Loneliness

What does it mean to be lonely? I suppose it’s different for everyone. Some would say they have no luck in love and others would say they can’t relate to others at all.

To me loneliness means having no support system. No parents, no true friends, no mentors–nobody to call on in times of need.

My Mother abandoned me when I was still a baby. She chose a life of drugs and alcohol over being a responsible parent. She had a rough life herself–and no that is not an excuse for her choices–that made her want to find an escape from her own demons. She had 4 children all together and she abandoned every one of them. She was brutally murdered when she was 34 years old in a drug deal gone bad. The man responsible for her death was only sentenced to two years in prison. I was 12 when my Father recieved the phone call from the Salt Lake City officer in charge of her case. My Father told me in the same tone of voice as he would have if he were telling me the weather forecast. When I cried, he yelled, “knock it off or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

My Father never wanted children. He always felt that he was dealt a bad hand when he and my Mother conceived my sister and I only one year apart. The only reason he tried to gain custody is because his Mother forced him to. The judge stated in the custody report that he felt neither parent was fit for custody but that my Father was the least dangerous of the two.

My Father detested the responsibilities that came along with being a parent. He too wanted to find an escape from his demons with drugs and alcohol. When I was fourteen years old he finally gave up on me. He first had me live with his sister (who I had only met a few times) but when that didn’t work out I went to live in a maximum security juvenile facility because there were no foster homes available.

The foster home I ended up going to, six months later, was run by a woman named Lynn. I believe she got into the foster care business because she had a large family and needed help with the household chores and her many horses. The foster kids had to take care of the horses so that her real family could enjoy them you see. Even though we all did what she asked, she wouldn’t let us eat before her biological children. She had the two disabled foster kids sleeping in a laundry room on cots. She also forced the foster kids to watch her kids open their Christmas gifts knowing that we had nothing. She then made us comment about how nice the gifts were. Lynn’s foster home was shut down because I reported back to social services, every human indignity she forced upon us. It took several months and many interviews with the other foster kids but in end she was never allowed to be a foster parent again.

I went on to another foster home, a better one this time. We will call them Fran and Stan Kosta to protect their identities. Fran and Stan were very successful. They lived in a beautiful lake house and had every luxury I had never realized people could have. They were religious and childless which I suppose had everything to do with their choice to become foster parents.

They treated me very well and I grew to love and respect them. One year into my stay Fran told me that she wanted to adopt me. I was floored because I knew what this could mean for my future. I was more excited than I had ever been. The court date was all set but to our surprise, my Father showed up and stopped the whole thing. I had even prepared a speech telling the judge why I wanted to be adopted but my Father still said no. I don’t understand–to this day– why he did it because we still don’t talk to one another. Maybe he just wanted to make sure I didn’t have a chance?

After the adoption fell through, Fran was so upset that she started being cold toward me. I was upset too and I started skipping classes. She found out and that’s when everything came crashing down. I came home from school one day and found my bags sitting by the front door and a taxi idling in the driveway waiting for me to give a destination. I had nowhere to go. I was homeless at seventeen.

I am sure all of these events have given me some abandonment issues and I therefore have a difficult time forming bonds with others. So here I am 18 years later without a single person to call on for any kind of support. A Mother in the grave, a Father just as unreachable, and the memeory of a family that almost loved me.

My heart feels like it is filled with stones most of the time. Each time it beats, it seems to be protesting against the next beat. I wake from my sleep several times a night and stare at my hand until I am sure I am still alive. I am plagued with panic attacks during the day when the silence is ringing in my ears. I have to have the T.V. on just to stay calm. This is what loneliness means to me.

That’s all for today. Here’s hoping for a better tomorrow.