Monday, August 29, 2011

Trey's 21st Birthday

Most of the time this would be a happy celebration of a young persons passage to adulthood and it is acceptable to drink in public at this time.  God bless my sons heart, because he didn't wait until then to try drinking and smoking pot.  I personally would have preferred him to just smoke rather than drink.  I have been around alcoholics and I have smoked pot for over 20 years.  Alcoholics are volatile meaning you never really know what might come out at any time.  Pot smokers are general peace seeking people looking to relieve some stress or help with an ailment and yes there are always exceptions to the observations.  As a parent I walked a fine line for a long time between hiding it from him when he was young without lying about it directly but there comes a time in each of our lives when we have to make a decision.  I had always tried to tell Trey the truth when he asked pointed direct questions.  I knew that if he wasn't ready for the info he wouldn't have asked.  When he asked IF he could smoke pot...I was touched he actually asked...I replied...I don't know can you?  He proceeded to pull out a pipe, pack a bowl, take a hit and then pass it to me.  I guess that answered that question and how!  If you think I am a bad parent or just one that made a bad decision, consider this... smoking a bowl with my son opened up line of communication that went deeper than ever before. 

He talked about his friends openly and as honestly as he could at that age which was almost 17.  He talked about what they were doing when no adult was around and it was typical teenager stuff.  Yes they will try almost anything and I found when my mother forbid something, it would make me want to do it more than ever.  He talked about how he felt about me, his dad, both sets of grandparents and what he wanted to do.  He changed his mind almost daily about what that was and I wanted him to find something that he loved doing. Remembering back to his younger days when he talked non stop about nothing we would joke that as soon as he opened his eyes in the morning he would open his mouth too ;)  But that talk was by far the closest I had felt to him in a while.  And that was my fault because I put a job and trying to have a relationship over him when I shouldn't have.  Trey lived with my mom because she decided that she could raise him better than I could.  At 19 I was just finding my way and although I was brave enough to take on the world...my mother was a whole other story.  I had 2 choices at that time...make peace or make war.  I wanted to make war and get my child back, but my mother had more money and time than I did to fight.  So I made peace with it.  At the time I thought I was doing what was best for Trey, but looking back... maybe I am not so sure.  Every parent has to pick their battles sometimes even with their own parents.  


I hope you understand that I am not advocating that you or teenagers should smoke pot.  I think it is a personal choice and I have done some research on it.  I saw a bumper sticker that said it all...God made weed, man made beer...In God we Trust.  The biggest reasons it is illegal is because the drug companies want you to buy their less effective drugs, the paper industry wants you to keep depleting the rain forest instead of growing hemp to make it and many other useful things.  The government needs it to subsidize it's illegal activities and most importantly they need it so they can throw more of us in the privatized prison so they can make even more money.  Pot is not longer the gateway to other harder drugs...your medicine cabinet is.  The other teenage driver of the car that killed my son was reportedly under the influence of a pill or 3.  Who really knows?  I made a personal choice and would do it again if I had the chance. I was not trying to be his friend, I was trying to be the most open and as honest as I could because I knew he would have to make his own choices and I wanted him to have real information that he could trust.  In the darkest hour of grief after losing him I kept asking myself did my decision put him on the path that lead to his death?  I guess I will not know the answer while I am on this earth, but when I look into the eyes of many other parents who have lost a child...I see many different people from all walks of life who's kids were as varied as their parents.  Guilt consumes us all for a while...even the ones that did everything right.  

So for my beautiful baby boy I'd like to say thank you for all you've taught me in the short time you were here.  Please forgive me for all my mistakes and know that I heard you, believed in you and love you...always.  The memories I have I will always treasure and you will always be #1 to me.  Happy 21st birthday bud...one less day before we see each other again...until then...puff, puff, pass.    

     














Sunday, August 28, 2011

The Power of You

1. Home to Contradictions, 2. Six Degrees from Home, 3. Welcome Back to My Therapy, 
4.  Lying, Cheating, Stealing and Intent, 5. Power of You, 6. One Split Second,
7. Marvelous Mistakes, 8. I made a choice to make a change, 9. Connections to the Farm,
10. Back to the Farm, 11. It's a small world after all, 12 Fair Weather Friends,
13. Ghost of Roommates Past, 14. You can never go to far, 15. Glamorous Life,
16. Double Standards, 17. Lazy? No Exhausted, 18. Crossroads of Life and Death, 19. One Last Time, 20. When Worlds Collide I, 21. When Worlds Collide II, 22. When Worlds Collide III   23. The Unwanted New World, 24. Means the Old World Must Go, 25. So Where was God in all this? 26. Where did you get that from?27. The Reason for My Season, 28. Was Always a Little Rascal, 29. Pictures and Quotes of the Little Rascal and final chapter 30. Closing in Contradictions. ~Use these links to read in order (some chapters have songs, new added content, pictures or all:) Volume 2 >>>>>        


  
Yes I know this sounds a bit corny to a lot of you.  If fact I had no clue what this meant as a child or even a young adult.  I never felt that I had any power to take back so for a while it was a non issue to me or so I thought.  I did understand the concept of control because that was exerted in many ways starting with family, school, friends, jobs and later government.  I only attended church functions on occasion with others and now I feel that was a blessing.  For some reason that I could not fathom, I instinctively knew there was a higher being in existence, but I could not accept the terms and conditions that were applied to such an awesome power by other people.  I wasn't loud about it and didn't engage in a lot of debate, especially with the ones who had memorized the Bible.  The few churches I did attend were all different denominations and ideologies and left a big void in me when I walked out their doors. All but one small church near the group home I lived in when I was 14.  I'm not sure how this was selected or done but we were split up in to two groups of girls and our group went to a mostly black church.  Now I can't remember what the preacher said or even much of the service, but what I do remember is the feeling.  The singing was beautifully done and it was like all these wonderful voices coming together in their own harmony had opened up a conduit to something I had only heard about.  And they never took us back to that church again.  

Looking back on that time I think is when I first understood that there is usually a kernel of truth underneath all the hype, promises and  people in general. But only having a small glimpse into the power of the people in that church did nothing to point me in the right direction, not because they did anything wrong.  I was just stubborn and saw it as another thing I couldn't do.  By that age I was angry at the system, my parents and everybody else who was trying to tell me who I should be and what I should do or when.  I was well on my way to rebelling from most authority figures in a passive aggressive way until I left home at the age of 16.  I had been overcoming my fears one by one for a while now but still never really felt capable.  Pain is unavoidable but to prolong the agonies and remain defenseless is something I just can not do.   

If you don't think you have any power then ask yourself why do others keep trying to take it away?  That question struck me in my early 20's but I still didn't have an answer that satisfied my inner self.  In my life I only wanted to control ME and not everyone else.  Shoot, just controlling myself in a world steeped in hypocrisy and sometimes blatant ignorance was more than I could handle at times.  My family dealt with things by sweeping them under a rug, then we were just supposed to walk around it like nothing was wrong.  Unless I was the problem and then it was time to deal with ME.  The 3 families I interacted with after leaving home taught me a lot about the world in general.  They were all different in their own right but they all expressed their opinions freely, loudly and with little or no thought to the consequences.  For the first time in my life I started to express MY opinions and was met with mixture of disbelief or curious wonderment.  I've had fights because I stood up for myself and even had a few guns pulled on me.  


This one incident I will remember for the rest of my life because I found my power that day.  My husband and I had split up and I had to move home with my parents for a short while.  My ex wanted me to bring Trey to his parents house for a dinner.  At that time my exes parents were split up as well and his father had started dating a married coworker from the plant he worked at.  I remembered this chicks husband sleeping on the couch previously and wondered if he knew.  Now when I split up with my (ex) husband after many fights about responsibility and our future...I simply told him I wanted a divorce and promptly walked out the door and started seeing someone else.  In my mind I was done and that's all there was too it, except the signing of the papers. Unfortunately my ex didn't believe me and seemed to be completely surprised by the whole thing.  Then things went from bad to even worse but that invite to dinner seem to come out of nowhere. ( Yes memories are a little hazy :)  That day my ex, his sister, his brother, their dad and his dad's girlfriend where there.  

Trey and I had only been there for a little while, when the guy I started dating Marvelous drove by the house screaming for me and started a chain reaction of events that ended up with my exes, dad's girlfriend pulling a rather large gun on me while screaming what a cheating whore I was.  For those of you unfamiliar with a situation like this, it is much better to have the one holding the gun to hold it calmly without shaking. Shaking in this situation indicates that pure emotion is running through their veins and they are more likely to shoot you just based on that.  All of this transpired in a matter of minutes and at that make or break moment, I looked her right in the eye as I stepped up to the gun and dared her hypocritical ass to shoot.  I used much more colorful language at the time but stood up to this large, ignorant woman in spite of the fact I could have died that day.  We had all experienced the lost of one of the Hinson brothers at the age of 14, then my uncle died a few months later and finally my beloved granddad had died in the same year...so dying did not scare me.  In my mind, at that age, dying was inevitable and if it was my time then so be it.  Right or wrong when you can wrap your mind around that concept, then you can move on to other important things in life. She backed down. I grabbed Trey and started to leave.  

Later I realized that no matter what or who I came up against in this life, I would not accept to be mistreated especially when I hadn't deserved it.  I've had about 30 jobs in my life time and have been fired several times because I refused to bow down to people that just want to be in control.  I never had a problem starting from the bottom and working my way up, so please don't misunderstand me.  Paying ones dues in life, earns you an education that is unobtainable even in the best of today's school.  My method has always been trial and error... repeat.  Through that process you understand that failing is only a temporary setback and if you are determined enough you can do anything you set your mind too.  When you give your power or your voice away you will never be happy because no one will respect your power more than you.  I just hope that people will come to understand just how powerful we really are and then begin to use that power to benefit others instead of controlling them.  And just think if we all could harness our own power and combine it with others who also understands then we could finally maybe start to change the world just a little at a time. Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...







 6. One Split Second,  >>>>> 
     

Saturday, August 6, 2011

People are different for a reason



Some of you will think...well duh! But that's about as far as the thought goes.  Growing up poor in the country that was predominantly white showed me how much hate there was behind closed doors for anybody that was different from themselves.  As a young child I would look at a black person maybe in a line at the store and wonder why the people in my world thought they were that different from us.  In my childlike eyes, they were human, who breathed air and ate food.  They also got hurt,  bled red blood, spoke the same language and most importantly when I would happen to touch them, say giving a handshake to the man that checked my moms tires or maybe a hug to the lady that babysat mom...they felt just like me.  Well a bit bigger but still a human just the same.  What it taught me as a young child was, if the people around me hate someone just because they are black, then what were they going to do when they found out something about me they didn't like?  Well I found out years later.

Kids are conditioned by their environment and carry their parents beliefs if they are not careful to think for themselves when they're faced with many of life's choices.  Much to my parents dismay, I was that kid that would think for myself.  I wanted to make my own mistakes and they didn't like that plan at all :)  Going into middle and high school was especially hard for me because I was the fat kid with braces with zero social skills and getting picked on was the norm. Even back then the need to fit in was huge if not obtainable and it hurt when others made fun of me or even worse...to be ignored.  Any sure signs that you are not desired by others whether it's as quiet as a hateful stare to a full on verbal or physical assault... challenges our very core to say the least.  Some of the best people around are dressed in clothes that are different from your own and understanding that at a young age may have been one thing that helped me out later in life.

When I was living with my ex I got the job at the bank through a friends mom.  I made plans to take her out to dinner one night as a thank you and quickly found myself with her in a bar in SC at the age of 17 with a lot of motor cycle riders who were rather rough.  Now I have always loved bikes and had been on a few at that point in my life but this situation was way out of my league at the time.  Thankfully there was an older guy there with the nickname Possum and he recognized what was going on and he stuck with me through out the night and it was a long one.  Four of us had left that bar onto somebodies house that was the local hang out and the lady I was with was not interested in leaving.  Possum was a big guy in full riders gear and he made sure that no one bothered me until I could get this woman to take me home in the morning.  He proved to me that all men were not the same and I still owe him a huge thank you for looking out for me that night.  When I finally got back to my exes house having been dropped off by 3 others they all looked at me like I had orchestrated the whole event.       

I am a deep thinker and try very hard to continually incorporate new information into my belief system.  It took many years of being by myself from being an only child to the jobs I took.  They tended to be jobs that let me be alone more often than not so it's safe to say I've had some time to think. That hour or so before I fall asleep every night used to be for remodeling my home. Yes it gave me much satisfaction to remake my home into what I knew it could be and I'd fall asleep in no time.  Now that time is reserved for pondering deeper social issues even though I have no real training.  I think about things like why can we build prisons that can house the most violent people but we can not built schools that really teach our children about life.  I think about all those empty houses and all those homeless people.  I pray to God that humanity will stop destroying animals, other people and the earth itself....for the sake of greed alone.  I also probe why I feel so distant from organized religion but still fell apart of something greater.   I would like to believe we are all seeking to be apart of something greater, but the biggest question is WHAT? And over time I kept coming back to the forces of good and evil which probably define most of our views on life itself.  Even though I have gaps in my information I believe the battle between these two opposing forces starts and ends in our own heart.  Each and everyone one of us has the capacity for great evil and greater good inside of our soul.  

As I finished writing the last blog I received a message from another person who has also reviewed all three movies from The Zeitgeist. She recommended another eye opening internet movie called Kymatica.  I highly recommend watching this one too because this one addresses specific questions I had and filled in a few more of the blanks.  Fear makes us hate and hate makes us act. Acting again starts chain reactions and this film explores why.  Fear makes us controllable to the the few power hungry who desire that effect.  The PTB or the elite  want to use fear, hate and distrust of each other so we will not be focused on what they are doing to our land, our children and our future.  In fact the quickest most efficient way to break down any society, cliche, group or organization is to turn it on itself.  And we fall for it every time.  Instead of seeing a person of different race, culture, genders, sexual orientation as a person with a different world experience who can contribute in their own way something unique if not beautiful to this world.  We see what we think they will take away from us.  Despite the class system we are all HUMAN and deserve a place in this world.  If we didn't we wouldn't be here.

After viewing the film, I thought about my theme song in life when I was younger and smile a little at the memory.  I Fight Authority and Authority Always Wins.  If my mother ever read this I'm sure she will attest to this :)  Authority does not make since and until it does or goes away completely, I will fight.  To all the young people who have suffered at the hands of another just because you are different, please remember we are all different for a reason and you have every right to be here and then look them in the eye and tell them get a clue or get missin'!  Even though we are all different on the out side we can come together on the inside but that will be no easy feat.  The most important differences in people is this... there are those without a conscience and those with one.  We have let those who do not have one run this world for too long and they have perverted our way of thinking, feeling and living.  It is up to us to stop them before they do any more damage.      








 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Bn3uYqaXA  

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJiCU6Jw0Co&feature=related      

As always please think for yourself and love for us all.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Wedding Photos for a Redneck Wedding

                                                             The Dress.


                                                       7 months pregnant.


                                                            Hair Done.


                                                           Me and D.


                                                Dad walking me down the isle.


                                                          The Deed.


                                                        The Parents.


                                                  The other parent with D and T.


                                                      Some favorite peeps.


                                                              The Drink or the Cake?




                                                  Sherri and I and no that is not alcohol.





                                                              The Throw with his Dad.




                                   The boys club and don't know what happened to the girls.




                            B and M went on our short honeymoon to a local hotel that night.


                                                               Cooling it with the cat.


                                                                 The happy couple.




                                   Just one of the numerous parties at our house after that.



                                                                   Baby Trey came.




                                                         Trying to have a normal life.




                                 But the parties continued and the guys were the audience...




                                                                   To the the very end.






                                                        The exes 3rd marriage and wife.


                                                             The not so happy family.

                                                                   His baby sister.

I believe this was the last time Trey saw his dad at Christmas after he had moved out from there.





Welcome back to My Therapy.


Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Welcome Back to my Therapy... The Hinsons

1. Home to Contradictions, 2. Six Degrees from Home, 3. Welcome Back to My Therapy, 
4.  Lying, Cheating, Stealing and Intent, 5. Power of You, 6. One Split Second,
7. Marvelous Mistakes, 8. I made a choice to make a change, 9. Connections to the Farm,
10. Back to the Farm, 11. It's a small world after all, 12 Fair Weather Friends,
13. Ghost of Roommates Past, 14. You can never go to far, 15. Glamorous Life,
16. Double Standards, 17. Lazy? No Exhausted, 18. Crossroads of Life and Death, 19. One Last Time, 20. When Worlds Collide I, 21. When Worlds Collide II, 22. When Worlds Collide III   23. The Unwanted New World, 24. Means the Old World Must Go, 25. So Where was God in all this? 26. Where did you get that from?27. The Reason for My Season, 28. Was Always a Little Rascal, 29. Pictures and Quotes of the Little Rascal and final chapter 30. Closing in Contradictions. ~Use these links to read in order (some chapters have songs, new added content, pictures or all:)  Volume 2 >>>>>       




Yes, this is my therapy.  It is cheap, easy and leaves a lot to be desired... but it is what it is.  I have been Flirtin' With Disaster most of life.  Writing has been my only outlet because no one hears a word I say.  Or they hear, then promptly forget. Either way that's what I am trying to work out here today. It has been a long time since I posted, and really doubt that anyone has taken the time to search out this blog but if they have then it was probably for a different reason than reading all this.  For you the corrections will become apparent very shortly.  This picks up the time right after I left Union County and came to Charlotte which might as well have said...   Welcome to the Jungle.     

When I met the ex he was cute and seemed like he had a difficult life and then I met the family and started to understand why.  Both parents were drinkers but the mom couldn't control it.  She moved in and out on a regular basis.  I met his brother's and sister, a lot of his friends and there was a circle of them at the time.  I will always be thankful for them letting me live with them. I did share a room with his sister and felt like we were sisters.  We spent many hours listening to the tunes Love Song, What you Give, and 18 to Life.  My ex is a follower and anybody with half a brain can lead him around because he doesn't learn... anything.  But at that time I couldn't see that back then.  There were some fun times and there were some really bad times.  They were loud and fought with each other openly and it was a great outlet for me.  We moved around, slept in our cars and for a while I worked more than he did.  We lived with some friends, skated a lot back in the day and we partied some.  He was never a big drinker or smoker but our friends sure knew how it was done!  We fought a lot and I got tired of it so we broke up.  A little while later I got a call from him asking for another chance and we went out on a real date. 

My exes top three friends at the time we'll call Larry, Curly and Moe and they all drove muscle cars back then.  Larry was our best man at the wedding and my exes sister was the maid of honor.  I actually talked to Larry's mom way more often because she was a really cool and great lady who had been through so much herself.  Larry's two brothers also hung out around the houses we were in.  Curly eventually dated and married my sister in law and Moe was a dude into his own.  My ex and I lived with Moe for a while when he was dating a pregnant girl from Spruce Pines NC and when they broke up that's when he started dating another lady who was older and claimed to be Randy Travis's cousin.  Moe and I got into a big fight once about a cat that I brought into the house but I don't think he was ready for the Union County redneck.  We worked it out eventually and became friends.  I would see Moe around the town off and on for years and much later he would marry another friends daughter.  

After being around the exes family for a while I had learned a few things. I saw my exes father slam him against the wall by his throat, then held him there just as his feet dangled a few inches about the floor.  I also have had confrontations with his mom who was an alcoholic that like to preach when she had too much.  I was accused of sleeping with her husband AND her boyfriend.  One time she slapped me in the face and let me tell you... it was on like willy Joe neck bone.  She never laid another hand on me but she did get in my face several more times over the years.  She stole clothes, money and jewelry to support her habits and I found them hidden in her suitcase in her closet.  She came to me once while we both were at the families home and had a problem that she wanted me to help her with.  After everything that had happened I was not only surprised but curious about what she needed.  She said she needed to leave and wanted me help get the van started because you had to use the needle nose plyers.  I said sure... be glad to and started the van for her, loaded her bags and said goodbye.  I then waited about 20 minutes, long enough for her to cross state lines and then called her husband and told him she was gone in his van.  Yes, I was that much of a bitch!  While we were all living in a 2 bedroom apartment with her, my exes sister and her then boyfriend, then me and my ex sleeping on a pull out couch... She tried to tell the landlord that I wasn't paying the rent which was why she didn't have it.  At that time (shortly after Hurricane Hugo which we had no power for 2 weeks) I was the only one in the house with a job so I caught the landlord coming out and told him the truth.  He said we were fixing to be evicted anyway so that's when I first moved in with my friend SherriLater when I got pregnant and it was mid November 1989 but I kept quiet about it for a while.  I had hoped so much that my ex would not become like either of his parents but that was not to be.  He gets more and more like his dad everyday, and I thought he had sold out!  I found out later how true that was.  

In February of the next year my exes brother, the middle 14 year old boy hung himself in his room after hanging up a call from his dad.  I never forget his last words but didn't tell any one for many years for fear of hurting them.  I was the only one there watching some stupid awards show and checked on him 15 minutes after he went into his bedroom because I needed him to open a jar for me.  What I saw when I opened the bifold door was something I will also remember for the rest of my life.  His back was to me but he was kneeling on the floor with the rope around his neck.  I reached out and touched or pushed his shoulder with no response. I walked around to his front and saw the blood from his nose and ears.  I then removed the rope and laid him down on his back.  I called 911 told them what happened and left them on the phone or either hung it up?  I don't remember exactly but I went back to him and began a clumsy attempt at CPR. When the firefighters arrived they literally picked me up and threw me out the door and I was about 3 months pregnant at the time. But by then it was too late and I spent the next several hours answering police questions over and over again.  Their mother blamed me for his death and I must admit I did feel responsible.  Why didn't I go in any earlier? He did leave a note however detailing who he felt was the problem and who was not.  I fell into the not category and I could never bring myself to watch another award show in my life.  The weird part was I never saw anything else when I opened that door... just Greg.   

Later in June of 90 my Uncle Lee on my dad's side died and then we got married in July... even after we had a fight and I was ready to call the whole thing off the night before.  Wedding Photos of a Redneck Wedding that was planned in about a week for less than $500 by a distant cousin of theirs and she did a great job in no time. Trey was born in August and then my grandad died in November.  Granddad got to see Trey just once before he passed and they even came back from the beach trip early.  I was heartbroken all over again as well as happy with being a mom but I was exhausted.   That made 3 significant deaths in a very short time and the roller coaster ride of pregnancy, delivery and the return of my senses.  Me and my sister in law, who lived with us afterward, played a lot of card games those last few months waiting for Trey to show up.  I will always love her and the youngest brother too... but I would never forget the one who left too soon.  They were like my real family then and we spent a lot of time together even doing things we shouldn't have been doing ;)  After I had Trey, I went back to work after 6 weeks and the parties at the house were still going strong, when I was working and continued on after I got home often at 3 am.  I needed a break from it after Trey was born and my ex just didn't have the guts to make his friends go home.  His mother at the time turned into a major problem and forced me to throw her out of our house because he would not deal with it.  Heck I didn't want to do it but when you are trying to provide a relatively secure environment for your child and you have a very damaged individual who is threatening that... there is little else you can do.  

I had to walk a lot to get home from work and got to the point of being done with all that.  I was 18 when Trey was born and left his father shortly after that because I was out of Patience.  The final straw was when I wanted to go out somewhere that I picked (which was rare) and when it came time to go... everyone including him said no I don't want to go to a place where there is dancing.  Then my ex husband said you and Marvelous go on out together... we'll stay here.  Here is a lesson for any boy or man... Never tell your girl you don't have time for her and then send her out with another guy.  I could have handled it better but when you reach a breaking point... there you are.  I got the message.  He simply wasn't ready to be a dad or care about anything I wanted and after that I told him I wanted a divorce because I was done.  That's when he started following me around everywhere I went.  It was even worse than being ignored.  I mean I couldn't even go to the bathroom by myself.  I had let the girl from Spruce Pines stay with us who was pregnant again and she overheard me talking to another friend that night about the situation.  When she heard I was seeing Marvelous whenever I could she thought she would inherit my little position in this happy little household by telling my ex about it.  All she got was thrown out on her freeloading ass.  I wasn't hiding it from my ex to be secretive... I had already told him I was done but I couldn't move out just yet so there was no point in making it harder.   I mean Don't Go Away Mad... Just Go Away!  But my ex was a follower and he felt that he needed to bring in all his friends to the end of our marriage because he sure had no clue what to do on his own.  And of course one of his friends made it his business to advise my ex on everything to do with this situation which made it even worse if you could imagine.  His knowledge of relationships, maturity, parenthood, responsibility and realness wouldn't have filled a thimble at the time but it didn't stop him from stirring the pot. 








When he found out Marvelous and I started dating after I told him we were done, he just about lost the rest of his mind.  I then became really mean to him and would call him every name in the book. The few times he tried to put his hands on me I would either fight back or pick up something and throw it.  I had pretty good aim most of the time too. I had paid the bills the entire time we had lived in the house and he would get mad at me because I wouldn't let him handle the money.  He did have a job at this time but that didn't mean he knew how to take care of business.  In fact when I said FINE go a head and handle the bills, he went out and bought a stereo and Yo Samity Sam mud flaps for the Firebird.  So we moved in the dark with no running water or heat in January. That is when my mother talked me into moving back home with her.  Again, it went against my better judgement and I regret that to this day.  The exes friends and some family taught me that being vindictive was a perpetual cycle and it was a tough one to get out of.  I gave as good as I got and sometimes even better.  I am not proud of that but I am not ashamed either.  Looking back this family taught me to stand up for myself even if you are the only one who stands.  It was unfortunate that my ex was the one who was going to have bigger problems with me down the road and the cause could be traced back to this very time.  Unfortunately my mother was not ready for the new me, who wanted to live my life in my way.  Some issues take years to resolve and this was only one of them.
  

Later mom threw me out again but kept my Trey.  Being 20 then I didn't have the money to fight her so I told myself it was for the best.  In truth the school system there in Union County was much better than the county I live, which is the next one over, so as he got older I didn't see him as much.  That was the second big mistake and the third one was beyond my control but he decided to go live with his dad when he was 16.  Over the years my ex only had something to do with Trey when it suited him and even Trey noticed and commented on it.   Over the years my ex and mom became embroiled in a power struggle that was beyond my control.  Also my ex husband could not deal with the fact that an ex girlfriend before me had cheated on him, then he considered what I did was cheating and then finally the 2nd wife not only cheated on him but became pregnant with another mans baby.  Not one time did he ever step back and ask himself the question of why that was, but instead blamed us all for his problems.  I know I looked back and saw them in my own life and tried hard to not only change the people I hung with in my life but myself which is more important.  In 2007 my ex thought he could teach Trey to be a man and made a lot of promises to him.  I knew this wasn't going to be a good situation because my ex was on his 3rd wife and they were simply trying to save that  $400 a month in child support.

They were also looking for domestic labor because they just had their first child.  I already knew that $400 didn't even feed Trey because he was a growing boy.  When I found out that he was denied food regularly sometimes while they went out to eat on top of everything else... let's just say he should be thankful he's still breathing.  Mom would tell me how much money I owed her and she kept a running total.  I didn't need anyone to tell me I had to pay for my child and if I did my mother was better at collecting money than anyone at the child support office. Trey was there for 7 months and it was the worst experience of his life and he got more than he bargained for.  There was a lot of drama when he left from his dad's to go back to my moms to finish out his senior year.  We even had to hire an attorney to get his stuff back and the wife tried to make it look like she was afraid I was going to come and hurt her small baby!  Low down stinking rotten doesn't even begin to cover it!  And the lies they both told Trey about me were just so full of it that it would completely blow your mind.  I never hid much from Trey so thankfully he knew better... at least I keep telling myself that. 

I had wanted Trey to come and live with me for many years but gave him the choice to make that decision himself.  But when he asked me after being at his dad's toward the end, I thought I was doing the right thing by telling him no because he needed to learn when opportunities pass by they are gone.  I had tried to talk him into moving in with me instead of his dad before, but it didn't work.  So he then decided he wanted to stay with his friends for the last year and moved back in with mom... and now I feel about this big.   Later on I couldn't get Trey to tell me everything that happened there but he was very angry at the world and his dad in particular for all the lies and broken promises.  I tried to tell him the truth about his dad without making it sound like I was just bashing him but I knew he would have to learn about him on his own.  Trey was gone 6 months later.  The worst thing about it next to losing him was my ex showing up at the funeral home with requests and when it was time to pay the bill he was nowhere to be found.  My friends were floored that he was that shameless.  I wish I could say I was.  The next Monday he was at the child support office trying to get out of paying that last little bit he owed but didn't take the time to drop the new case he was starting with me.  I had already told him I would pay for Trey's supplies but that wasn't what he wanted.  When he left the child support office he went to see an attorney immediately afterward to try and start the lawsuit. He found out that it just didn't work that way and I told him either I was handling it or there wasn't going to be one because we both had to sign an agreement.  It really didn't matter to me... I could have gone either way and would have been fine with it.  I have no idea why his wife thought it was her job to handle it, but over my dead body.  My ex got his share because it was worth it to never have to see him or her again.  But the truth is he was the last person on earth to deserve it.            

After Trey died it was like the final straw of sanity slipping away and the result was I lost all ability to keep on keeping the peace.  I wrote letters to everyone telling them how I really felt, and mailed all but one.  Trey's is now 25 pages long and I just might share it one day.  The one I wrote to Trey's dad and his 3rd wife was 7 clear pages covering 17 years of incredible ignorance and uncaring on his part. I also admitted to making mistakes because I have never said I made all the right choices.  In fact I knew that the buck stopped with me because I was his mama... and I failed him.  I sent copies to all his family members and you know what?  It didn't matter. One reason I am stating all this is, I promised to upload all the doc's from the lawsuit onto this site for their inspection, but it isn't going to happen. I thought long and hard about wasting more of my life doing things like this for people who don't care and have made an executive decision. Never again. So if you are looking for that information, please go to the local courthouse and waste your own time. It is all public info by now.  Oh and one last correction to the Hinson family... it will be a few more years before I can shed your name completely, but it is coming. Other that that, I still stand behind everything I wrote in 2008. Since I never heard a word from you, I guess you do too.

At the end of the letters I wrote that I would work on forgiveness and would definitely forget each person that caused me or Trey great pain. So far so good.  If you are asking why I am airing all this Dirty Laundry?  Beside the obvious one of it being a part of my life... I told him through a surrogate, later through the lawyer, and finally in the letter that he could either do the right things or he could keep on being a greedy, sorry excuse for a man OR when things settled down I would make sure the whole story was PUBLIC... Who knows, maybe their daughter will trip over it one day and learn a thing or two.  I don't really think about all the bad things because I want to remember the good times with Trey.  It is harder to do because forgiveness is a process and must be done repeatedly at times. Combine that with the ever moving world that demands you participate whether you're ready or not and there isn't a lot of time to dwell.  People come and go in my life and it was ultimately my fault because, we really do teach others how to treat us. The people we choose to have in our lives matters so very much, but what matters most is how we respond to them. Some people will bring out the worst in you and others will bring out the best in you. The question remains is "Who do you want to be?"

For the longest time I wanted to be heard when I talked to people because I don't engage in small talk and ponder a lot of different things. I ask questions when I don't understand and when people take the time to talk to me about themselves, I listen to them as well as observe the situation.  It is just how I learned to survive in this world.  I know right from wrong because I've seen both up close and personal, but also believe that it is subjective to each individual.  In other words what is right to me or for me probably isn't right for you.  Every day is a challenge when you are striving to be a better person in a world that doesn't care for much.   I respect differences in people and have often just studied them because I found some very interesting. But the one thing I still find problematic in most people is they talk far more than they act.  For years women have been stereotyped as talkers but boys and men are too.  Just in a different manner. Flip on the TV news or just go to the local market and listen. Everybody is talking about something or somebody, but are they really talking about anything important? Do they ever? And just who is listening to them?

I have narrowed down the reasons I think people don't hear me. One is they are talking so much or so loud they can't or won't hear anything else. Two, I am not good at telling people what they want to hear and lets face it...who really wants the truth now a days?  Well here is my truth... once I understood that people refuse to hear, believe and care about what I needed to convey... and I reached the boiling point, I blew up in their face or I just stopped talking to them.  It doesn't change what I think, only that I bother to express it.  If only others would adopt a similar policy then their life may be oh so much easier.   For anyone else struggling to find their voice in this noisy world, remember this. Words and thoughts without action mean nothing and the ones that really matter in this world are the ones that do so without ever saying a word.