Allow me to introduce myself
My name is Jordana Velez, I will be 60 in 4 months, and I have spent the last 21 years as a stay at home mother… I want to take you on the journey of how I became JoJo!!! From my unbelievable (not a good unbelievable) childhood, my teen age years filled with such confusion, being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at 25, my lack of significant relationships, dealing with the massive mood swings of the Bipolar Disorder, finally finding my wonderful husband and having 2 wonderful children. If along the way, I can help anyone, inspire anyone, or give a platform to vent with no judgement, then the purpose of this blog will have succeeded..
I’m not really sure how this whole blog thing works, so I don’t know if anyone will read it…. without the scrutiny, doubt and criticism that it can bring otherwise… I don’t really know how this works but I will try and do my best….. some of you might enjoy my story others may not, some of you might get offended (if you do I apologize now) and some might cheer me on… The only thing I ask is not to feel sorry for me… it has been a long road but I am finally happy and it is all part of my becoming JoJo…. if nothing else it will give me a way to vent the frustrations, longing, sadness, joy, elation, depression, and both conditional and unconditional love that shaped my life. So I am gonna tell my story my way without the scrutiny, doubt and criticism that it can bring otherwise…. I hope you can keep up without too much confusion!!
‘So today is Tuesday January 13, 2026 but this part of the story goes back to December 20, 2024…. I was driving home from Physical Therapy when I started to feel strange, I called Ronnie to tell him that he was going to have to meet me downstairs in the parking lot because I didn’t think I would make it upstairs…. Ronnie met me downstairs and immediately drove me to the hospital, where it was determined that I was suffering from a stroke I needed to mention it here because the result of the stroke impacted me in ways you probably couldn’t understand and I don’t know if I can get you to understand at all…… It had to be a split second decision as to whether or not I wanted the doctors to use the medicine TNK….. the window for its maximum affect was very small….. in stead of playing around Ronnie and I told them to go ahead….. after I was taken to the neurology department where I was to remain still for 18 hours….. see the TNK increases chances of internal bleeding so they want you to be still so you don’t bleed internally…… Laying there I had a lot of time to think, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. I was kept in the hospital until after New Years, so almost 2 weeks….. Ronnie was with me almost everyday, he only took a day off if I told him I would be ok….. he shouldn’t have had to feel that he was leaving me alone, my family should have been around to stay with me but they were nowhere to be found…. actually they weren’t around for the next 5 months….. kind of pathetic, don’t you think??? Lying in that hospital bed for those two weeks I realized that I didn’t want a life with people that didn’t seem to care about me and there was no attempt from anyone to change my epiphany!!!! obviously I am not including my immediate family!!!! My mother did mention that she felt bad that they couldn’t come see me because they couldn’t get there but that theory seems to fall apart when she could have asked Ronnie to give them a ride and why did she wait until I was coming home from the rehab to mention it….. forget about my wonderful brother (why couldn’t she ask him to bring them to see me?), not only did he not visit me but I never even got a phone call from him…… even Ronnie’s brother and sister-in-law (Butch and Ilene) didn’t call…. wait I can’t say that…… Ilene did call the rehab once asking if I was a patient there, which the rehab couldn’t answer, and then when asked who she was Ilene told her she was a friend…. I guess she didn’t realize that the front desk (where the calls are answered) would have caller ID and would know her name and phone number…. that’s how I found out she called but when I asked her about it, Ilene denied calling at all even going as far as saying her phone must have been hacked!!! Really, did she really think I was that stupid??!! No one was going to hack her phone just to call my rehab to see if I was there…… all she had to do was ask, Ronnie or I would have told them the truth…. I wasn’t hiding where I was…. imagine how it would feel to realize that the people you thought loved you ‘unconditionally’ didn’t love you at all?? anyway all those relationships will go into further detail later….The point is that I don’t need people like any of them in my life, trying to keep me down, trying to keep my confidence down….. I am getting too old to worry about all that….. I have people in my life that care about me for me and they are all I need….. sometimes that is a lie because I do sometimes wish I had a bigger circle of friends so I would have more to do socially…. but I will take what I can get!!!’
I don’t have many memories of my childhood and the few memories that I have are quite trivial to this story except for one thing… for as long as I can remember I have known I was adopted and thought it wasn’t supposed to matter whether I was my parents’ biological daughter or not…. I would come to find out that I was very very wrong…. See my brother, who is 6 years older than me, is my parents’ biological child and as I grew up it became more and more evident how wrong I was….. it seems strange to me that I have no real memories of my childhood….. there are fleeting glances of things from then but I can’t really say if they are a real memory or a story that was told to me or a picture that was shown to me…. I guess my memories really begin around 12 or 13 and those are mostly from my summers spent at sleep-away camp…. Those memories are great ones made with great friends but the other memories that begin around then are not so great…. They are not as some would say “roses and lollipops” they are more “thorns and vinegar”!!
So let’s see…. yesterday I was talking about the memories I do have from my younger years, how they were not good or fond memories but, I do have to tell you that I can remember smiling once in a while, for real…. I mean I almost always have a smile on my face and I tend to give the appearance of being a very happy-go-lucky kind of person…. some times it was happiness but most times it was medicinally induced…. lol……
There are some of you who might think I was quite lucky to have a big brother like I did….. he is 6 years older than me and instead of protecting me the way you would think a big brother would, this was not a good protection… yeah, he protected me when the boys started hanging around…. a little too overprotected…. other than threatening to beat the crap out of boys, his idea of protecting me came by way of drugs and alcohol….. an agreement he made with me was that if I wanted to try any drug, I was do it with him… this was because he would be able to handle me if I had a bad “trip”…. so he exposed me to quite an array of drugs mostly before I graduated from high school… sure, I am not going to lie, at the time I thought this was the greatest thing…. anything I wanted pertaining to drugs or alcohol he got for me….. even kept giving me beer to drink because he said “I wouldn’t be able to afford drinks when I was in college, beer will be much cheaper”….. The bad part about my having him as my brother is that I didn’t always know, in high school, who really was my friend or just my friend because of him….. it really wasn’t much of a surprise when he came out saying he was addicted to drugs and needed help…..
There are a few things I can think of that could have added to my brother obtaining his drug problem, things my parents did (or didn’t do)…. I remember when we lived in Staten Island, my mother didn’t like the house we were living in (for only 6 months), so my parents sold the house and bought a different one across the street and up the block…. that’s not the bad part, what was wrong was that they didn’t tell my brother when we moved…. he was in military school for high school and when he came home for the weekend he had no idea that we had moved….. luckily, he knew where we moved to but come on, how do you forget to tell your son when you moved??!! another incident happened 4 days before my Bat Mitzvah…. my father and brother got into a fist fight and my father knocked out one of my brother’s front teeth….. my parents were going nuts because the needed to find a dentist to have the tooth fixed because, god-for-bid he didn’t have the tooth for the pictures!!! my brother was gone, having moved out, by the time I came home from college…. I had hoped me and my brother would always be close, but families can be funny!!
When I was 13, 4 months after my bat mitzvah, my parents sold the house and we once again moved…. So think about it, in case you weren’t keeping track but that was 3 moves in 2 years…. this time it was my turn…. see my parents bought a house in Syosset but they weren’t going to close on the new house until the middle to end of October….. My parents thought it would be a good idea for me to start school in Syosset at the beginning of the school year instead of starting school in Staten Island…. Are you ready for this?? Wait for it…. my parents arranged with the people whose house we were buying, that I live with them and start school there…. do I have to mention that I didn’t know these people!!! My mother would drive me to Syosset Sunday night and pick me up Friday after school…. can you imagine?? To this day they will not admit that they made a mistake, all they will say is that “they did what they thought was best for me”… how, I don’t know….. your guess is as good as mine!!!
I hope you are still with me as I continue on this quest of telling you how I became JoJo…..
In case you didn’t know, the Syosset/Woodbury area of Long Island is a fairly upscale area…. This becomes relevant as I continue explaining my life’s journey…. having said that it is a well-to-do area, you can imagine the kids I went to Junior and Senior High School with….. to put it bluntly, the girls were serious JAPS and the boys were whatever you would call the male versions of a JAP (just to clarify, the reference to being a JAP is actually short for Jewish American Princess which is a derogatory stereotype that implies spoiled stuck-up attitudes)!!! the kids in the area were given everything they wanted plus huge allowances to do with what they liked…. I bring this up because my parents thought differently….. They would buy me the minimal amount of things I needed for school (like some clothes, a jacket, one or two pairs of shoes and my school supplies), anything else I wanted, including going to with my friends, I had to work for…. Now, before you start judging me on that last comment, I started babysitting when I was 11 and had no problem using that money for the extra things my parents didn’t give me, but it made it very difficult to fit in with my classmates….. since we came from New York City, the style of clothes was different then what the kids in Syosset wore and I paid the price for that….. I was teased, I guess in today’s terms ‘I was bullied’ for most of 8th and 9th grades…. I found friendship, happiness and acceptance from the ‘societal outcasts’….. the kids that for whatever reason were not accepted by the “in” crowd and I don’t think they cared much….. but then again they did grown up with these kids and the stereotype they were put into….. I had found a boy, let’s call him David. and dated him on and off throughout High School…… everyone in the school knew David because he was the kid who dealt pot to the other kids…. so quilt of association, even though they didn’t want to be my friends they all knew me because they knew where ever I was David wasn’t far behind me….
So now you know about my brother pushing drugs on me and the kids in high school who ‘bullied’ me, used me to get to David for pot….. do you see a connection here?? surprisingly drugs were never a difficult issue for me….
Now an important factor up til this point in my life was, and still is, my relationship with food….. I will talk about that relationship a little later because it is an important part of my becoming JoJo…..
I wouldn’t call myself fat, although the bullying included my weight with my family being the biggest bullies around, but I did start putting on weight…..
the biggest of the bullies overall was and still is my mother!!! I am sure that doesn’t shock you!! see my mother has to be one of the most vain women I have ever met….. and it was killing her that I was not the same way….. it just did not matter enough to take so much time getting dressed, doing my hair, putting on make up and pretending to be someone I am not…. I never could understand why anyone would want to spend 2/3 times the price of an item just because it had someone’s name on it….. I was more into liking what I wore not who made the clothes….. and my mother’s issues about my appearance just gave her ammunition to use against me….. She would take me shopping for clothes and would pick out shirts or jeans that she knew I would like and say things like “too bad it won’t fit you” or “they don’t make this in tent size”….. I know, horrible right?! believe it or not that was not the worst thing she ever did….. Let me set the stage for you….. it was the day of my senior prom and I felt amazing…. I had gotten my hair done, my dress was perfect (it hid all the places that needed to be hid and accentuated all the places that should be shown), my friends were all at my house for a pre-prom party with their boyfriends and my boyfriend was there…. I walked out of my room feeling like a princess and actually having a rare moment of confidence in how I looked, I giggled a little at seeing my boyfriend in a powder blue tuxedo (yes, powder blue), my mother turned toward me and before my boyfriend could say anything my mother has to burst my bubble by asking if I was sure I wanted to wear my make up like that…. not only was I embarrassed in front of my boyfriend but remember all my friends were there and heard this….. I ran back into my room I wanted to get undressed and put the pillow over my head curled up in a ball….. before I could do any of that my boyfriend knocked on my door to see if he could come in….. I really didn’t want to let him but I did and I was glad I did….. he told me not to listen to my mother that I looked beautiful and he didn’t see what she was so upset at because I was beautiful without makeup…. I told him I changed my mind and wont be going to the prom…. he told me not to do that to him, that I should look at him – he was in a powder blue tux….. then he explained the reason as to why he was wearing a blue tux and that was because my favorite color was/is blue… he was wearing it for me….. we laughed, joined my friends and had a great time at the prom…. and my mother wants to know why I have no confidence in myself…. I mean seriously, by always criticizing me did she really think I would be able to feel good about myself……
Not only did I have to contend with my mother’s constant criticism about the way I looked I had to deal with my dad when it came to my grades, a job, and how I spent my money….. I was a straight A student but that wasn’t good enough… I had a steady Saturday night babysitting job and that wasn’t good enough…. and no matter how I spent my money he was never satisfied…. I started babysitting when I was 11 and since then anything “extra” that I wanted, I had to pay for…. I was fine with that and you would think that if that was the rule he would leave me alone when I bought something but no, he still had something to say about it….. he even ‘sold’ me his used car and when I missed one payment he came and took my car away to “teach me a lesson” and responsibility…. it just added to my already low seelf-confidence…..
With my grades as I said I was a straight A student and that wasn’t enough…. it was always if I got a 90 on a test “why didn’t you get a 95”, when I got the 95 it was “why didn’t you get a 100” I even got a 99 non my trig regents and he grounded me because he felt that I had made a stupid mistake which if I had checked over my test a couple of times I would have caught the mistake…. so because I made this “stupid” mistake he grounded me…..
Even worse than the way my father treated me, was the fact that my father doesn’t know how to express love (or even know what it was)…. I can’t remember the last time he kissed me, hugged me or just said the three little words I so badly wanted to hear “I love you”!!
So picture me not being able to look in a mirror because I couldn’t stand what I saw looking back at me, thanks mom – not being able to do good enough/be good enough for my father and having my brother throwing drugs my way…. would it surprise you that I ended up having, what I thought at the time, a breakdown at 25 years old….. I was hospitalized for 4 months in a psychiatric hospital trying to get back to “normal”, whatever that was supposed to be….
During my stay in the hospital I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 disorder but back then it was still being called manic-depression….. my extensive stay was because they were having a very hard time finding the right cocktail of medication to stabilize my mood….. and my wonderful family… well my brother didn’t visit me once nor did he call… as far as my parents went, they came twice a week and made me feel like they were doing me a favor coming….. needless to say, the friends I thought were my friends ran for the hills as fast as possible when they heard I was “crazy”, at least that is what the rumor mill was saying…..
When it came time for my release it was abundantly clear that it would be detrimental for me to go home and live with my parents so I was put into a supportive living environment which was good for me….. and besides a couple of short visits I have not lived with them since…. unfortunately the damage was done….. being able to hold my head up was not even close enough to reach, it wasn’t even visible to me……
Even without me living with them my parents still felt they had a right to continue to criticize me….. my father no longer had my grades, any job, nor how I spent my money to criticize so our interactions became less and less….. the only thing we can talk to each other about is football, but that is also for later….. my mother still felt the need to criticize me when I saw her…… and she didn’t hold back…. she made me so neurotic it wasn’t funny….. my weight, which continued to increase, was the target of her attacks…..
I guess this would be a good time to discuss my horrible, unhealthy and toxic relationship with food….. I have always been a picky eater, not liking a lot of food and not willing to try new ones…. I have never been much of a snack person, I never craved cookies, candy, chips, etc…. I would much prefer food to to any of those…. though when the food was not around I did snack, eating that I literally became a closet eater….. my mother didn’t try to make things easier for me because she would always keep cookies in the house for my brother and tell me I couldn’t have any….. she even wanted to decide what kind of milk I would use, would it surprise you that she bought me skim milk (they didn’t have 2% back then) and buy my father whole milk and again the sentiment was that I could not have the whole milk and my father didn’t like skim milk….. little did they know, I switched the whole milk and skim milk
I tried just about every diet there was back then…. I went to the Duke Diet and Fitness center in Durham NC where I did lose weight but was also hindered by the fact that Dom Deloise (don’t remember how to spell it) was there…. did you know that he was a great chef??? well he was making really good Italian food like lasagna, ziti and stuffed shells and he would offer it to all of us at night when we would just be hanging around the pool….. another fun guest there was Harry Wayne Casey, you probably know him as KC from KC and the sunshine band….. we would do Karaoke while hanging out by the pool eating food made by Dom…. needless to say I didn’t lose as much weight as I should have in the 6 months I was there….. of course after I was home I gained back the weight and then some….. I did the Weight Watchers thing, Jenny Craig, slim fast and I was able to lose the weight but then I would always gain it back and usually a little more……
Once we all survived Y2K and the millennium, I decided to get really serious about my weight lose and had the gastric bypass…. The lap band, sleeve and other not so invasive weight loss surgeries did not exist in the year 2000, so there were few choices…. stepping on the scale the morning of the surgery I weighed 327lbs (what a horror)…. 18 months later I weighed 140lbs, I know wow right??!! it was a hard 18 months…. trying to not overeat, because I would throw up…. watching how much sugar and sugary foods because I didn’t ‘dump’….. and the I developed a stricture which is where one of the openings between the esophagus and the stomach or the stomach to the intestines….. my stricture was at the opening of my esophagus to my stomach, by the time I went to the doctor the stricture was only opened the size of a pen tip….. Not only did I have to worry about what I ate, I now had to go back to the doctor once a week for 3 months so the doctors could use a balloon to dilate the opening…..
Funny story, side note, that does pertain to what I was saying about how much I could eat….. I took a trip to Vegas with a group of friends about 5 months after my surgery…… well we would go to restaurants to eat, but I couldn’t even eat a child’s meal. so….. I would order a dish of whatever I wanted to eat, let’s say shrimp, I would eat three or four of the baby shrimp then call the waiter and tell him/her that I didn’t like what I ordered and that I didn’t want anything else…… so I would get my meal for free…… hey, more money for me to gamble and lose with!!!!
Now all that has led up to the next chapter in my life, but I would be remiss if I didn’t go back to tell you about another extremely important aspect of my life and an integral part of my becoming JoJo!!!
As much as my weight was a huge demon, that I face everyday, another demon is/was my diagnosis of Bipolar 1 disorder….. I now had the reason why my moods would swing to the extremes they did but, I still had to come to terms with this illness and decide how much a part of my life it was going to take…. I mean, I could let the illness ‘win’ and become my life, rule it so to say OR I could take charge of it, take my meds, talk to my shrink and therapist, let them know if I was having break-thru symptoms and not let it rule my life…. I was not going to be the illness, if that makes any sense to you….. standing up to being Bipolar has not been easy, there have been days when I think I’ve lost the battle and feel like giving in to it… Days when the depression is soo bad that it takes every thing I have just to get out of bed (sometimes I didn’t) or times when I didn’t really sleep and thought I could do anything without any consequences but, you know there was never a time that I felt like hurting anyone other than myself…. that is why it always bothers me when you hear stories about killings throughout our country being blamed on a person suffering from Bipolar Disorder…. The majority of people who are diagnosed with either Bipolar I or II (roughly 95% are not dangerous to anyone else but themselves….. If a person commits these horrific acts does have Bipolar Disorder it is usually because there are some other underlying diagnosis (like schizophrenia)…. so you can imagine how frustrating it is when I hear people say “he/she is probably Bipolar….. it is ignorant people who tend to jump to conclusions about topics/subjects they don’t know anything about…. they need to ask questions and then base judgement with knowledge….
A good example of this point is my husband Ronnie….. when we were dating and I told him about my diagnosis he got nervous but, was willing to come with me to me shrink to ask questions….. one of the questions he asked was “am I going to wake up in the middle of the night with her standing over me with a knife?” his mind was set at ease when the doctor told him I was more dangerous to myself than anyone else…..
That all being said, I bring you back to my handling of my illness….. even though I was very strict on taking my meds everyday, I still had moments/days where I would experience break thru symptoms and they would get out of hand….. the depression was hard but most likely for me to tell my doctor and get help…. it was the manic side that was worse….. the mania was really such a rush….. I could only explain it, don’t know if you would understand, as a cocaine high that you never come down from…. it is such a high and because it feels sooo good, I was less likely to call for help….. I mean who would want to end feeling that way???
The problem was that some of the symptoms of this hypermania were out of control and self-harming….. I spent money like crazy, money I didn’t have, on superficial things (not on things you would think of) that just made the remorse I felt later even worse…. I had nothing to show for any of the money I spent….
The other symptom that could have been more detrimental than the spending was the promiscuity…… I was very promiscuous, very….. I think though that the promiscuity I experienced was not just a symptom of the hypermania but also my seeking affection!!! think about it….. I didn’t get the love and affection I needed from my family, so it could be possible that it just added to my symptoms…. now, I don’t kid, I am totally amused at the fact that even when I weighed close to 300lbs I was still able to go to a bar or club and pick someone up, take them home and have sex with them… I was always careful when it came to the sex but the dangerous part was not knowing the guy and taking the guy home with me…. I really was pathetic…. out of all the guys, and I could not tell you a number, I guess you would say I got lucky with not getting pregnant or any kind of STD but, also with the safety aspect….. I did meet this one guy, and I saw him on multiple occasions, who seemed to be okay and then one night, our last night, he changed….. we got stoned and he started to get weird…. preaching to me with a Bible in his hand and when I tried to leave he pushed me back onto his bed…. I started getting nervous, do you blame me?? When I was on the bed and rolled over I saw his hand raised and thought to myself “hell no”….. I kicked him in the right spot and got up and ran out of his apartment….. I didn’t want to go home because he knew where I lived and this bar/club that I was a regular at was a lot closer, even though I probably shouldn’t have been driving, so I drove over there….. my fear of him following me was true….. I ran into the club and told them bouncers the situation…. they formed this massive wall in front of me and basically told the guy, when he said he was looking for his ‘girlfriend’, that he needed to leave before they made him leave….. they pushed a little to keep him out but he finally gave up and went home…. I couldn’t thank those guys enough….
This would be the perfect time for me to introduce Ronnie to all of you, but not quite yet…. I still have a little more to tell you and it is what, why, and how I met Ronnie……
So let’s rewind a bit to the point of my gastric bypass and the life it offered me post surgery…. as I stated I lost 180lbs and I looked AMAZING!!! I could not get over it….. so I had gone out with this guy I met through a friend on a couple of dates but there was nothing there for me, I did not feel anything more than a friend…. I feel bad that I never told him that and I let him think we were going out on dates, because I wanted him to pay for my beers….. I know it was an awful thing to do….. Well, our Saturday night outings were to a bar called ‘Fillmores’, they had karaoke on Saturday nights and well even though I can’t sing (I mean I really really can’t) that is what we did….. thankfully he sang worse than I did!!! I did become friends with a few people there and it was fun for a awhile….
So now, we turn the calendar to Friday, November 1st 2002…. I just wanted to mention this date because I threw my first party, a Halloween party, and it was a hit!!! I was proud of myself, I was celebrating my new self…. I went out the next night, Saturday November 2nd, and thought it was just gonna be like every other Saturday night karaoke….. I was wrong!! it was typical in the fact that I sang, horribly, drank, and picked up this guy…. I thought it was gonna be my usual one night of fun at that would be it….. The guy ended up being Ronnie and in the morning he asked me for my phone number…. I told him that he didn’t have to feel obligated to ask for it or to use it…. he said no, he really wanted to get my number because he did want to see me again….. I gave him my number and truly thought he was never going to call me…. he surprised me and he did….. well one thing led to another and we became exclusive to each other and by the middle of December we were in love!!! I never believed in being able to fall in love quickly and knowing almost right away that you were meant for each other….. I always thought it was a pathetic person who believed in all that until then….. there was one final thing that Ronnie did that solidified my knowing in my heart that I was going to marry this guy….
See my niece, Chelsea, must have been 12/13 years old and we were going down to visit my parents for the Christmas vacation…. it was Christmas day of 2002, Ronnie dropped me off at the airport and my brother dropped Chelsea off…. it was snowing, little did we know that it would turn into a snow storm and our flight would get canceled….now I need to tell you that in the airport we were in shuts down around 11:00 normally but because flights were cancelled because of the storm it shut down early…. I also have to tell you that the airport we were in was at least a half an hour closer to me brother than to Ronnie, plus Ronnie had been at a Christmas party and had been drinking….. I mention that because my brother was okay with me and his daughter were stick in a closed airport…. no stores were open to get anything to eat or drink…. he did not come to the airport!! Ronnie did!!! he was my boyfriend for only a short time, despite our feelings for each other, and , as I said earlier he had been drinking BUT he drove the almost 2 hours to the airport, in a snow storm, so we wouldn’t have to be alone…. although he tried to find someplace to get us something to eat every place was closed, due to the storm…… he found a gas station and got us snacks, something to drink, not to mention he stayed with us for the night…. he had wheelchair races with Chelsea, made a bed for her out of two benches, and would not leave until he knew we had a flight…. Chelsea and I were able to get on a flight to Baltimore but we couldn’t get on a flight from there which upset Chelsea more than you can guess but, I was starting to lose it…. that’s when my brother decided he could/should possibly come to Baltimore for us….. he even called Ronnie and said that the two of them should come to Baltimore and get us…. I can’t even tell you how funny that seemed since he couldn’t/wouldn’t come to the airport the night before when we were stranded but then he wanted Ronnie to drive down to Baltimore…. unbelievable!!! They didn’t…. Chelsea and I eventually made it down to Florida and had a relaxing trip with no incidents on the way home…
I do have to say that my parents were generous when it came to family vacations….. I know from a picture taken in 1972 that we went to Disney World when it opened, but I don’t remember that trip but I am sure it was nice… I think it was around 1995/6 that my parents took Jeff, Sandi, Chelsea, Rebecca and I down to south Florida to the Miami Seaquirium to go swimming with the dolphins…. it was a fantastic experience but I felt bad because Rebecca couldn’t do it with us since she was too small…. a few years later my parents took us all on a cruise for Thanksgiving…. That also was a fantastic trip except, my parents had their own room, my brother and Sandi had their own room but I had to share a room with Chelsea and Rebecca, so I felt like I was babysitting… but all in all it was a good trip…. the captain’s dinner, black tie, was thee thanksgiving dinner…. that was a pain in the ass but at the same time it was nice to get dressed up….. the next generous gift that my parents gave us was when Freya was a year old and wee went to the Bahamas to enjoy the Atlantis Hotels amenities although we did not stay at the Atlantis….. you can’t imagine how happy I was to not have to share a room with Chelsea and Rebecca because Ronnie me and Freya got our own room…. Yeah us!!! that was the last one….. That is okay, I don’t want wo spend time with my brother, Sandi, or Chelsea!!! When the time is right I will explain all that to you and you will understand why….
A few things I may have left out early when telling you about my parents is that I don’t trust anything they do or say, especially if it concerns my brother and his family…. the biggest lie they have ever told me was that they treat me and my brother the same, they don’t…. this is where I feel that my having been adopted comes in, since he is their biological child and I am not….. they act as though my brother’s shit don’t stink and that he knows everything…. how do I know this, because whenever they ask me anything after I answer them they say they will check with Jeffrey….. They know that my brother and I don’t speak but my parents keep putting that on me, telling me I need to reconcile with him….. they constantly remind me how sick my brother is….. problem is, I don’t care!!! I will get into all of that in a little bit…..
More on my parents….. about 12/15 years ago my brother and I made my parents move back up here from Florida because my mom had fallen and broken her hip…. it was hard for my brother and I to keep running back and forth to Florida, my brother was just getting over a quadruple bypass and my kids were toddlers…. so they came back up here permanently…. At first my parents lived in Westbury, which was right in the middle of me and Jeff, so it was easy for me/us to go there often…. wouldn’t you be surprised that they were only there about 3 years before they sold that apartment and moved further out on long island, next to the area we had lived before (Plainview)….. since it was further out I couldn’t get out to see them as often as I had been but, they moved 5 minutes from my brother, and he had an issue that I didn’t go out that often…. It was no longer a hop in the car and be there n 15/20 minutes, now for me to go out there I had to plan for a day because it took 30/45 minutes to get out there….. that is when things started really going down hill between me and my brother….. then surprisingly, they moved again after about 3/4 years….. again they moved further out on the island…. now they were 20/25 minutes from my brother but at least 45 minutes, on a good day, but it has taken as long as 1 hour-1 1/2 hours to get either there or home… and neither my parents nor my brother seem to understand this…..
Now, I don’t know how writing in this works….. do I keep going with my life story or do I interrupt with present things and then go back to my story or save the recent stuff until I get to it in my story….. I am gonna do what I want and hope that you can keep up….
Ok, so you have the basics of my relationship with my family….. I have told you how toxic my relationship with my parents is but, I only told you about my brother and the drugs but I didn’t tell you about our relationship…. as I told you in the beginning of this blog, I don’t remember much of my childhood and I don’t know why….. I bring this up again because I think whatever the reason is, it affected my brother also….. looking back my brother always seemed to be very aggressive, angry, and just plain mean (at times)….. look, I ended up with issues pertaining to food and relationships and my brother turned to drugs….. we were both addicted to something…. I know I mentioned earlier that my father and brother physically fought, punches were thrown…. I didn’t know until about a year ago that they still threw those punches…. how sick is my brother that he would throw punches with my 96 year old father and then tells me I have to figure out a way to forgive them so I have no regrets after they are gone…… trust me, I will have no regrets after they are gone…. I guess you would say I will probably feel free….
For my parents to tell me that I need to reconcile with my brother is really asking too much…. I have reached out to him and asked to meet me for coffee or lunch somewhere in between the two of us so we could talk things out….. he has not found time for me in 2 years, how do you not find 45 minutes to meet with your sister to air our grievances…. I guess part of that is on me because I had requested that it just be me and him, no Sandi or Ronnie… I don’t think she was too happy about that…. She is very nosy and like to insert her opinions even when she is not asked….. so I could only imagine the grief he gave my brother about it….I think it is a little pathetic to need his wife’s approval to meet his sister….. for me to be in the psych hospital for 4 months without him visiting and I was in the hospital for 2 weeks and then rehab for 5 months without a visit, let alone a phone call, from him….. he tells my parents that he hates hospitals…. ok!! but I am his sister, get over it!!! that really was the end of whatever was left of our relationship!!!!!
Wait, I do have to insert something into the last paragraph!!! I left out an important thing that happened about 5/6 months before I had my stroke…. Ronnie and I had gone away to Lake George with two other couples…. I purposely didn’t tell my parents of my brother that we were going….. I wanted a quiet few days without the stress of my family, plus Ronnie and I just needed a few days to ourselves to reconnect….. Well, we were about half way home when I got a phone call from my brother, in his usual abusive language started cursing at me that my mom was going to the hospital,,,, I told him ok but that we were on our way home from Lake George and I would get to the hospital as soon as I could but for him to keep me informed…… so Ronnie and I proceeded home….. when we got home I was not rushing to get to the hospital because with my brother and my father being there they weren’t going to allow me in to see her (hospital rules, only 2 people allowed in the emergency room at a time)…. so I unpacked and tried to relax when I got another phone call from my brother in which he spent almost 10 minutes cursing me out, saying he was going to kill my father!!! I ended up hanging up on him….. now I really wasn’t rushing….. I went outside to have a cigarette when I got a phone call from Sandi….. she had the nerve to tell me that I was killing my brother, that I either didn’t care to know or I knew and just didn’t care that my brother was very sick…… of course I knew he was sick, my parents kept telling me…… the she hits me with “YOU, me, are killing my brother” and “DON’T come bother coming to his funeral”!!! I was fuming myself when we hung up…. who the hell does she think she is telling me not to go to my brother’s funeral??? well, that was the last time I spoke to Sandi….. you want to know what was even worse with then the way my brother and Sandi had acted, the fact that when I told my parents what happened (only after my parents kept nagging me about talking to my brother) they didn’t believe me…. “are you sure that’s what she said?” “she must have said it out of anger”… I can not believe it…. Knowing my parents they said something to my brother and Sandi, there has been no apologies, not even mentioning it….. Then we have the issue with Freya (I will introduce you to my family in a little bit)…. my brother and Sandi had said they were ok with her life choices, now they are not…… I had my parents and Jeff and Sandi here for some Jewish holiday when my brother, in true Jeffrey form, sat down on the couch with Ronnie and told him that Chelsea (remember the girl, I went to Florida with earlier?), now married with two children, didn’t want her kids around Freya becaause she didn’t want to explain why there cousin Matthew wears a dress!! I say in true Jeffrey form, which is unfair because my parents do it as well, because they all think I am too fragile to hear bad news……
A perfect example of the aforementioned paragraph is way back when Ronnie and I were still dating when they (I think it was my brother) pulled Ronnie aside to tell him that a very close family friend had died,,,,,, I was close to Richie and my brother thought I would take it better coming from Ronnie, that coward!!!
So, I think I will start introducing Ronnie…. I already told you how we met….. he didn’t have to take my number but he insisted so I gave it to him….. I was quite surprised when a few days later he called…. from there we started dating….. gotta tell you the sex was great!!!! he even showed up one night in just a long wool coat and nothing else (except his shoes)….. within the time it took for me to take my clothes off, we were having sex…. again gotta tell you that him showing up at my front door like that drove me insane!!!! that was in January of 2003…. for Valentine’s Day he again surprised me with how roses, not just roses but….. he had put rose petals on the floor leading into my bedroom.. there were more roses in my bedroom and even petals on my bed…… on my pillow was a card and inside the card was an American Express credit card…. I could not believe how romantic he was….. A regret that I have is that I spent too much money on the credit card, expecting him to pay for it…. he got very angry because of my spending that he canceled the card….. it was the first of my out of control spending that was too come….. he didn’t give up on us…..
Ok, side bar! when Ronnie and I were dating we had a lot of issues, but wee survived…. Ronnie had been married and his divorce was the year before…. I don’t know what it was but I think he wasn’t ready for the commitment of a girlfriend……because he ran hot and cold when it came to me….. sometimes I was his girlfriend, hot, or just a friend, cold…. he fucked with my head like crazy….. as much as I wanted to be with him, I thought he didn’t, at times, so I still went to Fillmore’s and met this guy who was married…… we hung out, he paid for my drinks, we fooled around (no sex) and Ronnie couldn’t handle it… I didn’t want to commit if he didn’t want to commit….. even his friend Robyn told him to make a choice….. he did and he chose me…. we took a trip down to Ft Lauderdale, in September of 2002 and ended up buying the first of three time-shares…. a stupid, stupid thing we did…..we did it because we felt it would force us to take vacation at least once a year…. we never used it to the best we could have….. we could have gone anywhere the Marriott had resorts, but we only used it to go to Florida and pretty much only to Orlando…. That was mostly due to the fact that we could drive and didn’t have to fly, which I don’t have to tell you is cheaper than flying….. I tell you this because buying that time share was a big commitment to each other….. when we were in the hotel room, we had a very serious conversation, both of us even cried, about our relationship and the future we were facing together..
I became pregnant and it was St. Patrick’s day when I told Ronnie … I wrote him this long letter about my being pregnant and that I didn’t know what I was going to… he knew my feelings about abortion ( having been adopted in 1966), but also because of my age I wasn’t sure if I would ever have a child… the letter also said that I was not going to trap him into anything…. if he wanted to be a part of the child’s life, great…. but if he didn’t, that was ok too…. he told me that obviously the choice was mine but he would never leave the child, at least….. in the end we ended up getting the abortion, mentally and emotionally I was ready but financially I wasn’t ready for……
After we got back from our trip to Ft. Lauderdale we talked about marriage…. he didn’t ask me but we went looking for rings…. I am glad we went together….. I give him credit, he wanted to see 2 Karat diamonds and settngs….. Believe it or not, even though he was going to be very generous with the size of the diamond and the settings but I didn’t think it would look good on my finger…. Even though I am a “big” person I have small hands and fingers and a large ring wouldn’t look good, it would look huge…. so we agreed on a 1.25 karat round solitaire diamond…. I knew that the ring existed I just didn’t know when I was going to get it…. we got engaged in the middle of November of 2003…..
BREAKING NEWS
Friday January 16th I just got back from the doctor, seems the gash on my leg has managed to get itself infected so I couldn’t get the stitches out and have to go see a wound care doctor….. This sucks!!! I can never do things the easy way, its always the hard way!!! the gash…. how did that happen???? last Tuesday (January 6th) I fell and cut my leg pretty bad…. I wouldn’t even say cut it was a gash with skin peeled back…. I lost a lot of blood before the ambulance came…. I went to the hospital, which is a story within itself, and ended up with 31 stitches… the instructions for after care said to have the stitches out in 10 days….. so I went to Dr. Waheed’s office (my primary care doc) this morning to have one of his PAs take out the stitches….. when she looked at the area where the stitches are she said she wanted to get Dr. Waheed to look at it before she did anything…. he was able to come in and both of them agreed that the whole area is infected….. I can never do things the easy way, why do things always have to be hard…. so Dr. Waheed wants me to see a wound care doctor, so I have an appointment for this coming Wednesday the 21st at 12:00…..
So how I got the gash/injury?? last week I was outside having a cigarette, I dropped my stylus and I leaned forward to pick it up….. unfortunately when I leaned forward my walker decided to roll away from me….. I was stepping back to grab the walker so I could sit….. when the walker decided to tip over sideways, taking me down with it…. I honestly thought I was ok because nothing hurt, everything seemed to be okay…. so I righted myself from lying on my side to sitting up…. I called Ronnie, who did not have his phone in the bathroom with him, then I tried Danny who was in the shower also but I knew he had his phone in the bathroom with him….. I told him I fell and that I needed either him, Freya, or Ronnie to come down to help me get up….. while I was talking to Danny I became very upset because I looked down and there was a pool of blood under my leg…. I pulled my pant leg up, it was soaked in blood, and saw this huge gash on my leg…. gash is being generous, the skin was peeled back…. it looked horrible but worse we could not stop the bleeding…. the EMTs said it looked like I lost about a pint of blood…. I wasn’t too happy having to call 911 because I don’t like the Queens hospitals…. but I was bleeding through a towel that Ronnie had brought down with him…. one of my neighbors ran up to his apartment, got an ace bandage and made a makeshift tourniquet which did help m slow the bleeding down…… so the ER doctor gave me 31 stitches and here we are, and infection in a really wicked gash….
Today is Saturday January 17th and I am sitting here wanting to write, knowing I should continue the things I was writing but at the same time I feel a little stuck…..
Okay, before I went off on a tangent bout the gash on my leg and how I got it, I was saying how Ronnie and I got engaged in November of 2003…. The two of us went looking at venues, listing to DJs and checking out photographers….. we decided that we wanted to get married at this place called “Westbury Manor” , we found a DJ and we found our photographer….. we even gave the $500.00 deposit for the Westbury Manor…… My parents who lived in Florida, come up for Thanksgiving and my mother came with Ronnie and I to Westbury Manor to discuss the wedding…. I’ve got to tell you….. my mother really is a piece of work!!!! with all her demands the wedding planner actually offered to give us our deposit back, who does that??!! I was afraid that we were not going to agree on my wedding dress but surprisingly we did!!! so the wedding was set, it would take place May 16, 2004….. of course during the six months until the wedding we would have our arguments, I took my wins when I could but I was close to throwing in the towel when my mother said to me “It may be your wedding but it’s my party!!” again I ask who does that?? isn’t my wedding supposed to be “MY” day??? I just said to myself that it didn’t really matter because I was marrying Ronnie!!!
Well, speaking of marrying Ronnie, another funny story…..
Ronnie had been married before, as I told you, and they had been living in New Mexico…. In the divorce Ronnie got the house….. we were in New Mexico to check on the house and for Ronnie to see some friends ….. we were in the hotel one morning thinking about what to do for the day….. I don’t know what made me think of this but I asked Ronnie how far Vegas was from where we were, he told me and to be honest I don’t remember…. when he asked me why I wanted to go there, I told him “To get married”!!! I stunned him, he didn’t know what to say…. I told him that if we got married he could claim me on his taxes….. I mean we were engaged, we were living together, and we had a wedding planned for 6 months from then….. He said ok…. the reception at the hotel overheard us talking and she had a friend who worked for Southwest Airlines and another friend who worked at the New York New York hotel in Vegas…. she got us great seats on a flight and her friend in Vegas was able to get us a great rate on a room…. so it was planned, our flight was at 5:00pm….. Now this is the time when you know Karma is totally working for you….. so, when we got to the hotel our room wasn’t ready but I guess there was a notation that we were there to get married and we just so happen to get upgraded to a honeymoon suite at no additional cost….. we went to the room at about 7:00, while I was in the shower Ronnie was looking in the yellow pages (yes the actual book) for a place for us to get married….. he asked me if I cared about where it was, I told him I didn’t care except not the place where he married Lynne (his ex)….. so he made the arrangements…. he showered after I did and we were off trying to get things done in time….. Ronnie had scheduled the ceremony for 11:00 and it was 8:00…. we went to the mall there and went into the first dress store we saw, believe it or not but the first dress I tried on was the one (and it wasn’t too expensive)….. as we walked through the mall we found a jewelry store, we went in and I told the guy behind the counter that he had ten minutes to find Ronnie a ring (he has fat fingers) and he did….. this all seemed to good to be true….. our last stop in the mall was Nordstrom to get Ronnie a suit…. again the first suit Ronnie tried on was the suit but it did need some alterations….. wouldn’t you know the tailor was there and available to do the alterations….. when we were leaving the store the tailor asked if I wanted to leave my dress with them, so I did…… our next stop was City Hall because we had to get our marriage license….. I thought there was going to be a long line but we walked right up to the window when we got there….. we had the marriage license, his suit, my dress, two wedding bands (nothing fancy, just plain bands), a bottle of champagne by the time we got back to our room and it was only 10:00!!! the Limo was going to pick us up at 10:45…. Now you tell me, how lucky were we??? everything just fell into place!!! almost like it was really meant to be…… the ceremony took place at “The Little White Wedding Chapel”….. after the ceremony we went to a bar in the hotel and Ronnie got shitfaced!! needless to say we missed our flight back the next morning so we had to reschedule it for 7:00 that night…. Ronnie felt bad for being hung over so he gave me the bank card and sent me down to the casino…… when we came home we decided not to tell anyone, so we didn’t!!! we just went ahead with the planned wedding….. as a matter of fact we only told my parents a few years ago….. I completely recommend everyone do it that way because it takes the pressure off of the big wedding and it just turned out to be a big party…. my mother was able to have her “party”…..
What no one knew was that I was pregnant!!!! unfortunately, we had found out a few days before the wedding that the pregnancy might not be viable but there was always a chance, so it was recommended that I treat myself as if I definitely was….. a few weeks later we did find out that I had lost the baby….. to this day I am convinced that that baby was my little girl…. I guess it just wasn’t in the cards for me…… no worries, I got two wonderful kids out of our marriage…… when I got pregnant with Freya Ronnie and I decided it wasn’t going to be worth it for me to work…. Financially we would gain nothing by my working because my paycheck would pay for childcare, so I became a stay-at-home mom….. I love(d) every minute although at this point in my life it hurt for me not to work because I have no skills to get a job that is not retail…..
This is probably going to be my favorite part so far because I get to tell you about my children!!! I am going to start with my oldest Freya….
Freya was born Matthew Alexander on March 24th 2005….. quite a marvelous but scary day….. see he was over a week late (he didn’t want to come out) and I was induced (he still didn’t want to come out) after 25 hours of hard labor my ob decided to take him….. it was a good thing too because his heart rate and my pulse were dropping and after the doctor cut me open the cord was wrapped around his neck…. as much as I always knew I wanted to be a mother, I never expected how drastically he would change my life….. here was this perfect little person and he was mine to mold and teach and I was scared to death….. I mean seriously, look at the role models I had to base my parenting on and didn’t want to fuck him up the same way…… I made him a promise when I held him for the first time and we were alone that he was never going to have to question my love for him, that my love for him was unconditional….. I promised him that as he grew up he might not like me at times and I might not like him but I will always, always love him…… for the past almost 21 years I have been doing my best to live up to that….. I hope he knows this….
He had some delays as a toddler; speech, fine motor skills, I had him evaluated and the outcome was therapy for his speech and occupational therapy….. for pre-school he was in a special class (an inclusion class where half the children have special needs and the the half doesn’t) on the special needs side of the class….. not only was he taught regular pre-school lessons he got his speech therapy and his occupational therapy….. after pre-school he did attend a regular kindergarten class, still getting his occupational therapy….. because he was sooo smart I had him tested for the gifts and talented class….. of course he did phenomenally and went to an elementary school near us in Whitestone….. I liked all his teacher except one but hey you can’t like them all….. the only problem I had with the class was that there was only 1 gifted and talented (G&T) class in his grade so they never switch classes with other classes, so he was with the same kids from first grade to fifth grade…. you would think that since they were together all those years that Matthew would have made a lot of friends, but he didn’t…. the only kids he stayed friendly with were the kids who went to the same middle school as him….. I know hindsight is terrible but had I known then what I know now about the middle school I might have thought twice about sending him there….. I always thought something was ‘off’ about Matthew, but every time I asked the school to evaluate him I got push back because Matthew was sooo smart…. They even questioned why I wanted to put a label on him…. I told them that i wasn’t looking for a label but if he deserved services that I can’t get for him without a label then yes I did want that label….. the problem is that if whatever testing they did, they never tested his social skills because as far as the New York City Board of Education only cares if it affects a child educationally….. personally I think that is horrible because part of growing up is learning social skills and if there is an issue with the social skills it will affect them educationally in the long run….. I did eventually find a doctor to evaluate Matthew and the diagnosis from the evaluation is that he is on the spectrum…. so not only does he suffer from major depressive disorder, extreme social anxiety, anxiety itself, ADHA, now it has be proven that he is also on the spectrum…. oh and he is transitioning….. could he have anymore on his plate??!!
Matthew’s experience in middle school was horrible…. he spent at least half of 7th grade and all of 8th grade being bullied….. it kills me every time I think about it, I can not believe that I didn’t know until he broke down and told me….. the school touts itself on its anti-bullying and they didn’t do anything to protect Matthew…. His story about the bullying and physical abuse he suffered at the hands of other children in the school, is his story and the actual events only impact my journey to becoming JoJo by the guilt i feel about the abuse….
Matthew spent his first year and a half of high school at home because of COVID…… his school did not offer a blended program (in school every other day or two, home the others) so his school days consisted of him waking up, signing in for attendance, and either going back to sleep or playing games on his computer. so any social skills he had (which were little to none) went to hell….. there was none left….. at the end of 10th grade I was notified by the high school that he had enough credits that he could graduate at the end of 11th grade, a year early….. I thought that we should just get him out of the high school and on to the next chapter in life, maybe it would help him….. again hindsight is 20/20 and maybe if he had stayed the extra year it could have helped his social skills…..
As much as everything he went through is and was tough on me, I wanted you to know about it because any diversity in my life has helped me become JoJo….
This is the issue from Matthew that has impacted my life Ronnie’s life, Danny’s life and everyone else involved the most in his life and mine….. Matthew came with me to the mall one day, which in itself was weird, and when we were at the kiosk to pick up a gift for our friend Robyn Matthew turns around and asked if we could go into the store right next to the kiosk…. I said yes but when we got inside I noticed there was no men’s clothes, it was a women’s clothing store…. I asked him he had a gift to give someone, he said no….. He looked me right in the face, raised his arms and said “SURPRISE, I’m transitioning!!”…. the best thing I could have done, I did, I didn’t react, well actually I did….. I turned around and said “that I couldn’t afford to breathe in that store so lets go next door to a much less expensive store!”
I know most parents might have reacted differently but my thoughts were it didn’t matter what/who he was/is he is still my child….. so, now Matthew has become Freya and I now have a 20 year old daughter and I love her just as if she came out of my belly female….. we have had our bumps along the way but it is still relatively new for me, she only came out 2 years ago….. Danny knew first, she had told him a few years before she told me…. I am so glad that they are at;east close enough that Freya felt comfortable telling Danny and that Danny held her confidence and didn’t tell anyone….. of the four of us, Ronnie has had the hardest time with the change and that is kind of expected but, there is still nothing that Ronnie would not do for her (that has not changed)…. The issues are with my family but that will be talked about in a little while….
Daniel Louis blessed us with his appearance on March 16, 2007….. thanks to his sisters emergency c-section, Danny was planned….. whereas Freya was born weighing 6lbs 10oz and measuring 18 inches, Danny came out weighing 8lbs and 20 inches long… He was my chunky little monkey….. chubby all the way until puberty…. whereas Freya’s hair slowly got dark and her eye turned brown, Danny’s hair stayed blonde and his eye stayed blue….. Freya was a very attractive boy growing up and she is a beautiful girl now but Danny is the epitome of surfer dude with a heart of gold….. There are no comparisons between my kids because they are very different personalities….. Freya has always been more serious, more challenging, always willing to argue a point (to a fault), and introverted…. Danny is extroverted, carefree, empathetic, sarcastic, sweet, and always knows when I need to laugh and/or smile….. he seems to have this aura around him that lights up a room when he walks in…..
Danny was also born with delays in speech and occupational areas but physically also…. he got services in all three but also got psych counseling for socializing…. thankfully he was also afforded the opportunity to attend pre-school at the same school Freya attended…. and just like his sisters he went into the G&T program in elementary school…. The difference between the kids education begins there…. I had mentioned that had I known what the middle school Freya attended was actually like I might not have tried to make sure that Danny went there….. even though the middle school was a lottery school (and that is how Freya got in), they had an agreement with the elementary school it shared a building with that all those students get first choice to go there…… so I transferred Danny from the elementary school he was in to that elementary school for 5th grade, to ensure that he went to that middle school….. It was there that Danny developed his small group of friends, he added two more to that group from Boy Scouts and that has been his core group of friends since then…… he does have another boy that he met in his pre-school class and has been best-friends with ever since and through him he met a couple of other kids….. Danny has always been very content with just having a small group of friends and that is great but at the same time there is nothing wrong with having a group of friends in different aspects…. have your small group of close friends but make friends in clubs, sports, classes….. College is not only for learning but also for networking himself for future jobs…… he won’t listen, he has to find out for himself….. I do have to tell you though that I miss him…..
Now we know at this point that the relationships I have with my parents isn’t the greatest and the relationship with my brother is next to non-existent, I’ll attempt to put the icing on the cake, so-to-speak, and wrap up the part of my story that pertains to my family and even Ronnie’s family….. okay, just quickly, I was close to Ronnie’s sister-in-law, Ilene, up to about 2 years ago and I do take some responsibility in us not being close anymore, actually we don’t speak…… I already told you about how she tried to call the rehab I was in to see if I was lying about being there…… the summer before that her daughter got engaged, now we love Beth, and we were invited to the engagement party….. originally Ronnie had said we were going but then changed his mind when he found out that his niece was not invited (once again)…… so because we didn’t go to the party Butch (Ronnie’s brother) and Ilene are not talking to us….. I tried to explain to Ilene that since this was Ronnie’s family and he decided to not go, I could not go against him and go anyway….. they don’t understand, oh well!!!!
I have told you that my relationship with my brother has been getting more and more stressed and I guess that right about now I should try to tell you why. I just hope you can make sense of it because I can’t!!!!! as much as my brother was a very bad influence on me growing up we were always close….. when his daughter Chelsea was born and he separated from his wife, I moved in with my brother to help him raise Chelsea….. Needless to say me and Chelsea were close….. but that was a long long time ago…..
I guess I should tell you that 3 months after my brother’s 60th birthday he ended up needing a quadruple bypass…. so his health was not great….. his heart was good for a while but it has been declining for quite sometime now….. supposedly he is on the transplant list for a new heart, but I don’t think that is going to happen…… anyway, I just wanted to give you some history on my brother…..
My parents moved back to New York on a request from myself and my brother because we had reached points in our lives that running down to Florida every time something happened (my mother fell and broke her hip not long after my brother had his heart surgery). my brother couldn’t be running back and forth down there and I had two toddlers so I couldn’t drop everything to get down to them….. They had to come back here…..
The first place they lived was great because it was in between my brother and me, so I was able to go there a lot more often than I can now….. the something possessed my parents to I’ve up to what my parents do and they moved, but decided to move 20 minutes further away from me and that maden it harder for me to get out to to see them a often…
Sunday January 25 – I need to interject here off topic….. it seems that no matter what I try, I just cannot lose weight….. I am taking the pills I am supposed to take, I have even been a good girl and not taken more than I am supposed to take, normally I would…. I am trying to watch what I eat, in the sense of how much and how often and I just can’t win…..Am I really destined to be fat for the rest of my life???? I guess I would be fine with that if my weight didn’t keep going up…… so then I end up hurting myself (not literally) because then I eat out of frustration and then the cycle repeats….. I just find it unfair that Ronnie can get the Mounjaro injectible medicine but I can’t….. Believe it or not, even though I am grossly overweight, I am “TOO HEALTHY” to qualify…. it sucks…. I have seriously been thinking of getting a revision done to my gastric bypass, but Ronnie says no….. I think I may investigate it further…. then maybe I will be able to get the help I need to lose the weight….. right now I pay $100.00 a month for the diet pills I am taking, that isn’t working….. I have been looking online at other companies to get the weight loss injections for about $50-$75 more than I am already paying, so I might go that route…… I have a week until my disability check comes in and I can’t make any decisions until then and I have to create a budget to incorporate the additional funds…. so we will have to wait and see…..
Three is a huge snow storm blanketing most of the eastern half of the country from northern Florida to Maine plus some inland states…. in the midst of this epic snow storm Ronnie is in the process of driving Freya into Brooklyn to go to a thing based on a computer game she plays….. if Freya went out more and did more things, there would not have been a question as to Ronnie driving her this morning….. how do we say no to this???? that is why Ronnie is taking her there now… I told them to let me know when they get there…… so they made it there in one piece and made it home the same…. more importantly, she had a good time and didn’t mind being there on her own….. she looked very pretty too!!!!
Ok, so back to what I was saying…… The relationship between me and my brother really started down a steep slope towards where we are now….. As much as I always thought we were close, there was this underlying factor of my feeling as if he had been physically abusing me my whole life….. just to let you know, you don’t have to be covered in bruises or experienced sexual trauma to be abused….. my brother would reach out and punch me for no reason, very hard too….. just because I walked past him…… he bullied me with calling me ‘tubby’, ‘wide load’, ‘thunder thighs’, I think you got my point!!! it really took until I was with Ronnie before I really realized what he was doing….. and that it was ok for me not to be ok with the way he treated me…….
To make matters worse, he would abuse and torture my kids…… just because they were boys…… he would give them wedgies, punch them, tackle them, chase them and then got bu[set when they weren’t all too thrilled to do anything for him…… Freya even told him to ‘fuck off’ once….. and I was okay with it….. the worse part is that I let it happen, I didn’t stop my brother…. I honestly don’t think I could have anyway….. so the kids wanted to see him, and Sandi, that much…… so it came down to only holidays that we saw each other….. I don’t even think my parents noticed, let alone cared…..
When my parents moved from East Meadow out to Plainview it put even more of a strain on the relationship between me and my brother…… they lived 5 minutes away from my brother and it is not my fault that my parents called my brother for every little thing and that he ran over there everytime……. and if living in Plainview wasn’t far enough away, they moved to Commack…… now they are a 40 minute drive without traffic so it is harder to get out there…..
I’m not sure if it was 2 or 3 years ago that really pressed the accelerator to end the fraud that was the relationship between Jeff and myself…… Ronnie had gone to Lake George with two other couples and on the way home I get a phone call that my mother fell and hurt herself, I convinced her to go to the hospital…. then I get a phone call from my brother with him saying that as far as he knew she wasn’t going to go to the hospital….. I told him I was not home and that we were in the car on our way home from Lake George so I didn’t know what he wanted from me…. he said nothing and we hung up……. I think we were home about 15 minutes before I got another phone call from my brother, if that is what you want to call it….. he cursed me out for about 10 minutes before I hung up on him…… then about 20 minutes later I get a phone call from Sandi who proceeded to yell at me and to sum up the 15 or so minute phone call, said that I was killing my brother and that I shouldn’t bother coming to his funeral….. who the hell does she think she is????? Needless to say that was the last time I actually had a conversation with Sandi that was anything more than cordial…. to make matters even worse, when I told my parents what Sandi had said they defended her to me, telling me they can’t believe she would say such a thing…..
My parents have been suggesting that I reconcile with my brother and somehow it is all on me to do it….. like my brother is sooo innocent in all of this….. I told my parents that a few years ago I had asked my brother to meet me for coffee or lunch or something for about 30-45 minutes so we could talk, he never could find the time to make for me so I have given up…… but my parents will sit there and tell me that my brother says he is the one who wants to talk and I am the one who doesn’t have time for him…… yeah well, the straw that broke that camels back happened this past summer when my brother and Sandi sold their house in Syosset and moved somewhere in Huntington…. I say somewhere because not only didn’t they tell me when they were moving, I don’t even know where they moved to….. they never bothered to give me their new address…. if that doesn’t say that they wasn’t nothing to do with me, I don’t know what does…… still my parents put the onus on me to reconcile, not gonna happen…..
During this time of vast indifference between my brother and my self arose another issue that pushed the wedge in further….. that issue is Freya….. at first my brother said he was fine with what Freya was going through but in the same breath wanted to know if he had seen a shrink to discuss this decision…… then for one of the holidays I had my parents, Jeff and Sandi here and my brother in his cowardly way told Ronnie that he knew I would be upset so he was leaving it for Ronnie to tell me that Chelsea did not want her children around Freya because she didn’t want to have the conversation with them (they were 7 and 4 at the time, I think) about why their cousin Matthew wears a dress….. let’s be fair, Freya wouldn’t need to wear a dress when we saw them the 3 or 4 times a year but instead of having grown-up conversation about this Chelsea decided to go the route of innocence….. so guess what, we don’t do holidays with them anymore…… and then my mom tells me that my brother asked if we could not call Matthew Freya in front of them…. my answer was and is NO!!!!
January 27 I know it is a little late to be doing my entries in here with a date on them but I think it gives it a little something something…. so maybe if I can remember I will do it this way, since we are getting close to the point where I became JoJo……
Now, I can continue to bore you with the usual antics of my mother and father because those leopards will never change their spots….. I am supposed to come to terms with that fact but I can’t and I don’t think I should have to……. I can never forgive them for the things that occurred while growing up, but I can do my best to get past it……. I mean if they hadn’t caused me to become a lowly self-conscious, full of self hate, bipolar mess, I wouldn’t have be open to being with a man that makes me feel the complete opposite, or at least tries to….. and it would probably wouldn’t have opened me up to the possibility of another family….
I told you back when I started this that I have known my whole life that I was adopted and up until recently I went back and forth as to whether or not I wanted to find my biological family….. there was a lot of ‘what ifs’ when it came to finding them….. first, I didn’t know if my biological mother had told anyone I was born? was she married with a family? did I have siblings? how did her whole family think/feel about me? and to be totally honest looking for my biological father didn’t even occur to me, I don’t know why…..
Last year for Christmas (2024) I had given Danny an ancestry.com kit….. he had mentioned that it would be cool to see where he came from as far as nationalities go, why countries his ancestors came from, especially since we didn’t know any of that from me….. he did the testing and sent it in…… when the results came we all got a kick out of it…… as far as the results go they do not right away say whether you traits you are looking at are from your father or mother, it starts out saying parent 1 and parent 2….. we were easily able to decipher which parent was me and which one was Ronnie….. I was parent 1 and Ronnie was parent 2….. we were able to assess that because parent 2 had the Hispanic traits and parent 1 had none…. it was no surprise that parent 1 (me) came up with nationalities as Northern Europe, Germany etc but the amusing part was with Ronnie…. it was within his nationalities that showed any Judaism in Danny’s ancestors….. Ronnie showed to be 3% ashkinazy Jewish and 1% safardic jewish…… genetically Ronnie is more Jewish than I am, that is what we found humorous……
After seeing Danny with his results got me curious about mine….. ancestors.com gave me some answers without having to ruin anyone’s lives….. so I took the DNA test….. I got my results at the end of April beginning of May 2025 and I ended up discovering more that I could ever have imagined…… not long after I got my results I got a message on the ancestry website from a woman saying that she thinks I am either a sister of hers or an aunt, the 25% of our DNA matched….. Her name is Dorothy Wayne Henderson and although she had no connection to my biological mother, she was connected to me through my biological father….. after we talked for a few weeks she connected me with my biological father along with two other sisters and two of my cousins….. since our initial conversations we have been texting each other every day and I have spoken to a couple of them on the phone….. we, the four of us, are going to meet with Dorothy (Deefers) and my cousin Janette (Nette) in Florida in May to actually meet for the first time…… I am so excited….. eventually we plan on making a trip out to Arizona to meet my father and I eagerly await that trip a well…..
In the midst of my building relationships with my father’s side of the family, I got a message on the ancestry website from a man saying he was my brother from my biological mother…. that he had been in touch with my other brother and they were hoping to find the “missing Verch girl”, I have an older brother and younger brother from my mother and weirdly my biological mother ha kept my older brother and gave both me and my little brother up for adoption….. it seems that she is the proof that my bipolar disorder is genetic because she suffered with it….. back in those times there was not much known about the illness and there were not a lot of choices in medications so she suffered and my brother’s and I are the products of some of her suffering….. Unfortunately Sandy (my mother) passed away in 2011 from COPD and from what Ken (my big brother) told me, most of the women in the family all were chubby/fat so my weight is genetic also…… when I asked my mother she did tell me that my biological mother was a large woman, something you would think she would have told me instead of torturing me about my weight while I was growing up……
As I mentioned, I have been working on building relationships with the family I have connected with and it is a surreal experience…. and this is how I became JoJo….. I am the oldest one of the sisters and my two cousins, Dorothy asked me that if we had grown up together what do I think they would ave called me since Jordana might have been too difficult for them to pronounce….. we came up with the nickname JoJo….
Now that you know my crazy irrational yet rational journey to become JoJo, I don’t know if I should end now or continue this like some sort of journal to express the continuation of my story….. maybe I will continue to write in here as a journal to keep you informed about my life and what transpires from here……
Sunday February 1 Welcome to the first day of February!! Hopefully tomorrow the ground hog will not see his shadow and the winter will be over soon…. this cold is really getting to be too much for me… I don’t let it stop me from anything but I am definitely feeling the cold more and more these days….. I had a realtor over here the other day to see what we could get for the sale of the apartment, if we sell soon we could make a pretty penny but I don’t know what the timeline is for Ronnie to move…… I know we don’t have the money for a down payment on a house and that will be the deciding factor as to when we are able to move….. Personally, I think we should sell as soon as possible and then rent for a short while in the area in which we want to move, which we haven’t agreed on any particular area yet, this was we are positive that it is an area we can see ourselves moving to and living the rest of our lives there…… I am still not convinced that Florida is the right place for us…… I don’t think we should count out Texas (the Austin area), or Arizona, New Mexico, even Nevada… I have to do more research as to an area that will be most friendly for Freya….. so we will have to see….. I only know that I want south of New York and not North Carolina south….. I guess I have to do my research and then discuss it further with Ronnie…..
So I wanted to invite my family to read my blog but I am not so sure as to how to go about it….. I mean, how do they find it….. I think I finally figured it out so I will give them the information and see if they can get it to read…..
My brother’s birthday was Friday and my parents anniversary is tomorrow….. when I spoke to my mother on Friday and said that we were planning on going out there yesterday she said that she had something to do with the library at around 12:00/1:00….. they go to lunch at 1:00 so it wouldn’t be at that time….. I just really wish that my parents would’t lie or try to hide from me that they are spending the day with Jeffrey….. I really don’t care, what I do care about it their hiding it as though it is some sort of big secret….. My mother had asked me about today but I thought Ronnie and I were going to be hanging out with his friend Owen…. as far as I know there are no plans as of yet to see Owen….. Ronnie really really really confuses me….. on one hand, he talks about doing the right thing and going out there to see my parents as much as neither of us want to but then he doesn’t make it easy to make the plans to go out there and see them…… I guess that after Ronnie wakes up and we discuss it further, I will figure out what to do…… in all honesty, I am thinking that unless Ronnie has spoken to Owen about hanging out today that maybe I will go out to my parents whether he wants to go or not…… It won’t be the first time I went out there without him and it definitely won’t be the last….. I would however, like to go to our jeweler to pick up a ring I have had on lay away for a year or two…. I think we owe $200.00 left on the ring…. I just would hate for us to lose the $100/$200 we already but down on it…… I have to check my finances and see maybe I will be able to go and get the ring myself….. if not, there is a ring from Pandora that I saw in a brochure yesterday that I like and depending on the price maybe I will get it…… there is a Pandora store up in the shopping center so I can see if they have it….. otherwise I can order it, but I have to go into the store to see what size I need…. so that could be my plan for the day….
I am going to stop for now, maybe I will write later (if there is something to write about) otherwise I will continue tomorrow or so…..
February 21st sorry it as taken me so long to continue but life sometimes gets in the way….. can’t say I have been busy because I’m not but the days seem to get away from me sometimes…. for some reason my memory has been off and my words seem to have difficulty lately….. I mean, like I said sometimes the days get away from me in such a way that I will know I have something to do but I just can’t remember what it is and then its too late when I remember to do the thing I was supposed to do…… and losing my words, for example, I was writing Martin (my baby brother) an email and I kept having trouble with spelling….. I was writing something and wanted to use the word ‘profit’ but I couldn’t remember how to spell it so I had to reword the sentence to use a different word…. those are just examples…… and I don’t know why this is happening….. I need to call my neurologist during the week anyway so I will just ask her if she wants to see me about it…. the reason I need to call is because Dr. Waheed (my primary care doctor and cardiologist) wants me to call about changing one of my meds….. I take low dose aspirin because of the stroke and I have been reacting to it like I used to, I am bruising very badly for no reason at all…… I went to m y Hematologist and she checked my numbers (iron, hemoglobin, etc) to see if I needed another iron infusion but my numbers were okay….. she said that it was from the aspirin nd that I should stop the cat from laying on my lap….. when I told Dr. Waheed about that he said there were a few different drugs to replace the aspirin but he didn’t want to do anything without the neurologist signing off on something else….. so in the mean time I look like someone beat me up….. luckily there are no bruises on my face or neck just on my arms (really badly), legs, and some on my torso….. so I will call but it will have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday because I doubt the office will be open on Monday….. Why, you may ask?? Because we are supposed to be getting a bad Nor’easter starting tomorrow night into Monday…. I mean at last I heard we are supposed to be getting something like 18/22 inches of snow with near blizzard conditions Sunday night….. I was hoping that we were done with the snow for the year but I guess not….. hopefully this will be winter’s last hoorah!!! I am soooo sick of this weather and can’t wait to get out of here!!!
So, let’s see what do I have to tell you???
It’s weird, I almost feel like I am living a double life….. on one hand I am nervous, anxiety ridden, self-conscious little girl because of my parents and on the other hand I am happy and relaxed when I am dealing with my biological family….. it just is easy with my family as much so as its sooo hard with my parents….
An update on things that have been happening with my parents…… I seriously think my mom is losing it….. I really think that her mind is going….. for example….. I called them earlier and was talking to my mother but, the conversation kept going round in circles…. the first part of the conversation dealt with her trying to call me and the line was busy….. I told her that I had call waiting so it couldn’t have been busy (the only way it would be busy is if I was dialing out at the same time as she was calling in, hey it happens) I said does it matter we are talking now…. she kept saying maybe I was dialing the wrong number, which is more likely what was happening since the only outgoing phone calls I made today were the one to them at 11:30 this morning and the call I made then…… anyway it didn’t matter because we were talking to each other now….. then the conversation turned to us moving and her saying that we should move now…. I told her that we were trying to save up for the down payment on a house so until then we couldn’t move anywhere…. she asked if I was crazy….. she said that I was going to be getting $180,000, I asked from where?? she made it sound as if I was only going to get that much for the apartment…. when I answered her by saying I know that we are going to get money from selling the apartment and that we were going to nuse that money to pay for a house but we needed to save up for the down payment….. she asked me “what is wrong with you”? I said nothing is wrong with me, that we needed to save up for the down payment….. nshe said we should sell first, sell now, put it on the market…. I said nd where am I going to go???? she said that we should start looking…. when I told her that we needed to agree on a place first she didn’t know what I meant…. I said that Ronnie wants to go to Florida but I have been tossing around the idea of Austin Texas (which from what I got from Ronnie is not an option but I will get into that more later)….. she actually had the nerve to tell me that Austin would be no good for her, that it would be too far for her to come visit…. who said we wanted them to visit, not to mention how are they going to travel down to Florida???? if they are going to fly, I think Austin would be an hour longer of a flight than to Florida…. she said they couldn’t drive to Austin…. I was like how are you going to drive to Florida…. she said they can get someone to drive them down and up but she thought it would be too far to drive to Austin…. I was hoping by my telling Ronnie what she said would give him incentive to move to Texas….. it didn’t!!!
February 24 I know that lately I have been using this more as a journal but I have told you my story on how I became JoJo but I feel that you could understand my journey a little better by seeing how my relationships are quite different depending on which “family” I am dealing with….. how infuriating it is dealing with my ‘adopted’ parents (my brother is a non-entity) and how easy it is dealing with my ‘bio’ family