Stolen

Before I begin today's entry, I have a request of my very loyal readers. I only have four more entries left after this one. I was planning on ending my blog after the last entry; mainly because the last entry will be my most personal and heart-breaking entry and I anticipate slipping into a deep depression after writing it. However, there are those of you who read my blog, who have encouraged me to continue writing. I have no idea what to write about if I choose to continue, and so, I encourage you to vote on my next stream of thought. I believe that my blog is set up so that you can reply anonymously if - for whatever reason - you don't want anyone to know that you read this dribble. So, here are the choices:

1. Details about some of the entries I've already posted
2. Poetry (I have hundreds of poems, some are good - some are not so good)
3. Short Stories (I have at least 50)
4. Novels (I've written 3 none of which are published and I never shopped them around)
5. Or I could just write about my every day happenings and other stories from my past which aren't so depressing (my life is filled with drama as you can see. . . L )

So vote wisely, otherwise, you could end up with 30 days of something you have no interest in reading, lol :)

Also, I wanted to take this time to mention, that although my blog gets a lot of traffic, I don't have many followers. If you enjoy what you are reading, please follow this blog. It makes me feel good inside to know that there are people who I can touch with these stories of mine in some meaningful way. Maybe you are learning something from all of this, if you are - please click the follow button at the top left of your screen. Thank you loyal readers, your support has not gone unappreciated nor unacknowledged.

While reading Lesbian In Cincinnati, I have come to realize that these feelings that I feel, when typing these words, are not unique to me. This sense of loss coupled with the wisdom of hindsight, it's normal. A natural occurrence when one recollects a past pain or hurt. Every day that I am here, typing away, I find out one more thing that makes me like the rest of you; one more characteristic that moves me further away from the feeling of being outcast; one more similarity that beckons me to the shared pool of humanity. It's like the 'American Dream'. As a child, I heard so much about this dream; and although I never heard it verbalized in a way that I could comprehend, I knew that it meant having a family, a job, and a house with a white picket fence. I wanted my American Dream to come true, but I knew there were many obstacles, one being that I had my identity stolen.

Some of you may remember from A Mother And Daughter, that my mother used my identity to rack up some bills in my name before I moved out on my own - away from her, and away from my boyfriend. It infuriated me. I felt betrayed, and I was abused in a way that impacted where I could live and what I could buy. I knew that one day, I wanted my own home, complete with a picket fence - but that couldn't happen with delinquent debts in my name. She promised to take care of the debts; she promised to have them moved to her name and paid off. It took several months, but she finally took responsibility for the unpaid bills she had that were attributed to me.

For a while, I was happy. I had a good job, my relationship with my mother could resume, and I was saving money. I wanted to buy a house so that I didn't have to worry about sharing walls with my neighbors, waiting for an unresponsive landlord to make repairs, or rowdy children running up and down the hallway of my apartment building. I wanted a bit of blissful seclusion. Just when it seemed I might have some, I checked my bank account while I was at work one day, and discovered that nearly all of my money was gone. I was hysterical. I had no idea what was going on or why this was happening to me. I called my bank right away; thoughts racing through my head like, "Oh no, my rent is due next week. How am I going to get home? What am I going to eat?" I was never big on carrying cash, and so this was a very scary moment for me - not having access to any money.

What I learned was that someone had tapped into my account. They bought a vacation to Tahiti, they set up several accounts with money transfer companies to have money wired to Mexico, they created accounts with internet porn sites, and they applied for a mortgage using my social security number. I felt so violated, like I had been raped. This was such a different feeling from many of the tragedies in my life; so different from being stalked, or from losing my friend, but it was painful nonetheless. Fortunately, I caught it early enough so that I was able to get most of my money back, but the damage done to my credit was not immediately reversible. It took years of writing letters to take some of the delinquent accounts off of my credit report, and even then, some of them I had to pay off. But, soon, I felt like I was on the path to home ownership again.

I filed a complaint with the FTC and the police and moved on. Almost a year later, my account was struck again. There were more purchases in my name, there were more accounts opened - I went directly to the police, filed a report, and contacted the credit bureaus. this was becoming old hack for me. Always in the back of my mind though, I would wonder how all of this was impacting my personal American Dream. I thought, at most, it would set me back a few more years - and so I worked on cleaning up my credit and moved on.

Years passed; I met my husband, and we began our journey to creating a family together. Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of our control, we needed to go the route of in-vitro fertilization (See A Recipe For A Baby). It was an exciting time. Once we found out we were pregnant, we started preparing for this new life of ours.

Because of the procedure we had, we expected multiple babies, and there was no way we could keep up to 3 babies in a one bedroom apartment. We decided to go house hunting. We searched in 3 different states; looking at big houses, small houses, white houses, yellow houses, new houses, old houses. We were in love with each new house we saw. We spent many nights online just looking at houses and wondering what our lives would be like with our babies in those houses. Finally, my American Dream was coming true.

Shortly after our search for a new home, I noticed strange activity on my account again. I had been through numerous debit cards and even closed my old account and opened a new one, yet here it was, I was once again hit with identity theft. This time when I went to the police they suggested that I change my social security number and close all of my bank accounts and switch banks. I was in a downward spiral. I knew what all of this meant - I would not be getting my house. I was terrified, I wanted the best for my unborn babies, and that meant having room for them to grow up without feeling crowded. It was a very down moment for me. I was broken, because my dream had been stolen.

Tomorrow, Too Good To Be Beaten. . .