I'm not really here

But then again, am I?
That is the question I think I have lived with all my life. Am I really here? Is this real?
You may think it's strange, but for me... not so much.

I often find myself sitting somewhere suddenly overcome by the weirdest sensation of unreality, and I'm not just talking about when I fall flat on my face in public.

Long ago bad things happened to me. I was just a kid, and these things ultimately shaped my perceptions about myself. It was much easier for me to believe that life wasn't real. These feelings followed me my whole life, and at times I would be smacked full in the face with my very existence.

Weird huh?! Well, right now I am feeling a sense of unreality due to cold medicine..... :))
But a couple of nights ago I was at dinner with my family when I got that strange sensation that I was floating up away from the table and looking down at myself. A near death experience?? Who knows- that bratwurst was a little off..... All I know is I have to practically pinch myself to make me believe it's all real.

I wonder what it's like to have a normal life. Sometimes I wish I knew, and other times I wouldn't trade my life for anyones. I guess we all feel that way sometimes.

At times I am brought to think of my childhood as a trip through Alice's looking glass. A topsy-turvy, crazy ride. However, where in Alice's world, nothing would ever really harm her, here in my world nothing was quite as it seemed, and peril lay just around the corner, never to be correctly anticipated or foreseen.

What triggered my latest adventure into Unreality Land was a trip to my father's house.
He recently moved back into the house I grew up in in Orange County. I lived there until I was 16, then I moved out to care for a quadraplegic woman- just to get out of that house. I never went back full time after that.
That house is chock full o' memories, mostly of the not so good kind....

I don't want everyone thinking we lived in a pedophile neighborhood, but pretty much that's what it was all about for me growing up.
People weren't open about things like they are now, and abuse (of any kind) that happened behind closed doors, stayed behind closed doors.
I kind of think our street coined the phrase "dysfunctional". The whole block was that way, I am not kidding. It was too weird. I lived on a culdesac and out of the 16 houses on it, I only remember two that were not nutty.

When my stepmother insisted I go next door to see the neighbor lady I have known since childhood, heaven help me, all I could think of was her horrible husband and how hurtful he was to his children and I. I used to have dreams that he was a terrific great hairy black spider sitting on a web in his living room just waiting for unsuspecting kids to drop in. He was truly a dreadful person. So, I got lucky and saw the lady in her front yard, sparing me the trip into the spider's lair. But I was wiping off her perfume smell all the way home. See, she just turned her back on everything that was happening around her while we were growing up. And she had the nerve to tell my husband that she always made a point to invite "little Rachelle" to all her kid's birthday parties.... yea, I have tried to block all those happy memories for years, thanks for reminding me.

So here's where I share a little about my life growing up. My life has been very interesting. Ha!! I laugh at that understatement!! Woo-hoo!

I am really a miracle in the flesh. I was actually the victim of three, yup, three botched abduction attempts. All three times were by a man in a car who tried to get me to get in with him. The last time, the man actually followed me almost all the way home, me yelling at the top of my lungs at him the whole time. That was the first time I ever said a swear word. I told him I'd get in the car when Hell froze over. I was coming home from yet another trip to the pharmacy for my mother's headache medicine.

It scared me half to death. I remember the police coming out for this one, and asking me how my Basset Hound, Tixie was. Everyone knew everyone in the small town I grew up in, and back then, when your dog ran away you could call the police to help you look for it.

Nothing ever happened about that incident that I am aware, and I remember my mother not taking the whole thing very seriously, or at least I didn't think she did. I really have no idea if it was the same man every time.

I was terrified to go to the store after that. And that was a problem because I needed to go there about 5 times a week. Whenever my mom got a headache, I would try to spend as much time outside in my playhouse (mom hated spiders so I was safe out there for the most part) or hiding in my closet as I could, just so I wouldn't have to go to the pharmacy again. Come to think of it, I was in my room most of my childhood! LoL, mom couldn't handle kids too well.

I will share more as time goes on, perhaps some of it is too intense for most of you, but really, I am the person I am now because I survived so much as a child and young adult. I am truly blessed to have a family, children I was told I would never be able to have- I love them so much. A husband who loves me for who I am, and does not hurt me.

A loving relationship with my Father in Heaven. And friends I count dear.

Music in my life, and my precious alpacas.

Life is indeed good!

Slainte~
Rachelle