Some days are just easier than others. Sometimes we ride high on the roller coaster of life, and sometimes we ride low. The coaster doesn't stop 'til it's time to get off. Sometimes I wish that it would be even-flowing for a while longer.
Life for us here is about survival. Sometimes things go along nicely for a while, and we get a break from that struggle. There are times when the coaster turns from the right and then to the left, and then we are spun upside down. It's crazy, you just never know what's next. I guess it all comes down to purpose. The purpose of our move here was to get stability going. Life with Johnnie was anything but stable, and it was incredibly draining for me. When all was said and done, I moved us here to get a "jumping off point", from which I could plot my next move. The rent is what drew me here. These apartments are privately owned but federally subsidized, so a single mother with a baby can move in with just a deposit.
Seven years ago we came here. If I thought one way before I came here, I now think another. First of all, I didn't see us here for more than a year. Secondly, I expected the apartment to be horrible. Third, as I've made friends with my neighbors everywhere else, I expected to make a friend here. I was wrong on all three counts. The apartment is small but clean, primitive but not horrible.
There are other real problems here. When I moved here, there was no bus stop. If you needed to ride the bus in this town at that time, you had to be able to call and schedule the bus to come near to your location. This didn't serve the community here, and was very difficult to do without a phone. Since I lost my vehicle, and everything else, I had to rely on my feet and our stroller. It was bad. The first winter I took a job a mile away, as a waitress (for $3.00 an hour plus the$1.00 average per hour tip you made) and because I was on my feet so much, my feet fought back and I developed serious problems with them, so now I can't be on my feet that much. I pushed that stroller to the grocery store, and tied the bags to the stroller and pushed the whole thing (with my daughter in it) back home.
The struggles have been many here, isolation (because the people here are from here and they don't like outsiders), poverty, depression on my part, being looked down upon by the other townspeople for being poor. Having to stand in line to receive 2 toys for Christmas at the Salvation Army is an exercise in humility. I have many stories to tell. I don't do that anymore. One year we got a box of expired food, and that was the end of that.
What has been the most company here is the hatred. I just happened to move in next to a paranoid, controlling anger addict who has, along with her sons, made our life a living hell here. For a few years, every summer, she'd find some reason to start a fight with me. She's vandalized my stuff. Her sons, last year, assaulted my 6 year old daughter by threatening her with their aluminum and wooden baseball bats, groping her under her clothes, circling her on the sidewalk, humiliating her and laughing. I walked up on the tail end of it. We went through a nightmare for 8 weeks, with no where else to go. We ended up losing our case for a restraining order against them, which would have been grounds to get them evicted, because we were given the run around by the agencies that are supposed to be here to protect us, and I ended up on the stand being thrown a bombshell that I was supposed to prove that they had been stalking her. The law has been set up in favor of the criminal. When I tried to get her counseling to help her, I was also given the run around by these people. When she finally found someone to talk to, the agency closed down due to lack of funding. That's when I knew we were in trouble, so I found someone at a martial arts school (Christian) who cared enough to take us in and gave my daughter a year's scholarship to study with them. I am SO SO grateful. It is still hard, but I take her twice a week, and she's earning her fourth belt and has just been nominated into the "Leadership" program.
Despite everything, and with God's help, I've struggled to make a few improvements here. We have a bus stop now, and the kid's have a small playground. The university next door shut their spotlight on us down by half, and the management here respects the 24-hour notice thing.
Still,. I sit here this morning so very sad. I've been upset for days, because while I've tried to get my work done, and my daughter has been playing in our front yard minding her own business, the other, older kids still prey on her (and me). They do this because they don't know what respect for your neighbor is, and if you're not part of the "home team", you are out. This has been very difficult for my daughter, who doesn't use words like "mother fu___er", "fu>> you", and other choice expressions, sometimes with the word "nigger" thrown in. She sits on our porch and watches them, but doesn't interact. And if she is just being herself, they consider it to be a weakness to be sweet and playful, and they bully her.
Twice in this last week her and her friends tried a "stand". They didn't sell lemonade, they wanted to sell "origami". The other, older kids (a swarm of them) came up and tried to get the stuff for free (of course), and started arguing with eachother and the girls, so that I finally had to put a stop to it. For weeks now, the son of a mother out here (strife personified) has been bullying my daughter because he knows his mother condones it, to be mean to me because she's never liked me because of my skin color. So this boy and his friends have been coming around to ruin whatever fun the girls were having each day.
The day before yesterday, my daughter wanted to put up her (kid-sized) tent, so she and her friends could play in it. It took 45 minutes to get the darn thing up. It was up only an hour before the unsupervised swarm appeared. When they were asked to leave, they got smart mouthed. Another mother asked them to leave, they laughed at her. Finally, they started throwing things at the tent, smearing mud on the outside walls, and punching on the roof. I went out there with the only weapon that I'm allowed here (and condoned by management), my camera. I said, "say CHEESE"! They went away for a while, deciding whether or not I could "take them to court". Then they came back. I took down the tent. Several of them (and their unauthorized dog) came around the back of the building and sat themselves down (the one in particular) on my air conditioner and was picking up my plants and looking at them. I asked them twice to leave. Finally, trying to get dinner on the table, I took another picture and told them I was going to have a word with the mother.
A few minutes later, the racist mother came over to my door, banging on it and screaming obscenities at me, calling me a "pedofile", a "tramp", etc. wanting to beat me up outside. Lovely. I told her that she wasn't worth the trouble (because we would get kicked out too), but I'd love to oblige another day.
Yesterday my daughter stayed inside most of the day. When she finally went out, a friend came up to her and they sat on the porch talking. A moment later, some older kids (the other kids' friends of course) came up to the door, screaming that my kid is "gay" and that I don't discipline her! My daughter made the mistake of showing love! Next thing I know, there's a freaked out father on my porch demanding to know whether or not my daughter kissed the other little girl on the mouth. My daughter said no. The other girl said no. The older kids were starting trouble with me, I explained to him, because of what's been going on with them being disrespectful to us. The father wasn't satisfied and stomped off saying I was "blowing him off and he would handle it his way".
At 7, my daughter hugged her friend, and she was labelled "gay". There are so, so many things wrong with this picture that my eyes fill with tears and my heart with disgust. As a Christian, I am supposed to pray for them and forgive them, but how do you forgive someone (or some people) for such hatred, evil, and stupidity?!
We left last night, to retreat to a friend's house nearby. We needed a reprieve from these stupid people. To say that they are "so ghetto" is an understatement. I'm going to share a little secret with you. The people in the surrounding area say that no one ever wants to help "those people" here "because of the way they act". I felt then that they may be a bit afraid or aloof to the plight of the poor, but now, truly and unfortunately, I understand what they meant.
Even the property management is apathetic. I've been waiting for 2 years for the property management to approve the improvement of a field here on the south end of the property, for the kids. They blew me off and every time I would ask them, I would hear that "it isn't a big priority right now". They've owed us $75.00 gift cards for 18 months, and every month I am blown off. All they care about is their money. They have done NOTHING for the kids here, they didn't contribute one dime to that playground effort.
Some people have suggested that I stand up and be the leader that I am and help them. I've tried, despite my loathing for the place. This place only represents sorrow and struggle to me, and my daughter doesn't know any different. When I thought about it, I thought, what a shame.
There are no jobs here. We are 30 or 40 miles from anywhere. I'm going to have to leave the area to find work, and I have to wait for my shoulder to be fixed to do that. Meanwhile, I'll renew our month-to-month lease here for another year, sigh. I hate signing those papers, and for the last couple of years, I've had to fight off tears at the desk I'm signing them at. This year, we are going to break free of this concentration camp. This year, I'm going to make it my business to find a way. I hope God will open the window, please.
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