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Worship Mix

6.19.2017

Father's Day Frustrations

       Just a few random thoughts about Father's day weekend. I admit I am bitter and resentful. I know there is probably a boatload of unresolved anger that I need to swim through and work on. But for right now I am just staying in the boat to avoid drowning.
       Most holidays are always difficult for me. This one hurts double time. For my daughter, who knows her dad and whose dad has chosen to pretty much reject her, it kills me to see the pain he puts her through. And especially this year, her high school graduation being this past week, and his decision to not only just not show up, but to avoid even answering her message and her having to find out third party that he wasn't coming. He didn't even have the guts to tell her, his mother told her, her grandma. I've told her for years, nothing I or anyone else says to him will get through to him. She needs to tell him. She needs to get mad at him. But she won't. She harbors bitterness and resentment and she loves and wants her dad in her life so much that she is willing to tolerate almost anything to have the chance to have him there, and he still rejects her and it breaks my heart to see and hear. It makes e so angry and I want to just lay him out for it, but there is nothing I can do or say and that kills me.
       To be brutally honest, it makes me wonder sometimes, if maybe she would have just been better off not even knowing her dad. Like me. I don't know who my father is. I probably never will at this point. It's a double edged sword, though. It hurts that I don't have him, yet its a relief knowing that if I don't I'm at least spared going through what I have watched my daughter go through with my ex.
       13 years of school. From kindergarten to grade 12 grad. From sports games to spring concerts, to hospital visits, to birthdays and milestones, I have been there for almost every single one. He has not bothered to make it to even one. Not even when she lived in the same city. But me moving to Calgary with her, that was the ultimate betrayal, according to him. He would say things like "how far away do I have to move before I don't have to pay child support", and "I'll just quit my job and not work then I don't have to pay". He told her she could ask for anything in the world and he would give it to her, yet when she dared ONE time to ask for a small donation to help her add to her fund to get her to her youth group missions trip, she was told "I don't give to charity cases", and that I as her mother would probably just take it and spend it on myself anyways. Who DOES these things? Who does these things to a child, much less their own? And that's just the tip of the iceberg, there is so much more I could describe. But you get the picture. Yet he thinks he is still the father of the year, and his family applauds and supports him. He rejected his own daughter for a girlfriend and her 2 kids, someone who used to be my best friend who turned completely on me and rejected her own husband and denied him his kids so that she could get together with my girls dad. Yet somehow I am the bad one.
       How do I make sense of all this mess with the fact that I am supposed to forgive him, and her, for all the pain they have and continue to cause for me and my daughter? How am I supposed to turn the other cheek? Just when I don't think I can be any more broken, it happens yet again.
       The most common phrase that is heard in christian circles today that is candidly tossed at people like me is Psalm 68:5 "A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.". Of course, it was even in todays message at my church. Maybe its just me, but it makes me cringe. It just seems so cliche and trite to say. I wonder if anyone who throws that out even understands the weight of what they are saying or who they are saying it to. I have tried to lean on this verse in the past.  Maybe it's just the way its so lightly passed off, who knows.But it really brings me no comfort. In fact it just irritates me right now.
       It's very difficult to attach this personally when to be truthful, I don't even know what a father is. Saying God is a father to the fatherless, when I consider my foster families and the foster dads I have had, makes it seem distant. Like yeah, he takes care of me, out of pity, for a temporary time, until it's too hard or until something better or more worthwhile his time comes along. Don't get me wrong, I have two foster dads who have done alot for me and I love them dearly, and they have accepted me as family and have always treated Kristen as their own. But for me, it just doesn't feel right, or real, and no, I don't know why that is, it just is.
       You can say all the right things to someone and have it go in one ear and out the next. Not because they don't hear you or because they don't care. But because when you have lived your entire life being rejected by your earthly father, how much more difficult is it to trust in one you cannot see or hear? It's like imaginary, almost non existent, like my own real father. Like, I know he existed at one point because if he hadn't I wouldn't be here but there is nothing tangible to tell me that, it's hard to explain.
     So that's my thoughts about fathers. Confused, angry, bitter, and struggling to accept and understand. I don't know if anyone can ever relate. or if anyone can understand, but that's ok, it's just me and I needed to vent this today of all days.
       As for my daughter. I will always be there to pick up the pieces, and hold her. Because I know what its like, and I also know very few ever will understand. She might not see this right now, but maybe sometime in the future she will get it.
        IN church today we also sang about God always being there for us. Never letting us go. ANd as bitter as I am, I will still fight to lean on this because even though I don't believe it sometimes, when I am honest and look back, it is true, I can say that even in my darkest times when I felt the farthest I could ever possibly feel from God, He has always been there. One song said He is in the waiting. I must look up the song because that one line really got me. I am so grateful that my God is so patient. ANd graceful. And that He never leaves me even when I feel like I've never been more alone. That is what I hold onto, with all I have. Because through all my family and friends who have left me, and when people like my girls dad just up and leaves her without so much as a word, just like all she ever wanted was to have her daddy there in her most important moment, all I want is to know that he is there for me, for us. And somehow, at some point, I might even begin to believe it, and then I will be able to rest in that, and to just breathe.... 

6.17.2017

Trashed Trust

June 17, 12pm
       Maybe it's age, maybe it's just me. But I reached the end of my patience for people I cannot trust after this last incident. If you know me even a little bit, you know that I love to take pictures. And I love to share pictures. On social media, I share through facebook, instagram, and twitter occasionally. I put pictures within my blogs and have made videos and vlogs from photos. I share them because they mean something to me personally. I take pride and enjoyment in them and in sharing my life and adventures with others. I have only one request and that is that people do not take my photos and use them for their own or claim them as their own. To me it seems like a simple request, one that shouldn't be too hard to understand or comply with. Is it really that difficult to respect other people's property? I am aware that being behind a machine, having that anonymity, causes many people to act out and speak in ways that they wouldn't normally. Would you walk into my home and take a portrait off my wall and walk out and go hang it in your home as yours? Would you sell it or give it away to other people? If I was to come do the same in your home, with a portrait of your underage child, would you shrug your shoulders and say "oh well"? Would you be angry? Why is it ok to do these things online, without having or even bothering to ask permission, to just take what you see? Just as there are laws regarding personal property within my home, there are laws regarding personal property online. This isn't just a legal issue it is a moral one. If I saw you come into my home and take something and I stopped you walking out would you push me aside and walk out anyways? What if I did it to you?
I'm having a lot of trouble these days understanding people's mindsets and thinking, the way they justify treating others with no respect and no dignity. When it comes to the internet, it appears that people have absolutely NO regard or respect for others privacy, safety, or their feelings.
       This week, I posted my daughters grad pics. I was proud of her accomplishment and wanted to share that with friends and family. So I posted an album of her grad proofs that had arrived in the mail that day. All 32 proofs. My cousin, who I barely talk to, went and took at least a dozen of them and put them on her page as her own. She did not ask, she did not tell me, she did not tag me in them. Instead, she tagged someone else completely in them. Someone who has a shady history of being well, a perv. She did not ask my underage child or tell her either or tag her. She just took them and used them as she wanted. When I asked her politely many times to remove them, she refused. She told me to F*** off that she will do what she wants. When I asked other family to kindly ask her because she wasn't listening to me,  I got the same response. Hateful hurtful things, accusations, insults, and attacks. For asking for someone to respect a childs privacy. Is this what the internet does to people? Brings out all their worst qualities? Not that they were nice to begin with but hiding behind a computer or cell phone lets them think they can do and speak however they want and that they will rarely if ever face consequences. They seem to take pride in their ability to attack others without regard to how it hurts or affects others. Are people really that cold-hearted?
       This isn't the first time this has happened. It's happened many times now. And I no longer have family or friends I can trust because of it. I no longer am able to share my life, my enjoyments, my accomplishments, my adventures with them. Because whether it is photos or statuses or videos, or stories or poems or well, anything, it is stolen from me and used without my permission. I'm so tired of being taken advantage of and used. I am sick and tired of being treated as though I don't matter and like I am just garbage to be taken from and thrown aside. I have never been able to have anything that is truly my own because sooner or later it ALWAYS gets taken away from me. And those who tell me I have no right to be upset about it, screw you. I am PISSED. I have every right to be. I deserve to be respected and have mine and my daughters privacy and safety respected. I have done everything within my power to protect her. And I don't care if she is 17 or 71, she will always deserve that. online or offline, I always have and always will, do whatever it takes to do what I can for her and myself. And I don't give a rip who likes it or agrees with it or not. I have faced everything that's been thrown at me and come out swinging. There is NOTHING anyone can do that I haven't already faced.
       So I deactivated my facebook and made a new one, I removed all personal photos off instagram, and no one will be trusted again. Not even in the slightest. Every effort I have made to even be friends with people has been rejected or passed over, so I will no longer make the effort. I've been invisible to most people anyways, no one will care if I disappear. So I will. If I am going to be alone. If I am going to have be be as lonely as I have been for all my hard work and efforts, I'm going to just be lonely without  making any more effort.
I'm just tired. All my biological family has ever done is hate me and treat me with disgust and bitterness and jealousy. I might be a christian but that doesn't mean I am someone to be walked all over and crapped on. Turning the other cheek should never mean it is ok to abuse someone you claim to love. And my whole life has been filled with abuse, whether it be verbal, physical, sexual, mental, and emotional. I am done. Done with everyone, and done with this pathetic life and the pathetic people in it. I will live for no one but myself and my daughter. And if that means I die alone at least I will die alone knowing I made every effort on my own. It's time I live for me. And if others can't give me what I deserve they don't deserve to even be in my life at all. I'm better off without all of you.
       So if I cease to exist for you, know this is why. And I don't feel guilty one bit. Forget you, and the horse you all rode in on.

6.04.2017

My Samsung Health App....

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Where in the World...?