I have never not called my mother at midnight on New Years Eve to wish her a Happy New Year. It’s our ritual. To my recollection my teen daughter has never not sent a message or a snap chat since she has been spending this time away from me.

These days it’s nothing but time away. I have way too much time to allow her insistence that this has never felt like her home to settle into my heart and carve yet another reminder of my many shortcomings as her mother.

As full of chaos and abuse our previous home was, it was her home. Though the roof was literally caving in, and I was held prisoner there, believing the lie that I would have nothing but the door hitting me in the ass if I left, it was where she had been raised by two parents who loved her very much, but only in the way they knew best. It was chaos, abuse, loud yelling, name-calling, undermining, criticising, cheating, lying, bullying, and control by fear which lead to a complete mental breakdown for me. 

I remained a prisoner there for six years after the separation. I had no steady income, just the same part time job I’d had since giving birth and devoting most of my time to being a hands on mother. I was convinced by my ex that he did not have the money to pay for me to live on my own with, and that he would lose the house. I was always being worn down by some excuse as to why I could not leave, until finally I resigned myself to the fact. I was soon consoled by a new relationship full of promise, with someone I had known since high school, who my daughter already knew and loved.

It took him six years to be in a position to buy another home after his divorce. Prior to that I had put myself out on a limb and began looking at small apartments where just my daughter and I could live. I had no idea how I could pass the credit check, let alone pay for the application, but it was empowering, and it gave Bella hope for stability and a fresh new beginning for us both.

The home we were so desperate to leave was my very first home. It was over a hundred years old and needed many upgrades and some work, but the potential was great. My parents and I set to tearing down ugly wood paneling and painting all the walls, removing ugly wallpaper from the kitchen and eventually tearing up nasty carpeting, replacing some, and buffing the beautiful hardwood floors downstairs. It was me and my family that put any money into that home. For years it was a lovely home given a personal touch of style that is uniquely my own. As the years passed and the baby came, the house began to reflect the decay in my marriage, and so many broken things went untended to that I simply gave up. I was also repeatedly told that it was not my house, because I didn’t pay for it, so I started to make mine and Bella’s room our sanctuary. It was about survival, about pretending things weren’t really all that bad. Maybe that is what helped my child to adapt to such an unhealthy environment.

When the time came to start looking for a new home with my boyfriend, I was so full of joy. Even Bella was excited to think of a nice new home and a fresh start. She was with us when we visited the last house, which became our home with her absolute approval. I could not believe that not only was I finally divorced, but I would be moving into a beautiful new home with the love of my life. 

I assumed we would be married soon and I would have the  life I’d always dreamed of. I have neither of those things. The fresh start I’d longed for with my child only became a hellish nightmare as she was resentful at having to share me, and her mental health was exacerbated by trauma at school which instigated a downhill slide I have yet to recover from and am still seeking her help for. That window grows smaller every day.

I have my own very dysfunctional family, a sister who is off the rails Bipolar or Borderline, who can be so evil that she goes out of her way to hurt both my daughter and I, with empty threats, foul slander, and attempts at physical abuse, going so far as to threaten to throw my child through a glass door, prompting my therapist to have CPS investigate.

This relationship between my boyfriend and I has been my saving grace. (although using the term”boyfriend” is profoundly unnerving after 8 years together) Each year I fantasize about the proposal and imagine us dancing in our beautiful back yard, surrounded by all our friends, with the moonlight making everything glow. The Harvest Moon. We’ve been in this house for two years now. For Christmas his mother gave us monogrammed napkins. They are lovely, but I am not a Fulcher.

I am just his Betsy.

I still feel like a wanderer, not tethered to anywhere or anyone. I wrecked my car the other day, about a mile from home. I had been very tired, emotionally and physically after a long but invigorating horse ride, and I had to keep myself from dozing off all the way home. I don’t know what happened, but I awoke to the sound of my car crashing into another then being struck from behind. I felt my neck move forward and then back as if in slow motion, then I remember accidentally hitting the gas pedal instead of the brake. I was out of it. A man came to check on me and said his car was fine, barely a scratch, nothing he’d want to file a report on. He asked if I wanted to get checked out, but said I seemed fine. I asked him about calling the police to get a report for my insurance company but that is when he disappeared. I just drove myself home in a daze with my front bumper and passenger headlight dangling.

I feel trapped in such a state of depression and hopelesness ever since. Prior to this I’d had my PTSD AND Depression under control and had even been socializing and enjoying friends over the holiday. It has been two days since this happened and I have not wanted to talk to anyone and I hide under my covers crying, and feeling very lost. Somethimg happened to me that has me feeling totaled, like my car that I cannot afford to replace.