Home sweet home...

Being home-schooled meant we had no structure. The only set in stone daily activity was reading the Book of Mormon, which took a painful amount of time because my mom would explain the meaning of every verse. In the end I learned three things: 1. If you didn't keep the commandments you would burned at the last days, 2. Saying "holy cow" was sinning, and 3. God was a fearful being.

Being home-schooled was isolating enough, but you add the the mixture that we moved every 6-12 months and you realize that socializing was a rare thing. I was surrounded by brothers, who after a certain point didn't want their sister playing with them. So I spent a great deal of time in my own head. I would walk the neighborhood or lay in bed day dreaming. I mainly dreamed about getting to meet my grandparents. We never saw my dads side of the family. When I was little I use to ask my mom why? She told me they weren't nice to us, and that she was protecting us. But I dreamed about them. I wanted to be held by them to be loved and to have a family. I dreamed about going to school as well. Having friends, and eating a normal lunch, having recess, but most of all I wanted to learn to read. 

My mom spent more of her time locked up in her room drawing. She would draw houses, big beautiful multimillion dollar houses. When she was done we would show me, and tell me God had told her that we would have lots of money one day, and that she was designing our future house. As a kid I dreamed of living in a big beautiful house, but as I got older all I wanted to to stop moving and live anywhere as long as I didn't have to move. 

To this day I don't know what the truth is about our moves... My dad was rarely home, and he bounced between jobs, but always went back to more for my Mom's dad. I do know they left a string of debts where ever they went and often didn't pay rent. From a young age I was scared. I was scared of being kicked out of my home, of not having a home. Home and family thats all I wanted. 

But this leads me back to God... God was my best friend, I feared him, thats what the bible said "to be God fearing." But when you have to friends, and absent parents who do you talk to? God. I had so much faith in God, I prayed all the time. Prayed that I would get to see the Pedersen side of the family, prayed that we wouldn't move anymore, prayed that I would get to go to school so that I could learn, I prayed God would let me now how to read, that he would make me beautiful, that my parents would love each other etc. You see my mom taught me that if you pray God will send miracles. The part she left out was, the "after YOU have done all you can do." So I would pray and pray, and my little 11 year old heart would weep begging God for miracles that never came. 

I was 12 the day I realized that God would never magically just send me the ability to read. I came home from church crying that everyone made fun of me for not knowing how to read. I went straight to my room, and began to pray, to cry and beg the Lord to let me know how to read. When I finished i felt empty. I didn't cry anymore after that day. I knew God wasn't going to teach me to read, and I set about teaching myself. 

My mom told me a few months later when I was reading fairly well, she said "See I told you that when the time was right you would learn how to read. No point forcing kids to go to school and make them learn things before they are ready." 

That was my mothers whole parenting style: Kids will learn when they decide they want to. HA! I think of the humiliations I suffered as a kid because I couldn't read, because I didn't go to school, because of how dirty we were, and that was her response. I was so torn as a kid, because I wanted friends so badly, but then I didn't want anyone to come over because of how disgusting the house was. 

I think this is were the self loathing started was with the house. I hated the feeling of living in dirt, and I would clean and try and help, but I was also a kid that didn't want to clean. My mind had inner battles from a young age. I hated myself for not spending more time cleaning. I hated myself for not having the will power to clean the house everyday, and I only made my siblings mad when I yelled at them to help me clean. 

Memories from the past

Childhood was like a stagnant pond. The seasons changed around it, but for the most part it was left forever trapped in a never changing cycle.

I don't remember much of my earlier years, I only have chucks of memories. The usual things, watching my cat have kittens, rolling off the couch and cutting my hear open, finding a toad in the sandbox... Just moments that stick out. I have racked my brain trying to remember, trying to find the moment that made me hate myself. That maybe in the finding it, I could undue its influence over me now. But in all my searching through my memories, I have come to the thought that maybe I was simply born this way.

I was a quite child, I liked privacy, order, quite... All the opposite qualities of my house. I have 10 siblings, my mom rarely cleaned, and the house was never quite. In my house you had to shout to be heard, you had to fight for food, eat all you could because it wouldn't be there in the morning, and I loathed the filthiness of the house. Dishes would sit undone for days, you couldn't see the floors in the bedrooms, the toilets would forever be brown from going so long without being cleaned. The food consisted of 5 pound blocks of cheap cheddar cheese, tortillas, milk, eggs and macaroni. My favorite lunch was to melt a big hunk of cheese and dip the tortilla in the quarter inch of grease that floated on the top. And to top it all off, we were home-schooled, which really meant we just stayed home in our pj's all day with unbrushed hair.

But it wasn't always that way. I don't ever remember my mother being happy per say, but I have glimpses from when I was very young and my parents didn't fight, but that ended when I was 5.

I've thought very hard about my mother... I've tried to understand her, however, she is a walking contradiction. When I was 6 years old I had the habit of giving my toys away, and finally my mother asked me "why do you keep giving all your toys away?" I replied that I wanted such and such person to like me. She told me, "you don't have to buy friends Becca." However, I've spend my life watching as my mother gave and gave and gave to try and "be worthy" of friendship. She gave too much, and didn't require people to respect her, and every time she would have another failed relationship she would creep farther away from us. She never cuddled or hugged us, she lived in her own head. I don't know who my mother really is, but I know I'm like her.
I keep giving away my toys hoping it will make me worthy of friendship... But in the end it doesn't matter to anyone, and I've found myself creeping slowly away from everyone.