seventy four.

holy hormones.
its less than a year before we move home.
home, a word i don't really know anymore. i know my home with Mike and our babies. our crazy giant dog and kitty that has no name.
but what is "home", back home?
my heart starts to race when i think about driving back on those Indiana roads. to hold my childrens hands as we walk up the porch steps to the place i have lived in since the day i was born. and one thought consumes me, only one.
my brother.
watching Ryder and Lyvi, and how close they are already, always brings me back to my brother. and knowing my two beautiful children will be sleeping in the same bedroom that Kevin and i once shared, knowing there is no more us, its so hard.
i put up this big front, saying that Kevin not wanting to be part of our lives doesnt bother me, but how can it not? i spent years looking up to him, just as my daughter looks up to my son. how can i, now, more than ever, just let it all go.
maybe if i understood, maybe then i could let it go. maybe if i was a bad person, if i continued to make irresponsible decision after mistake, after mistake. but that isn't it at all.

in January, it will be five years since my brother threw me out of his life.
i started dating Billy, a guy on his track team, i broke that rule, that stupid little code of sisters not allowed to date anyone their brother knows apparently. Billy beat me, he abused me, he hated me, and he made me hate myself. the time where i needed my brother the most, was when he wanted nothing to do with me. i wish he knew what i went through, and him abandoning me, made me stay with Billy even longer. but then, i got away.

when i met my husband, i was at my all time low. i had lost myself, i had lost my family, and i had never felt more alone. Mike brought out something in me that i didn't even know existed. i fell for him hard, and fast. but this wasn't like all the other times. this was something, so much more amazing. and look at where we are now? to my brother, i married a man i barely knew and got knocked up and moved across the country. he will never see that i escaped the abuse, fell for someone that actually cares about me and treats me well, and we have a beautiful family. that because of Michael, i grew up. i became the responsible adult. in all honesty, it was because of him that i didn't become wreckless to myself and get mixed up in the wrong things. it was because of my husband, that everything changed.

my mom tells me that once we move back, things might be different. that he might realize i am not that wild and crazy 19 year old, falling in love with anyone with a penis, and trying to run away with the first guy that looks my way. that maybe he will understand that what i did, really was what i was meant to do. I'm not 16 years old anymore. and even though some days i want to walk away from my marriage, and throw some shoes at Mike on the way out the door, i have stayed faithful and loved him through it all. every day and all the time. i have stayed and stuck through this marriage, through all the ups and downs. i gave birth in a hospital, 2,200 miles from home, with no one in the room with me. i brought my first child home to an empty house, and raised him 100% solo for the first six months. it was me who rocked him to sleep every single night, who stayed up at all hours comforting him. it was me that did all of that, held my little family together across an ocean, paid every bill, and took care of everything that needed to be done. that, in itself, should prove to him that i am not who he thinks i am. that i corrected my childish mistakes a long time ago. that i am someone to always be proud of.

i got married when i was 21 years old, to a man that i barely knew.
that was just the beginning.
in the last 3 and a half years i have fought to stay in this marriage, i have struggled through everything, every day, along the way. i have birthed two amazing babies, and am raising them both to be proper, polite, and well behaved little beings. i have taught my son everything that he knows, and he is above his age level. i work when i can, and am a house wife when i can't. i am a Marine Wife, a full time mother, a part time tumbling teacher. on Friday and Saturday nights i stay up late watching toons and Disney movies with my babies that do not want to sleep. i can not, for the life of me, remember when i did something for myself that did not involve my children. i put everyone before me, from the second i wake up, until the moment i close my eyes. and that still isn't enough.

having my own family means more to me than ever before. it is the only thing that is important to me right now. and doing whats best for my babies. but with moving back, everything is suddenly coming to the surface, just one more thing that i do not need. it hurts, a lot more than i care to admit. i have made amends with everyone else, but my own siblings. its such an awful feeling and every time it comes up with my mom, she gives me the guilt trip, like this is my fault. regardless of where this all started, i clearly righted my mistake.
moving back to Indiana, sets me up for more heartbreak than i care to want to deal with right now. i get to walk back into a state filled with terrible memories in every single place we could go. i have to either walk back into a family where i will never be accepted, or learn to just brush it off and avoid every holiday with them. i get to live in a house where i have so many memories of my brother that refuses to acknowledge that i, my husband, and our children exist. i don't know what to do anymore. i have been doing just fine, until i think about moving back to that house where we grew up in, knowing i have to pretend that i am an only child.

:sighs:
this is killing me. on top of everything else my family and i have to go through in the next few months, and stress of it all. here i am sitting up late at night thinking about dumb shit that shouldnt even be happening. all because a family member tagged us both in a picture from a few years ago, right before we moved out here. i know that this is it. if nothing comes of all of this, before we move home, there is going to be even more drastic decisions to be made. i know i have to keep strong for my kids.
i know this isn't my fault. that this stopped being my fault years ago.
i just hope i can hold it all together well enough to make all the choices i need to make for my children.
pack up, and leave everything behind, and start over somewhere else.
fingers crossed.

-ksn.