Me for a Change

I am living the dream man! Unemployed, inter-racial (yes, even in a state like PA that issue still rears its ugly head), unmarried, adopted and orphaned, caring for my dying biological dad and raising four kids on welfare.


On paper, I'm not much.  In fact, once some of you finished that part about "welfare" you probably clicked away.  That's how it goes.

On paper, to our government, to a lot of people, to republicans, all I am and ever will be is defined by the fact that my family and I live on your taxes and apparently live well, that we are black, uneducated, possibly illiterate, on drugs, slinging drugs, incapable of properly rearing children and unwilling to work.

Yet here I am, sitting in front of my ridiculously expensive laptop, listening to Tim McGraw tell me to live like I was dying and smoking a ludicrously expensive cigarette inside of a home that I live in rent/worry free. My children are good kids with sweet dispositions and we are all (with the exception of my Bio Dad) as well educated as our age ranges allows. 

Here's my story if you're interested.  I started out the second child of two drunken/drugged up twenty year old's in the heart of South Philadelphia. My brother, a year and a month older, couldn't walk or talk yet when I made my appearance into this world, but there I was. Since my birthday is the second of July, it's always the joke that I was the celebration child.  Anyway, the woman that had my brother and I decided she'd rather not raise black children and kidnapped us, took us to the Children's Aid Society and left us there. My biological Dad fought for nine years to get us back from the family that adopted us, but since he was poor, black, illiterate and it was the seventies/early eighties, there were little options open to him for getting us back so he settled on an open adoption.

The new joke became that my Bio-dad is the older brother I never wanted.

Anyway, I lived through almost thirteen years of being alternately spoiled rotten and being beaten like a third world criminal before the beatings stopped and the mental torture began. My real parents loved me well, that was just the way they saw child rearing, beyond corporal punishment into the depths of hell with a certainty that if you made one huge misstep you would die immediately.

Don't get it twisted, there were more good days than bad, my home, the one in Philadelphia just down the street from one of the best parks, while certainly dysfunctional and emotionally/psychologically/physically damaging, was in it's own way full of love and God and the children never wanted or needed anything more than a nod of approval.  I was in love with my Daddy and fearful of my Mommy while my brother was in love with my Mommy and in fear of my Daddy. Somewhere in between, we bonded more than siblings should. We were war buddies. He's my other half and will be until the day he dies, no matter how selfish Uncle Sam, he and his wife want to be with his time.

No matter how hard and violent we lived, we had a core all around us.  When things were good, we were good, when things were bad, we were bad together.  Enough about that, more about me.

I lost my virginity when I was twelve. I was gang raped by six men holding one gun in the lovely park at the end of my block. I never told anyone until many years later. It didn't matter that I'd gotten pregnant or had a miscarriage, there was no way I was going to tell my "Blame the victim Republican Mother" what had happened. I also didn't seek medical attention which led to me having a difficult time getting pregnant.

When I was fourteen, I was raped and sodomized by a boy I'd thought I'd kinda liked. I never told anyone. When I was fifteen my father died just two weeks before I turned sixteen. On my seventeenth birthday my brother went to boot camp, leaving me alone with crazy, abusive, evil Mother. I didn't have any kind of relationship with Bio-dad at this point because, well, who needed him? We had fun when he was around, but like I said, he was like that big brother no one ever wanted.

When I was eighteen, I dropped out of my first school because the night I broke up with my boyfriend, he forced himself on me. Ten months later I had my first child. Let me tell you, all ten of those months, my mother made me pay for it.

When I was twenty, I found the man who would go on to make a life with me, father my fatherless child and create three more children.  We never married. When I was twenty one, I sold my soul, continued my education and put all of my personal dreams on hold because now I was the caregiver and my mother was in her late seventies and sick. Turns out all that abuse was about syphilitic insanity as opposed to just plain old Mommy Dearest. We made our peace over the next seven years and when she drew her last breath, it was while she was cradled within my loving arms and all was peaceful.

I got a job when I was twenty nine that lasted for a long time. I lost it. Had my fourth child at thirty three. Ran out of unemployment earlier this year and still had no job. So I enrolled in Welfare. Thanks America.  Thanks to you, I can never pay a bill and put clothes on my kids backs at the same time. Thanks to you I can feed us all very well every month, but I can't afford to keep the electric on so the refrigerator can keep it all nice and cold.  Thanks to you my kids and I have insurance to cover doctor's visits. Yet I get ridiculed and called lazy whenever someone sees me with the little plastic card that is a help but not a solution to this small tribe. That's nice.  We appreciate it.

All this being said, let me tell you about the life that isn't on paper.  My name is Mommy MaryAnn, this is my world and I'm getting through it despite your judgements. None of what has happened to this point defines me.

Nothing in my life has ever stopped me from dreaming, from following my interests, from being and active and proud parent. Nothing that has been put in front of me as an obstacle has ever made me back down. Nothing that has created me has stopped my optimism.  I am pollyanna. I believe in the goodness of people and that all will be right with the world as soon as we all have a good nap and some good gospel.

I am a creative writer, a freelance copy-editor, a certified computer technician, a natural orator, a good cook, a wonderful mother.  I am brilliant and friendly and kind. I am a natural teacher, a caregiver, protector and overseer of many as well as a genuine lover of people.  I take free classes at M.I.T. and understand ninety percent of what's going on. I am non judgmental, as good of a Christian as I can possibly be and free spirited with my heart, my soul, my life. I prefer the sunny side of the street and fight hard to keep my entire family on that side with me.

This is me. Stereotypical me. We are starting from the bottom with nothing but the basic goal of getting off of welfare.  I wonder where we will end up from here?

This blog is about life, through my eyes as it happens.  Can you deal with it?

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