30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY TWENTY-THREE

Truth #23: One of the most destructive forces known to man is gossip. Children these days use it to crucify one another on social media and everywhere you see adults engaging in gossip when all they're doing is spreading vicious lies about another human being. I suppose in order to feel superior one must rake someone else over the coals in attempt to destroy their reputation. You probably needn't look any further than after church on Sunday when women start talking about what one another have worn to church. Yes, women are catty devils, but men gossip also! 

When I was young being the black sheep of the family made me the prime target of gossip. I developed thick skin at an early age and whenever I caught wind of any gossip related to me going around, I would add to the story making it much juicier than what the story already was. Then I would send it out for another go around. I know most young people have tender feelings and gossip crushes them, but I didn't really care what people said about me.  I found it amusing that they had nothing better to do with their time than to gossip about me. Some teens even succumb to bullies by committing suicide because they can't handle the pressure of the gossip and lies. It's sad that people don't stop and think about what they're doing to other people by spreading gossip. Gossip can cause real pain and devastation in a person's life.

When I was a kid we used to play a game called Telegraph. We'd all sit in a line and the first person would whisper something in the second person's ear only once. Then each person would whisper what they heard to the next person passing it down the line. The last person would have to say what they heard out loud. Nine times out of ten that last person would never say out loud the same thing the first person whispered. The same thing happens with gossip. It gets stretched and distorted along the way the more it gets passed around. Be careful with participating in gossip because you're only hurting another human being and it may come back to bite you someday. 

30 TRUTHS IN 30 DAYS - DAY SIXTEEN

Truth #16: Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be. Yes, children are born into this world without filters especially when it comes to honesty. As they grow up they learn how to cover the truth by using tact or worse, by outright lying. Being truthful in many situations we are told hurts people's feelings and so honesty is pushed aside for something a little more humane, thus we witness the birth of lies or "white lies" we like to call them. Children learn to lie for many reasons until all those reasons blend into one. As we become adults, some of us forget how or when to tell the truth because using "tact" is easier. But for a child the truth is always right there in the forefront waiting to be verbalized without hesitation or malice. For them, it's simple and straightforward. The truth is the truth!

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE - PART X

Are you still with me? If you are, then you've reached the moment of the big reveal. From 1975 when my daughter was born until about 2 years ago (2016) my daughter always believed  her father was Kenny Rowe. I never for one moment thought he was an actual possibility. All one had to do was do some simple math. That's why we have fingers and toes! For my daughter to be his, she would have had to have been born prematurely at about 7 months. Have you ever heard of a 7 month old fetus weighing over 9 lbs? 

I'm to blame for this lie and do take full responsibility for telling it and for letting others tell it. You see, way back when I was still in Chipley before I came back to Pensacola to give birth and I told Kenny I was pregnant.  But before I could tell him it wasn't his, he beat me to the punch by assuming that he was the father.  Instead of setting the record straight right then and there, I got my ass bent out of shape when he jumped in before I could tell him and he beat me to the punch by expecting me to get an abortion. I guess his initial reaction about my situation pissed me off and I just let the whole thing ride and let him continue to believe a lie. For the longest time, I thought my secret would never come back to bite me. I thought my secret was safe and that I was protecting my daughter when in reality all I was doing was taking the easy way out by protecting myself from dealing with the truth.

Like most lies, they may not catch up to you at first and sometimes they never catch up to you, but anyone with a conscience eventually feels guilty for telling a lie especially when it's a huge lie. At that point, any honorable person will decide to finally do the right thing if they can. Sure, I felt pangs of guilt over the years, but I wasn't ready to do the right thing until a few years ago. About the time I decided to come clean, I also decided to do some genealogy research so my daughter could at least have a more complete picture of the gene pool that created her. Before that all she knew were all the kooks on my side of her tree.  Doing genealogy research has been an on again off again project of mine for about 20+ years and include being related to many of the Salem witches, Laura Ingalls Wilder, several passengers on the Mayflower, William the Conqueror and thousands of weirdos and misfits that have given me a certain flair.

Telling my daughter the truth was difficult, but I did it without making any excuses for my deceitful behavior. I did what I did many years ago and it was wrong. Period! I was then faced with an entire new set of decisions to make. I figured tracking Donnie down would be relatively easy, but that wasn't the case. Doesn't Murphy's Laws state "nothing is ever as easy as you think it will be?" For the last two years I've chased a "ghost." At some point, I thought "maybe he's dead," but if that was true, there would have been a record of his death and I couldn't find one. 

When I started my "project, I had my daughter do a DNA test through Ancestry.com to give me a place to start my search. Until very late on August 10, 2018, I wasn't able to connect all the dots that would lead me to finding Donnie. Up until then I found plenty of people who showed up as DNA matches for my daughter, but the closest match I had to work with was a couple first and second cousins. Those people never responded to my request for help filling in the blank spots on my daughter's tree. Go figure! I guess on August 10th all the stars and planets were in perfect alignment because I finally located him. The Donnie Arnold I knew long ago is Martin Eudon Arnold. A couple details I discovered made me laugh out loud. The first was that he lives in a place I lived about 30 years ago. It really is a small world when you get right down to it! The next thing that amused me was that I found out when I located him that his birthday was on August 11th...the very next day. Happy birthday, Donnie!

As I dug deeper, my amusement turned into a really sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I discovered out he had gotten married in 1973.  OMG! Was he married when we had our little brouhaha in Panama City Beach?  The answer to that was no. He had gotten divorced the month before I met him in August 1974. I guess I was both his birthday gift and celebratory freedom lay that summer.  He did however manage to get his ex-wife pregnant after they divorced and she had a baby boy a month after my daughter was born. He also got married in 1988, but his wife died in 1991. Since that time, he appears to have remained single or at least never married again.

Now, I'm faced with what should I do next. Should I do nothing and just be content with handing my daughter all the info I've found or should I rock Donnie's world by contacting him with a "hey dude, remember me and guess what we did?"  I think my daughter deserves an opportunity to know her father if he's open to that, but I definitely don't want to hurt her by throwing her to the wolves. I have a letter written and saved on my computer, but I don't know who I should send it to. Should I send it to his two adult children and let them be the bearer of good tidings and joy or should I bite the bullet and send him the letter? I'm not usually this indecisive, but then again I've never been in this situation before.  Any advice anyone wants to toss my way will be deeply appreciated. I'm seriously running on empty. I haven't had a normal sleep pattern for a long, long time. I feel anxious whenever I start thinking about this and I just want to put this behind me once and for all, but I can't do that until I do something...and hopefully that something I ultimately decide to do is the right thing for everyone concerned.  I used to keep an 8-ball on my desk at work for situations that required decision making. Maybe I should dust it off and consult it now!