Everyone Needs a Good White Trash Story

The story everyone wants to hear, is how could you leave your son when you became a VISTA volunteer?  This is the hardest story to tell. My son is my earth and sky.  My leaving him behind ripped my heart to shreds.  When you have a child, there is nothing you wouldn't do to keep him safe and happy.  My leaving was  to make sure he still had a Momma.  I was on the verge of doing something stupid.  If I did not get out of town, I would be dead.  I have said this to him.  He has forgiven me and we have never been closer.

For the first 12 years of his life, my son lived with me for a week and his father for a week.  I held full custody, but his father lived in a better neighborhood, with good schools.  It worked for us.

One night at dinner, my 11 year old announced he wanted to be a priest.  He was in a private Catholic school. A priest? I asked him.  I really wanted to hear how he came to this idea.  This could possibly make me the first Jewish momma whose son became a priest.

I want to help people he replied.  So you want to be a priest because you want to help people? I asked.  Yup, as he bit into his hamburger.  Okay I am thinking.  I love his reasoning, but a priest??  Nothing wrong with priests mind you, but my son?  A priest?

A few weeks pass, and we don't talk about his aspirations of becoming a priest.  At dinner, I ask him, so how is the whole priest thing going?  Still thinking about it?  Nope he replied  Why not as I try put my water glass down.  Priests can't have dogs, so I am not going to be a priest he told me.  What do you mean, Priest's can't have dogs?  Well he explained, the parish pays for your house and your food, and I don't think its right to have the parish pay for dog food.  As a silent thank you was sent up to the gods for our two dogs,  I could not get over the thought this kid had put into this priest idea.  Leave this kid, really?

We were always great together, my kid and me.  I never had any expendable income, so we always had fun on what little money I did have.  One year, for his birthday, I had found the cutest little cottage, right on the Potomac River to move to.  One of my gifts to him was to surprise him with it.  As we started driving to the wildlife refuge down the road from the new house, I told him to put his coat over his face.  He did and we laughed as I kept teasing him about what the surprise could be.  We pull in front of the house and I told him to move his coat.  His face lit up like a christmas tree.  You can't put a price on those moments.

While we were living in that little cottage, I met a man.  I call him the idiot now, but at the time, he seemed to be a good man.  It had been a very long time since my last long-term relationship and my divorce from my son's father, and I was ready to fall in love again.  The idiot was the extreme opposite of my ex-husband.  Where one was angry, the other was almost timid.  Where one was controlling, the other wasn't.  He was easy and comfortable.  He loved my son and my son liked him.  So I married him.

Without going into all the dirty details I know everyone really wants to hear, the relationship went south, really fast.  And it was ugly.  We separated after discussing what was going wrong and started seeing a marriage counselor.  That went well for a couple of weeks.  Then he began to accuse me of horrible things.  And he stalked me.

The idiot would come in the house and leave me pictures of himself and crazy notes like "I'll be home for dinner honey".  Still creeps me out.  I got the locks changed, and he was able to get a key made because his name was still on the lease.  He wasn't paying anything mind you, but he could still claim his "residency".  He pulled a small tube looking thing out of his pocket one day and told me it was a bug, and he had bugged my house.  We had a room for my son, with the light switch on the outside of the room.  When the idiot wouldn't leave, I took to staying in that room with the door locked.  One night he kept flicking the light switch off and on, all night long.  This was bad, but it was about to get much worse.

I was working full time at a very large, very secure company, and part time at night waiting tables.  I worked a part time job primarily because I was afraid to go home.  I was always scared that he would be there.  There were nights I hid my little car behind a huge rhodendrum tree and got ready for bed in the dark so he wouldn't know I was home.  If he was there, I rented a hotel room or slept on my mother's couch.  One night when I thought it was safe, he came in the house in the middle of the night mutterng "god damn bitch, where are you?"  He was drunk and I was hiding in a closet.  My son was staying at his Dad's house because I knew he would be safe there and I didn't want to subject him to this behaviour.  Momma is not afraid of anything and he knew that.  Momma was actually terrified for years.

Get a restraining order, right?  This is serious crazy behavior.  Three times I went to the police to try to get a restraining order against him.  Three times I was turned down.  I was on my own.

The epic stupid white trash cops moment came the night I locked myself in the bedroom with my german shepard.   The idiot starts screaming at me through the door.  I called the 911. He took the hinges off the locked door and came at me, literally snarling.  I am not hiding any more.  I get out of the bed and start pushing him out of the bedroom, out of the house.  We are both yelling at this point.  I'm yelling get out of my house!  Get out of my house!  My girl Kia was trying to bite him.  And then the police come, and get him to leave.  I am living an episode of cops.  This is my life:  nice Jewish girl of a certain age from a good background being talked down by a police officer.

Momma is no fool and Momma is not afraid of anything.  Except spiders.  I contacted the security people at the really big corporation I worked at and got his phone number blocked.  He could not get to me at the really big corporation.  And I started plans to find another place to live where he couldn't find me.  I found a new house and moved on a Monday morning with my brother standing outside the house, armed.  The idiot had the good sense not to show up that day.

Life was getting back to my sense of normal, until I got a phone call from the police department.  I needed to go down to the police department for some paperwork.  I was at work and naive enough to think this had to do with the three orders of protection I was trying to get.  My police station visit was not to protect me from the idiot.  My police station visit was to arrest me for assualt and battery.  Against him.  He filed an assault and battery charge against me, and there was a warrant for my arrest because of it.

I have never been in trouble with the law.  I've never raised my hand, and rarely my voice, in anger.  Assault and battery.

They did not arrest me because they recognized me from the first THREE times I had been down there to try to get an order of protection.  I was not booked, or fingerprinted or anything.  They knew it was a ridiculous claim, but they had to let me know I had a court date.  Where I am the Defendent.  After a blessed few weeks of semi-stability, I am terrified again.  This time, about going to jail on charges that I assaulted him.  After he took the door off the hinges to get to me.

My life was spiraling out of control and all I could do was react.  I hired a bitch of a lawyer and my closest friend went to court with me.  He was alone.  No one to "support" him.  My case comes up and I am the Defendent.  I am the one closest to the jail door with the big people with guns. And handcuffs. 

The Judge call me to testify and I explain what happened that night.  I called 911.  He took the door off its hinges to get to me. My dog was jumping on him in defense of me.  All of it is true, however I am seriously concerned that I am going to jail.  This had reached such a level of absurdity that going to jail was a real possibility at that moment.

Then the Judge called the idiot to the stand.  It was a thing of beauty.  In his own words, he said he did what I said he did.  He even had photos of the "bruises" I inflicted on him.  The Judge never looked at the photos.  The Judge looked at me.  Then he looked at the idiot and said this case is worthless and threw my case out.  No jail for me.  To this day, I swear he had someone beat him up for those pictures.  He is just that much of an idiot.

My girlfriend and I leave the courthouse with my attorney and he is right there, continuing to make threats.  We kept walking to the car and once in the car, he was riding our tail, flipping us/me off.  We went to a diner and she expressed her concerns for my safety.  At this point, I am angry.  Really angry.  No one is going to mess with me ever again I told her.  He's a creep and an idiot and  I am seeing a very large and protective man.  Like my Kia, he will protect me. 

Six months later, I am on my way to bet you can't find it on a map, Blanding Utah.  My life had been turned upside sideways by this three year experience and I couldn't subject my son to any more ugliness.  I ran.  I ran to the furthest place I could be from Virginia to feel safe again.  Because of my relationship with his father, I knew my son would be safe, going to a great school, and getting ready for the rest of his life.  I could not bring him to the middle of nowhere, Blanding Utah.

I have two very big regrets in my life.  The first is leaving my boy because of the actions of a certifiable idiot.  The second is another story.

Wheels Continue to Turn

I am 52 years old.  I am strong, comitted, passionate and able.  I have been unemployed for 18 months.  Technically I am not unemployed any longer because I have a 24 hour a week job.  All the experience and leadership skills I have acquired and used over the years, have bit the dust.

I had a pretty good run back east.  I have skills in human resources, promotions and event planning at the administrative and executive level.  I have worked for large corporations and small non-profits and have awards for leadership and promotions.  So what.  All those wonderful, hard-earned skills did not keep me from making bad relationship decisions, which inevitably drove me away from the east coast.

I set out for bet you can't find it on a map, Blanding Utah with a sense of joy and urgency.  I wasn't running from anything, necessarily.  Except for the idiot and the evil one.  I didn't think I was running, but I was.  At the time, I knew my future and destiny lay in the middle of nowhere Blanding Utah.  It was time to reinvent myself.  And I did.

My self reinvention was not taking on a new personna, or changing my name and dropping underground until the coast was clear.  My self reinvention was internal.  I was going to be living in the middle of nowhere, Blanding Utah, working, as it turned out, in economic development.  At the time, I had no idea where I would be living or what I would be doing.  The randomness of it all was breathtaking.

I found my passion in economic and community development in the wilds of Utah.  I found that I am in fact capable of anything I set my mind to.  I can make it work by sheer will.  For ten years, I was at the top of my game.  I was on the ground, working with communities, listening to their issues and making plans to make it work.

It is funny how the wheel continues to turn.  I have gone from the top of my game, to the very basement.   My learned skills really don't matter any longer.  I have been actively working looking for work, and it is a full time job.  At 52, I am not 25 and "teachable".  At 52, I can't even get an interview for an $8 hour receptionist position.  I have fourteen bazillion different copies of my resume, each de-emphasizing my skills and abilities a little more each time I write a new resume for an $8 hour retail position.

I was angry for a long time.  I am not angry any longer.  I have come to realize that what I have achieved, I have achieved, and no one can take that from me.  Now new doors are opening, in places and for things I would never have considered 18 months ago.  I am a blank slate.  I am ready to learn something new.  I need to shelve those leadership skills, keep my opinions to myself and learn.

Cleal Bradford, my mentor in Blanding Utah as a VISTA, said it best: "Karyle, you need to learn to sit down, shut up and listen".  It took ten years, but I am ready to listen, quietly.

Giving It Up

We are having a yard sale this weekend and as both of us are hoarders, giving up stuff hurts.


It is a bit easier for me than for Jeff, because I am used to giving up stuff.  During the best mid-life crisis ever, I sold, donated, stored or gave away everything I owned.  I shipped what I thought I needed in 4 boxes to the middle of nowhere, Blanding Utah.  The coffee maker did not make it.  Otherwise, downsizing complete.


During the first part of my life changing mid-life crisis, I lived with boxes. I never threw a box out because I knew I would be moving on  and frankly boxes are expensive.  My Grandpa used to call me a rolling stone, because I was always on the move.  Literally, on the move.  He also thought I should run for Mayor of Farmington, New Mexico.  How I love and miss that man.


I have always embraced change  Embrace is a good word for it, unless the change is moumentally hurtful, and then change becomes a defense mechanism.  During my best mid-life crisis ever yard sale, I set up the front yard at 2am.  Who can sleep when their entire life is laid out in the front yard for strangers to paw through and put a price on?  This yard sale was going to fund my trip to middle of nowhere Blanding Utah, with extra to live on.


The piano went.  The living room and bedroom furniture went.  My beloved collection of clocks that make noise went.  I kept the howling wolf clock that my son gave me, and a chicken clock that sings.   The other dozen clocks were gone.  I am not the only one with questionable collectors taste.


My corporate clothes went, including my full length, faux leapard print coat.  I loved that coat.  It was long and warm, and just crazy enough to work.  My heels, gone.  I wore nothing but heels and cowboy boots my whole life.  Now I was down to the one pair of cowboy boots I owned and flip flops.  It is stinking hot in middle of nowhere Blanding Utah.  Those boots were so cool.  They were red with black cut outs.  Mobil Oil payed for them with a bonus I received.  I wore them to work, a lot.  I can be buttoned up with the best of them, but ya gotta color outside the lines every once in a while.


I was amazed at how much stuff I had accumulated over 20 years.  When I divorced my first husband, I walked away from everything.  The nice house.  White picket fence.  Nice cars.  My parents were furious that I left things behind that they had given me.  Those "things" were not worth the cost of fighting for them.  That man controlled my life.  He wants it.  He gets it.  I was gone and that was all I cared about.  Stuff is replaceable.  Self worth is harder to replace.


Yard sales are cleansing.  I desperately try to live by the rule of "if you haven't used it, worn it or thought of it in a year, it's out".  With the exception of those jeans I know will fit in a year or my music collection.  And my books.  Jeff, bless his heart, is threatening me with violence if I even mention selling some of his tools.  Oh my gosh, no one comes between a man and his tools.

I'm not used to having a man in my life that is capable of fixing things.  My way of fixing things is to call someone to come and fix it.  I'm sure I could learn how to fix things, but I prefer not to.  I have been independent for so long, that I am not used to having a man who can fix things.  One morning, I looked out the kitchen window, and my truck was looking weird.  "Jeff, come look at the truck, I think something is wrong with her".  Jeff takes one look and says "you've got a flat tire".  Really?  "Who do I call" I ask him.  He looked at me with biwilderment and said "I can fix a flat tire".  Really I asked?    Yeah, I am that stupid sometimes.


I have come to a point in my life, where I don't want to sell anthing.  I am nesting in Montana. We have a pretty big house, however we have reached overload.  Our love of auctions doesnt help.  This will be harder on Jeff than on me.  I've been to this rodeo and it is scarey and fun at the same time.  Once you get over the idea of strangers not thinking your stuff is good enough to add to their stuff, a yard sale can be fun just because of the people you meet.  Of course I stalk total strangers at gas pumps to talk to them, so maybe its just me.