Webster’s Dictionary 1947.
Justice; jus’tis n. (L. justitia, from justus, just.) The quality of being just; justness; propriety; correctness; rightfulness; just treatment; vindication of right; requital of desert; merited reward or punishment.

This picture was taken right before everything went from bad to horrific.

If I could tell myself anything in this picture, it would be to run far from my family and never look back. I would tell that sweet 16 year old girl who worked two jobs that summer to run fast and to not look back ever again. To find a new family or some form of family that was safe and who loved her for exactly who she was.

I would tell that sweet 16 year old girl who worked two jobs that summer to save herself 25 more years of grief, scapegoating, gossip and pain from the three adult women in her life who would be the greatest cause of heartache, anger, disillusionment and fear and who caused her the greatest damage.

I would tell that sweet kid that her aunts and her mother would be part of the cause of her mental breakdown in her late 30’s and the cause of the greatest sadness of her life. And I would tell that young girl that her mother only got worse and more dangerous over the years and that she destroyed many more lives and dreams and as many as she could because she enjoyed destroying people and their happiness because she was criminally insane.

There aren’t a lot of pictures of me from when I was a teenager. This picture was taken by a friend from high school who kept it somewhere for the last 26 years. Any pictures I have of me as a child or teenager were given to me my friends or people who kept them over the years.

There aren’t a lot of pictures of us when we were little kids either. My mom was mentally ill and frequently in and out of prison and mental hospitals, so we moved every 3-6 months usually leaving everything behind in a hurry because my mom was wanted by the police so we just split and left everything behind. I have nothing from my childhood and nothing from my teenage years except a Greyhound bus ticket stub from when was 18 and came to Los Angeles.

Mom never took a lot of pictures of us anyway, she was usually in bed in a dark room with 20 bottles of pills next to her bed, so I have no real photos from the past, only bits and pieces of what people have given me over the years or what they shared with me and my sisters on Facebook.

Before this picture was taken, my sisters and I had been homeless living with our mother in various cities and motels ranging from Australia to Los Angeles to Upstate New York and South Carolina. We had been homeless at 13 and 15 when my mother had checked herself into a mental hospital in New York and left us to fend for ourselves a year earlier. Our two older 17 and 19 year old sisters tried to care for us.

I would tell myself to look for happiness elsewhere because no matter how many times I would go back, it would always be the same. They would always accuse me of being my mother and resent me for looking like her and for existing.

At this point in this picture in 1990, I was 16 and working two jobs. We had already lived in three houses in a year on Hilton Head in this picture, and the worst was yet to come. But this summer was fun, when I was off.

My little sister was 14 and after the police started raiding our house shortly after this picture was taken, she moved up north with our older sister and got away from mom. I was the only one delusional enough to believe that Mom was really going to turn things around in England and start a new life.

My Aunt Maggie had already accused me of stealing from her house at this point but I didn’t know it at the time. She didn’t have the courage to ask me or even accuse me outright that something was missing from her house in California when we visited her a year earlier, she did it a cowardly way, they way dysfunctional families operate. With gossip and insinuations and scapegoating behind your back but super friendly to your face.

She had told everyone in the family, except me, that I had stolen a ring from her house but never confronted me or even told me that something was missing. I had no idea. I just remember always wishing she was my mom and that I wished I had a safe bedroom and home to go to like her house.

I didn’t know they had already marked me as bad and that for the next 26 years, the family would dump all of their anger and hatred they had for my mother on my 16 year old shoulders from then on in this picture, and that it had already started and I hadn’t even realized it.

A year later after this picture was taken, when mom went to prison in London and I was starving and homeless in London in 15 degree weather and I called my aunts for help.

They turned me away, asked me where the ring I had stolen from Aunt Maggie was and then left me to fend for myself and deal with their psychotic sister on my own, when they should’ve taken care of this problem 20 years earlier when they had known what a dangerous person she was and how badly her children were being abused. Alone, penniless, homeless, underage and in a foreign country for the next three months. If I could tell myself anything in this picture, it would be to run far from my family and never look back because it would never change.

My Aunt Maggie accused me of stealing from her house again when I was 35 and that’s when I started to realize that my family was dangerous for my health and bad for me spiritually and as a human being. The best thing I’ve ever done is to take necessary legal steps to keep dangerous people with documented histories of mental illness by metal health professionals to keep safe distances from me and my happiness and home.

Over the years running my own business, I’ve created a life for myself working with animals and nature, writing and creating and my life is rewarding and nurturing.

I learned how to put myself first after years of making mistakes. and even though it’s a job where you never get a day off, ever, it’s a job I love doing and it’s incredibly healing.

Being outdoors and nature and trying to disengage from electronics has really helped me overcome having difficulties in life, and I think the more mistakes I make, the more compassion I try to have for others. I think after years of trauma, finding a profession or a job were you have a a steady income is essential for survival and finding areas of my life to enjoy and fun hobbies are necessary for being part of being a human and creating a happy life.

I think I would tell my 16 year old self in this picture that it was going to work out because she was an incredibly resourceful girl who was a hard worker and to pay the food expo guys more to run the food because the hands and wrists give out way too early from waitressing so long. I’d tell myself that I was really proud of her and how hard she came and for how long the road was.

Whenever I’m trying to work on my  most whole and relaxed and confident self, I just remember the warm feelings of love when I’m surrounded by my animals and true friends who support and nurture my spirit.

Learning these things along the way shows you what a bad relationship is; when you’re happier away from them because it’s so painful to be around them.

The put-downs and insults and dysfunction; after awhile it’s not worth the price of your happiness anymore.

Whether it’s with a guy or family members;  I had to learn how to walk away if it doesn’t change. From now now I’m not wasting any more years being mean to myself.