How I Met Your Step-Father

Future Ted: Kids, I'm going to tell you an incredible story, the story of how I met your mother.

Ted's Son: Are we being punished or something?

Future Ted: No.

Ted's Daughter: Dad, is this gonna take a while?

Future Ted: Yes. Twenty-five years ago, before I was Dad, I had this whole other life...

Wait….this isn’t How I Met Your Mother….this is How I Met Your Step-Father.  So, have a seat kids, and I’ll tell you the story on how I met your step-father Eric:

Back in March of 1989, I was 19.  I was married but planning on getting a divorce since my husband was in prison (okay, that’s another story!).   Anyways, I ran into Mark at a local convenience store.  I had known Mark since I was 13.  He was my 1^st love and we had dated on and off for 2 years (You know how teens are when it comes to relationships).  So we exchanged phone numbers to keep in contact and we began dating again immediately.  About a month into our new found relationship, I met Eric.  Eric was best friends with Mark.  Now, I will admit I thought he was cute.  But I was in a relationship with Mark, so I didn’t have eyes for anyone else. 

 Mark was the really jealous type.  I mean, really jealous.  If another guy was within 500 feet of me, he was accusing me of having an affair.  This meant that any time one of his friends was around; I disappeared into the background to avoid any potential fights (Of course, later on, I found out the reason he was always accusing me of having affairs was because he was doing it).  Needless to say, I didn’t really get to know Eric all that well.  While he was best friends with Mark, he was a mere acquaintance to me. 

Mark and I had a tumultuous relationship for 4 years, but ended up getting married in June 1993.  A month after our wedding, he lost his job.  He began to fill his days by drinking them away.    It didn’t take long for us to lose contact with all of our friends.  He was either at the bar or at home drinking and I was working or tending to the kids.  Almost three years later on February 22, 1996, I’d had it.  While he was at the bar, I packed up the kids (we had 2, and I had one from my previous marriage), quit my job and left without looking back. 

I moved in with my mother and managed to get 2 part-time jobs (this was when jobs were actually available).  I worked mornings while the two older boys were at school and midnights while they were sleeping.  One night while working my waitressing job, I walked up to one of my tables, did a quick head count and offered drinks.  A familiar voice said, “Fine, don’t say hi.”  I looked up to see Eric sitting at the table.  I dropped the pad of invoices to the ground as my jaw dropped because I hadn’t seen him since my wedding day.  He informed me he was married and proceeded to ask me how Mark was and I began rambling about how I had left him (that’s when his jaw dropped LOL).  I didn’t go into full details because he was with a group of friends, so he asked for my phone number so he could get the full story the next day. 

So, as you can see, the first time we met was not the beginning of our relationship.  The second time we met began the journey of our relationship, but honestly, I was not looking for another man in my life and he was married, so neither of us looked at each other in that way.  

AW C'MON, MY STORY DIDN'T TAKE THAT LONG!

Next time on How I Met Your Step-Father:

He did call. We spent a lot of time together becoming friends over the next 6 weeks.  He left his wife 3 days before his 1 year anniversary.  He stayed at a hotel for one night.  He moved in with me.  My ex-husband stalked us for 3 months.  His ex-wife stalked us for 6 months.  We married 4 years later.  We celebrate our 10 year anniversary in September of 2010. 

Introduction

I suppose I should share why I think I'm the most stressed. I mean, I'm not trying to belittle the millions of other women that have a lot to do by any means, but I have a very full plate and hope that griping about it to the one or two people that are kind enough to read this will help me to remove at least some of the stress.  Obviously I can't share every single thing that has happened to me which has put me into the place I am now in just this one post, but we'll get there eventually. 

I'm 39, married and a mother of three boys.  Kelly is 22, Kris is 19 and Jordan is 15.   Kelly dropped out of high school at 17, had a daughter 2 years later (making me a grandmother at 36, talk about RUDE!) and he is now going back to school to get his GED.  Kris joined the National Guard at 17, graduated high school at 18 and then attended basic training and AIT (our car was stolen while we were on our way there, that's a future story).  He is currently working 2 jobs and scheduled to go to Afghanistan in September 2010 (which puts college on the back burner once again).  He is a MP and hopes to get into SWAT or the FBI.  Jordan is 15, has X-Linked Icthyosis (which means his dead skin doesn't automatically fall off) and he's been teased a lot for this condition.  He is now a sophomore in high school and hopes to get into accounting. 

I am currently getting my BA in Administration through online classes.  This was not my original plan.  When I went back to college in the fall of 2007, I had every intention to become a high school counselor.  However, I discovered I would have to become a teacher first, and then after 5 years of teaching, could become a counselor.  So, I began my journey taking classes to become a Secondary Education English Teacher.  After only one year of classes, I learned my father was losing 2/3 of his pension from General Motors.  They discovered after 3 years that they had been overpaying him.  So, he was now going to lose 1/3 that was too much of his income, and 1/3 to repay back his overpayment.  He had just purchased his house the year before, so the choice was: move in with him or have him move in with us.  Well, since I had just lost my house to foreclosure the year before and was currently renting, the wise decision seemed to be to move in with him.  I ended up transferring colleges and changing my degree.

This leads me to yet another stress in my life.  My father.  My father was an alcoholic from the time he was in his early 20's until 1999.  This brought on a lot of problems for me my entire life.  My Dad was a yeller, and I got the brunt of it.  Nothing I did was right.  And its because of the constant bombardment of how I did everything wrong, that I tend to be a perfectionist.  No matter what I do, its never enough.  

I was just about to sign off, when I realized I hadn't shared one of biggest stressors of this year.  In June, my father was diagnosed with Oral Cancer, stage 2.  It took three months before the doctors could agree on a plan for treatment in our area (we live in a rural area).  During that time, Dad began to eat less and less.  This caused a lot more problems, because he's also diabetic and he was going into altered states every single day, sometimes multiple times a day.  After 39 sessions of radiation, which ended last Thursday, we are now done with the long hour drive just to get to the hospital five days a week.  

That's all for today....more to come in the future...