All of Me – Part 3

By admin

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

Late 1997 I married Tai, a Nigerian refugee who I sponsored so he could stay in Canada.  We both worked two to three jobs at a time throughout our marriage and one job was a hip hop clothing store we owned in Vancouver.  By 2000 we had three failed pregnancies and I took that, along with other issues we had, as a sign that things weren’t meant to be and left after giving him a 6 month warning that I was on my way out of the relationship.  He didn’t take me seriously, I left him in 2000 and by December 2002 Tai and I were officially divorced.

I was single for two years during which one of the years Tai stalked me (nothing harmful, just parking at my house at all hours and somehow knowing things he wouldn’t have known unless he was close by during times when I wouldn’t expect him to be).

Tai is now happily married, has a daughter and owns two hip hop clothing stores of his own in New Westminster, BC.

I’m not going to go into as much detail in regards to Bruce (not his real name but one I’m sure he’ll appreciate I used) – he’s a private person and I respect that.

Late 2002 I met Bruce, an American who would be my second husband and the father of my only child. Early 2003 we were married and late 2003 we had Kaius.  In 2005 we all moved to Connecticut and in 2007 we came back home minus Bruce. Long story short – due to immigration issues we were separated at the border – he had to stay on his side of the border and I had to stay on mine. We really tried to make it work while doing the appropriate paperwork to get us all on the same side of the border. In the end we officially broke it off in April of 2008, just a few days before our 5th wedding anniversary.

While he hasn’t seen our son since were separated at the border in 2007 he calls every couple of days and is religiously early with child support every week along with any extras that need covering.  I’m working on obtaining my passport and getting Kaius over the border for a visit.

I wouldn’t ever take back the time we spent in the States, Kaius got to know his Dad’s side of the family including life long friends whom we lived with that consider him their brother.

Neither husband cheated or physically harmed me. People ask me all the time why I left them and most of the time they really expect to hear that they hit me or cheated on me.  They didn’t.  Neither husband was a bad person they just weren’t the man I was meant to spend the rest of my life with which is totally ok.  I’m grateful they are a part of my life and I’m a better person for knowing both of them.

Technically I left both husbands – I say technically because Bruce finally left me after refusing to break it off when I tried to 6 months prior to him breaking it off.  I knew he wasn’t happy with our situation and frankly it was sucking the life out of me.  Ask around… quite a few people saw a side of me they never knew existed while I was married to him and it’s not his fault, I should have been stronger.  I’m a better person for having him in my life and I’ll be ever thankful for the son we have together.

The little person we created opened my world up to things I never thought imaginable – even though my three failed pregnancies were with a different man I always thought of Kaius as a reincarnation of all three of those babies.  He has the energy & personality of four kids and anyone that knows him will probably agree.  One of his Aunties captured it best when she nick named him Chaos.

Stay tuned for more.

All of Me – Part 2

By admin

Part 1 is here.

My Dad’s a mess, his wife is a mess.  They both drink… a lot and both have various drug addictions ranging from pain killers to weed to goodness knows what else.  They live a relatively normal life and are very hard working but it’s a bit of a roller coaster ride dealing with them.  Really I should have been a statistic.  As a teenager I lived with them and ran away a few times because Dad’s wife wasn’t very nice to us (this is an understatement – I’m not going into detail).  Every time I ran away I called my Mom and every time my Mom called my Dad to come and get me.

After a few times I realized it wasn’t going to get better so I ventured out on my own at the age of 16. I lived with a friend from school and her parents for a while.  I lived with a family of 5 who I consider my family and who I’ve know since I was 13.  Then I lived on my own in a rental suite that was a converted garage while I finished high school.  I was on government assistance, got special permission from the school district to live outside of my school’s catchment area because I was sick of changing schools.  Determined to get my diploma and not change schools during the important last years of school was my main objective – I was a band geek and a good kid.

You’d think that because I was so young and on my own I would have drank or partied or been into drugs or boys but I was determined not to become a statistic so none of that started until I was 20 and even then it wasn’t to excess.  I had my first boyfriend and my first drink at 20 – to this day I have never touched drugs. I rarely even take prescription drugs or pain killers.

After graduating high school in 1994, I worked at a video store while completing an Administrative Assistant’s program at the local community college in 1995.  I went to work in my first office job in March of 1996.  Shortly after starting this job I met the man who would become my first of two husbands.

More on him and the second husband next!

Ch Ch Ch Chaaanges!

By admin

A lot of people have a lot of questions as to where I have been lately.  I wasn’t going to tell anyone, partly because I was ashamed, partly because… frankly I was scared of being judged.  I don’t take too kindly to being talked about negatively and try to avoid the possibility of that at all times.  I’m letting that all go because I can’t stop it all from happening and frankly I don’t have too much to be ashamed about when you boil it all down.

That being said, I’m ready now…

Long story short – between the market in the states (where most of my clients are/were), my temporary living situations over the last 2 years taking it’s toll, becoming a single mom, my PC laptop finally giving into it’s much anticipated final resting place – it’s been a long hard working-from-home road that is now under major construction part-time until further notice.

I had to get an office job, a real job – outside of the house.  Only guess what?! The job I got is one where I get to utilize my skills from my previous 12 years of office experience AND I also get to use the skills I’ve aquired during the last three years (and a bit) of working from home.  I’ll share more about the company and exactly what I’ll be doing once we launch.  Here’s a great tid bit… I’ll be helping with their online networking so I may be more of a presence in that regard sometime very soon.

Financially I need to get back on my feet and one of the first things I’ll be doing is purchasing a new laptop so that I can continue some of the projects that are staying with me through this whole thing.  I’m currently using an old Mac that doesn’t allow me to do much more than the basics and isn’t portable.  This is why I’m not at the Tuesday night networking chat at Business and Learning – the conference room client requires a more up-to-date version of Mac’s operating system.  Same thing with Twitter – no Twitter clients work with Mac OS 10.3.

For those that know me well there’s probably a bunch of questions running through your head. What about Kaius? What about homeschooling? What about the WAH Expo? What about PodTalkDivas?  What about your VA work with coaches?

Kaius turned 5 in December. He’ll be going to Kindergarten starting in January – we’ve moved closer to my job just last week.  Kaius will be in daycare while I’m at work. This is THE single most hardest part of this whole situation and to each their own but it’s not what I had planned!  He is a social monster so he is excited and really looks forward to going every day.   I don’t like this, I’m not going to pretend to like it but it’s what I have to do to provide for him in the way I need to right now.

As some of you know, Tammy and I worked closely on the Expo with Business and Learning and on PodTalkDivas and if you come to the networking chats and/or listen to our show you know that Tammy has moved to Colorado.  Tammy and Shannon Smith are doing the WAH Expo this year and it was a really hard decision for me but I won’t be involved in the organizing of it – though I’m hoping to participate so maybe I’ll see you there in March!  PodTalkDivas will be on hiatus for a couple more weeks.   PodTalkDivas WILL be staying on my/our plate.

I will be taking down my freelanceva.com blog site as well as my personal site at coomily.com – hence you reading this on my new domain wendy-cooper.com where I will be trying hard to become a regular blogger.

I worked with Coaches Marketing Source (previously Virtual Helper 4 U) for a large part of my work-at-home career.  I’ve had to leave Kristen and the team – another one of the things I’m super upset about having to do.  The team we have in place there is a phenomenal group of individuals and I’m going to miss everyone, our fantastic clients included.

I’ve cried about this for weeks, I’ll probably cry about it for a few more.  Frankly I’ll probably be too tired to do much of anything including crying once I start work and we get into our routine so I don’t anticipate crying about it forever.  Going from 24-7 with the kid to 3 – 5 hours a day with him is gonna hurt my heart.. a lot, he’s fine with it but mom’s a bit of a wimp lol.

I need to do what’s best for him and I, right now this is it.

If you have any questions, comments, etc please feel free to either leave a comment below or email me at freelanceassistant@gmail.com – Thank you all SO much for all you’ve done over the years.  It wouldn’t have been the same without you and I had a blast!!!  I’m still here and getting ready to dive back into PodTalkDivas and this blog so feel free to send me an update of what you’ve been doing!  I’d love to hear from you!

PS: For those that host a website with me, need hosting or know someone that needs reliable hosting – I will still be offering hosting – more information on that is available at CoomilyHosting.com.