This is the first time ever for me writing in the Weekend (engagement).
I looked at each subject, and wondered which one would be best to write about.

Am I lucky?

I believe I am. More than just once or twice but pretty much all the time.
That's only looking back at my life though. There were definitely moments when I didn't feel so lucky!

Lazy?

Sure. I've had my moments, and still do at times.
I blame it on the kids.😆

Have I had moments where I laughed and/or cried unexpectedly?

Yup, quite often.
And mostly at the same time actually. Usually from something really funny.
I'm not a complete mad woman...

However, the one that spoke to me the most was the Love/Loss one.
Not because it seems so very similar to one of the best (Irish) series I've ever seen (Love/Hate) but because it is something I never really talk about.
I believe I've mentioned it here on Hive once or twice but never the full story.
In this memory of mine, you could both laugh and cry.
You could also say that I'm a lucky bastard.
Maybe a bit lazy at times but not when it mattered...
I know some of you are raising eye brows right now, wondering what I'm getting at.
Well, here it goes...

Source

My Las Vegas Fail Story

I'll start off by saying that I didn't really fail.
However, there were times when I felt like I failed.
It doesn't really matter what I felt I failed at.
That's not what this story is about...

When I first got to Vegas, the city overwhelmed me.
There was always something going on. People everywhere, all the time.
It's a 24 hour city so that's just the way things are.
I had my ups and downs, especially in the beginning.
Shit happened.

I didn't have a plan B.
Being a foreigner didn't make things easier.
Especially in Las Vegas.
There was a love and hate relationship between the city and myself.
Moments when I wanted to run away as fast as I could, and moments when I absolutely
loved it.

For me, going 'home' wasn't an option. I didn't feel at home in my own country,
and I didn't want to leave because it would mean I failed...
So I stuck it out.
I found a job.
Apparently, it wasn't that hard after all to land a job in this city,
with or without the legalities.
This first job I had was great. I was an OPC for a time share company.
I had an amazing team, and the job almost fulfilled itself.

It didn't end well.

After a few weeks, and weekly Friday dinners & nights out with the crew, celebrating our victories, the trio that was the managing team (a couple in their late 50's and their son) had gained our trust. They were treating us like family and mentioned this often, that we were their family.
One Friday night, payday, we were told that they only had a small part of our (huge) paychecks.
No biggie because we'd get the rest in a day or two, and we never questioned it because we trusted them...
Wrong thing to do.
You may have guessed it: we never saw a single penny of that money.
Nor did we ever see them again.

Back to square one.
It was rough.
I ended up finding a telemarketing job, setting appointments for yet another time share company through a friend.

I hate telemarketing with a passion but it was what it was.
I hated every minute of it.
I hated the manager, the secretary, the office.
My colleagues weren't the worst...

And that's when I met the love of my life. Or so I thought.
Part of me knew from the very beginning that he was bad news.
The other part didn't want to hear it.
We didn't end up together for a while.
We were friends before anything. We'd hang out during lunch.
Had drinks after work. And even went to a concert together.
It was fun having him as a friend.

I was fired from the job unexpectedly, in a time when he had just disappeared.
It wasn't until months later that we accidentally met again on the bus.
I was going to work, and he was going to the same place to see if there was a job opening for him there. Huh. What a coincidence!

We picked up where we left off, and not long after that meeting we moved in together.
In the beginning all was great.
There was only one huge issue.
He was an alcoholic. He even said he was. No excuses. He was an alcoholic, and either I could deal with it, or I could run for the hills.
I appreciated his honesty, and decided to stay.

He didn't drink all the time. There were moments where he didn't touch a drop of alcohol for weeks.
When he was sober, he was the best person I knew.
He was kind, generous, helpful to anyone.
He never missed a day of work.
A 'functional drunk' so to speak.
When I'd come home from my job, the house would be clean and tidy.
Laundry done...
He was the perfect guy, if it wasn't for his drinking habits...

When he drank he was quite the opposite. Beer just made him sad, annoying,
and then sleepy, so I'd bide my time and hope he'd drink enough to fall asleep quickly.

But when he'd drink anything else than beer, he was the devil.
I could always see it coming too. He'd be good for weeks, and then the silence came.
He'd stop talking, like he was living inside his head.
There were a few circumstances I knew were hard on him so I understood why he did things.
I let him get away with more than I should have. I know that now.
Back then I thought we were OK.

We weren't.

When we were together for about a year and a half, we got married.
Nothing romantic. Nothing even remotely like you'd see in the Vegas movies.
He promised he'd do the right thing and apply for my residency documents.
I had to leave the country every three months, and would drive to Tijuana, stay there for three days and re-enter the US to renew my visa.
It was fun in a way, but not something I would miss if I could just stay.
It'd make our lives much easier if I didn't have to go through all this trouble.
However, if I'd bring it up, he'd get angry. We'd get into an argument about it and I'd just keep quiet.

He's also the one that gave me the nickname Miss Las Vegas. It wasn't meant in a nice way. I made it into something positive...

Our arguments had gotten out of control a few times when he was drinking, because he'd find something to accuse me of.
I'd always just keep quiet to try to avoid any confrontations.
Always walking on egg shells.
I had lied to others, and mostly myself when I said that our arguments when he hit the bottle never resulted in anything physical.
They did. Not often but nevertheless. Once is enough right?
I told myself that it wasn't something I couldn't handle.
Of course, I was naïve to think that way. I was making excuses for him.
There was no excuse for the things he said and did.
The 'me' now would have never put up with any of it.
Back then, I was alone, no responsibilities, so I accepted that this was my life...

When I fell pregnant, everything changed.
I was shocked, and at the same time I was the happiest person alive.
I knew right away that now I had another human being to take care of, and to keep safe. All of a sudden, it wasn't just me who was suffering but also my unborn child. Things had to change so I confronted my husband, and told him that we couldn't go on like this, and that I would leave if he decided he'd choose the bottle over us.

Source

After I told him this, he apologized for everything.
He mentioned his ex, a woman he had a son with (who he hadn't seen in years, which I thought was one of the reasons he was drinking in the first place).
I had heard a lot about her. She was bad news too. Maybe more than he was...
But that day, he told me that he'd been drunk throughout her whole pregnancy, because he felt he needed to. Because he thought he wouldn't be able to drink once the baby was born.
He also told me that he knew it wasn't fair on her, that he was drunk all that time before they had their son.
He told me he was sober after his son's birth, and to be honest, I believe it was true. He took responsibility, and cared for his child.
And because of that, I believed he could do the same for us...

I don't think I need to tell you that he didn't stop drinking.
He stopped for a while but then he started again.
At this point, I was with my back against the wall.

I had no money, a small income, no friends of my own. Only our mutual friends.

Now I know that he had made sure that this was the case. He needed to control me.
I had one dear friend who I hadn't spoken to in a while because of him.
He had me completely cut off from everyone and everything.
The only person I could trust was the guy I worked a few hours a week for, in who's house we lived for a while, and a mutual friend we had.
He went from bad to worse, nothing was improving. If anything, it got worse.
If I had any money, he knew how to get his hands on it.
I felt like there was no way out.

And then, like a miracle, I heard about some money that was coming to me from a savings account I had in the Netherlands.
I knew I had to act fast before he'd get his hands on it.
The moment the money arrived, I went to see a travel agent and booked a one way ticket back to the Netherlands.
Three months pregnant, and nowhere to go but back to live with my parents.
But I knew that if I'd stay, I'd end up getting hurt, or worse: our child would get hurt. Or...I'd end up hurting him out of self-defense. And I definitely wasn't going to spend time in prison while pregnant for a man.
I called the mutual friend we had, and asked him to bring me to my friend's house.
It felt like a better idea to stay where he wouldn't think I'd be because we hadn't spoken for a while...
It proved to be the right decision because he never knew where I was, and he caused huge problems for my roommate.

I left Las Vegas three days after booking that ticket.
My unborn daughter had saved my life.
If it hadn't been for her, I'm not sure if I would have left any time soon.
My instincts were right to think I needed to save both our lives by leaving because of the fact that he is now in prison for manslaughter...

In the years that followed, I had times of feeling the loss of something I never had. It wasn't that I mourned the loss of him, or his love but more of how life could have been if he wasn't ill.
It may sound strange to think that way, and it may be but it was what I felt and was dealing with.