Factories & Filth

First, I should say I have never blogged before in my life and have no idea really what to write. So I will start at the beginning. I was born in a small Ohio town, where it is cold and usually snowing. I was raised poor, well lower middle class. We were always on the brink of poverty but never really went over the edge. My father drives truck and my mom stays home. This is the way it has been for my entire life. I remember as a child watching my mother do laundry, wash dishes, cook, and take care of me and my brother. I always remember how sad and tired she looked and vowed to myself that I would never end up like that. "I will laugh all the time" I would tell my little 10 year old self. The naive thoughts of children. I have a very close extended family, a little too close sometimes. I was raised within a block of my entire family and most of us lived on the same street. I know it sounds great. No reason to worry about your kids playing out late at night or being alone in the front yard. And that was true, as a young child I had no concern at all about safety and apparently neither did the adults. We would play until it was so dark out we couldn't see each other and be right back out the next morning before the sun fully kissed the sky. We would be filthy, skinned kneed, and happy as could be. Then as a teenager I damned my close family more than once. How was I supposed to sneak out when I had all those eyes watching my every move? It was a sheltered life to say the least. That was my beginning. Nothing special, nothing odd, nothing eventful ever took place.

There were times when I would sit in the tree house and dream of far off adventures, but then again no one ever left our small town. Sure kids would go off to college and then they would be right back. It was like the black hole, it would suck you in and then you are stuck in this town that has not progressed past the 1960's. The first thing you need to know about this town is that it started as a fishing village. It has quaint little shops and pubs along the lakefront. It then progressed to an industrial town, full of factories and filth. This is the point it has paused at. Never progressing any further than factories and filth. I hated that town, with a passion. I wanted so badly to leave it forever and never look back.

I have an aim with this blog. Not a save the world kind of aim but save the soul kind of aim. I want to put it all out on the table. All the good and all the bad. I want people to understand that what I am today has been a progressive long struggle. It has been a short life so far filled with too much turmoil to bare most days. It was my longing for adventure that brought about most of my troubles but also my belief that all people are good, with some you just have to look deeper. Naive thoughts and a tender heart got me into more trouble than anything else. And through it all I somehow came out just fine. I should have died more than once. I should have been lost somewhere between reality and the fantasy world I had built up in my head. I want people to understand that single parents are not always that way by circumstance. No, some of us choose this life and prefer it to the "typical" family. I want the world to see that not all of us are beaten or sad. Some of us feel we have triumphed over great odds and came out the better for it in the end. Yes, that is my objective by laying it all out there, to get people thinking that maybe it is not what you see but in fact what you feel that matters. It is not all sadness and hatred when you parent alone. It is a lot of fun and laughter too! I hope by the end of all my blogging someone out there will in fact understand that I have reached my goal to never be a sad and tired woman going about my daily chores numb to the world around me. No, in fact I am quite the opposite. And for that I am proud of what I have become and the steps I took to get here...no matter how aweful they seemed at the time!!