My past of "Have to..."
I would like to take you back to the beginning of me~Deena Marie. The year is 1959. I was born at the end of the decade where women always had matching shoes, hats and purses. Being the youngest of three girls and my dad's last change for a namesake, I suppose I felt that I was a disappointment in more ways than one. My sisters were five and six years older and that made me like an only child too.
When I was six we moved to far Northern California from Central Oregon. It was 1966 and a rough time to move two pre-teen girls from where they had lived and loved their entire lives. I fell through the cracks again. No one really notice that I couldn't read, I was a well behaved child, I didn't make friends very easy, but I was kind and creative. I lived in my own imagination.
Meanwhile, my sisters were into High School soon and I had my last teacher who took a notice of me in 2nd grade. (She still keeps in touch) A friend of my mom's ask if she could tutor me in reading between 4th and 5th grade. I rode my bike to her house and she taught me to read that summer. My imaginary world expanded greatly. While I was daydreaming and drawing pictures my sisters went through the revolution of the late 1960's.
By 1972 I was truly an only child. My mom taught at the Junior College. In time I attended the Jr. College and got married, because I didn't have a clue there was anything else to do with myself at the fresh age of 19. We moved into my husband's grandparent garage, in Los Angeles County.
September 2nd, 1978 was the day I had to start taking care of myself. Within two weeks I had a full time job. My husband was more of a daydreamer than me.(Some might say he was a schemer rather than dreamer.) As I worked full time we moved into housing in Orange County with some other Gun Smithing graduates from Lassen College. I call that: my period of running a boarding house for wayward gunsmiths.
Our landlord was selling the house, my husband said that I would be moving back to Northern California. I thought that meant he would follow, soon. My family got involved and I found myself going to college again and he was given a job as a night watchman at a local lumber mill. Soon he was off again and I moved back to my home town and had an insurance job. 1983 and I was living in a little bungalow with only wood heat at an elevation of 4,000. It was the best winter of my life. I was able to walk in the snow to work and anywhere I wanted. I stoked the fireplace and felt independence for the first time in my life.
My husband showed up in May of 1984 to inform me he had signed us to manage a motel. Me as manager and he as the maintenance man. He had had very little to do with me for so long, but he was my husband. I quit my job in July and began a life as a prisoner, stuck in the office/apartment of a motel with occasional hourly breaks. I had no idea that this was all against the law and my husband was the one who did most of the arrangements with the owners. By May 1985 when my "best-friend" had a baby that looked just like my husband's baby pictures....we had a big problem. Her husband came and told me that the baby was not his...and we all got divorced.
Four kids in Five Years
On October 17, 1987 a new chapter started in my life. Again the wood stove, but by 1991 it included keeping little hands from touching it. Again this was the only source of heat. For the next 28 years although we weren't at 4,000 feet elevation, but closer to 500 feet elevation; winters were cold and very damp. I also didn't have a clothes dryer, they dried near the fire on Amish Close Dryers.
After raising our four children to be respectful, contributors to their society...with their mother's hard work ethic...we divorced.
New Chapter
In August of 2015 my son and I moved into a 2nd floor walk up that had a fireplace. I chose not to use the fireplace. There is gas heat and it only cost about $20 a month in the winter. Wood was $150 a cord that would not last 4 weeks at the old place. No thank you. I will not have wood heat in a walk up.
Then an amazing opportunity opened in the past two years for me to house sit for friends while they travel. I don't have pets currently and my son has moved into his own place. I can pack up for three weeks or a month if needed and leave THE NEST.
I do this, because I want to: help my friends, get pet therapy, enjoy a bit of space, and nature. I can build a fire in the wood stove and dry my clothes, because I want to...not because there is no other choice.
I get to enjoy the nature and fresh duck eggs.
There are the sweetest cats and dogs.
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| Reba |
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| The most Talented Mel |
This also allows me to visit my girls.
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| Splash Dancing Emelia |
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| The many faces of Ellie Anne |
My Want to:
These are the "Want tos" of my life. As my children would tell me decades ago, "Mommie, I don't want to..." and I would say, "You better find a Want To Right now and do it!" That work ethic is what helped them to be the amazing people they are now. Four kinder, helping people I don't know in one family. In retrospect, I sacrificed a lot to stay with them and keep us together all those years. In reality, I did not see any other choice. I was blessed, I am blessed and I will continue to be blesses.
