I lost a follower, and found a long lost Sister.

Wow. Talk about adding insult to injury. I was so proud of my following of a whole 7 people and when I signed in today?....Someone has been blognapped. Maybe it is because I get all sporadic with the postings when I get sick. Maybe it's because I am just boring or not funny anymore. Sorry. Will try to do better. Promise.

One of the bloggers I follow died Saturday. I didn't know her personally, but can honestly say I have spent hours crying about her. R.I.P and without any more pain Michelle.

I can also say I have done a little crying for myself. Being sick is no walk in the park and while most people get a cold, get sick, and get over it...I get a cold, get sick, get slightly better or better for a day and then get sick all over again. It's tedious. It's tiring. It's made all the more difficult because I have so much I want to do and accomplish and I can't muster the energy to do it. I have even less energy if I medicate (which I generally don't do cuz what good is a mom that sleeps all the time) and I want to be awake and alert and myself for my daughter.

Even though I am under the weather, I still have to go out and do all those "mommy in a mini-van" things that make the world go round. While out on the town accomplishing these things yesterday, I happened to notice that many people driving larger vehicles (like mini-vans...but not me) are treating their daily outings like it's a funeral and THEY MUST DRIVE AS SLOW AS POSSIBLE WHILE JUST DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME AND THEN OF COURSE GET PISSY AND ALL ROAD-RAGEY AT ME AND TEACH MY CHILD GREAT NEW WORDS AND HAND GESTURES BECAUSE SOMEONE PEED IN THEIR CORNFLAKES THIS MORNING!!!

Ahem.

While out yesterday, I was walking into Publix and noticed a girl that I recognized, but had not seen in over 8 years. 8 years. Where the hell does time go? She was waiting at the pharmacy and reading a book. I debated going up to talk to her because our shared history was not a pleasant experience. I decided it was worth it because not knowing for 8 years haunted me. I approached her and asked if she remembered me. She said she thought it was me but was afraid of saying anything, I said I was thinking the same thing but decided to take a chance. We stood there and looked at each other for a moment, both almost too fearful to acknowledge our connection, and then I asked her what I had waited years (and believe me I had been searching for her for that long) to ask, "Did your daughters turn out OK? Are they alright?"

She teared up and I was already crying and she said, "Yes, they have both turned out to be beautiful young women."

You see, she and I were casualties of the same evil. Leroy. (Name not altered because he is a sadistic asshole that deserves to be speared with a thousand of those little corn on the cob holders and roasted slowly over an open flame while rabid chipmunks chew off his genitals.)

She was his girlfriend before I was. She was a girl that met him as a teenager, already having escaped one abusive relationship with a small child, only to be sucked into the wicked and unnatural charm that he possesses in excess. He promised to take care of her and her child. He got her pregnant. He forced her to support him and buy him a house. He beat her. He cheated on her. He did unspeakable things. He then got bored and decided to exact a torture on her that he was a master at and had done to the women before her and would do to the women after me.

I had just come out of a severely abusive relationship where I was beaten to death (literally) and I was trying to get my life on track. I went out one night to have a good time with friends bowling and while there, met this evil force guy. He was charming, he was fun, and he was very different than any man I had ever met before. We stayed up all night having a good time and talking and made plans to go fishing the next day. He told me he needed a ride. I showed up at his house the next day expecting to pick him up and go. There he was with two cute little girls and an excuse that his "ex-girlfriend" was supposed to take them for the day but they had been in a fight and she had taken off with out her children. (??redflag??) My car was parked in the driveway and we were sitting on the front porch discussing what we were going to do for the day, after he had introduced me to his daughters.

All of the sudden, like a bat out of hell, this woman drove up and parked behind my car and started yelling before she even got out of her SUV. She cussed him out and said she knew something fishy (ha! no pun intended) was going on when she left for work that morning and who the fuck was this bitch sitting on her front porch. He got this scary deadly look on his face and told her they would discuss it inside. They left me on the porch to go duke it out (he hit her during this fight. I heard the thump but was told by him that she was doing the hitting.) Oh yeah...?!?REDFLAG?!?

I was going to bolt right then and there. There was way too much drama going on and I had just escaped a bad and volatile relationship and didn't need to be any part of another one. I got in my car and was blocked in by her SUV. I was going to back over and demolish the shrubbery but at the time didn't have the balls to fully monster truck it out of there in my little Ford Aspire.

I should have said fuck the shrubs. It was the worst mistake of my life.

She came charging back out of the house with the two girls and loaded them and some stuff into her SUV and took off. He came strolling out of the house with a smile on his face (?!?redflag!!!) and asked if I was ready to go. We went.

Fast forward back to the Publix and I told the Sister, if it hadn't been for your car blocking mine, I would have escaped that day. She told me, if it hadn't been for you sitting on my front porch, I wouldn't have been able to escape. Both in tears at this point, we just grabbed each other and hugged. I asked her if she was mad at me, and she assured me that she wasn't. We were both casualties of that evil bastard, and were both lucky to make out of his clutches. I told her that he left me exactly the same way he left her. For a woman that looked enough like us to be our sister (all his women except his ex-wife looked the same) and that she had a young daughter for him to ruin. I also informed her that as of my latest information he had moved in with his ex-wife up in Tennessee. She had a look of horror on her face and reminded me that the ex-wife had had a daughter with another man and that she would be just about the right age....

I told her about the beatings and the cheating on me and the hordes of abuse that he heaped on me for years. She nodded and said it was all the same with her. I told her about the son I lost while with him and how he treated me so cruelly for being a "failure of a woman." She said she was now married and safe and happy with her daughters and that, while they will never forget what he did to them, with counseling they have learned to heal as best they can.

I told her that while I was with him 9 months before I had my daughter, I had managed to get away from him and escape from him despite him having me followed and hunted down by his not so legit friends, and also all his cop friends. When he heard I had a child he did some convoluted math and thought my daughter was his. (She isn't.) I told her I managed to get out one night and day while he was off cheating on me.

She said she was sad because when she got out she had to leave everything, and didn't even have any pictures of her children when they were younger. Her daughters always ask her what they looked like when they were younger. I started crying again. She asked what was wrong, and I told her I knew there was a reason I had held on to all that stuff for so long. I have plenty of pictures of her children. I have kept them all these years.

She was surprised and emotional, and we hugged again. We exchanged information and promised to get together again so that we can get all those memories back into the right places. We also both swore to not tell a soul where we actually lived because she and I worked very hard at getting "off the grid and off Leroy's radar."

We both managed to survive. We both have beautiful daughters. And when the time comes...I will stand beside her and her daughters in court against that Evil. Sisters.