June-Pearl

There are so many things I should be doing right now. I’m practically homeless. I do not have a job. I have a big dream that I have no idea how to accomplish. I should be making art. Somehow my focus has shifted to writing. I’m not a writer. I have no formal training in writing. Other than keeping a journal consistently for close to 10 years now, I’ve never shown much interest in writing. I just suddenly find it very therapeutic to spill my guts out right now anonymously in hopes that some strangers might read it and might find it helpful. I should be doing so many other things right now. Writing is helping me process all the grief of the past 9 months. I lost 2 of the most important male figures in my life in that short time. One was a breakup. One was a death.

“We never know what’s ahead of us,” my ex’s grandma always used to say. We all thought she’d live to 100, but the dear old woman passed away a couple of weeks ago at 92. 5 months ago, I was living in a state of shock but I still felt hopeful about the future I was building and the relationship I was in. I have accepted my reality but I have yet to completely pull myself together and move forward. My big dream is to buy land and build several structures from scratch. A tiny house to live in, a workshop/ garage, some outdoor showers, and bathroom facilities, and several RV hookups. I’d eventually like to have a few yurts and tiny cabins to rent out. I need to find a great location out in the wilderness but near some traveler destinations. I want to offer city folk the opportunity to disconnect from technology, reconnect with nature and see the milky way dust cloud at night. Long-term grand plans would be to turn this into an event space. Think destination weddings and yoga retreats. Maybe even small festivals. The idea of doing it alone is super daunting. So much so I might be better off buying an existing campground to start with. This was the path I was on with my partner. We were starting this on his land. Part of me wonders if I’m just still caught up in that dream or if I really want this. They were my ideas, he just happened to have the land to make it work.

The one thing I have going for me is what some people might call privilege. My dad owns a business. He put me on payroll a few years ago when I sold all my shit and took a giant leap of faith road trip with an undeclared timeline or destination. I didn’t ask him to. I was just planning to use up the money I had saved and grow roots somewhere when my money ran out. Guilt can do funny things to people. Maybe he felt guilty that he had been supporting my brother for over 10 years knowing that money was all just going up my brother’s nose or in his veins. The only people that money was benefiting were drug dealers, big pharma, and rehabs. Maybe he felt guilty about how unstable our childhood was. We went from poor to rich to poor again and moved 15 times in 18 years. He worked all the time. I barely remember him growing up. He was in jail most of my high school years for some business-related bank fraud. Maybe he thought this money could make up for all the lost time, the stupid arguments, the emotional abuse, the gaslighting. Oh, and how could I forget those 8 years in my 20s when I ran his business, put everything in my name so he could avoid paying restitution. I tried to be a good daughter looking out for her risk-taking father with a history of legal problems. I thought I could save people back then, or maybe even change them. Then he shafted me when I discovered how badly the salespeople were lying and tried to make things right. Our names and company were being tarnished across the internet. He essentially told me I was hurting the bottom line and if I didn’t like that he was allowing the dishonesty to continue I should pack up and leave. (Is anyone starting to see a pattern here?) Then he hired 2 of his new wife’s inexperienced children to take my place at a starting salary greater than my ending salary. I received no severance pay, all I wanted was my name off of everything and no liability.

I guess if you want to call this current guilt pay-off money ‘privilege’ go ahead. I feel guilty for taking it. And it’s not that much but it is a steady deposit into my account each week. It provided a stress-free way to travel. It allowed me to do my yoga teacher training and attend a permaculture and natural building school. It enabled me to walk away from a bad relationship. This last relationship has made me think a lot about abuse and how hard it must be for a woman to leave especially when she is financially dependent on her partner.

Emotional abuse can be very confusing as there is no real evidence of it and it usually has the abused thinking it’s all their fault. Edgar constantly tried to convince me that my issues with men were where all our problems stemmed from. He said I had daddy and brother issues. Not to say that I don’t but for him to say that it was my fault that he was acting in the same childish and narcissistic ways as they did… wow. In a way, I have to thank my dad and brother. Had I never been exposed to that type of behavior in childhood and had time to analyze it I may have stayed in the relationship with Edgar till my demise.

For now, all I can say is I have clothes on my back, food in my belly a warm place to stay. My basic needs are taken care of and I am much luckier than many others. I am grateful for my supportive friends and family. I still have so much to figure out from here. There are so many things I should be doing right now! But instead, I’m over here spilling my guts anonymously to strangers.