Struggle

2009-11-23

I feel like life has always been a struggle for me. I remember being a little kid and feeling like I had to work in order for my father to love me. We fought constantly. I always felt like he loved my sister more and was disappointed that I was not a boy. I tried so hard to get him to accept me. I tried to get him to do "boy" things with me so that he would enjoy spending time with me... It was always a struggle...Then I got older and I never really had any friends. I was never a bad person or a mean person but I was shy and had low self-esteem. It was a struggle to get people to want to be with me. Maybe I was a little coddled... My sister always let me get my way so I could be a bit of a whiner but what pre-teen girl isn't?
In my teens and early twenties I was never asked out. I had to pursue the guys, they never pursued me. Though my relationships were long term I always felt like I was more invested. Even now with my boy-friend of seven years. We've been through so much together but I feel like I have to constantly beg for his attention and his affection.
When I was 22 I got pregnant with my daughter. I was never upset or scared. I knew that I was going to be a great mom. My boy-friend had a good job and we were moving in together
and starting a family. Two weeks after we moved in together he lost his job. He quickly started a new one but it was hard to make ends meet for a long time. Then our daughter came along. Our beautiful perfect little girl who means the world to us. One month and one day after her birth I fell down the stairs and broke my ankle in three places. I needed surgery to rebuild the ankle and was hospitalised for 5 days. After that I had to move back in with my parents for two months because I was in a wheel chair and our apartment wasn't wheelchair accessible. Our baby's first Christmas couldn't be spent at home. We continued to struggle for another year or so until my boy-friend got a better job. When I say struggle I don't mean we couldn't afford vacations and new cars. I mean we had to live on Kraft dinner and hot dogs for weeks on end. We had to stretch the diaper budget, we suffered.
Things gradually got better and we moved into a bigger place with a backyard and we bought new cars and things were looking up. I decided that my job was not doing it for me anymore so I moved on and got a new job which turned out to be a nightmare. I'm pretty resilient, though so I moved on and found something better where I was able to climb the corporate ladder to where I am now. That's when we decided to buy a house. We finally settled on building a house. We
met with the builder, we signed the contracts, we were looking forward to a new house the following summer, when all of a sudden construction halted. No new house for at least another year.
We waited patiently and decided to have a go at having another baby. The first month of trying we discovered that I was pregnant with our son.
On July 1st we moved in to our beautiful brand new house and were expecting our son just a few weeks later.
On July 7th I went in for a routine exam only to find out that he had no heartbeat. Our precious baby who was supposed to complete our perfect little family had died 3 weeks before he was suuposed to join us. Our dreams were dashed and we were crushed.
I just don't understand how one person can be expected to struggle financially, emotionally and physically all before the age of 30 and not come out of it feeling bitter and angry. How can a person watch her daughter suffer through such a tremendous loss at such a young age and not feel jipped. How is it fair that one person has to endure all of this heartache while others float through life never having to fight for anything. They say it builds character but I think I have enough. I don't want any more character. I want to float for awhile. I've swam long enough, I've been treading water for years, I think it's time for someone to hand me a life boat.