Apologies: No New Blog Till Further Notice

My sincerest apologies to anyone who follows my blog, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I will be unable to post until further notice.

My computer has developed hardware problems that make typing impossible. In fact, I'm using my roommate's computer to do this short blog.

In case you're wondering, the keyboard on my computer won't type correctly. If I hit the spacebar, I get a "w." If I use shift with my spacebar, I get a "6." The number one acts like the tab button and the function button doesn't work at all. The only keys that do work are the letters and the 10 key pad.

So, while I wish I could continue sharing my life story, that will not be possible for now. I've been told it'll be 10 - 14 days before my computer will be repaired. If it's not repairable, it'll be even longer.

I appreciate all my readers and thank you for your patience and understanding. I hope all in your life is going well.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 46

By the time I left that meeting I was convinced that I needed to move as soon as possible. Steve and Bill did offer to help me in any way they could, including helping me find a low rent place I could afford. How moving was going to be possible, I didn’t know, so I put a “fleece” before the Lord. I told Him that if He wanted me to move, He’d have to open the doors for me to do so. Especially because of the debt load I carried. I checked into low-income housing online and found out I qualified, however, when I called to see if applications were being accepted I got a recording telling me to call back in three months. I guess that was a pretty good sign that I wasn’t to move just then.

I didn’t fully realize until a few days later that I walked out of that meeting with chains on my soul. The requirement that I move before Steve would dedicate my son to the Lord was and is unfair to me. Jesus never denied a blessing to anyone during His time here on earth because of the sin in his or her life. So, I don’t understand why Steve thought he had the right to deny me that. I also learned from a friend that getting approved for low income housing and finding it are two different things. She told me that even with approval, it wasn’t always possible to find a place.

This situation made it difficult to want to go to church. It was difficult to sit there week after week and listen to a man preach, who is unwilling to see that God works in ways we don’t always understand or agree with. This was the first time in my life that I have ever felt like I knew better what God’s will was for me than the pastor. I’ve been taught to respect church authority and so for me to basically disobey my pastor’s wishes felt weird, even though I was sure in my heart that I was doing what God wanted me to.

I talked to Steve after the meeting and told him I’d made effort towards moving out, but he didn’t respond. I tried calling Section 8 housing at the times specified, but to no avail. Whenever I tried to call about getting an application for low income housing, I got a recording telling me the mailbox was full and that if I knew the extension I wanted, I could enter it or wait for a list of people. Given that I didn’t know who would be the appropriate person to talk to and I wasn’t in a position to write down an extension or punch it in, I always had to hang up.

I’ll admit I had no real desire to move either. I’d had to be independent for so many years just to survive, that to be living with someone who can be and is a big help to me, is very nice. It has taken me a few years to learn how to give up my independence and I don’t want it back. I was extremely tired of having only myself to lean on. If I had to move out without getting married, I would have had to regain some of the independence I no longer wanted and fought so hard to lose. Even if I moved in with another woman for a roommate, I would have still had to become more independent. I want and need to stay at David’s house because of the way he helps me. The only way I could do better than that, is if I was married.

The saddest part of this is that I resent the way I was treated in this situation and because I feel like there is nothing I can do about it, I resent Steve and Bill, the elder I went to for help. Not only that, but every time I get near Steve for any reason, even in passing, I can feel the walls he erected. It hurts.

I have come to realize that in Steve’s eyes, my efforts weren’t good enough. He wasn’t willing to do the dedication until either I move out or God tells him to. I’m not so sure he wouldn’t fight it if he felt God telling him to dedicate my son to Him while I still live here.

Now I can’t lay all the blame for my lack of desire to go to church at Steve’s feet. There’s my mother who also attended the church. Her marriage is in such poor shape, she clings to Caleb and me every chance she gets. Not to mention the fact that I would rather not see her at all, if that were possible. Which it wasn’t, so I just tried to avoid talking to her.

There were other problems at church as well. I came to realize that there were people in the church who judged me for living with David without being married to him. The sad part is that no one ever came to me and asked me why I’d found it necessary to move in with him and no one ever offered to help me out other than Steve and Bill.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 45

I did take a day off soon after that as I had a bad headache and I knew that if I tried to go to work, I would just fall asleep on the job, despite having taken pain medication. After getting some rest, I felt well enough to get up, so I decided to call the church office to see if he had an opening. I was told that Steve was only in the office two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and this being a Monday he wasn’t in. I was shocked and upset. Steve had never told me that he was only in the office two days out of the week. The next time I had a day off, it was a Thursday and I thought maybe he’d have an opening. Again, he wasn’t in as he’d switched to coming in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. At this point I didn’t know what to do.

After talking it over with David, I decided to take my case to an elder I knew and see if he could do something about it. I went to the elder, Bill, after service one Sunday and asked if he had time to talk. He did and I poured out the whole story to him from the beginning. I even told him about Steve’s hesitation and why. I also told him about my relationship with David and a little about why I was living here. He said he’d talk to Steve at the next elder’s meeting and see what he could do.

I thought with Bill’s help, Steve would be more willing to dedicate my son. Bill told me a few weeks later that my request had made them realize there were probably others in the church that had young children they would want dedicated. They put a notice in the bulletin and waited for a response. I was the only one who responded to the notice. I thought that would take care of it. Wrong again. Apparently they talked again and Steve still wouldn’t dedicate my son. Bill indicated to me that if nothing else, he would do it. While I appreciated that, I really wanted Steve to do it. Bill also suggested I write a letter to Steve telling him how I felt about the whole situation.

It took me several days, but I finally did. The hardest part of writing the letter was the fact that in some ways I felt like I was chewing out someone in a position of authority. That kind of thing does not come easily to me, even when I know I need to. I basically told Steve that I felt like he had led me to believe that dedicating my son to the Lord was simply a matter of setting a date. He also requested a meeting with me, but failed to tell me that he was only in two days a week and that his unwillingness to see me outside of his scheduled time to be there was unfair to me. I also wrote that if I had asked for an appointment with him, I would have expected to accommodate his schedule, but because he asked to meet with me, he should be more willing to accommodate mine and he clearly wasn’t. I gave a copy of my letter to Bill as well.

The response I got from Steve shocked and hurt me. He called me and left me a voice mail saying that my letter was very discouraging and that under the circumstances he didn’t think he could do the dedication, but if I called his office and spoke with him, maybe we could arrange for some kind of closure to the matter without dedicating my son.

I became furious. How dare he try to shrug me off like that! I talked to Bill again and apparently Steve had told him about my letter and the general contents of it. Bill must have spoken to Steve about it as a few days later Steve found an opening in his schedule to see me one evening.

I went to the meeting with high hopes and determined to get this issue settled once and for all. When I got there I found that Bill was to also sit in on the meeting partly as a chaperone. Steve asked if I minded and of course I didn’t, especially considering that I thought he was “on my side” in this matter. It turns out he was more on “Steve’s side” than mine.

During the course of the meeting, Steve told me he was uncomfortable dedicating my son to the Lord as long as I lived with David. I told him that I carried a large debt load and could not afford to move out at that time, not to mention the fact that I didn’t have any dishes or pots and pans. He asked me about the kind of place I required and I told him that I didn’t expect a palace. As long as it was reasonably clean with two bedrooms that would work for me. I also told him that I couldn’t afford much more in rent than I already paid to David. He asked me how much rent I paid and about how far in debt I was. I told him that I paid David $150.00 a month in rent and him that I was in debt collection for around $10,000 and that didn’t include my school loans. I think that surprised him. But as I told him, the debt in collections was originally credit card debt and boy had I learned my lesson there.

During the meeting, I also told Steve that I felt my living situation was God’s will for me. I told him about how I’d prayed for God to heal me emotionally. His answer to my prayer was to go to David as a man and basically learn to cry on his shoulder. I told him how my initial reaction to the idea of David as the answer to my prayer was basically, “You can’t be serious, Lord.”

Yet every time I prayed, the answer was to see David. I also told Steve about how I came to be living in David’s house.

Steve still told me he was uncomfortable with my living situation, partly because David was recently divorced and I’m divorced. Having his son, Darren and his girlfriend, Angela living here made matters worse in his eyes. He talked about my son and how I had named him after a man in the Old Testament. How the original Caleb would not be living in a “compromising” situation. He also asked me how I could hear God’s voice talking to me directly if I couldn’t hear it coming from a person. I had to admit I hadn’t thought of things that way.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 44

In January, David told Darren and Angela they had to move by the end of March, period. I could hardly wait. I practically counted the days. Early in March, David came home to learn that they had picked up and moved. Darren left a note saying they’d gone to live with her sister and would not be back at all. David called me at work to tell me about it. He was angry, as Darren had not said a word about the car payments. I was relieved and very happy. No more tension because of them and no more having to hide my personal things to ensure they remained mine.

However, a couple of hours after I got home, I discovered two of my outfits were missing. I called the police. While I was waiting for the police to show up, I heard a car door slam. When I looked out my bedroom window, I saw Darren and Angela coming towards the house. Angela was just starting to light a cigarette when she must have caught sight of me. She paused and scowled ferociously. I stood in the doorway of my bedroom while trying to decide what to do. They couldn’t get in as I had dead bolted the door and no one had a key to it. So, I waited to see what would happen. Pretty soon, Darren knocked on the door. When I opened it, he looked at me and said, “What do you want?”

I said, “I thought somebody knocked on the door.”

He told me he had and that they had come back looking for a place to sleep because their original plan to stay with her sister had fallen through. Angela’s sister was being evicted herself. I told him that his note had said that they weren’t coming back and he’d made his choice that afternoon. He asked me what they were supposed to do. I told him that was their problem. I know he didn’t like it but he didn’t argue with me either.

Angela on the other hand, not only told me I didn’t own the house, but that David had given them till the end of the month. She even threatened to call the police. I told her not to bother as the police were on their way.

Darren asked me why and I told him because I was missing some clothes. Both of them immediately denied taking the clothing. Angela also demanded that I wake up David. I told her I didn’t need her telling me what to do then I closed and bolted the door. As I walked back into the living room, David came from the back of the house and asked what was going on. When I told him, he went outside and told them in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome here anymore. Shortly after that they left.

I think I finally know why Darren and Angela could not or would not accept my authority. They couldn’t yell at David, as he would have thrown them out sooner. That was the one thing I did not have the authority to do; if I had, they would have been thrown out the first time Darren brought Angela home for the night without permission. Not only that, but I’m not sure David ever made it clear to them that my authority was second only to his in this house.

One good thing came from Angela’s staying here; I came to understand how badly I must have smelled when I smoked. I had been a smoker myself until just a few months before she moved in. While I always smoked outside, I had no idea just how much it stank until she came in one day from smoking and I got a whiff of her. I went to David and apologized for putting him through that with my habit.

The other big problem with living here turns out to be one I never anticipated. I had been trying for some time to get my pastor, Steve, to dedicate my son to the Lord. This ceremony is basically a public recognition that a child is a gift from God. Steve told me at first that all I had to do was call his office, leave my number and we’d set a date. Well, I called his office later that week. I didn’t hear from him after that and I didn’t go to church for a while as I started to really go through some things emotionally and was just too tired.

The next time I saw Steve was at a church potluck. I talked to him about it again and he said he hadn’t seen me in service for a while and had some very real concerns about that. I told him that as far as I was concerned, this church was home to me. I also told him that I didn’t know how often he’d see me there because of the emotional stuff I was going through. I thought that cleared things up. Wrong.

I still didn’t hear from him. I finally cornered him at service one Sunday. That’s when I found out that he thought my living situation might be a problem. I got so upset, I couldn’t think straight. I went in the ladies room to think and wrote him a note telling him to “ask God how He felt about my living situation.” I walked up and gave it to him, then walked away. I don’t think he ever did as I requested in the note.

I did finally get a phone call from Steve later that week requesting a meeting with him before he would dedicate my son. I called back and left a message saying sure, but I generally work M-F from 8-5 and that I would be happy to come see him on a weekend as on the weekdays I was generally too busy. Steve called me back and said that his time on the weekends was at a premium, so he couldn’t see me then. Maybe something would break in my workweek. I was pretty upset about his saying that his “time on the weekends was at a premium.” I felt that my time on the weekends was at a premium as well, especially being a single mom, but I let it slide.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 43

That doesn’t mean that living with David and letting things out was easy. At times it was downright difficult. Having to work didn’t help matters. I don’t know how many days I went to work with my emotional stuff churning around inside of me, but I couldn’t do anything about it till I got home.

When I moved in, it was just David, his son, Darren, and my son, Caleb. I had no trouble with Darren living here. After all, he worked two jobs and was almost never home except to sleep. Also, he would have to move when his car was paid off. The real problem started when Darren’s girlfriend, Angela, who was having trouble with her mother and her mother’s husband, with whom she’d been living, needed a place to stay. He wanted her to stay with us for a few days. David and I discussed it and I told him that under the circumstances, I didn’t want her here. I was honestly afraid that her presence here would interfere with my ability to confide in David and deal with my emotional issues. The end result was that David told Darren that his girlfriend, Angela could not stay with us.

Darren brought her home anyway a few days later when her mother’s husband threw her out. It was very hard to have her here in more ways than I had anticipated. Especially because Angela and Darren both seemed to think they could do as they pleased and not pay any consequences when they broke the rules. This made me angrier than a wet hen.

First of all, she wasn’t working, so she hung around the house a lot. Then when she did get a job, she had a hard time keeping it. In the 5 or 6 months she was here, she quit 2 jobs because she didn’t like her supervisor’s attitude. Secondly, she tended to sleep till at least noon and since she slept on the living room floor, this made life interesting, especially on Saturday mornings when my son and I were home. I finally told her that on weekends when we were home, we had lives to live and that I wasn’t going to make any special effort to be quiet. Thirdly, Angela and Darren were terrible about following the three simple rules David and I laid down. They were as follows:

      1.      If it isn’t yours, don’t use it.

      2.      Don’t eat food you didn’t buy.

      3.      Keep your belongings in your area. Anything left outside of your area for over 24 hours will be confiscated.

I remember the morning we told them the rules. I had fixed breakfast for everyone to be nice and in hopes of making things go smoother. When Darren heard the rule regarding keeping things where they belonged, he said, “I don’t see why everyone can’t be nice and just put things in the person’s area.”

I looked at him and flat out said, “I am not your maid and I’m not your mother. Even my three year old son is learning to pick up his things.”

That shut him up, but it didn’t solve the problem.

I frequently found clothes strewn where they didn’t belong. I don’t keep my house so clean it’s sanitary, but I don’t like to have general clutter laying around when it’s not necessary. So, I started picking up and hiding anything left out for more than 24 hours.

Then Angela had the nerve to go into David’s bedroom where I keep my clothes for lack of any other space to do so, and steal some of my things. I caught Angela wearing my best slacks which an aunt had given to me for Christmas just a couple of months prior, and she not only insisted they were hers, she wouldn’t give me a chance to prove they were mine. I got sneaky and smart. I washed all of her clothes that I was holding, as they were filthy and gave them back to her. When I saw here wearing something besides my slacks, I got nosy and took them back and then immediately took them to the cleaners to be cleaned as she’d worn them for at least 4 days straight without washing them, and to keep them out of her reach. Unfortunately, not everything she did to my slacks came out.

While I was at it, I checked her area for other things and found one of my favorite blouses, which she’d managed to burn a hole into and some underwear. I took everything back, washed them and made sure I put them out of her reach.

I got out my makeup brushes one morning to get ready for work and discovered they’d been used by Angela. My brushes were in a case with each one in its place and I always put them in with the brush part facing one way. When I opened them that morning, my blush brush was turned down the opposite way. I used it anyway as I didn’t have any choice, but as soon as possible I washed my brushes, then hid them so she couldn’t do that again.

Another big problem was that neither one of them could accept the fact that I was told by David that I was to treat his house as if it were mine and that meant that I had complete authority, second only to his. More than once when I raised a fuss about them breaking the rules, Angela told me it wasn’t my house and just because I paid rent, it didn’t give me any right to say anything.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 42

When I first told my brother, Mike I was planning to move in with David, he said he wanted to talk to me. We arranged a time when we could sit down and talk without his wife, Danice or any of our children around. He told me he didn’t agree with what I was doing as he didn’t trust David and neither did Danice.

I told him my reasons for my decision. I told him about praying for help and how God answered that prayer and my initial reaction to the answer. In the end, he still didn’t agree with my decision and I hadn’t changed my mind, but that wasn’t the purpose of our talk. He simply wanted to know where I stood and I needed to let him tell me how he felt. In the end he told me that he would pray for me every day that I live here. I couldn’t have asked for better support.

Mother was very supportive of the idea at first, and even a little excited about it. She was full of ideas about what to do with the rooms Caleb and I had occupied. Mother was going to give Caleb’s room to Bill for his hobbies and take over my room as her sewing room. As the time drew closer for Caleb and I to move, she suddenly started coming to me with doubts about my moving. She told me that Darren, one of David’s twin boys, had once been accused of molesting someone’s child. For that reason she didn’t think I should move into David’s house. I told her in no uncertain terms that Darren wasn’t likely to be home when Caleb and I were. Even if he was, he certainly wasn’t going to be alone with Caleb. I didn’t trust him that far.

 I also heard that she questioned why I didn’t apply for Section 8 housing. Well, it’s not that easy to get and there is a waiting list, which can take two to three years to get to the top of. A friend of mine who has section 8 housing told me that getting approved and finding section 8 housing are two different things. It can be tough to find a place, which accepts section 8. Also, part of me didn’t want to be responsible for the maintenance of an entire apartment or house on a daily basis. I know there are people in my shoes who do it, but as long as I have a choice, I much prefer having a roommate like David.

Moving in with David meant making some major adjustments for all of us. I made it a point to spend weekends here before we moved in, in hopes of making the adjustment easier on Caleb. I’m not sure if it made it easier for Caleb, but I know it was easier for me. I think one of the hardest things about the move for Caleb was that his mommy started changing before his very eyes, almost immediately. He started saying, “Mommy? Are you my mom?”

The first time it happened, it about broke my heart. Every time he asked me, I tried to gently reassure him that no matter what happens; I will always be his mom. And that I will always love him. Eventually the question stopped.

Another thing that happened with Caleb is that shortly after we moved in; he started being afraid of monsters at night. I always thought when that happened, I would make “monster repellant” with some perfume I had for that purpose. Instead, I taught him to pray about it and soon nearly every night, he would pray about being scared and then he’d generally be fine. There were still times when he didn’t go to sleep right away, but it was usually because he wanted a glass of water or he needed to go potty, not because of monsters.

David told me that when I was moving in, God spoke to him and told him to treat me as he would a wife, short of having sexual intercourse. David asked God what he meant by that and God told him again to treat me as he would a wife. David finally realized that he was supposed to allow me full freedom to do as I wished in the house. From what I cook for meals to how the house is decorated. David also gave me full authority in the house, second only to his.

By the time I had finished moving into David’s house, I was so desperate to open up, I was willing to do something I hate, and only because I thought it might help. Get drunk. I’ve been drunk once in my life and I hated it. I hated being out of control and not remembering even half of what I did. Thankfully, I didn’t have to get drunk to open up. What started me opening up was very simple. David and I were sitting on the couch one night and he leaned over and kissed me. This time instead of being passive about it, I kissed him back and from that moment on, I had no real trouble opening up to him.

I don’t know why kissing him back made it easier to open up to him, but it did. Maybe I suddenly felt safe with him. I really don’t know. I just know that after that kiss, I had no trouble opening up to him in ways I couldn’t with anyone else.

I Was An Emotional Prostitute Part 41

Intimacy

What does it mean?

When we think of Intimacy, what do we think of?

I would bet most of us think of physical intimacy

Sexual intimacy

Being physically and sexually intimate with someone

I don’t see that as true intimacy

To me, true intimacy is emotional as well as physical

Intimacy is as one person put it:

“Into me see”

Real intimacy is allowing someone to see into you

Into your soul

Into the very heart of who you are

Without allowing someone to get that close to you,

There is no intimacy

Without true emotional intimacy;

The physical expression is nothing

Physical and sexual intimacy are fleeting

Emotional intimacy can last a lifetime and beyond

Emotional intimacy creates a bond between people

Which is stronger than any physical bonding

There was a time in my life when I could not separate emotional and physical intimacy

To me they were one and the same

Now I know differently

Now I understand the difference

and I am glad I know

Emotional intimacy satisfies in ways physical intimacy cannot

Emotional intimacy can refresh and strengthen

Physical intimacy alone takes strength and gives only physical pleasure

Emotional intimacy can lighten sadness and increase joy

To achieve true intimacy, you must be willing to be emotionally intimate

willing to be vulnerable to another person

When David and I started getting together again, things were easier this time. He and Jan had separated several months prior, so she wasn’t around to barge in all the time. As for his boys, young David had gone in the army and Darren worked two jobs and had a girlfriend, so he wasn’t home much.

Shortly after this happened, David and I were at his house, talking about my living situation at mother’s house. Mother’s house was always cluttered. The only time the clutter ever really got cleared away was if we were having the family or guests over for something major, such as a holiday get together. Then the clutter got picked up and hidden. The floors were never really clean. It was Bill’s responsibility to clean them and even when he did, he did such a poor job you couldn’t really tell someone had cleaned them. 

The yard was little more than an overgrown jungle, which desperately needed to be cleaned up. He knew I hated living at mother’s house, but I felt trapped, as I didn’t have money to move elsewhere. He told me that his son, Darren was almost never home and even when he was, he didn’t sleep in his room, instead he slept in the living room. David said he’d rent it to me for less than what I was paying at mother’s house. I told him to give me time to think about it and I’d let him know within a week. At the time, he was half joking and I thought I would just call him in a few days and politely decline.

Instead, when I got home less than three hours later, I took a good look at where I was living and called David to accept his offer. He was surprised, but agreed to the date I set for moving in. I actually got Caleb and I packed up and moved in a week early. Moving in with David would not have been possible had his ex-wife, Jan been living here.  We both realized later that because the door was open for me to move in, God decided to use it for my benefit.

If anyone had told me before I decided to move into David’s house that I was going to do so, I would have said they were crazy. I never in my wildest dreams or imaginings thought I would be living in his house. However, the funny thing is that I had dreamt several months before, that David and I made love in his bed. What makes this so funny to me is that it wasn’t “just a dream.” At different times during my life, I’ve seen little glimpses of my future, though I didn’t know at first just what it was that I was seeing. The dream I had about David and I being so intimate had that kind of “feel” to it as if it was something, which would happen in my future. When I woke up and realized what I’d seen in my sleep, my initial reaction was, “Why HIM!? Why not Sean Connery or Michael T. Weiss? Or Dorn? Why on God’s green earth did I have that kind of dream about David?!” I never thought it would really happen. After all, just because I see “glimpses of my future” doesn’t mean I can’t change things.

Come to think of it, I did have a dream about being intimate with Dorn. In my dream Dorn was spending the night with me and as I went to put clean sheets on the spare bed for him, he told me he wanted to sleep with me. In my dream, I said, “okay, you stay on your side and I’ll stay on mine.”

He said, “No, I want to sleep with you.”

I ran. I started running and didn’t stop until I was far away from the house.

When I woke up I wondered why in my dream I ran away from something I wanted so badly. I told David about my dream later and he said it showed that I had a fear of intimacy. He was right; the thought of intimacy scared me silly at that time in my life.