Templeton The Rat

My version of being The Scapegoat in my family is so very different from everyone else's story.  SO. VERY.

While I was a child, I guess, the typical scapegoat crap happened, but I wasn't ever called on to FIX anything.  Nobody ever said "if you LOVE me, you would..."  I was consistently in BIG TROUBLE for not doing chores, or failing a test, or anything really - but I wasn't ever told to take care of anyone (including myself).  I lived on the edges - Like Templeton the rat in Charlotte's Web.  Always shadow boxing, afraid of what was to come, happy to be mostly forgotten.

I was the asshole that made dad mad, who ruined vacations and dinners by making him upset.  If I would JUST STAY DOWN everything would be fine.  For some reason I kept raising my head.

Once I left the house for good, I was just sort of off their radar.  They owned a 4-plex and all of us girls rented (paid full fucking rent to them) an apartment for a while at different times, so it was as if I was home - right next door anyway.  Enough so that they didn't have too WONDER or anything.  If my lights were on I was home.  Still being the dancing monkey after I moved away in my 20's, I would come home for Xmas or Thanksgiving and dread it and hate it and be glad to leave but I would DO it (whyohwhyohwhy).  But once I really moved on, it isn't like they called and called...

When I called my dad about the IRS debacle he had to get my address from me and find it in a Thomas Guide map book.  They had no idea where I lived, if I struggled, if I ate, whatever.  I was just - gone.

Nobody sent flying monkeys.  The sisters tried to keep in touch but I (as I have said) tossed the baby out with the bathwater essentially, and I abandoned everyone to save myself.

I hear you guys talking about all of this abuse you suffered after you were adults, and I think sometimes I don't belong here (I KNOW SHUT UP let me get it out).  I'm SO LUCKY. 

Can being abandoned and feeling lucky be combined in one life? 

Gratitude for being abandoned.

There's something the assholes don't expect.