Image by: buckscountyframesSeptember, 1992
Dear MaryJanes,
Ten years ago your father and I were married. After all this time we now have a house to call our own. It is an old farm house with 40 acres and a long, narrow barn with a couple of horse stalls. We can bring your pony home and I will look for a horse, maybe a lamb or a goat and of coarse we will start right away for a search for a big puppy.
There is work to be done, and some fixing to do, but it is ours.
Since we live way out in the country, I found you a little mini bike so that you ride it around the land and to the closet house down the road, I see they have a girl about your age.
Your father did the ground work and came up with 2 house options and asked me to pick the one I liked best. He swears he will work hard, stop drinking and become an active role in our little family. He seems to have really worked hard to pull this all together and I think he is sincere in his efforts.
We came up with a solution for your small bedroom by building a cute bunk bed with a desk area for you below. This was one of the very first undertakings in making this old house suitable to our needs. There was a compromise in locations for the house so that it was between your fathers job and mine. You have started a new school and have a very nice teacher. I hope you make friends and adjust to this move. You seem excited to be back as a family and I hope that your father stays true to his word.
I found a good deal on some new paint and you said you would like to help pick out colors and paint. We will have to tackle remodeling the kitchen, the laundry room and the bathroom. First I want to go to the barn and get the stalls ready for your pony. I am glad there is a fenced in area for her to roam. I noticed that there are berries growing along the back side of the barn, we will have to gather them next spring. I will plan for a big garden and hanging my clothes out on a line to dry. Spring will be wonderful!
This feels good to be making a place for us to live as a family. I pray that God will watch over us and help your father make the needed adjustments that he has agreed to.
Now saddle up your pony and run with the wind.
Love, Galoshes
The writings are intriging -when I visualize the words and feel the underlying pain -I often think about a guy "leo the poet" have you heard him? You can find him on You Tube -a lot of free flowing words of pain in his art
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteYou are so right, there was allot of pain. But during those years I didn't see that I deserved better. I didn't understand that staying with my daughter's father was so wrong for her. She would have been so much better if I had known to move on with our lives. I see now that I had to get past the pain of my childhood and then figure out from my first marriage that there had to be something better out there. I just don't know why it took me so long. It is all so clear now. I was and am a hopeless romantic, and was so determined to change a man so unwilling to change. I see now that love and marriage isn't about molding to someones wishes or trying to change someone, it's about finding the right mate for you. A mate that loves you for who you are. And her father, he never did figure any of it out, as he shows no interest in MJ or her three beautiful children. And the sad thing is, My own mother did not have a relationship with her father, until he died and left her a handsome trust. Finally he acknowledged her as his child, she was 70 years old! For myself, My relationship with my own father ended when I was 26 years old. I have not seen him since, and yes, he is living. Following suit, MJ and her father have only a "civil in front of his family" type of relationship. Luckily, this family trait will end with MJ, she married a wonderful man that loves his children, including his daughter!
~Galoshes
PS, I will look into the You Tube you mentioned. Thank you for that!