WOMEN’S CENTER
June 7th, 2018
Thursday
Day 339
8am
Time for Community. Sugar Momma is asking Sandra questions, and Sandra is taking nine years to answer each one.
Gawd.
Mr. Big looks good today (always). I hope I get to work on the computer today. The meeting last night was okay–there are two people that talk way too much and take over the whole meeting spouting the same thing every time. Ken was there, and he must have hugged me 17 times. He and his girlfriend were fighting like cats and dogs outside the meeting beforehand. He was embarrassed when he walked in, and seemed very sex-deprived. He grabbed my butt and growled in my ear, which is uncharacteristic of him.
This Community is taking an eon.
Ugh.
11am
Now I am waiting on hold forever for the Social Security people to pick up the phone. Well, 32 minutes, to be exact. I guess I’ll read the new book Tori found here, “Bottom Line’s 2017 Health Breakthroughs.”
We’ll see what’s interesting in here.
June 8th, 2018
Friday
Day 340
2:30pm
Jesus Christ. I just got yelled at by the Sleep Nazi because I went to my room after waiting for 20 minutes for group to start and then nothing happened.
Bitch.
So now we’re sitting in the fucking Common Room doing absolutely nothing for no reason at all. She’s like, “I know you’re not sleeping during group!” And then I come out, and there’s no fucking group at all.
God.
She’s such a cunt sometimes.
June 9th, 2018
Saturday
Day 341
10pm
My birthday is tomorrow. Yippee skippy. Tori got some new hair dye at the dollar store. She wants me to bleach it for her. There’s a stupid Lifetime movie on called “Psycho Brother In Law.”
How dumb.
I did June’s custody paperwork today. I hope she gets somewhere with it. We’re up to thirteen people here now. I can’t wait to leave. There are absolutely NO apartments for rent online–they’re all for sale.
Bummer.
I didn’t go to the meeting tonight–had a terrible headache. I think I have a sinus infection. Time to dye Tori’s hair.
June 10th, 2018
Sunday
Day 342
9am
Happy birthday to me. Everybody is bitchy this morning. Time for Community.
Blech.
10am
Finally I get to read my book–my new one is called, “Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve.”
Let’s see if there’s anything good in here:
It’s by Lewis B. Smedes
The Four Stages of Forgiving:
Hurt, hate, healing, and the coming together.
“The hurt that created a crisis of forgiving has three dimensions. It is always personal, unfair, and deep.”
“Forgiving is love’s remedy to be used when we are hurtfully wronged by a person we trusted to treat us right.”
Watching the Hunger Games now. President Snow says, “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.”
I believe it.
3pm
I’m waiting for my kids to get here–all three of them are coming! It’s only supposed to be the boys, but when I called Dubya to talk to Lilly, he said she should be here!
Will wonders never cease.
I’m truly shocked that he let her come.
My ex-brother-in-law called too, and the staff let me speak to him for a minute, so that was nice. I guess he’s going to come visit me on Wednesday night.
6pm
The kids and I had fun. They each gave me a birthday card, and my parents gave me $20. The women here gave me a card too, which was really sweet. We’re watching, “Wonder,” which is about a little boy with a deformed face, and has Julia Roberts in it.
“When given the choice between being right, and being kind, choose kind.”
Word.
8pm
I have to say, I’ve had a good birthday, which I never thought would happen here. My sponsor came, and we mostly talked about how worried I am about moving in with Tori…I think maybe it’s not working for a reason.
9pm
New movie–talking about how forgiveness will set you free. God, I hope so, because I am working hard at it.
Of course this is a love story–it makes me (selfishly) notice how lonely I am…
June 11th, 2018
Day 343
Monday
5:30am
Couldn’t sleep. I got up at 4am, and then tried to go back to bed, but I just kept waking up every 10 minutes, so I got up. Jolene is up too–she says her face hurts from the weather–it’s cold out, I guess. Apparently her ex showed up near the meeting again last night, even though they were just in court getting a PFA reinstated.
I guess he was fishing near where the meeting was, and then when he saw her, he ran away.
Fun times.
I’m glad I wasn’t there.
I get sick of Jolene’s mouth running all of the time. She’ll tell the same (pity-party) story 1500 times over, especially when something like that happens. Not that I don’t feel for her, but damn.
I’m being a bitch.
I guess I’ll read my forgiveness book.
1pm
Now we have a goal setting group. This should be fun. I guess Tori isn’t going to Crossroads today with me. Stupid Sandra made Tori cry this morning by being rude to her in group.
Now Sandra is crying for reasons unknown. She just got off the phone with her lawyer, so that’s not a good sign. Tori is currently spraying Lysol on everything and it’s giving me a headache. Now Sandra’s saying she needs to call the judge. I bet her lawyer told her that since she ran away, she can’t get early release.
One of the new residents is sneezing and coughing and snotting all over the place–I just know I’m going to get sick.
I can feel it.
6pm
Doing group now. The man the TV is saying, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
Tori just pointed out that she can mime her name by pointing to her toe and then her knee.
This group is hella boring. It’s about personal responsibility..
Tori and I have decided to make World Rules instead:
- Every female baby born gets an IUD at age 10. No forced reproduction.
- Everybody has to take parenting classes in school.
- Everybody must obtain a license to have a child
June 12th, 2018
Tuesday
Day343
9am
Driving to Wellsboro now with Larry. He’s telling a story about hitting a turkey vulture with his car, which he almost did again right now.
Whew!
Those are a damn big bird up close.
Anyway, the funny story of the week is that Tori was –story interrupted.
I just talked for two straight hours about terrible things that happened to these women. Beatings, rape, sodomy with a knife even.
I’m trying and trying and trying to lift them up with words, but maybe it’s like remembering things–you have to write it down.
So I’ll write it.
It seems like I’m always dealing with the aftermath of something.
It’s tragic, really.
I just don’t know what to say.
People need to know that they’re important.
That they matter.
4pm
Just one thing after another today. Helen’s on TV. Hallelujah. Something easy.
Sandra and Elaine even got into a fight during the staff meeting and Tori and I had to mediate. They eventually kissed and made up, though.
Not literally.
Mr. Big’s head would explode.
I’m just glad the day is winding down. I feel like I said, “You are strong. You can do it,” about a million times today.
I did my best.
I’m still Senior Resident here even if I don’t have the title–I’m everybody’s Mom.
Jolene is on furlough right now so that she can go to court to get a settlement for the case in which she was beaten severely on camera at an Acorn market, and nobody helped her. I hope they give her a lot of money.
She deserves it.
I think I’ll read my Bible. Still on Isaiah.
********MISSING PAGES************
That the things that happen to us when we’re little determine how the rest of our lives go.
That words, when used as weapons, are worse than anything that could happen physically to you, so be careful with them.
2:30pm
Parenting classes.
One of the new women, Diane, pulled me aside to talk when I got back from Crossroads, and told me that she had been informed today of her probable ovarian cancer.
I just listened, and held her while she cried.
It was awful.
She’s terrified.
And she has a nine-month old at home.
Later, with her permission (actually, she asked me to), I shared with the group what was going on, and we all hugged her and cried with her. Better to spread the pain and struggle around than to have only one person bear it all.
***************MISSING SECTIONS*************
Tori: “I have to eat less! My underwear look like a thong, and they’re not a thong!”
I am realizing some things about Tori.
She’s endured far more emotional pain than I thought.
Her first memory, ever, of life, is of being raped when she was four.
Trauma as an introduction to the world. This is life, now go from here. How do you do that? Well, she did. Her courage and strength amazes me.
She just pointed toward Mr. Big’s name on her 8th Step amends work, but what I noticed is that first on her list is Brayden, her firstborn, who died in the womb at six months gestation.
Why on Earth would she blame herself for his death??!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m going to have to start at the very beginning with her! Trauma after trauma after trauma has built her life.
God, let me be her STOP sign. Girl, put the baseball bat down. Stop beating yourself up over what you had no control over.
10:30pm
God.
Jolene showed me pictures that her crooked lawyer’s helpful secretary slipped her of her face after the beating she took at the Acorn in 2012.
It’s so horrible to look at that dumb Jo, instead of being empathetic, was traumatized by the pictures, and kept repeating, “Jolene! Why would you show that to me! Now I’m never going to get THAT picture out of my head!”
Jo herself was beaten by a man so severely that it cracked her skull. She has an indent in her head still where he slammed her head onto a concrete floor as hard as he could.
I just wonder–why is no one empowering these women?
When is the abuse going to end??
