Chris: Karma Part 1

I have a lot of issues. But that isn't news to anyone, everybody  has issues. I'm just so self involved I figured you might want to hear mine.

The biggest issue I currently find myself staring at... Karma. I have spend a lot of time with my head lodged up my back side, and now that I have managed to wedge myself free for a better look around, the sights are not pretty. I haven't been doing what's right for me, let alone what's right for my loved ones. I am trying to change, but it's not easy, I have been set in my ignorant ways for so long.  

I have been the thief, the pass time friend, the cheat, the liar, and so many other stupid self indulgent things I can't count or honestly recall most of them. I have also been charitable, a decent husband and father, and a good friend to some. So I am not all bad, just misguided as hell, and in serious need of focus.

A short list of other issues ....

1. I hold in anger WAY TOO LONG
2. I am the king of procrastination
3. Can't clean to save my life
4. Walked out on High School....(G.E.D. or not, I regret that bad decision to this day)
5. I have issues that force me to stay away from alcohol
6. I don't have as close a relationship with my sisters as I would like
7. I wasn't there when my mother passed (That one eats at me)

I am sure there are a lot more.

I will blog about them as they come to mind. Enough for tonight.

Not just anyone..

She wasn't just my friend.. She was my sister. I met her when I was seven years old and from that moment on we clicked. Now I must say, at first there were plenty of things we didn't like about each other.. But like sisters.. We dealt with it and over looked it because we realized we couldn't live without each other. And I'm surprised I even came this far without my best friend. We had been through SO much together. More than I have been through with anyone. There wasn't a thing I never told her because I trusted her.. With my life and with my heart. She was the one who would hold me when I was crying and rub my tummy until I fell asleep when I didn't feel good. She would bake things with me and we used to always do little cheerleading routines together and pretend we had super powers when we were little. I don't know what we were thinking.. But I know it made our relationship stronger and that's all that matters. Whatever we went through, we went through together. No matter what the situation was or how bad it was. When our families got in fights. Or when people would hurt our feelings. We always stood up for each other through thick and thin. I just.. Never thought we would be seperated. I never thought we would be miles and miles apart and have only the technology we were provided with to talk to each other. I never thought the endless days and nights of sleepovers would end.. But they did. And there is nothing I can do about it. But hopefully one day.. I'll make up enough money to visit her and spend a couple more days with her. I never got the chance the say bye.. I needed that chance... I really did..

                                                                                                                   SERENITY  

The River Street Fridge

This yellow box was the bane of my existence. This ancient fridge was the piece of crap we had in our first Haverhill apartment. A year into our stay there, the motor on that fridge started to go. It would constantly stop working, requiring you to open the freezer, and give it a solid kick start. It took months for the landlord to finally break down and offer to replace it.

When the new fridge finally came, the men moved the old piece of crap into our tiny living room, and installed the new one in it's place. They started to walk out the door, and I yelled after them,"the landlord said you'd take this thing with you." The delivery guy looked it up and down and told me that the fridge wouldn't fit down the stairs. Apparently the wall at the top of the stairs was built after the fridge was brought up, and now it made it impossible to remove it. When I talked to the landlord he recommended that I disassemble and remove that piece of crap myself.

Nothing I did was any good...I managed to get the doors removed, but I just didn't have the tools to dismantle the rest. So out of frustration I invited 8 people over and we all took turns in groups trying to maneuver the behemoth fridge down the back staircase. After several hours of turning it every which way we left it wedged in the back hallway, and it remained there till the day we moved out.

GOOD RIDDANCE TO THAT ANCIENT BROKEN FOOD LOCKER.

Tin Boxes

    

We shuffled between many tin boxes, never really rising above the poverty line. We were poor and barely content. Nothing came easy, and it was a bit of a fight to find a way to do anything outside of the small lots we lived on.

A lot of these places were real hell holes. Broken windows, floors falling through, roaches and mice. But it was home...I guess.



It was difficult to heat these places in the winter, and in the summer it was live living in and oven. One season the air-conditioning bill reached $298. And that was just to keep the trailer just barely cool.

Of course there were good things about these little metal boxes. The rent was cheap, the neighbors, for the most part, we friendly, and there were many children for the kids to play with. Some of these friends they still have contact with even a thousand miles away. I guess you need to take the good with the bad.

A love that lost hope

I saw you from across the lunchroom and you smiled, and that's how it all started. As your hand left the table and waved me towards you I grabbed my bag. You asked me my name and I stumbled over my words. It was my own name.. How do you mess that up? I sat there, shy and playing with the sleeves of my sweater. I tried so hard not to stare at you, but I caught myself gazing in awe. I just listened to you talk about last nights football game and how Tom Brady was bad at what he did. And even though I didn't understand it at first, I was so intrigued because your eyes were so bright and you looked so happy. The bell rung and I felt my heart sink, knowing I wouldn't see you again until tomorrow. I walked confidently out the lunchroom doors behind you and saw that we had classes so close to each other, and I don't know why, but that little thing just made me so happy.

I walked into the basement of the house that we were living in. Not our house, but a ladies house that we were living in momentarily. My hair sat on top of my head, messy and in a bun and I was wearing a hoodie as the light from my computer screen shined bright. A notification popped up with your name in big letters and it said you had friended me. My smile ran big across my face and I accepted and sent you the word,"hey," nervously. Relief passed over me as I saw you typing back. You asked if I was going to the football game Friday. And I said yeah. But you weren't. You said you wanted to text me while I was there so we could make plans. And eventually.. We did make plans for the next week. 

You came over that next week.. And we made burgers. You had to help me because I was too nervous to cook them and got meat in my hair. I couldn't stop laughing. And my stomach hurt so much from it. But I loved it. I loved that I was laughing for once. And you found that purple sailboat stamp.. And you marked my face with it.. And I marked you back. And it wouldn't come off for two days. But we didn't care. It was the symbol for the love we had for each other.. Or that we would have for each other. And that's all that mattered. And as the day went on we went to take a walk. And as we walked we came to a granite bench over looking the lake down the road. And we sat there and talked about our past. All the hardships we went through. And I cried and you just held me. And you said a princess should never cry. And I was smiling again. Just like that. I laid my head on your shoulder. And after five minutes of silence as we looked out at the sun setting.. You took my hand in yours. And we both kinda giggled. And from that moment on.. I knew it was gonna be something special. I remember getting lost in the dark, getting my first kiss from you on Friday the 13th, how stupid we were around each other, and how crazy we were about each other, how I accidentally said I love you to you before we were ready and you told me it was okay because you could feel love somewhere in the relationship we had. Three and a half months had passed and our relationship had grown so strong. And one day as I'm walking out of your house to my dads car, my dad says we have to leave. He says we are being kicked out and have to leave to Massachusetts, but that I was able to spend my last week with you. And I felt my heart just collapse. I felt dizzy and just completely sick to my stomach. I looked back at your house, tears filling my eyes, and I whispered," but I don't want to go. I love him." And no matter how many times I said that I knew it wouldn't change anything. I was the daughter. I don't make those decisions. 

So you and I talked it out. We pinky promised that we would be forever and always. We said we would make it long distance. And I believed it. I did. I really wanted it to work because you were the first person I had truly ever loved. And it hurt to think about letting you go at all. So I was dragged from your house, kicking and screaming, to haverhill. I cried myself to sleep at night. There were times when I couldn't even sleep at all. We would call each other every night and you would play the card I gave you for our second month together. And it made me cry but It got me to sleep. And I know you loved listening to it. We made that decision to hold on. And then.. We started getting into fights.. And we started crying too much.. And you stopped trusting me.. And you would yell and curse..And I felt our relationship completely slipping.. And after a month.. I called you up.. And I talked to you about it.. And you begged me to hold on... But I couldn't because I was literally dying inside. I heard you cry the words," so this is it?" And I sighed. I couldn't believe I said these words. I couldn't believe it ended like this, but I said, " Yes babe.. We're done. This.. This is it." And you hung up.. Just like that.. You hung up. And I felt terrible.. Because you were my first real love.. And that love lost hope...
                                                                                                        SERENITY

The Family

 All of the posts in this blog will be written by the four members of our family which include

MYSELF

 My youngest daughter 

IMOGENE

 My oldest Daughter 

SERENITY

And my beautiful wife 

CANDACE

Sunset

I rarely get to catch a sunset.

I usually find myself unaware of them all together. 

But there are ones you can't escape.

They set fire to the landscape.

Turn clouds into painted mountains.

They simply steal your breath.

                    The sunsets and cloud formations in Georgia always caught me off guard. This was one of the rare chances that I had my camera on me to capture it. It wasn't one of the more beautiful ones, but it was remarkable none the less. 

CHRISTOPHER

                     

The 3 G's

The Giordano's Restaurant.

We loved that place. It has long since fallen off the map and been replaced by an establishment I don't recognize, but years ago, it was a place were we all gathered at one point or another.

We sang karaoke, danced to local bands, shared first drinks, sat for evening coffee, and even mourned lost friends.

They had weekly auctions which I frequented with my family. One of the few times you could gather my sisters, father, mother, and even my good friend Jon under the same roof for a meal outside of the conventional means. We would all bid on the most mundane of trinkets, and most of the time we were out bid. There always seem to be a large distance between what we could afford, and what any given object that caught our eyes eventually got sold for.

I missed the closing...
that saddens me quite a bit.
There were a lot of good times spent there...
all of which are now not much more than ghosts on VHS for me.

CHRISTOPHER

The Dodge

We spent a lot of time in the Dodge. Perhaps too much time. It was a bed and shelter during the winter of 99'. My wife, (At the time six months pregnant) and I spent that winter essentially homeless. When what little we had did not afford us a stay in one random hotel or another, we would sleep at what ever highway rest-stop we happen to be near at the time. I in the front seat, and my wife, stretched out under the majority of our blankets, across the backseat.

The Dodge provided us with our first trip down the coast. A road trip to pick up my good friend Jon from the Marine Corp. boot camp on Parris Island. It was one of the only times I can remember taking a vacation with my family.

It drove us to the beach where I proposed.

It drove us to the hospital when our first child was on the way.

And it drove us home after our wedding.

I loved that car.

CHRISTOPHER

Seagulls and Sea Shells

The first chance I got to take a few moments away from the never ending bills, job searches, and cleaning...I took the kids to see Hampton beach in the winter. The snow covered sand, and frigid sea breeze were worth the numb fingers. We fed dive bombing gulls, and pigeons a selection of breads from Fantini's Bakery. The gull pictured above was the first one on the scene, and managed to get away with two full mini bagels in his mouth before the entirety of his flock descended.

After we finished feeding the birds nearly 6 bags of various types of bread, the girls hunted down a small bag of sea shells, and sea salt smoothed rocks. It was fun...that was until we got a whiff of the bag in the morning. I had nearly forgotten the smell that emanates from a tightly sealed bag of shells. It was nauseating. So of course I had to share that odor with the girls. The look in their faces when the took in the aroma was priceless.

CHRISTOPHER

And I think what hurts the most is getting comfortable in a certain place, and then being ripped from it over and over again. I spent almost twelve years in Athens, Georgia. I grew up there, made friends there, and I had my whole childhood built around the one little place. I made a friend who I now call my sister even if we do live hundreds of miles apart. And then one day, I get the news that my whole family is moving. I could feel my whole world crashing down and crumbling before me. I had never felt so much pain all at once. As friends told me to stay, as my boyfriend told me he loved me and didn't want me leaving him, and as I made some harsh decisions. I had to make the time I had there worth my while and do as many things as could before I traveled my way up to New Hampshire. I went to parties and I spent the nights at friend's houses. I had my birthday party and invited people over to spend as much time as they could with me. I knew I was going to miss everyone and I didn't want my last moments with everyone to be dull. I sat at my computer, blankly staring at my Facebook page. I clicked on the events section and typed in, "Going Away". I told everyone I cared about and figured would come and see me that they needed to meet me at IHop to say their farewells.

There were countless nights of crying my self to sleep or even not being able to sleep because I was over thinking things. I never thought something like that would have happened and I wish sometimes that I would wake up and it would all just be a dream. When it came to the point that we were packing our car and heading to IHop, I realized that no matter how much I wanted to hope, this was real. We sat there for almost an hour and we hugged and exchanged gifts and talked. Finally we said our goodbyes and I stepped in the car, packed to the ceiling with boxes and buckets. We pulled out of the parking lot and I just stared out the window, eyes wide and vision blurry from the tears I had been holding back. Little did I know that what was waiting for me in New Hampshire and Massachusetts would have changed my life and made me the strong lady I am now.

SERENITY

Joyce E. Murray

 These are these are some of just a handful of pictures I was able to find of my mother. She was a beautiful and kind woman, missed dearly by me and my two sisters. But she didn't just touch the lives of her children, but she also touched the lives of quite a few of my friends.

I am putting up these pictures as a memorial of sorts. And would love to have anyone who remembers her fondly leave a statement below.

A quick run down...Pt.1

In June I will mark fifteen years married to my beautiful wife Candace. Not a single moment of the time we have spent together was easy, but I wouldn't change the path we have walked through life together. I have enjoyed the extreme ups, and unfortunate downs.

My daughters have made life very interesting. I literally need to keep a constant vigilance. Never have I dealt with two kids so insistent with keeping me on my toes. 

Imogene is my little mischief maker. Outgoing, funny, and full of "full steam ahead" life.

Serenity is my artist. She takes after her mother in that respect.