writing everyday for a year...

So, I made a new years resolution yesterday about writing about something every single day for a solid year to get my creative juices flowing a bit...Todays topic will be doing away with people in my life that have stifled me...

Until recently, I was living with my late husbands family with my girls. They are hardcore devout Christians and massively vanilla.

In my late husbands and i's marriage, they tried to control everything about it, and he let them. We were under their thumb like crazy crazy...Theyd call and hed come running...Theyd say "do it THIS way", and hed do it....Even down to us having kids...They were NEVER happy for us, and even made him get a paternity test for my middle child because they for SURE that i was a whore and got pregnant by someone else and was pinning it on him (it turned out his OF COURSE...)

Staying with them for 2 months was hell. I was constantly feeling like I needed to walk on eggshells and be careful about what I said, who I was, who I was talking to and all that. They were constantly in my business and it drove me crazy....The day after i moved in, I got up early to go get my best friend to help me move stuff out of the uhaul into the storage unit i had rented...I had barely started my car and was pulling out the driveway when my sister in law called me from her bedroom saying "where ya going?"

REALLY????

After I found out that my mother in law put her hands on my child and SHOOK her while I was at work one day, I snapped....It happened on a Sunday and I was out of there on Wednesday, staying with my owners mother until the friend Im currently living with felt better (she had been ill)...

The way they treated my girls was abhorable. Yelling and screaming at them for the slightest things...taking things away like crayons and playdough and anything creative they played with...Ive always raised my girls to be creative and free spirited and open...There, we were stifled and they constantly screamed at them.

On one occasion, my sister in law (ill call her Bitch from here on out), came home from being out somewhere...My girls had been outside happily playing in mud puddles....They hadn't made any messes and were careful at my insistence, not to track mud through the house if they came in...

My father in law was aware of what they were doing and I was sitting right there, watching, listening, paying attention to what my girls were doing...

She was standing in the kitchen doing something and she looks out the window. She runs to the door, FLINGS it open and SCREAMS at them "GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT MUD!!!"

I told her that they had BEEN playing in it all day and she flips out saying "mom doesn't want mud in the house!" (when in all actuality, I do believe that it was HER that didn't want mud tracked through the house because she's OCD and controlling)

I told her that they had been fine playing out there all day and that they hadn't tracked mud in the house at all, and then i said "And, you REALLY need to stop screaming at my kids all the time", to which she had replied "its MY house, ill scream at them all i want."

Now, let me say that this was HER PARENTS house. She has NEVER lived on her own......EVER.... she's 28. She has a BEDROOM.

She replied "well, actually, I pay RENT so it IS my house..."

To which I said "This is your parents house....you may pay rent but you have a fuckin BEDROOM, not the entire house." (and guarantee that she pays very VERY minimal rent...and this was the FIRST shed mentioned EVER having to pay rent...which i think was a lie.)

Shes an idiot but its prime example of how they are...She and my mother in law even tried dictating where I get a job at...even going so far as to tell me that my sister in laws boss said that hed give me a job, like I couldn't or didn't have the ability to get a job on my own.

After the shaking incident, I decided that I just couldn't handle the way the entire family was...Controlling, obsessive, in your business....I can handle it if my OWNER is that way, but overall, im a free spirit who's used to coming and going as I please, not answering to anyone...

After moving out, i cut all ties with them. Blocking them from calling me (i have a block feature on my cell), deleting and blocking them off my girls' facebook that I had originally made for them while we were in Rhode Island so that their family (the inlaws) could see how they were doing...

And I honestly have to say that in the 10+ years that ive known them, I feel SO peaceful and happy and am able to finally be myself again...Even my middle daughter Holli said to me on New Years Eve, "mommy, Im SO much happier here then I was at Mom Mom's...We aren't getting orders barked at us or yelled at anymore." They are able to be themselves here and so am I.

Im so so happy relieved and glad that I FINALLY did what my owner said 6 years ago to do...Cut ties.