Open letter to God:
Dear God: You know, I am wondering if you just put on your Ipod some days to take a break from the prayers everyone tosses up to you. While I believe that justice prevailed in my eviction case and that pyschopath's lies were ultimately FINALLY seen to be just that - lies - (even though I did pray that Jake and I wouldn't get evicted); AND I asked you for help in getting us out of this horrendous place in which we reside (I got a call Friday that may allow my son and I to FINALLY move), you still haven't answered my biggest prayer.
I can't get to Point B without Point A. And since I don't have Point A, I'm going nowhere.
Why did my own mother forsake me? Am I that rotten a daughter? No. Have I made mistakes? Yes. But nothing that brought shame or humiliation upon her or my family. You know I've never been arrested, I don't drink so obviously I don't drive drunk with my child in the car, I don't do drugs (except for the Coumadin for my blood clots and the Lorazepam so I can sleep-sometimes), I work every day, I don't beat my child or expose him to violence, I choose my friends carefully, I've been with the same man for going on six years, I pay my bills on time even though I am burdened with debt and my Jurassic Park Honda Civic is falling apart at the seams (as cars begin to do when they hit 100,000 or more) and you KNOW I don't have the money to keep fixing it and I can't help but feel a bit of fear every time I drive it wondering if something goes wrong is it going to harm my son in any way.
Why won't my own mother who has more than a half a million dollars in the bank help me? What is she so afraid of?
And it's clear that she ISN'T going to help so what do I need to do to get a little help in a big way? Am I doomed to stay in this cereal box in which we live? Yes, I understand there are far, far worse off people in this world. I can't fix that. I'm a realist. I have to think about my son. Maybe someday I CAN make a difference. But RIGHT NOW, I need to make a difference for my son and myself.
And I just can't seem to catch one little break.
Maybe you aren't listening anymore. Maybe all you hear is blah blah blah.
Have you given up on us?
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
I Wonder If President Obama Has Ever Been Evicted
This country is supposed to be "land of the free, home of the brave." This country operates under a justice system where one is "innocent until proven guilty."
I wonder if President Obama was ever served with an eviction notice. I wonder if he ever felt the fear of losing his home and perhaps having to live in his car.
Right now, for my son and I, freedom has contingencies attached to it. And bravery? How does one be brave in the face of execution by eviction? How does a single mother explain to her child that the words on this piece of paper are enough to take away our home? How does a single mother struggling to survive explain to her son about injustice, and abuse of power, about retaliation and about the bad people in this world who have nothing and will never have nothing because they are just bad, bad people?
Freedom means sleeping in peace. Freedom means waking up knowing my child is safe. Freedom is having a chance to make my son's dreams come true.
Those contingencies? They are landlord references, credit reports, criminal records (or not in my case), they are exceptions to the rules and regulations like if my son can finish fifth grade at his school so I don't have to traumatize him any more than he has been in the past six months, having enough money to move and having enough money to feed my son and clothe him.
Bravery. My son has been brave. He has weathered the possibility that we could have been homeless - all based upon lies. I don't know how he did that. I fell apart because I lacked bravery and courage to withstand the "weapons in the form of words" that were rocket-launched at my son and I; we were ambushed by the management company all because of the lies fed to them by an unstable and unbalanced woman, then sealed neatly in an envelope and delivered to me in my mailbox without explanation.
It was an execution on paper. That's what Notice of Termination of Tenancy is - an execution on paper. And where I live - you don't get a chance to defend yourself.
At all.
This management company took away my freedom to defend myself. They took away my right to prove my innocence. They took away my courage. They nearly destroyed me - and my child.
I am thinking right at this moment that I desperately need a break - a miracle if you will. I am consumed by the tremendous debt I carry - not unlike thousands of other people. I am sure the prayers to God are the same - help us, help our children. I know I am not alone.
But I am alone. It is just my son and I. I do not have family around me. I do not have the wealthy relative who will willingly give us money and wave a hand and say "don't worry about paying it back. I know you'll do the right thing."
I do not have wealthy friends who will reiterate the same.
I am alone. The debt has not been incurred by frivolous means. Statements show charges for groceries, for clothes, for those godforsaken car repairs, for school pictures and Christmas presents. There are no extravagant purchases. My ex-husband owes me close to $3,000 for non-child support stipulations spelled out very clearly in our divorce agreement. He has been chipping away at it. But had he been paying his half of what he agreed to do all along, I would not be in this financial black hole.
So now, that awful creatures that lurks in this financial black hole is reaching out its tentacles and wrapping themselves around me and threatening to choke the life out of me because on Friday, I received a call that my name came up on a list for a two-bedroom duplex here in town. I have been waiting for that call for nearly five years. But my elation was not there. I was gasping for breath as I was being choked by the financial octopus of debt -and fear.
I was, to say the least, blindsided by this good news. But I immediately felt despair because part of the paperwork to be filled out is a "landlord reference" which I know is standard, but I am terrified that the property manager will blackball me and I will not get the home I want so desperately. And get my son safe.
And there are variables. My 16 year old vehicle is beginning to break down little by little except that "little by little" has meant $500.00 out of my pocket within 3 weeks, 2 different times and now that pesky "check engine" light suddenly appeared like a supernova flash on my dashboard. My Honda Civic manual states it is a "malfunction control lamp" and further reading led me to a problem with one of the engine's emissions control. This is not surprising. The car is old (like me) and for all I know it's emitting some lethal gas into the atmosphere that will have the Save The Earth Police coming after me soon. Maybe that's not a bad thing?
But it is just another repair, another bill, and I am at the end of my rope. With no car, I cannot work. If I cannot work, I cannot move. And I cannot move, I can't get my son safe and try to piece back together everything that fell apart since July.
I prayed to God that we wouldn't get evicted. He answered my prayer but truly, the law prevailed because the property manager didn't have a case, it didn't have credible witnesses - or any witnesses at all - and it didn't have any hardcore evidence to support it's reasons for issuing me the Notice of Termination of Tenancy.
And now once again I feel shame and humiliation for thinking ahead that I now have to fight for this home that perhaps could be a new beginning for my son and I all because one person - one evil, vicious, soulless woman decided it would okay to steal what didn't belong to her and when I called the police to report the crime, she retaliated in the worst possible way with her lies - and the property manager believed her without ever hearing my defense. And since it never went to trial, I still never got a chance to defend myself.
I want this home. I want to get out of this awful place and away from the daily visits by the local police, away from the domestic violence and screaming and yelling and the trash left around the common areas because many of the people who reside in this place simply don't care about anyone - or themselves. I can't count how many times the police have taken people away from here - in the parking lots and out of apartments - in handcuffs. A woman left her two-year-son alone in the apartment because she wanted to go out. The fire department had to break down the door to get to the child. The child was clad only in a diaper and covered in its own feces. There are women getting beaten by their "baby's daddy" or by the "baby daddies" and won't report the violence out of fear, out of losing financial support, out of love. The SWAT team has been here a few times. One tenant was involved in a home invasion and the owner badly beaten and he was arrested here a few years ago. A rape occurred last year here - in a laundry room. I walked around with a baseball bats for months out of fear. I went to management and asked if perhaps security cameras could be installed in the laundry rooms for the future safety of tenants.
I was met with disdain and was told "you people don't get stuff like that."
I wonder if I had written to President Obama and asked HIM if he could arrange to have security cameras installed here. Would he have told me "you people don't get stuff like that?"
You people. I am a human being. So is my son. But somehow, the property manager who made that statement to me displayed a lack of concern as if I was nothing more than the bottom trash in a landfill.
You people.
Is this how they view us?
Frankly, if the police are called, I'm not sure exactly how management finds out unless they peruse the Cops and Courts section every day looking for transgressions by a tenant. I seriously doubt it. That would mean doing their job.
The tenant across the hall from me who started the nightmare from which I am still reeling - her own boyfriend was led out of here in handcuffs twice - arrested for assault and battery and defacing property and the second time he said he was going to kill himself in front of her. But he's still living here. And she has two kids who have been exposed to the countless domestics that have occurred within their apartment. And one of her sons is the one who stole my mail - and the tenant KNEW her son had stolen my mail because she admitted to it but she didn't give a shit. Her response was that she was going to beat her son and she told me to press charges so she could "lock her son up in a mental institution."
Nice mother. She ought to be locked up - not her son. Her son is a product of her and her actions and reactions and god only knows what she has exposed her children to in their young lives.
The walls are thin. You can hear everything. I hear my neighbor peeing every morning in the bathroom at the same time. I hear the same neighbor above me and next to me having sex. That's how thin the walls are. I don't explain to my son what the "noises" are. He doesn't need to know.
I understand this is common in many, many places.
But I have to get out so I can save my son. I want him to be safe above all else. I've told him there are more good people in the world than bad but all he has seen here is the bad.
And what does that say about the management company? It turns a deaf ear and blind eyes to the most serious situations as long as you pay your rent. Its philosophy is "if it doesn't affect you, shut up and don't complain." But yet there is a specific paragraph in the Occupancy Agreement about tenants' rights to "quiet enjoyment." Apparently, management's interpretation of that is far different than the tenants' interpretation. So instead, management distributes memos about "inappropriate disposal of chicken bones and diapers and trash," and makes statements like "this is your HOME. Take care of your HOME."
It is a double-edged sword. And management lies in wait to use it for any tenant who breaks the rules. But yet we are not allowed to defend ourselves.
I feel the fight going out of me but I think I have one last fight left. The one person who is most important person to me, the one person whom I love to infinity and beyond, the one person whom I desperately want to have a chance to find his niche in this world and be somebody and perhaps change the world and make his dreams come true:
My son.
It's always been about him because he is all I have in this world. There is no one to "take care of us," there is no one person in my life - or in my heart - that will rescue us and give us the life we want so desperately.
So I'm it. And my son is worth fighting for more than anything or anyone in this world.
And that's not being selfish - that's being a mother.
We need help in a big way. I just don't know how to reach out to strangers and ask. I know people have done it. But I don't know what to say: Help me save my son? His dad has colon cancer. His dad is only 46 years old. I don't know how much longer he will be on this earth. My health is teeter-tottery because of the severe emotional distress I've suffered for the past six months. I don't know what kind of damage lurks inside of me. I am afraid I will go to sleep at night and never wake up and that's how my son will find me.
I can't heal unless I can get out of here, relieve the awful financial burden I carry and get my son safe. The only saving grace is that he is doing very well in school. He is happy there, he has many friends. Kids are drawn to him like magnets. He has a heart of gold, he is compassionate and caring and kind. He reaches out to other kids when they need a friend. He is smart and wickedly funny. He has a thirst for knowledge and a million questions every day. He stares up at the sky and wonders if perhaps someday he will discover something new and amazing. He wants to work at NASA. When he tells me that, my heart does something extraordinary - it beats with the knowledge that perhaps I have instilled in him the ability to dream - and dream big.
And I want to make those dreams come true for my son.
But I need a fighting chance to do so and we need help.
I wonder if President Obama was ever served with an eviction notice. I wonder if he ever felt the fear of losing his home and perhaps having to live in his car.
Right now, for my son and I, freedom has contingencies attached to it. And bravery? How does one be brave in the face of execution by eviction? How does a single mother explain to her child that the words on this piece of paper are enough to take away our home? How does a single mother struggling to survive explain to her son about injustice, and abuse of power, about retaliation and about the bad people in this world who have nothing and will never have nothing because they are just bad, bad people?
Freedom means sleeping in peace. Freedom means waking up knowing my child is safe. Freedom is having a chance to make my son's dreams come true.
Those contingencies? They are landlord references, credit reports, criminal records (or not in my case), they are exceptions to the rules and regulations like if my son can finish fifth grade at his school so I don't have to traumatize him any more than he has been in the past six months, having enough money to move and having enough money to feed my son and clothe him.
Bravery. My son has been brave. He has weathered the possibility that we could have been homeless - all based upon lies. I don't know how he did that. I fell apart because I lacked bravery and courage to withstand the "weapons in the form of words" that were rocket-launched at my son and I; we were ambushed by the management company all because of the lies fed to them by an unstable and unbalanced woman, then sealed neatly in an envelope and delivered to me in my mailbox without explanation.
It was an execution on paper. That's what Notice of Termination of Tenancy is - an execution on paper. And where I live - you don't get a chance to defend yourself.
At all.
This management company took away my freedom to defend myself. They took away my right to prove my innocence. They took away my courage. They nearly destroyed me - and my child.
I am thinking right at this moment that I desperately need a break - a miracle if you will. I am consumed by the tremendous debt I carry - not unlike thousands of other people. I am sure the prayers to God are the same - help us, help our children. I know I am not alone.
But I am alone. It is just my son and I. I do not have family around me. I do not have the wealthy relative who will willingly give us money and wave a hand and say "don't worry about paying it back. I know you'll do the right thing."
I do not have wealthy friends who will reiterate the same.
I am alone. The debt has not been incurred by frivolous means. Statements show charges for groceries, for clothes, for those godforsaken car repairs, for school pictures and Christmas presents. There are no extravagant purchases. My ex-husband owes me close to $3,000 for non-child support stipulations spelled out very clearly in our divorce agreement. He has been chipping away at it. But had he been paying his half of what he agreed to do all along, I would not be in this financial black hole.
So now, that awful creatures that lurks in this financial black hole is reaching out its tentacles and wrapping themselves around me and threatening to choke the life out of me because on Friday, I received a call that my name came up on a list for a two-bedroom duplex here in town. I have been waiting for that call for nearly five years. But my elation was not there. I was gasping for breath as I was being choked by the financial octopus of debt -and fear.
I was, to say the least, blindsided by this good news. But I immediately felt despair because part of the paperwork to be filled out is a "landlord reference" which I know is standard, but I am terrified that the property manager will blackball me and I will not get the home I want so desperately. And get my son safe.
And there are variables. My 16 year old vehicle is beginning to break down little by little except that "little by little" has meant $500.00 out of my pocket within 3 weeks, 2 different times and now that pesky "check engine" light suddenly appeared like a supernova flash on my dashboard. My Honda Civic manual states it is a "malfunction control lamp" and further reading led me to a problem with one of the engine's emissions control. This is not surprising. The car is old (like me) and for all I know it's emitting some lethal gas into the atmosphere that will have the Save The Earth Police coming after me soon. Maybe that's not a bad thing?
But it is just another repair, another bill, and I am at the end of my rope. With no car, I cannot work. If I cannot work, I cannot move. And I cannot move, I can't get my son safe and try to piece back together everything that fell apart since July.
I prayed to God that we wouldn't get evicted. He answered my prayer but truly, the law prevailed because the property manager didn't have a case, it didn't have credible witnesses - or any witnesses at all - and it didn't have any hardcore evidence to support it's reasons for issuing me the Notice of Termination of Tenancy.
And now once again I feel shame and humiliation for thinking ahead that I now have to fight for this home that perhaps could be a new beginning for my son and I all because one person - one evil, vicious, soulless woman decided it would okay to steal what didn't belong to her and when I called the police to report the crime, she retaliated in the worst possible way with her lies - and the property manager believed her without ever hearing my defense. And since it never went to trial, I still never got a chance to defend myself.
I want this home. I want to get out of this awful place and away from the daily visits by the local police, away from the domestic violence and screaming and yelling and the trash left around the common areas because many of the people who reside in this place simply don't care about anyone - or themselves. I can't count how many times the police have taken people away from here - in the parking lots and out of apartments - in handcuffs. A woman left her two-year-son alone in the apartment because she wanted to go out. The fire department had to break down the door to get to the child. The child was clad only in a diaper and covered in its own feces. There are women getting beaten by their "baby's daddy" or by the "baby daddies" and won't report the violence out of fear, out of losing financial support, out of love. The SWAT team has been here a few times. One tenant was involved in a home invasion and the owner badly beaten and he was arrested here a few years ago. A rape occurred last year here - in a laundry room. I walked around with a baseball bats for months out of fear. I went to management and asked if perhaps security cameras could be installed in the laundry rooms for the future safety of tenants.
I was met with disdain and was told "you people don't get stuff like that."
I wonder if I had written to President Obama and asked HIM if he could arrange to have security cameras installed here. Would he have told me "you people don't get stuff like that?"
You people. I am a human being. So is my son. But somehow, the property manager who made that statement to me displayed a lack of concern as if I was nothing more than the bottom trash in a landfill.
You people.
Is this how they view us?
Frankly, if the police are called, I'm not sure exactly how management finds out unless they peruse the Cops and Courts section every day looking for transgressions by a tenant. I seriously doubt it. That would mean doing their job.
The tenant across the hall from me who started the nightmare from which I am still reeling - her own boyfriend was led out of here in handcuffs twice - arrested for assault and battery and defacing property and the second time he said he was going to kill himself in front of her. But he's still living here. And she has two kids who have been exposed to the countless domestics that have occurred within their apartment. And one of her sons is the one who stole my mail - and the tenant KNEW her son had stolen my mail because she admitted to it but she didn't give a shit. Her response was that she was going to beat her son and she told me to press charges so she could "lock her son up in a mental institution."
Nice mother. She ought to be locked up - not her son. Her son is a product of her and her actions and reactions and god only knows what she has exposed her children to in their young lives.
The walls are thin. You can hear everything. I hear my neighbor peeing every morning in the bathroom at the same time. I hear the same neighbor above me and next to me having sex. That's how thin the walls are. I don't explain to my son what the "noises" are. He doesn't need to know.
I understand this is common in many, many places.
But I have to get out so I can save my son. I want him to be safe above all else. I've told him there are more good people in the world than bad but all he has seen here is the bad.
And what does that say about the management company? It turns a deaf ear and blind eyes to the most serious situations as long as you pay your rent. Its philosophy is "if it doesn't affect you, shut up and don't complain." But yet there is a specific paragraph in the Occupancy Agreement about tenants' rights to "quiet enjoyment." Apparently, management's interpretation of that is far different than the tenants' interpretation. So instead, management distributes memos about "inappropriate disposal of chicken bones and diapers and trash," and makes statements like "this is your HOME. Take care of your HOME."
It is a double-edged sword. And management lies in wait to use it for any tenant who breaks the rules. But yet we are not allowed to defend ourselves.
I feel the fight going out of me but I think I have one last fight left. The one person who is most important person to me, the one person whom I love to infinity and beyond, the one person whom I desperately want to have a chance to find his niche in this world and be somebody and perhaps change the world and make his dreams come true:
My son.
It's always been about him because he is all I have in this world. There is no one to "take care of us," there is no one person in my life - or in my heart - that will rescue us and give us the life we want so desperately.
So I'm it. And my son is worth fighting for more than anything or anyone in this world.
And that's not being selfish - that's being a mother.
We need help in a big way. I just don't know how to reach out to strangers and ask. I know people have done it. But I don't know what to say: Help me save my son? His dad has colon cancer. His dad is only 46 years old. I don't know how much longer he will be on this earth. My health is teeter-tottery because of the severe emotional distress I've suffered for the past six months. I don't know what kind of damage lurks inside of me. I am afraid I will go to sleep at night and never wake up and that's how my son will find me.
I can't heal unless I can get out of here, relieve the awful financial burden I carry and get my son safe. The only saving grace is that he is doing very well in school. He is happy there, he has many friends. Kids are drawn to him like magnets. He has a heart of gold, he is compassionate and caring and kind. He reaches out to other kids when they need a friend. He is smart and wickedly funny. He has a thirst for knowledge and a million questions every day. He stares up at the sky and wonders if perhaps someday he will discover something new and amazing. He wants to work at NASA. When he tells me that, my heart does something extraordinary - it beats with the knowledge that perhaps I have instilled in him the ability to dream - and dream big.
And I want to make those dreams come true for my son.
But I need a fighting chance to do so and we need help.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
And The Truth Shall Set You Free
It's over.
I won. My son and I are not getting evicted. The trial was scheduled for tomorrow - along with 75 other eviction cases.
At first I didn't know how to react. The ball of stress was so tightly wound around my insides that even the news that truth prevailed - my truth - couldn't loosen its python grip - yet.
The management company's attorneys called my attorney today because they realized they had nothing. They did not have credible witnesses. They had no hard-core evidence. All they had was hearsay and lies and fabrications and the crazy rantings of the tenant that started all of this when she and her son stole my mail. Unreal, huh? And they came after me because I exercised my right as a tenant to call the police and report the theft. And the day after I did this, the tenant retaliated and went to management with her lies and management believed her. I'm tempted to publish all the allegations made against me because some of the stuff is so out into left field that a five year old could punch enough holes in it to make the management company look like fools but right now, I just want to put this behind me somehow. Maybe I'll write a book. No one should be subjected to this kind of abuse of power, this harassment and retaliation by a management company all because I exercised my enumerated rights as a tenant.
There are laws in place to protect tenants. There are laws in place to protect the landlords and the management companies. But when a situation occurs like mine and management abuses its power and exercises complete and sheer ludicriousy, stupidity and lack of common sense all because someone like me actually KNOWS her rights and had the truth all along, and had the evidence to prove the lies were lies, and had the evidence to prove that the "witnesses" were also lying, then management does not stand a chance in court.
What judge in his or her right mind would evict a single, working parent with a child, both of whom have resided in the same town for seven and a half years and was never late with rent, has never been arrested, and who has abided by the rules and regulations among all the other reasons I had?
I would hope that all judges would go "yah, right" to the management company of this property at which I reside.
This was a clear abuse of power. This was a clear and evident act of harassment and retaliation against me for exercising my rights as a tenant. And the psychopathic pathological liar across the hall from me? Too bad she won't get a chance to further perjure herself.
No one should be subjected to this kind of treatment by any landlord or management company with out clear, convincing evidence and credible witnesses.
And the management company here lacked all of the above. And they knew it.
The best part of the truth is it's always the same. It never changes. And I've held on to the truth for six months and even though I did not get a chance to speak the truth in open court, I know in my heart that truth prevailed. And perhaps some serious prayers to God, too.
And let me tell you something else. You find out who your friends are - your genuine, extraordinary friends who stick beside you through your darkest days, through your rantings and hashing and re-hashings, and who never lose faith in you - even when you've lost it yourself. Those people in my life - they always knew the truth. And they still do.
This tenant across the hall from me - she's supposed to be moving. She hasn't yet. But who knows - it could have been just another lie. But if it's not, then good riddance. Let her go steal someone else's mail and let her weave her lies around someone else. For someone like that - her whole life will always be one big lie.
I feel for her children. I still retained my compassion even throughout all this nightmare that she caused me. But there's that part of me that genuinely feels sad for her kids.
Right now, though, my son is sitting at the kitchen table working on his homework. And tonight, he will sleep peacefully without nightmares. Jeff Gordon will remain on his walls, and the memories of the Red Sox 2004 World Series championship will continue to surround him. His bed will stay where it is and his stuffed cow named Sam secure in his arms.
Tonight, I will just lay in bed and try to forget about the last six months. And pray that I don't have a stroke and die in my sleep. Because I'd be really pissed if I woke up dead.
Yes, I still have my sense of humor. I lost a lot of things in the past six months but that I did not lose.
And the truth shall set you free.
One more thing:
Proverbs 19.5: "A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape."
Amen.
I won. My son and I are not getting evicted. The trial was scheduled for tomorrow - along with 75 other eviction cases.
At first I didn't know how to react. The ball of stress was so tightly wound around my insides that even the news that truth prevailed - my truth - couldn't loosen its python grip - yet.
The management company's attorneys called my attorney today because they realized they had nothing. They did not have credible witnesses. They had no hard-core evidence. All they had was hearsay and lies and fabrications and the crazy rantings of the tenant that started all of this when she and her son stole my mail. Unreal, huh? And they came after me because I exercised my right as a tenant to call the police and report the theft. And the day after I did this, the tenant retaliated and went to management with her lies and management believed her. I'm tempted to publish all the allegations made against me because some of the stuff is so out into left field that a five year old could punch enough holes in it to make the management company look like fools but right now, I just want to put this behind me somehow. Maybe I'll write a book. No one should be subjected to this kind of abuse of power, this harassment and retaliation by a management company all because I exercised my enumerated rights as a tenant.
There are laws in place to protect tenants. There are laws in place to protect the landlords and the management companies. But when a situation occurs like mine and management abuses its power and exercises complete and sheer ludicriousy, stupidity and lack of common sense all because someone like me actually KNOWS her rights and had the truth all along, and had the evidence to prove the lies were lies, and had the evidence to prove that the "witnesses" were also lying, then management does not stand a chance in court.
What judge in his or her right mind would evict a single, working parent with a child, both of whom have resided in the same town for seven and a half years and was never late with rent, has never been arrested, and who has abided by the rules and regulations among all the other reasons I had?
I would hope that all judges would go "yah, right" to the management company of this property at which I reside.
This was a clear abuse of power. This was a clear and evident act of harassment and retaliation against me for exercising my rights as a tenant. And the psychopathic pathological liar across the hall from me? Too bad she won't get a chance to further perjure herself.
No one should be subjected to this kind of treatment by any landlord or management company with out clear, convincing evidence and credible witnesses.
And the management company here lacked all of the above. And they knew it.
The best part of the truth is it's always the same. It never changes. And I've held on to the truth for six months and even though I did not get a chance to speak the truth in open court, I know in my heart that truth prevailed. And perhaps some serious prayers to God, too.
And let me tell you something else. You find out who your friends are - your genuine, extraordinary friends who stick beside you through your darkest days, through your rantings and hashing and re-hashings, and who never lose faith in you - even when you've lost it yourself. Those people in my life - they always knew the truth. And they still do.
This tenant across the hall from me - she's supposed to be moving. She hasn't yet. But who knows - it could have been just another lie. But if it's not, then good riddance. Let her go steal someone else's mail and let her weave her lies around someone else. For someone like that - her whole life will always be one big lie.
I feel for her children. I still retained my compassion even throughout all this nightmare that she caused me. But there's that part of me that genuinely feels sad for her kids.
Right now, though, my son is sitting at the kitchen table working on his homework. And tonight, he will sleep peacefully without nightmares. Jeff Gordon will remain on his walls, and the memories of the Red Sox 2004 World Series championship will continue to surround him. His bed will stay where it is and his stuffed cow named Sam secure in his arms.
Tonight, I will just lay in bed and try to forget about the last six months. And pray that I don't have a stroke and die in my sleep. Because I'd be really pissed if I woke up dead.
Yes, I still have my sense of humor. I lost a lot of things in the past six months but that I did not lose.
And the truth shall set you free.
One more thing:
Proverbs 19.5: "A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape."
Amen.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Countdown To Eviction
3 days.
Today was a horrible day. I am back in that black hole and I want to stay here but I know I can't.
All I have is the truth.
There are no guarantees.
Hate is an awful emotion. It eats you alive like some deadly flesh eating parasite. I am trying not to let it take hold of me. It is difficult.
Someone told me today that something good will come out of all of this.
Today, I didn't feel that way. All I feel is black.
Maybe tomorrow will be different.
I am still here - that is all that matters.
Today was a horrible day. I am back in that black hole and I want to stay here but I know I can't.
All I have is the truth.
There are no guarantees.
Hate is an awful emotion. It eats you alive like some deadly flesh eating parasite. I am trying not to let it take hold of me. It is difficult.
Someone told me today that something good will come out of all of this.
Today, I didn't feel that way. All I feel is black.
Maybe tomorrow will be different.
I am still here - that is all that matters.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Countdown to Eviction
5/4 days.
I forgot about everything just for a few hours on Day 5. Until last night when it was time for me to go to sleep. I wrote about all those drawers I stuff my emotions into every day - they all emptied out last night. If emotions were paint, you could see inside my brain, there were a lot of blacks and grays spilling out like swollen streams and rivers from their individual compartments inside my head.
One of my best friends said I need more color in my life. She told me that I've let these horrible people steal my joy. She told me I've lost my color. She told me I've lost the light in the eyes.
She's right. I look in the mirror and I don't see anything but pain and fear and uncertainty. I see worry lines cropping up on my face every day. I still don't eat write because there are days when I am just so sick with sorry that nothing stays in my stomach for very long.
I see failure as a mother which transcends everything. I see despir because of the mountain of debt I've incurred trying to survive and raise my son alone. I see hopelessness because I don't see a way out of this awful place.
Another one of my best friends said "you don't belong there. You're educated, your extremely intelligent and you could leave."
She doesn't understand that in order to get to B,C,D,E & F, you have to A. And that's money and family and networks of support.
I don't have any of that. I have a mother who is in a financial position to have gotten my son and I into a safe place but she refused. I never asked her for anything. And the one time I did - this past summer when this nightmare began - she refused. I finally got the courage to write to her and ask her why.
She has not responded. I do no expect her to because I don't think she knows how to answer that question. I thought she would see only her grandson - my son - and think only of his safety. I thought she would know that getting us out of here and into a home where I am not burdened by income limitations, lease violations and drugs and guns and psychopaths - I thought she would not even blink when I asked for her help.
I was wrong. And knowing that - my own mother would not help me - is right up there are feeling like a failure as a mother myself. Perhaps inside of my mother, she feels the same kind of failure herself because all four of her children - including me - ended up in varying degrees of failure at something. The only exception is my brother who fled our family when he was 18 and never looked back. But he carries around a burden inside of him because he never speaks of what our family was like. He never speaks of the lies my father told, of how my father treated our mother, how my father became a millionaire but wouldn't get his own children braces because he thought it was a waste of money, how he didn't have the time to take us to different colleges and find out what we wanted to do. No, our father crushed all our dreams. And my mother stood by and never said a word.
So who is to blame? One or the other? Or both?
Perhaps my mother is too afraid to admit she too, failed, and resists the temptation to admit same but simply refusing to help me because she feels entitled to what she earned as a result of a 55 year marriage that ended in divorce and "she got what she deserved."
I've been in therapy for nearly three years now trying to find out why all four of us - all grown adults - never got what we deserved when we were kids. We never went to summer camp. We didn't get to play Little League or taking swimming lessons or music lessons or do normal kid stuff. My mother didn't drive because she drank. And when she did get her license, she still wouldn't drive because she knew she'd have to give up alcohol. She chose to keep drinking.
My father was never home and when he was he was, he buried himself in his work and spent more time talking to his business partners and employees than he did with his own kids. We all lived individually and we all fended for ourselves. We had no tools to work with so we grasped whatever we could find outside our house.
None of us ever had a chance. My oldest sister - she ended up a Rx drug addict. In and out of rehab for 20 years. I think she's clean now but she's slid back so many times I don't know if she will cave in again. We talk once a week now and her voice sounds clear and her speech is not slurred by the zombie-like quality of too many drugs.
My brother owns his own, highly successful business - he is a CPA. He does taxes for celebrities. He owns three homes. His wife makes six figures at a hospital in Miami as its CEO. He made sure his daughters found the colleges right for their chosen career paths. He did all the right things for his family. I think when he met his wife he learned what family really meant. And he started acquiring the right tools to become a good, decent, caring, unconditional loving father.
He doesn't speak to any of us. He is ashamed of his father because he knows the truth. And I think in some deep dark way, he is also ashamed of his mother for not standing up for herself - or for her children.
I wandered through life all during elementary school, through junior high, through high school. I just wanted to play baseball or be as close to the sport as I could get. I loved the game. My father told me I could never play because I was a girl. I wish I had known then what I know now - I would have sued my father to make him pay for me to play Little League.
I had straight A's in school. I discovered I had a talent for writing - writing was the easiest thing in the world for me. On a piece of white paper, I created a new life for myself. I created colors that Crayola would envy. I created people that didn't talk, and animals that could. The universe became the center of all my stories because it doesn't have a beginning and an ending - I did that myself.
But baseball was the game I loved and I wanted to know more. And I wanted to write about the game and tell about the players, the hits that snuck through for a single and scored the winning run, the strikeout with the bases loaded and the sheer frustration of a talented hitter, and the joyful elation of the pitcher. I wanted to write about the fans, the coaches, the umpires, everything relative to that game. I wanted to understand why a curve ball curved, why a breaking ball broke, and how a human being could rear back and throw a little white, red-seamed ball 100 miles an hour in what -- 1.5 seconds if that?
I was mesmerized by the science of the game. Baseball became a passion.
But to my father, it was a waste of time. When I got a job with a newspaper, he had no interest in reading my stories. Nevermind I had to beg my friends and their parents for rides to games just so I could cover those games.
There was no encouragement, no support for my talent. And when it was time for college, my father said I"m not paying for you to go to college and go into lockerrooms. Find something else to do."
And that knocked me off my road and while I spent many years as a reporter, I ultimately left journalism because I didn't have a college degree. And when I did get my college degree, it was in criminal justice. Journalism and criminal justice are entertwined: Both careers deal in truth and facts.
And the truth was, I will always be a writer. And I will always think like a cop.
The truth. And the facts. And supporting evidence.
And on November 18th - I hope with all my heart I get a chance to tell the truth and state the facts and show my evidence to the judge.
And I hope the judge sees that this eviction case against my son and I is bogus and ridiculous and rule in my favor so that I can continue to keep a roof over my son's head.
I dream about that white knight rescuing my son and I. I dream about having a home where my son can laugh loudly anytime, where he has a place for his friends to meet and they too, can laugh loudly without worrying about being evicted for causing "serious disturbances."
Where I can plant flowers of every color imaginable and maybe have a few dogs to curl up with me on a couch.
A place where my son can still have some of his childhood and be a kid.
Where is our rescuer? Or am I just too jaded and too cynical and too destroyed by what's been done to my son and I to actually hope and believe that someone like that exists?
I don't know right now.
I forgot about everything just for a few hours on Day 5. Until last night when it was time for me to go to sleep. I wrote about all those drawers I stuff my emotions into every day - they all emptied out last night. If emotions were paint, you could see inside my brain, there were a lot of blacks and grays spilling out like swollen streams and rivers from their individual compartments inside my head.
One of my best friends said I need more color in my life. She told me that I've let these horrible people steal my joy. She told me I've lost my color. She told me I've lost the light in the eyes.
She's right. I look in the mirror and I don't see anything but pain and fear and uncertainty. I see worry lines cropping up on my face every day. I still don't eat write because there are days when I am just so sick with sorry that nothing stays in my stomach for very long.
I see failure as a mother which transcends everything. I see despir because of the mountain of debt I've incurred trying to survive and raise my son alone. I see hopelessness because I don't see a way out of this awful place.
Another one of my best friends said "you don't belong there. You're educated, your extremely intelligent and you could leave."
She doesn't understand that in order to get to B,C,D,E & F, you have to A. And that's money and family and networks of support.
I don't have any of that. I have a mother who is in a financial position to have gotten my son and I into a safe place but she refused. I never asked her for anything. And the one time I did - this past summer when this nightmare began - she refused. I finally got the courage to write to her and ask her why.
She has not responded. I do no expect her to because I don't think she knows how to answer that question. I thought she would see only her grandson - my son - and think only of his safety. I thought she would know that getting us out of here and into a home where I am not burdened by income limitations, lease violations and drugs and guns and psychopaths - I thought she would not even blink when I asked for her help.
I was wrong. And knowing that - my own mother would not help me - is right up there are feeling like a failure as a mother myself. Perhaps inside of my mother, she feels the same kind of failure herself because all four of her children - including me - ended up in varying degrees of failure at something. The only exception is my brother who fled our family when he was 18 and never looked back. But he carries around a burden inside of him because he never speaks of what our family was like. He never speaks of the lies my father told, of how my father treated our mother, how my father became a millionaire but wouldn't get his own children braces because he thought it was a waste of money, how he didn't have the time to take us to different colleges and find out what we wanted to do. No, our father crushed all our dreams. And my mother stood by and never said a word.
So who is to blame? One or the other? Or both?
Perhaps my mother is too afraid to admit she too, failed, and resists the temptation to admit same but simply refusing to help me because she feels entitled to what she earned as a result of a 55 year marriage that ended in divorce and "she got what she deserved."
I've been in therapy for nearly three years now trying to find out why all four of us - all grown adults - never got what we deserved when we were kids. We never went to summer camp. We didn't get to play Little League or taking swimming lessons or music lessons or do normal kid stuff. My mother didn't drive because she drank. And when she did get her license, she still wouldn't drive because she knew she'd have to give up alcohol. She chose to keep drinking.
My father was never home and when he was he was, he buried himself in his work and spent more time talking to his business partners and employees than he did with his own kids. We all lived individually and we all fended for ourselves. We had no tools to work with so we grasped whatever we could find outside our house.
None of us ever had a chance. My oldest sister - she ended up a Rx drug addict. In and out of rehab for 20 years. I think she's clean now but she's slid back so many times I don't know if she will cave in again. We talk once a week now and her voice sounds clear and her speech is not slurred by the zombie-like quality of too many drugs.
My brother owns his own, highly successful business - he is a CPA. He does taxes for celebrities. He owns three homes. His wife makes six figures at a hospital in Miami as its CEO. He made sure his daughters found the colleges right for their chosen career paths. He did all the right things for his family. I think when he met his wife he learned what family really meant. And he started acquiring the right tools to become a good, decent, caring, unconditional loving father.
He doesn't speak to any of us. He is ashamed of his father because he knows the truth. And I think in some deep dark way, he is also ashamed of his mother for not standing up for herself - or for her children.
I wandered through life all during elementary school, through junior high, through high school. I just wanted to play baseball or be as close to the sport as I could get. I loved the game. My father told me I could never play because I was a girl. I wish I had known then what I know now - I would have sued my father to make him pay for me to play Little League.
I had straight A's in school. I discovered I had a talent for writing - writing was the easiest thing in the world for me. On a piece of white paper, I created a new life for myself. I created colors that Crayola would envy. I created people that didn't talk, and animals that could. The universe became the center of all my stories because it doesn't have a beginning and an ending - I did that myself.
But baseball was the game I loved and I wanted to know more. And I wanted to write about the game and tell about the players, the hits that snuck through for a single and scored the winning run, the strikeout with the bases loaded and the sheer frustration of a talented hitter, and the joyful elation of the pitcher. I wanted to write about the fans, the coaches, the umpires, everything relative to that game. I wanted to understand why a curve ball curved, why a breaking ball broke, and how a human being could rear back and throw a little white, red-seamed ball 100 miles an hour in what -- 1.5 seconds if that?
I was mesmerized by the science of the game. Baseball became a passion.
But to my father, it was a waste of time. When I got a job with a newspaper, he had no interest in reading my stories. Nevermind I had to beg my friends and their parents for rides to games just so I could cover those games.
There was no encouragement, no support for my talent. And when it was time for college, my father said I"m not paying for you to go to college and go into lockerrooms. Find something else to do."
And that knocked me off my road and while I spent many years as a reporter, I ultimately left journalism because I didn't have a college degree. And when I did get my college degree, it was in criminal justice. Journalism and criminal justice are entertwined: Both careers deal in truth and facts.
And the truth was, I will always be a writer. And I will always think like a cop.
The truth. And the facts. And supporting evidence.
And on November 18th - I hope with all my heart I get a chance to tell the truth and state the facts and show my evidence to the judge.
And I hope the judge sees that this eviction case against my son and I is bogus and ridiculous and rule in my favor so that I can continue to keep a roof over my son's head.
I dream about that white knight rescuing my son and I. I dream about having a home where my son can laugh loudly anytime, where he has a place for his friends to meet and they too, can laugh loudly without worrying about being evicted for causing "serious disturbances."
Where I can plant flowers of every color imaginable and maybe have a few dogs to curl up with me on a couch.
A place where my son can still have some of his childhood and be a kid.
Where is our rescuer? Or am I just too jaded and too cynical and too destroyed by what's been done to my son and I to actually hope and believe that someone like that exists?
I don't know right now.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Countdown to Eviction
6 days.
Trial prep today. I have never been "on trial" before. I have never been arrested in my life.
I am not a criminal. But management wrote "Management has determined that you have engaged in criminal activity." Since when did the property management company become a law enforcement agency?
It's yes or no or I don't understand the question can you repeat.
I have been asked thousands of questions in my life and I have asked millions of questions myself.
But not in a courtroom.
My attorney said I talk like a police officer. It's a hard habit to break when you spent four years working for a police department and 20 years prior as a reporter. Facts. Black and white. That's it. Half of my life was devoted to facts and truth. Nothing more, nothing less. If I wrote feature stories, I got to add color. But that's how I think. Who, what, where, when, why and how. Pretty basic.
I have a B.S. in Criminal Justice. It's the just the way my brain works and how I am wired.
My attorney thinks like an attorney - by the law, how the law applies, case law, etc. I understand him and I understand what he said about my thinking and talking like a cop.
This is about keeping my apartment and keeping a roof over my son's head until we can get out.
Do I still think about being rescued by that white knight? Absolutely.
Who wouldn't in my situation?
Trial prep today. I have never been "on trial" before. I have never been arrested in my life.
I am not a criminal. But management wrote "Management has determined that you have engaged in criminal activity." Since when did the property management company become a law enforcement agency?
It's yes or no or I don't understand the question can you repeat.
I have been asked thousands of questions in my life and I have asked millions of questions myself.
But not in a courtroom.
My attorney said I talk like a police officer. It's a hard habit to break when you spent four years working for a police department and 20 years prior as a reporter. Facts. Black and white. That's it. Half of my life was devoted to facts and truth. Nothing more, nothing less. If I wrote feature stories, I got to add color. But that's how I think. Who, what, where, when, why and how. Pretty basic.
I have a B.S. in Criminal Justice. It's the just the way my brain works and how I am wired.
My attorney thinks like an attorney - by the law, how the law applies, case law, etc. I understand him and I understand what he said about my thinking and talking like a cop.
This is about keeping my apartment and keeping a roof over my son's head until we can get out.
Do I still think about being rescued by that white knight? Absolutely.
Who wouldn't in my situation?
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Countdown to Eviction
7 days.
I found myself slipping a little today back into the black hole I entered on October 3, 2010.
Depression is not just a word. It is an unbelievable, torturous, maelovent presence in our minds that destroys our bodies and sometimes our lives. It is an "unseen" - it is not something that shows up on an x-ray, an MRI or in a blood test. But once you are caught in that swirling vortex of depression, the physical ailments that accompany depression will show up. But most people don't understand depression in any form.
I used to be one of them. I was Miss Independent. I always had a job, I always took care of myself. My health was always very good. And when I had my son, my life changed forever. But I still managed to raise him by myself. But on July 2, 2010, I lost all my coping skills and I started sliding into a really big abyss that swallowed me up when my best friend hauled me off to the hospital three months later on October 3, 2010 because she knew I had hit rock bottom. I was in my closet, crying hysterically and trying to hide in my clothes hanging up.
I lost my coping skills, I lost my identity, I lost myself.
Our bodies are made up of naturally occurring chemicals. And all of mine went completely and utterly haywire on July 2, 2010 thanks to the property management company that oversees the low-income housing complex in which I have resided for seven years that served me with an eviction notice on July 2, 2010.
The chaos continued inside of me as on August 20, 2010, an emergency ultrasound revealed three blot clots in my leg. I did not fit the profile. I did not have surgery. I did not incur trauma to any part of my body. The only trauma I was experiencing was the trauma of the lies that had been told against my son and I, and the management company's refusal to hear my side and allow me to defend myself.
So now my health was in more jeopardy and I kept on sliding toward that big black abyss.
For two weeks after October 3, 2010, I attended a Partial Hospitalization Program. I sat in "groups" during the day and listened to other people. I shared my own situation and found sympathy. I cried rivers of tears.
No one judged me for coming apart. No one looked at me with hatred or disgust.
No one thought I was crazy.
Everyone understood why I was there.
I lost 40 pounds in two months. I stopped sleeping. I sat for long, long period of times at my computer, wishing I could get sucked into it and be spit out someplace where I felt safe. I almost lost my job because I was making so many mistakes because I was terrified my son and I were going to be homeless. I lived (and still do) in fear that the other tenant would hurt my son and I. I lived in fear that management would turn a deaf ear if something truly awful went wrong in my apartment.
I contemplated suicide only because I finally understood why people commit suicide. It is a means to escape the pain that threatens our existence 24/7/365. It can be grief. It can be monstrous financial burdens. It could be a thousand different reasons. For me, I was trying to decide if I wanted to live with the pain anymore: the pain of feeling like a failure as a mother, the pain of being a financial failure because I could not provide for my son, and the failure as a mother to protect my son from someone like the tenant who made all those horrendous allegations against my son and I.
But I could not take myself of this world for one reason and one reason only: my son. I could not leave him no matter how badly I was hurting because I know he would have to live with the unbearable pain of losing me.
I am not back to myself by any means. I still have to endure the trial on November 18, 2010 but I will face my accusers. And I will tell the truth.
I will never be the same again. There is no going back to the "old" me. Until I get out of this place and into a real home for my son and I, out of the "low income housing" stigma that has been attached to me for seven years, I will never completely heal.
I have, however, learned how to compartmentalize every emotion inside of me. I hide each emotion I possess in a different drawer inside my mind. I have lots of space and lots of drawers.
But I still function every day. I get up at the same time every morning. I drink my coffee, pack my son's lunch, get him up and ready for school, make him breakfast and get him on the bus. I go to work. I do my job. I leave, I pick up my son and I come back to this living hell. I help my son with his homework. I make supper. I read to my son or he reads to me. We talk about where the universe begins and ends and how one day he wants to work at NASA. I kiss my son goodnight every night and every night I tell him how much I love him - infinity, he replies. You love me infinity, Mom. And I say yes and kiss him goodnight.
Then it is my turn to sleep. Or what passes for sleep.
I can see the drawers in my mind opening. I can feel all my emotions spilling out onto the floor in my brain. Love, pain, anger, bitterness, sadness, sorrow, failure, the tears of frustration, hopelessness, defenselessness, weakness, and the little strength I have left in me - you name it and it ends up on the floor.
And it is a tiring task trying to put all those emotions back into their respective drawers. I spend a good portion of the night attempting to re-compartmentalize.
And I wake up exhausted every single morning.
But I get up and do it all again.
I would give anything for one night's sleep without worry or fear of losing my apartment even though I hate living here. We have nowhere to go. We have no one to take us in. There are no "white knights" riding up to my door to rescue me and my son. I am not a dreamer. I am a realist.
And the reality is I am poor but highly educated. My brain went haywire but I didn't lose my intelligence - or my sense of humor.
My health is not good but every morning I open my eyes I say thanks that I am still here and didn't die in my sleep - or worse - that my son finds me dead.
I wish for the white knight. I wish for serenity and peace.
I wish that I could provide a better life for my son.
I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now.
I found myself slipping a little today back into the black hole I entered on October 3, 2010.
Depression is not just a word. It is an unbelievable, torturous, maelovent presence in our minds that destroys our bodies and sometimes our lives. It is an "unseen" - it is not something that shows up on an x-ray, an MRI or in a blood test. But once you are caught in that swirling vortex of depression, the physical ailments that accompany depression will show up. But most people don't understand depression in any form.
I used to be one of them. I was Miss Independent. I always had a job, I always took care of myself. My health was always very good. And when I had my son, my life changed forever. But I still managed to raise him by myself. But on July 2, 2010, I lost all my coping skills and I started sliding into a really big abyss that swallowed me up when my best friend hauled me off to the hospital three months later on October 3, 2010 because she knew I had hit rock bottom. I was in my closet, crying hysterically and trying to hide in my clothes hanging up.
I lost my coping skills, I lost my identity, I lost myself.
Our bodies are made up of naturally occurring chemicals. And all of mine went completely and utterly haywire on July 2, 2010 thanks to the property management company that oversees the low-income housing complex in which I have resided for seven years that served me with an eviction notice on July 2, 2010.
The chaos continued inside of me as on August 20, 2010, an emergency ultrasound revealed three blot clots in my leg. I did not fit the profile. I did not have surgery. I did not incur trauma to any part of my body. The only trauma I was experiencing was the trauma of the lies that had been told against my son and I, and the management company's refusal to hear my side and allow me to defend myself.
So now my health was in more jeopardy and I kept on sliding toward that big black abyss.
For two weeks after October 3, 2010, I attended a Partial Hospitalization Program. I sat in "groups" during the day and listened to other people. I shared my own situation and found sympathy. I cried rivers of tears.
No one judged me for coming apart. No one looked at me with hatred or disgust.
No one thought I was crazy.
Everyone understood why I was there.
I lost 40 pounds in two months. I stopped sleeping. I sat for long, long period of times at my computer, wishing I could get sucked into it and be spit out someplace where I felt safe. I almost lost my job because I was making so many mistakes because I was terrified my son and I were going to be homeless. I lived (and still do) in fear that the other tenant would hurt my son and I. I lived in fear that management would turn a deaf ear if something truly awful went wrong in my apartment.
I contemplated suicide only because I finally understood why people commit suicide. It is a means to escape the pain that threatens our existence 24/7/365. It can be grief. It can be monstrous financial burdens. It could be a thousand different reasons. For me, I was trying to decide if I wanted to live with the pain anymore: the pain of feeling like a failure as a mother, the pain of being a financial failure because I could not provide for my son, and the failure as a mother to protect my son from someone like the tenant who made all those horrendous allegations against my son and I.
But I could not take myself of this world for one reason and one reason only: my son. I could not leave him no matter how badly I was hurting because I know he would have to live with the unbearable pain of losing me.
I am not back to myself by any means. I still have to endure the trial on November 18, 2010 but I will face my accusers. And I will tell the truth.
I will never be the same again. There is no going back to the "old" me. Until I get out of this place and into a real home for my son and I, out of the "low income housing" stigma that has been attached to me for seven years, I will never completely heal.
I have, however, learned how to compartmentalize every emotion inside of me. I hide each emotion I possess in a different drawer inside my mind. I have lots of space and lots of drawers.
But I still function every day. I get up at the same time every morning. I drink my coffee, pack my son's lunch, get him up and ready for school, make him breakfast and get him on the bus. I go to work. I do my job. I leave, I pick up my son and I come back to this living hell. I help my son with his homework. I make supper. I read to my son or he reads to me. We talk about where the universe begins and ends and how one day he wants to work at NASA. I kiss my son goodnight every night and every night I tell him how much I love him - infinity, he replies. You love me infinity, Mom. And I say yes and kiss him goodnight.
Then it is my turn to sleep. Or what passes for sleep.
I can see the drawers in my mind opening. I can feel all my emotions spilling out onto the floor in my brain. Love, pain, anger, bitterness, sadness, sorrow, failure, the tears of frustration, hopelessness, defenselessness, weakness, and the little strength I have left in me - you name it and it ends up on the floor.
And it is a tiring task trying to put all those emotions back into their respective drawers. I spend a good portion of the night attempting to re-compartmentalize.
And I wake up exhausted every single morning.
But I get up and do it all again.
I would give anything for one night's sleep without worry or fear of losing my apartment even though I hate living here. We have nowhere to go. We have no one to take us in. There are no "white knights" riding up to my door to rescue me and my son. I am not a dreamer. I am a realist.
And the reality is I am poor but highly educated. My brain went haywire but I didn't lose my intelligence - or my sense of humor.
My health is not good but every morning I open my eyes I say thanks that I am still here and didn't die in my sleep - or worse - that my son finds me dead.
I wish for the white knight. I wish for serenity and peace.
I wish that I could provide a better life for my son.
I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Countdown To Eviction
8 days.
Lies have two colors: White and black evil.
White lies - the ones we tell to save our behinds from minor scrapes. The kind of lies we told as teenagers to avoid punishment by parents. Simple lies that do not hurt anyone, simple lies that do not hurt us. Even as adults, white lies are told to avoid hurting friends or loved ones but still, they are not deliberate or malicious or intentional.
Then there are the black evil lies. The kinds of lies that are told by someone who does not possess a soul, who does not possess emotion. Black evil lies are full of hate, malice and revenge.
And these are the very kinds of lies that destroyed my life on July 2, 2010.
The black evil she told lies are underscored by sheer viciousness and hatred all because I wanted to protect my son, all because I chose to call the police and report the crime she and her son had committed against us but for which I am being evicted.
The black evil lies brought me to my knees because I know the truth and I was never given a chance to tell the truth.
On November 18, 2010, I will tell the truth. And it will be up to a judge to decide my fate. Will a judge believe her lies? Will it believe that management has grounds upon which to evict my son and I?
My logical side says no. My logical side believes that the judge will not evict us.
But justice has no guarantees.
All I have is the truth. I am armed with truth and with evidence and photographs and logic and knowledge.
I want to believe that justice will prevail in my favor and I can try and piece my life back together. But there is a part of me that I know will never be the same. There is a part of me that has winked out and died. I only hope the rest of me does not do the same.
Truth and justice for all.
Lies have two colors: White and black evil.
White lies - the ones we tell to save our behinds from minor scrapes. The kind of lies we told as teenagers to avoid punishment by parents. Simple lies that do not hurt anyone, simple lies that do not hurt us. Even as adults, white lies are told to avoid hurting friends or loved ones but still, they are not deliberate or malicious or intentional.
Then there are the black evil lies. The kinds of lies that are told by someone who does not possess a soul, who does not possess emotion. Black evil lies are full of hate, malice and revenge.
And these are the very kinds of lies that destroyed my life on July 2, 2010.
The black evil she told lies are underscored by sheer viciousness and hatred all because I wanted to protect my son, all because I chose to call the police and report the crime she and her son had committed against us but for which I am being evicted.
The black evil lies brought me to my knees because I know the truth and I was never given a chance to tell the truth.
On November 18, 2010, I will tell the truth. And it will be up to a judge to decide my fate. Will a judge believe her lies? Will it believe that management has grounds upon which to evict my son and I?
My logical side says no. My logical side believes that the judge will not evict us.
But justice has no guarantees.
All I have is the truth. I am armed with truth and with evidence and photographs and logic and knowledge.
I want to believe that justice will prevail in my favor and I can try and piece my life back together. But there is a part of me that I know will never be the same. There is a part of me that has winked out and died. I only hope the rest of me does not do the same.
Truth and justice for all.
Proverbs 19.5: A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Countdown To Eviction
9 days.
I didn't think too much about Nov. 18th today. My eviction file is sitting on my desk, It has taken on a life of its own: two snakes intertwined around each other just waiting to strike. My file contains the venomous poison of a cobra by virtue of the other tenant's lies against me; and the twisted, strangled squeezing feeling of hopelessness and despair that the management python of this complex left me with since July 2nd.
There is a genuine fear to thinking you are going to lose your home, especially when you have a child. It is unlike any fear I've ever known. I have always taken care of myself, paid my rent and lived my life. But when I had my son and realized he would be completely dependent upon me for many years, it turned my life upside down and inside out. Little did I realize how hard this life would be. And how hard I fought to protect my son from the evil people in this world.
I have not talked about the upcoming court date in front of my son. He is immersed in creating a book report, doing long division and asking me questions as to how the color gets into the lead of a colored pencil and how that portion gets in the wood that the pencil is made of. He asked me tonight if a gun is shot underwater, will its speed be the same as if shot above water? He wants to know why the planets line up symmetrically and why everything just works the way things do. I give him as best answers as I can. Sometimes I have to look stuff up because I genuinely don't know the answer. I try not to blow off my son's questions because when I look at him, I see me. But I never had anyone to ask these questions of. I had to find it out on my own, by myself. But when my son asks me these deep, thoughtful, insightful questions, I am amazed that perhaps that need to know comes from me.
the need to know. Some people are just born with this inate burning desire to know, to possess knowledge, to ask questions just because.
It is obvious that the management company here lacks a vocabulary that consists of the words who what where when why and how.
Innocent until proven guilty. Nope. Not to these people. let's get rid of the white, college educated, above average intelligent WHITE tenant who has a job and doesn't sleaze off of the state and protect the minority tenant because if management tried to evict her, can you say discrimination lawsuit?
well, can you say reverse discrimination? I never in my life encountered this kind of situation. It has the appearance of reverse discrimination but I've not yet told the entire story but when all the pieces are put together, and the truth is laid out in neat rows, one will be able to clearly see reverse discrimination.
I try not to think about that. I try to think of my son's endless barrage of questions instead of what may be in 9 days. I can't imagine having to pack up my things in 24 hours and having a sheriff watch over me. I can't imagine getting in my car and not having a place to sleep. I can't imagine having to tell my son that his room will be the backseat of my jurassic park 16 year old car.
When you raise a child alone because you have no family around you and you become mother and father all rolled into one person, you tend to be braver and more courageous because you get used to facing everything alone.
But when I close my eyes at night, I pray that someone will rescue us. I pray that someone will come into our lives and take us away from this awful place and give us a real home. A place where I can heal and find serenity in a garden. A place where my son can laugh at the top of his lungs, and jump until the ground shakes - and no one will complain. I want to walk in my front door and never look down at my feet again. I want to be able to sleep without my baseball bat cradled in my arms. I want to not get up four and five and six times at night just to check my door.
I do not like to live in fear.It is eating me alive.
Fear is a flukey snarky hinky thing to live with. It can be innocuous (like fear of ants or creepy crawly things in general) or fear can be the intangible rope that squeezes the life out of you every single second you try to breathe.
Welcome to my world.
I didn't think too much about Nov. 18th today. My eviction file is sitting on my desk, It has taken on a life of its own: two snakes intertwined around each other just waiting to strike. My file contains the venomous poison of a cobra by virtue of the other tenant's lies against me; and the twisted, strangled squeezing feeling of hopelessness and despair that the management python of this complex left me with since July 2nd.
There is a genuine fear to thinking you are going to lose your home, especially when you have a child. It is unlike any fear I've ever known. I have always taken care of myself, paid my rent and lived my life. But when I had my son and realized he would be completely dependent upon me for many years, it turned my life upside down and inside out. Little did I realize how hard this life would be. And how hard I fought to protect my son from the evil people in this world.
I have not talked about the upcoming court date in front of my son. He is immersed in creating a book report, doing long division and asking me questions as to how the color gets into the lead of a colored pencil and how that portion gets in the wood that the pencil is made of. He asked me tonight if a gun is shot underwater, will its speed be the same as if shot above water? He wants to know why the planets line up symmetrically and why everything just works the way things do. I give him as best answers as I can. Sometimes I have to look stuff up because I genuinely don't know the answer. I try not to blow off my son's questions because when I look at him, I see me. But I never had anyone to ask these questions of. I had to find it out on my own, by myself. But when my son asks me these deep, thoughtful, insightful questions, I am amazed that perhaps that need to know comes from me.
the need to know. Some people are just born with this inate burning desire to know, to possess knowledge, to ask questions just because.
It is obvious that the management company here lacks a vocabulary that consists of the words who what where when why and how.
Innocent until proven guilty. Nope. Not to these people. let's get rid of the white, college educated, above average intelligent WHITE tenant who has a job and doesn't sleaze off of the state and protect the minority tenant because if management tried to evict her, can you say discrimination lawsuit?
well, can you say reverse discrimination? I never in my life encountered this kind of situation. It has the appearance of reverse discrimination but I've not yet told the entire story but when all the pieces are put together, and the truth is laid out in neat rows, one will be able to clearly see reverse discrimination.
I try not to think about that. I try to think of my son's endless barrage of questions instead of what may be in 9 days. I can't imagine having to pack up my things in 24 hours and having a sheriff watch over me. I can't imagine getting in my car and not having a place to sleep. I can't imagine having to tell my son that his room will be the backseat of my jurassic park 16 year old car.
When you raise a child alone because you have no family around you and you become mother and father all rolled into one person, you tend to be braver and more courageous because you get used to facing everything alone.
But when I close my eyes at night, I pray that someone will rescue us. I pray that someone will come into our lives and take us away from this awful place and give us a real home. A place where I can heal and find serenity in a garden. A place where my son can laugh at the top of his lungs, and jump until the ground shakes - and no one will complain. I want to walk in my front door and never look down at my feet again. I want to be able to sleep without my baseball bat cradled in my arms. I want to not get up four and five and six times at night just to check my door.
I do not like to live in fear.It is eating me alive.
Fear is a flukey snarky hinky thing to live with. It can be innocuous (like fear of ants or creepy crawly things in general) or fear can be the intangible rope that squeezes the life out of you every single second you try to breathe.
Welcome to my world.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Countdown To Eviction
10 days.
In 10 days I will find out if my son and I will be homeless. I thought I lived in a country where I was innocent until proven guilty. Apparently, when you live in low income housing that is run by a management company who decides your fate based on false allegations, lies and hearsay, that is not the case. The management company which runs the low income apartment complex at which I reside became judge, jury and executioner on July 2, 2010 when my son and I were served with a Notice of Termination of Tenancy.
For seven and a half years, I have resided in a place that is the size of a cereal box. I have paid my rent on time every month for seven years. I have abided by the rules and regulations. I live in a town where the school system is one of the best in the state and for seven years, I have attempted to carve out a niche for myself - and most importantly - for my son because I know he will get the kind of education that will be the foundation upon which he can build his future.
That future was put into jeopardy July 2, 2010.
Here in Massachusetts, there are two kinds of eviction: Non payment of rent which is self explanatory and "fault" which apparently the innocent until proven guilty application of law doesn't apply to this complex.
I am not a drug trafficker. I am not a a bank robber or a murderer or a terrorist. I do not have a criminal record. I am and have been a single working mother who has simply tried to keep a roof over my son's head, teach him right from wrong, and instill the importance of character, integrity and honesty in him so he may grow up to be a good, decent person.
I am a good mother. I would die for my son if I knew it meant keeping him safe. But when I was served with this eviction notice, I felt like I had failed to protect my son.
This eviction stems from another tenant who, when I met her this past February, raised all my red flags as a 23 year journalist - and as a mother. This is about someone whom I felt was a threat to my son.
This is about my gut instinct which proved me right.
And for that, I am being evicted.
I know my rights as a tenant. Just because I live in low income housing does not mean I should be stereotyped because of my address. I did not choose to live here - I had no choice. But I have a right to quiet enjoyment and more so, I have a right to protect my son.
And when I attempted to exercise those two rights, I was retaliated against not only by this other tenant, but worse by the management company.
The truth of what really happened has taken on a life of its own. It's become a living, breathing entity that I covet carefully as each day draws nearer to Nov. 18th.
The basis for my entire career was the truth. And in one moment, one person was able to convince management that I was this horrible person who did all these horrible things to her.
And not once did they question what they heard, what she said or bothered to come to me to find out the truth.
On November 18, 2010, I must put all emotion aside and tell the truth. I have evidence. I have photographs. I have witnesses.
I have the truth all neatly organized into manilla files.
But those files do not contain what has happened to my son and I inside ourselves. They do not contain the tears I have shed, the horrendous emotional stress my body has withstood since July. I carry around three blood clots in my leg that were discovered amid this nightmare. I lost 40 pounds without blinking. I stopped sleeping, I stopped eating. I was spiraling down and my son was watching me come completely unglued because I am terrified we will be homeless.
Those files do not contain the hopelessness I felt and still feel because I failed to protect my son.
I may never heal. All I know is that I hate to come home. I still do not sleep peacefully. I lose track of time. I am forgetful. I wonder each day if I am simply not going to wake up one morning because the stress of this situation killed me and my son will find me dead in my bed. And management will simply close its file on me forever. Wouldn't they just love that.
My son locked himself in a school bathroom one day because he did not want to come back here to our apartment. He turns inward and becomes sullen and despondent when he walks into our building.
I am not the vibrant person I used to be. I am desperate to get out of here but I do not have the financial means to do so. I have no family within 100 miles of me. My friends are not able to take us in and I would not impose on anyone. But more important to me - I refuse to uproot my son and cause him more trauma than he has already experienced in his 10 years, perhaps more so in the past six months.
I refuse to run. If I am going down, I am going down fighting.
And I am going to tell the truth on November 18th.
And when this is over, I am going to tell my story in hopes that no one will ever have to go through what my son and I are going through. I will tell my story so that every tenant understands that she or he have rights and that no management company has the right to destroy a life with one sweep of a pen.
I live in America. I am innocent until proven guilty. I have the right to face my accuser.
I will tell the truth.
And I would do it all over again just to protect my son.
In 10 days I will find out if my son and I will be homeless. I thought I lived in a country where I was innocent until proven guilty. Apparently, when you live in low income housing that is run by a management company who decides your fate based on false allegations, lies and hearsay, that is not the case. The management company which runs the low income apartment complex at which I reside became judge, jury and executioner on July 2, 2010 when my son and I were served with a Notice of Termination of Tenancy.
For seven and a half years, I have resided in a place that is the size of a cereal box. I have paid my rent on time every month for seven years. I have abided by the rules and regulations. I live in a town where the school system is one of the best in the state and for seven years, I have attempted to carve out a niche for myself - and most importantly - for my son because I know he will get the kind of education that will be the foundation upon which he can build his future.
That future was put into jeopardy July 2, 2010.
Here in Massachusetts, there are two kinds of eviction: Non payment of rent which is self explanatory and "fault" which apparently the innocent until proven guilty application of law doesn't apply to this complex.
I am not a drug trafficker. I am not a a bank robber or a murderer or a terrorist. I do not have a criminal record. I am and have been a single working mother who has simply tried to keep a roof over my son's head, teach him right from wrong, and instill the importance of character, integrity and honesty in him so he may grow up to be a good, decent person.
I am a good mother. I would die for my son if I knew it meant keeping him safe. But when I was served with this eviction notice, I felt like I had failed to protect my son.
This eviction stems from another tenant who, when I met her this past February, raised all my red flags as a 23 year journalist - and as a mother. This is about someone whom I felt was a threat to my son.
This is about my gut instinct which proved me right.
And for that, I am being evicted.
I know my rights as a tenant. Just because I live in low income housing does not mean I should be stereotyped because of my address. I did not choose to live here - I had no choice. But I have a right to quiet enjoyment and more so, I have a right to protect my son.
And when I attempted to exercise those two rights, I was retaliated against not only by this other tenant, but worse by the management company.
The truth of what really happened has taken on a life of its own. It's become a living, breathing entity that I covet carefully as each day draws nearer to Nov. 18th.
The basis for my entire career was the truth. And in one moment, one person was able to convince management that I was this horrible person who did all these horrible things to her.
And not once did they question what they heard, what she said or bothered to come to me to find out the truth.
On November 18, 2010, I must put all emotion aside and tell the truth. I have evidence. I have photographs. I have witnesses.
I have the truth all neatly organized into manilla files.
But those files do not contain what has happened to my son and I inside ourselves. They do not contain the tears I have shed, the horrendous emotional stress my body has withstood since July. I carry around three blood clots in my leg that were discovered amid this nightmare. I lost 40 pounds without blinking. I stopped sleeping, I stopped eating. I was spiraling down and my son was watching me come completely unglued because I am terrified we will be homeless.
Those files do not contain the hopelessness I felt and still feel because I failed to protect my son.
I may never heal. All I know is that I hate to come home. I still do not sleep peacefully. I lose track of time. I am forgetful. I wonder each day if I am simply not going to wake up one morning because the stress of this situation killed me and my son will find me dead in my bed. And management will simply close its file on me forever. Wouldn't they just love that.
My son locked himself in a school bathroom one day because he did not want to come back here to our apartment. He turns inward and becomes sullen and despondent when he walks into our building.
I am not the vibrant person I used to be. I am desperate to get out of here but I do not have the financial means to do so. I have no family within 100 miles of me. My friends are not able to take us in and I would not impose on anyone. But more important to me - I refuse to uproot my son and cause him more trauma than he has already experienced in his 10 years, perhaps more so in the past six months.
I refuse to run. If I am going down, I am going down fighting.
And I am going to tell the truth on November 18th.
And when this is over, I am going to tell my story in hopes that no one will ever have to go through what my son and I are going through. I will tell my story so that every tenant understands that she or he have rights and that no management company has the right to destroy a life with one sweep of a pen.
I live in America. I am innocent until proven guilty. I have the right to face my accuser.
I will tell the truth.
And I would do it all over again just to protect my son.
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