Lets meet the family!

   I guess I should do an introduction to my family, I mean it is nice to know who you are reading about right? First, no real names will be used for obvious reasons and locations may also change to protect everyone. Just the basics of the family there is my husband, me, 1 stepson age 8, 1 stepdaughter 12, no bio kids from me, 2 dogs, 2 cats and 6 chickens.

   I guess since I'm writing this thing I should start with me! I'm going to give a brutally honest assessment of myself or at least try to. My name is......Shit, lets go with THE QUEEN (aren't most evil stepmoms queens?) JK lets go with Maeve, I always liked that name. So, I'm barley in my 30's now but I'm still there! I'm originally from  New Orleans but now live in the middle of nowhere Illinois (we will get to that later). Right now I am a stay at home stepmom but hopefully that will change now that the kids are going back to school. I work back and forth between the medical field and working with animals. I love doing both. I do have a mental illness, I'm very open about it because I think bringing awareness that people that you least expect to have one can. My kids (yes I call my step-kids my kids, if you don't like it, oh well) are probably the only people I hide it from. Anyways, everyone knows someone with a mental illness, and they should not have to be ashamed of it anymore than anyone with diabetes or cancer should, it's nothing you can control, you didn't ask for it and it isn't going to just disappear. Mine is very well maintained, I stick to my medications and see my doctor often and for the most part my life goes on as usual like every one else, you honestly would never know.

   Okay, so lets get to my amazing husband.......Atticus. (I'm just going to use all of the baby names I loved but never got to use). Lets see Atticus is obviously the father of my 2 stepkids, he is extremely hard working and would do anything for his family. He is our provider, protector, and the best husband and father any one could ask for. He is very hands on with his kids, even after working outside in extreme weather and long hours he will still come home and make time to play with his children and help them with their homework. With me he has been my rock. I left my home state and all of my family to be with him and even though it is really hard at times he is worth it. He is calm, and stable and understanding which can be the opposite of me and my severe anxiety and depression. He deals with my mental health issues without batting a eye and just helps me in any way I need him too. He is loving and affectionate and makes me feel beautiful and loved every day even when I just feel like a short round meatball. Women look at us confused all the time because he is super good looking and well I'm short and thick. Trust me ladies, I don't get it either, I was short and thick when we reconnected, I didn't trick him and have him marry a pretty thin girl and then gain weight on him, he's always just loved me for who I am. How great is that!

   What to say about Wilder? Well the name is absolutely fitting. Wilder is 8 years old, he was 5 when we met. He is the funniest, most caring, sharing little boy you will ever meet, he will give you his last candy if you ask for it or the toy he is playing with if you want it. He is just getting into wrestling and like his coaches say he is made for it. He is 100% boy. If you can drag him away from the TV you will find him bare foot, shirtless running around the yard paying with the dogs, catching frogs or bugs or wrangling up the chickens and playing in mud. He has his fathers smile that can light up a room and a laugh that makes you laugh along with him and he loves to make people laugh with his dancing or crazy jokes that make no sense. I love everything about him even when he makes it hard or doesn't want me to. He also has ADHD so he has his challenges with some behavior issues, especially when it comes to me (more on that later).

   Ainsley. Ainsley is 12, she was 9 when we first met. Ainsley is very smart, mostly a straight A student and is very hard on herself if she gets anything less. I see great things for her in her future if she stays on the path she is on, she is already thinking about college. She is a bit on the shy side, keeps to herself more, isn't the best at making friends but also doesn't really care about friends that much. She has pretty girl syndrome, girls are intimidated/jealous of her looks because she is a very pretty, tall, blonde hair, blue eyed girl who is a bit more developed than most girls her age and looks about 14. So on top of that she is very smart and would rather read and spend her lunch in the library than sit around and gossip. She is also very into the arts, she's a very talented artist, singer and she loved doing plays and drama. On the other side Ainsley has never made it easy for me. Even when I think we have finally made it to the good part and she tells me she loves me and we are like BFFs we can easily take 20 steps back in a day. 

   Well that is my family! We love hard, and argue and have outside influences that can make life hard but in the end we all stick together. The kids have already decided that they are becoming millionaires and buying big castles and their dad and I will live with them forever so I guess we are doing something right!

Once Upon a Time......Part one

      The backstory, the tale of how I have become a step-mother. Picture it, Sicily, 1912....Just kidding, if you get that joke you get extra brownie points from me. Okay, really it was 1995, I was 15 and it was 4 am and I get a knock on my bedroom window and hear a voice saying "It's Johnnie baby, I'm back". It was my best friend who had lived with me on and off who had taken a recent road trip to Florida, coming to wish me luck before having my tonsils removed that morning. Being that he lived with me he had seen me in my usual sleeping attire at that time, a tee-shirt and panties, so I didn't think anything of it as I ran and jumped into the side of his black van....at least until I seen this Cheshire cat grin on the most beautiful face I had ever seen. There he was, 18 years old, 34 braids in his hair (I counted many times over the next few months) and the best smile I had ever seen in my 15 years (Still is). His smile is electric, when he beams it at you, you can feel it, it does something to your soul that makes your soul happy, not just me, anyone that has ever met him says the same thing and he was shining it right at me. I immediately felt my face turn bright red and tried my damnedest to try to make that tiny tee-shirt into a tee-pee since my usual attire was extra large everything to hide my 100 lb body all while Johnnie laughed hysterically at my shock and embarrassment. If only then I knew how amazing my body was I would probably have walked around naked. Johnnie introduced us, this boy muttered "hello" with deep but quiet voice all the while smiling. I turned to Johnnie gave him a hug, thanked him for coming to see me and then ran back into my house as fast as I could, happy to see Johnnie, and embarrassed as hell that the most beautiful creature I had ever seen just saw me in my undies.

      The first thing I remember after my surgery is getting home and telling my mom to get Johnnie and "That Boy" ( I never even got his name but knew he was meant to be in my life). She told me I needed to rest and I could see them the next day but I was persistent and she finally went and got Johnnie and "That Boy". The rest of the night was kinda fuzzy but I remember Johnnie making me a nest on the floor of the living room with every blanket and pillow he can find and in my drug induced haze looking up at "That Boy" (now known as Atticus) legs hanging over the arm of the overstuffed chair and telling him "You know, it would be a lot more comfortable down here next to me" (Still one of the best lines I ever used) and he happy flopped himself next to me and we didn't move for days. This became our routine whenever we were together at home, lay down, listen to music, talk about everything under the sun, me tracing his tattoos and make out a whole lot. When not at home we hung out together in the french quarter sometimes he would stay there in a squat, sometimes he would stay with me, we were never "officially" a couple but when I was with him we blocked out the world and no one else mattered. I was only 15 and had only ever had one boyfriend and was extremely inexperienced but Noah was a gentleman, he never tried to push me beyond what I wanted to do, we did try unsuccessfully once to "go all the way" when Johnnie who was extremely over protective came and basically broke down my door and was like "not on my watch! Keep the door open!" and that was the end of that. I know that when he wasn't with me he was being a wild 18 year old in the french quarter but we never really let that penetrate our world...not until the end...not until Storm.

     Atticus was not from New Orleans, he was from right outside of St. Louis and was on the lamb because he went to a party at a old abandoned barn where a bonfire got out of control and burned it down which left him with a arson charge. He wasn't without his faults, he told me he also had a love for anything that sped him up or hallucinate, cocaine, meth, LSD whatever, but the thing was he never did them around me and he would never let me near anything besides LSD and weed which I was very familiar with both before he came around. He put me up on some pedestal to the point of sometimes I wondered if I was more of a sister who he got to mess around with at times or if he really had feelings for me. Again, we were 15 and 18. Then he met Storm.

     To this day he doesn't remember how he met her, he guesses drunk at a squat one night, but there she was big brown eyes, shaved head, tiny and looking like she would break if you sneezed in her direction, the type of girl people more than happily gave their money to as they passed her panhandling on the street, the girl with the money, the girl with the speed, the girl with his drug of choice. I only met her once before he vanished, and the moment I knew she "won" (really the drug did) was the moment I asked him to come home with me and not stay with her and he looked at me and said "I'm sorry, I just......have a problem and I don't want you to see me like that" and he kissed me and walked away with her, the girl with the money, the girl with the drugs, the girl he could fuck. He came around less after Storm but he would still come a spend a few nights a week with me and we would go back into our own world just him and I and then one day he didn't come when he promised he would and he never broke his promises.

      I went around looking for him and instead I found Storm, holding the leash to the dog I had given him, crying, the police finally caught up with him and he had been arrested. I remember being so extremely angry with her, how could she allow this on her watch, if he had been home with me he would be safe, he would still be here. I remember wanting to slap the shit out of her snotty little face for letting him get taken, for providing him with the one thing he couldn't say no to and using it to her advantage, for breaking my heart. Of course now I know it wasn't her fault, but at that moment everything was her fault. I remember he being upset that she couldn't even call the jail to check on him because she didn't even know his last name, I mean to her he was the love of her life and she didn't even know his last name? Being the person who no matter how much I dislike someone can't stand to see them that upset told her his last name, something in life I would later regret. Storm only stayed a week or so more before she called her mom to come and get her, I think she might have written me a few times because she felt we had so kind of sisterhood loosing the man we both loved.

      I called the jail several times a day trying to get as much information as I could on Atticus which wasn't much, I tried to get a visitors pass but with me being only 16 by then that didn't work. It was maybe a month later when I called and they told me he wasn't there, they couldn't tell me where he was being sent or when he would arrive, he was just gone and my heart was broken. I remember just sinking onto the floor crying and calling my best friend.

      Internet and home computers were nonexistent in my world in 1996, so in my mind I had lost him forever, and then the internet came along into my work in 1998 and one of the first things I did was get a list of Missouri prisons (I mean he had a arson charge, I knew he would be in there for a while) and I proceeded to call all of them looking for him never with any luck, I mean he said he was from right outside of St. Louis, I just never thought he meant he was from Illinois right out of St. Louis and I should be looking in Illinois prisons. Once I called all of them and he wasn't there I thought I would never find my heart, my soul again, I would just be in one bad relationship after another looking for someone that I had that connection with and I never would. At one point I conceded I would become the Goat Lady from the movie "Cold Mountain" if you don't know what I'm talking about click HERE, but basically I would move to a small shack in the mountains alone with some goats and be happy as I could be. But that wasn't my fate after all.....