pampering me, and being good to me, in hopes that she will know what a woman truly deserves. But what comes from a man, a father, even a love, would be something entirely different.

If her father isn't around she'll do those attention seeking things....and then trouble would have been birthed. I despise failure but I accept that to get up is to have fallen and learned at some point. So you learn to stand up and dust off, and move forward. Some single parents are lucky enough for their children to learn better than they were taught. Sons know how to treat women because their mothers and sisters were MISTREATED, and they know that they would never cause such hurt. Women ..mothers and sisters, and daughters would know better when their own are used and discarded simply because they were too much of an easy accessible person.

But majority of people, aren't that fortunate. My mother has only ever been with one man, and that's where I fall short Because I feel one man should be enough. One man should be it. I didn't date til late in the game, I didn't spread my legs for every John out there. And I loved genuinely. I give freely and honestly. I do what I would want done for me. And I'm being failed. I'm falling short. And my daughter will either, 1 - see her father as someone who never did anything for her mother and was selfish in his own ways...or 2 - do the exact same thing.


If she does the first, maybe she'll know she deserves better and maybe she'll know not to waste time on someone who doesn't want her, or doesn't want to really commit to her. I know she won't stay a virgin forever, or even to her 20s like I did. But I would hope she's a lot smarter in that aspect of her life. Because it would be just that. I can't control her. My choices need to be ones that can benefit her.

But then...why does it have to be ALL me? I could do all of that and her father could pick some whore who shows her the opposite of everything I've done. Unfurl every layer I've carefully laid in place ....
Or maybe it could just be her father. In his past he's not...he used women. I'll put it at that. He was cheated on by his first girlfriend and he forgave her. But then he did the same thing to her. His father cheated on his mother. She stayed. His first brother in law cheated on his sister, she LEFT.And since then, he's always been unfa--well that would be wrong in the word because he never really committed to any of them. He just didn't commit to any of them and saw a number of them at a time.

And I knew all this from the get-go so maybe my woes are my fault. But he knew the person I was. I was that great girl in the friend zone. the girl he wanted silently while he saw two others. The friend he told his troubles to when those two were ..not the flavor of the week.
Now it's no longer about me. But my kid.