Breaking Down, a Journal of Broken Love

My name is Kate. I am a 39-year-old mother of three and step-mother of three amazing kids. I married my best friend Michael, back in 2009. The kids were so young then. We never had any children together, but we raised our blended family to love and treat each other as if they were blood related. Our lives were never easy. Things have always been tight financially. That tends to happen when you have three kids in diapers and only one of the six old enough to go to kindergarten. We knew we were crazy back then. That didn't stop us. Michael and I had been best friends for many years. We met right out of high school at a local fast-food joint where we worked. He was there for me when Andrea's biological father told me he wanted nothing to do with us. He was there in the hospital the day she was born. I went to his wedding reception, and saw him blow his life up when he cheated on his wife and got a co-worker pregnant. He wound up leaving his wife for the co-worker and had his three children with her. I wound up marrying a man, Paul, I thought was the one. Long story short, he was not. He did give me my youngest two and my parent's first grandson. Both my marriage to Paul, and Michael's relationship with Elizabeth, his children's mother, fell apart at the same time. While I may be naive, I am not innocent. Michael knew I was struggling to pay the rent. He offered me a temp spot with the construction crew he ran with. They had a week-long job in Alabama and needed bodies. The pay was excellent, the hotel and food were paid for by the employer, it was a no-brainer. I tagged along and made a big enough paycheck to cover my rent and then some. This opportunity became pretty frequent. On one of the trips, we had an emergency construction job coming back home at the tail end of the southern job. With such little notice, it was difficult to find hotel rooms. Michael offered to share a room with me. I appreciated it as I didn't trust the other men on the trip and there were no other girls to bunk with. Perhaps I should have insisted on my own room. I didn't. He wound up confessing that he thought he loved me, and had for a long time. We held off for a while, fighting the desires we knew were wrong. I'd had a crush on him since I met him, but I didn't want to be that girl. The timing was never right. I settled for just being really good friends. One night, a few weeks later, after alcohol and a fight with our respective SOs, we made a bad decision and had a one-night stand. We confessed a few days later, but the damage was done. Those relationships died and ours began. We thought we knew each other so well. We thought that we would be able to make it through anything. We'd already done the stupidest things we could, right? In spite of the poor start of our relationship, we were determined to do things right by our kids. One of those things was deciding we would raise all six of them. The other parents were not interested in being the primary caregivers, much to both our surprise. They did not contribute child support for many years, had sporadic visitations with the kids, and were generally unreliable. With the kids being so young, it was decided that Michael's job would be a priority and I could pick up odd jobs or flexible ones, as childcare was completely unaffordable. We did not talk badly about their other parents. The kids were encouraged to love and talk about their other parents without having to worry about our reactions being negative. Like I mentioned before, finances were always a struggle. Sometimes we ate an impressive amount of spaghetti, ramen, or mac-n-cheese, but we never went hungry. I made sure of that. There were gifts for every birthday and Christmas. Easter baskets are created from dollar store options and candies given every Valentine's. They always had clean clothes, warm beds, and two parents who loved them. This has been my entire adult life. My oldest daughter was born when I was 20 years old. I've always been a mom. The kids always come first. This is the only adulthood I've ever known. Andrea is my oldest biological child. She is 19 now. Christopher is his youngest at 13 years old. They are turning into amazing young adults and I can't be more proud of all of them. After Andrea, we have his oldest daughter, Anna, who is 17. Next is my middle child, my daughter Lynn, also 17, followed by my youngest, my son Gene, who is 15. His second daughter Briana is barely a month younger than Gene. Now they are all teenagers, I had hoped I could loosen the parenting reigns and begin to do things that I enjoy. I have been a volunteer firefighter since 2012. Something I stumbled onto almost by accident, but now I can't imagine not being a part of my fire family. I'm too old to try for any type of career with a full-time fire or police department. My passion has always been in first response or public service. I have been given the opportunity to be paid to become an Emergency Medical Technician for our local paid ambulance department, and I'm ready to have a job that I can enjoy. I'm beyond excited about starting this new journey! Michael wasn't too thrilled about it. He reluctantly agreed with me going to class and getting my license. The idea that I could work two or three days a week on a 24-hour shift seemed an improvement from the unpredictable construction schedule we were both on. I have been working with him for a concrete company for the last six years. It's pushed me to my physical limits and I have had to have physical therapy a few times. I had to have surgery for a tendon issue in February 2020. I can't keep doing this line of work. I'll break. I need this change physically and mentally. This was the beginning of the end. If only I knew how things would blow up as our story unfolded, I may not have been brave enough to take that first step. I honestly thought we would grow old together. See our grandchildren and finally be able to live a simpler, healthier, peaceful life. After 39 years, apparently, I am still incredibly naive or incredibly stupid, or both. The choices I have made, I cannot unmake. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned from my poor judgment. Perhaps I am just the villain in my own tale. My journals are emotional, raw, and brutally honest about things I was raised to not talk about, let alone do. I used to play by rules, now it seems I have broken so many. . .