About Me
Tuesday, Jun. 17, 2003 11:59 pm
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I should warn you, this is a very long entry. Don't read it if you get bored easily.

Ok. So I'm 24, born March 28, 1980, and I live in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. My mom and dad were both 22 when I was born. My mother, Lena, immigrated here with her family when she was a little girl. They came from an island (San Miguel) in the Azores of Portugal. She contracted mennigitis (that may be spelled wrong) and went deaf when she was a baby. her family was so embarrassed about her disability that they sent her to a deaf boarding school where she lived until her high school graduation.

My dad, Patrick, was born with a disfiguring birthmark that covered his entire torso and one arm. Though the doctor's assured my Gran that it was non-cancerous, they removed it in a series of skin graphs for purely cosmetic reasons. In all, he endured 22 operations by the time he was in his junior year of high school. He never graduated.

When he was 19, he moved to a new neighborhood, where he met my mother. She lived across the street. They fell in love and were married soon after. Against her father's wishes.

A few years went by, in which they partied, drank, and did other unmentionable things that people at that time did, and one day my mom found out she was pregnant with me. I was a wanted child. according to my family, my father loved me very much.

Soon after I was born, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Everything went downhill after that. I won't depress you with all the details, suffice to say, it was a painful, bloody time for everyone.

Six months before he died my brother Pat was born.

Five years went by, and then my mother got married again, to my stepfather. Jonathan.

When I was 11 they divorced, and my mother now had four kids to support on her own instead of two. Xander and Benny are a product of that marrige.

When I was 12, my mother gotback together with Jonathan.

He didn't want us around, and as I was unhappy living with my mother anyways I asked if I could live with my Gran and Gramps. My mother quickly agreed. She couldn't wait for me to go.

But she had one condition. Pat had to leave too.

So I was sent to my Gran's and Pat to my Aunt T's.

At 13 I was thrust into a new home, and a new school.

That was fun.

The next few years flew by in the normally teenage angsty ways. My Grampa showed a side of himself I had never seen when I was there just for the weekends. He was drunk a lot of the time and would become verbally abusive at the slightest thing I did. Sometimes he would get violent.

I was miserable. I ballooned up. That didn't help things with Gramps. Suddenly he decided he was my personal guard, and would watch everything I put into my mouth. That just made me want to eat more. I've thought about it, and it averaged out that I gained twenty pounds a year in the four years I lived there.

I felt fat and unloved. I became obsessed with the fact that all my friends had someone and I didn't. My diary at the time was filled with me whining about not having a boyfriend.

Then I met DD. He had long, blonde hair. He was funny. He was popular. Guess what? Suddenly I was in LOVE...

But he didn't like me. We were "just friends". For two years I mooned over him. The summer I was 16, I met guy, through a friend. His name was Chris. He was 24.

Gasp! He liked me. He did. Really. Even though I was fat. He saw me for me.

(What he really liked was that I was 16 and a virgin. The perv)

We began dating.

I am so dumb.

So while I was dating the perv, DD suddenly became my best friend. He started calling me all the time, and we would talk for hours. About everything.

Its true that men (and boys) always want what they can't have.

So I broke up with the perv to be with him.

Everyone say Awwwww...

We had a rather rocky relationship. We broke up every other week. For two months, I kid you not, it was every other week. I was extremely jealous, and insecure, and would freak out everytime he would talk to his ex. It was this huge SAGA.

At the end of March, my birthday to be exact, I got preggers. I was in such denial that I didn't even realize I was late until I was over a month late. I told DD. Guess what happened?

Yup. Adios Joni girl!

I kept it a secret for as long as I could, but eventually it got out. My grandparents found out. My grampa blew up, called me a whore. My Gran was just really sad. And shocked. After all, this was the girl who couldn't even see people kiss on t.v.

Eventually my Grampa and I got in a huge fight... He tried to hit me, and then I was outta there. Out at 17.

I tried to stay with my mom, but her friend (remember Sandy?) refused to let me live there. So my mom packed me off to a teenaged mother shelter. I lived there for a year and two months, before I moved onto my own. In that time I graduated high school (3.8 GPA) while taking care of my new infant.

Hannah (you know here as the witchling) was born December 27.

I had a rough couple of years, did things I am not proud of, dated a passel of LOSERS (One whose passtimes included infidelity and beating the crap out of me), and had myself a lovely nervous breakdown.

I have always been drawn to the "occult". I read lots of books on witchcraft and wicca, started when I was 15, (ok I can admit in the beginning it was to annoy my Gran) and it really clicked.

When I was 20 I moved into an apartment in Pawtucket, RI. It was awful. Imagine: small toddler, single mother on welfare, single pane (cracked as well!) windows, no screens, holes in the ceiling that streamed water when it rained, a broken stove, and NO HEAT in the winter! Hani and I would huddle in front of a little (it was a circle, about a foot wide) electric space heater that I would carry from room to room.

I felt trapped. I had no money to move, I was on welfare, which gave me $453 a month and my rent was $400 a month. I was going nutters. I refused to leave my house, I would hide when people knocked on the door. I did nothing but sit and eat and read all day.

The one good thing about the place was Mich. She was a witch. She lived next door. She befriended me, took me out, had me over for dinner, and eventually, when I asked, began talking to me about Wicca.

I was dedicated in October of 2000.

On Imbolc, 2001, I did my very first solo ritual. I had read up on it and knew it was good time to ask for help and a fresh start. So that is what I did.

A month later, my aunt T. took me under her wing, she took me to all my appointments, got me signed up for college, and moved into a house with my cousin Jen.

I began school in Sept 2001. That when I first met James. I wrote all about it here.

James was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but raised in England. He is the most wonderful person I have ever met, and I love him more and more each day. We have been married since Sept. 22, 2002, and are very happy.

I have always wanted to be a stay at home mom, so even though he has to work harder, he lets me home-make, well TRY to homemake anyway.

I disappoint him a lot, because of my penchant for diaryland, my absent-mindedness, and general laziness... But I do try to do the best that I can...

I take care of our new baby, Patrick, born on June 30th, 2004 (6 lbs. 4 oz.) and I homeschool our little witchling, who is in the second grade and will be seven in December.

Artwork © Jessica Galbreth