Three Years gone

“Those you trust the most can steal the most.” - Lawrence Lief

One day my boyfriend and I got everything ready to sit down and watch one of our favorite movies. (Drop Dead Gorgeous by the way, great, funny movie, check it out) We’d watched it on one of our first nights spent together, huddled in my freezing, bug riddled, purple basement bedroom. And then when he went to get the movie, it wasn’t there. So of course being me I’m sure when I go over I’ll find it, because it’s probably a case of him looking with his eyes closed. One glance over the shelf of DVD’s, and I think to myself, “Oh I just must have missed it” and look again. Second sweep over the shelf and I ask my boyfriend if maybe we lent it to someone. I start to get aggravated, moving things around. And then it hits me. It’s was stolen.

Normally this would be a shocker, but to me it isn’t in the slightest. Because it’s been gone for at least three years. Even three years after I moved out of my parent’s house, where all of this went on, I am still realizing on a fairly regular basis the extent of which my sister’s drug addiction has affected me. The things I thought I still had, that I worked so many grease and sweat covered hours to earn measly minimum wage to be able to purchase. The joy I took in being able to support my interests on my own. So many of those things are long gone.


And it’s not even really the things I mourn. It’s the effects of having things stolen from right under your nose on a day to day basis and not being able to do anything about it. In the long term, that changes you. It has certainly changed me. The questioning was the hardest. Questioning her, questioning myself when she denied it every time. “Maybe I lent it to someone, left it somewhere. Maybe I didn’t even own it in the first place. I’m sure it will turn up eventually.” There are so many thoughts that just race through your mind. I think for a while there, there was some comfort in denying that she could be stealing from me. There is not much worse than the moment when you realize someone you love so much could be stealing your worldly belongings. Someone once told me that once you experience someone stealing from you, you will never be the same. That personal invasion is so great; it shakes you to your core.


For the longest time I haven’t wanted anything to do with money. I don’t want to earn money, I don’t want to spend money, and I still don’t even want to carry any more than five dollars and change in my purse. I don’t even want a bank account. I moved out of the city, and even though I’m at least a twenty-five minutes away from her at all times, I still feel the need to hide things away in my apartment. Now, when I’m waiting for the bus, I check my pockets every couple of minutes for the bus pass that I know is there, I check my purse for my I.D. every morning. I have a wonderful apartment, but I don’t like having very many people inside of it. I watch them all intently and there have been a fair number of people that have been here once, but no longer pass through my porch door because of the way they manhandled my things. Maybe that is paranoid, but I now feel like it’s about being safe. My boyfriend and I have made this apartment our safe haven, and I am not willing to jeopardize that for anything. I know where everything is, and I’m overly cautious with my money and valuables.


I don’t know when things will change. I don’t know when they will get better. When I will finally be able to worry less, or not be scared to carry my phone bill payment in my purse for the five minute bus ride to the phone company. Sometimes I have a good run, where nothing bothers me. When I feel empowered to feel better, and safer. But unfortunately something usually happens to remind me why I felt like this for so long, which just pulls me right back in. But I’ve got a semi-plan. Next time I decide to watch a movie, I’m picking right off the shelf.

The following is a link to one of the only sites I've found personally that addresses drugs and theft in the family, even if it is only a small mention. Drugs In The Family