Genesis

I was born in 1983, but just like everyone else I have no recollection of those first years. I can't understand why we can't remember that time, when life was so painless and easy. I wish I could have remembered those years because by the time I was five life was pretty messed up already. I remember very little from those years-I think I am cursed(or blessed) with a bad memory- I don't remember details very well at all. I remember kindergarten, I loved it! I remember all the little activities, learning my ABC's, saying the pledge, etc. etc.. This was in '88 when they still let the Kindergartners out at noon. I would go home and there would be mom, doing her exercises or folding clothes. I would get my little snack and have one on one time with mom till my brother woke from his nap. It all seems so picture perfect, if only those were the only memories. If I could just freeze time right there and only remember those good moments. Unfortunately there were the times when my dad was drinking or high. These were the scary sad times. There was a lot of violence and yelling and as a small child I only remember that i didn't understand much; I only wished that they would stop. I remember offering them a penny for every day that they didn't fight. I thought this would surely fix everything and pennies were everywhere.
Needless to say, that did not work, they laughed at me, called me cute, and life went on. This leads up to the night I can't let go off. I get mad and tell myself, its over its past, just get over it, but unfortunately, things do not work like that. It was still '88 maybe '89. I was laying on the living room floor watching a movie with my brother and sister. I got thirsty so I made my way into the kitchen where dad was pacing and acting like his usual weird self. So I did what any normal five year old would do-I asked him for a drink. And he did what any normal dad would do-he gave me a glass of koolaid. Upon leaving the kitchen I turned around to look at my daddy whom I adored. I don't remember why I turned around and really it is of no importance because what I saw changed my view of life, daddy and everything else. I saw my father pick up a razor blade and slice it across his wrist...I watched it all happen, I saw the blood come, and I stood motionless when he came out of the kitchen yelling at my mother! Really I will never understand how a man can cut his own wrist and then blame someone else and demand that they fix it. My mother called an ambulance which infuriated my father so he ran off into the woods behind our house and I later learned that the paramedics found him past out in the woods. I've shortened this because the whole story is too graphic, but this haunts me. I believe this is why at the age of ten I began cutting myself-but that is a different story. A week later we came home from my Aunts house and found dad in bed with another women. It is very confusing to miss your dad for a week and come home excited to see him and find him in such an awkward situation and mom is really mad now. She grabs us and heads right back out the door. Stupid is what it all is. Stupid rash choices made that ruin lives and too often we don't even realize it. I know I am guilty of this in my own ways. We all are. I am sure that my dad thought that suicide was his best option and even that it was my moms fault. I am sure that he did not think it was a selfish act that would scar all three of his children for life. I am sure that when he cheated on my mother he rationalized it so that he was not wrong. But that doesn't make any of it right. I only hope that in life I can remember to stop and think things through before making my rash choices and destroying my children.
I forgave my father of this and many other things. I love him and miss him dearly, his choices took his life at a young age of forty-six. I wish that he had made better choices and could be here enjoying these grand babies, I know that they would enjoy him. He was a really great guy...when he wasn't drinking. 

April 2, 2013

  Lately I have been dwelling on what is hard and not seeing all that God has done over the years. I see all of the struggles and the heartache. I see my sweet little boy gone to Heaven, a marriage battered and destroyed by bad choices. I see all that is lost and nothing that is gained. I was not given the gift of a "good life" I saw a lot of heart ache and pain. I grew up in a broken home riddled with drugs and violence and all the bad things that you can dream up. I was abused at home and at school and anywhere else they could think up.What I am not remembering is what God did for me twelve years ago in a little apartment. I was Seventeen; I had attempted suicide more than eleven times coming close the last time not even a year ago. I was having severe anxiety attacks and insomnia on top of those. I went days without sleep and when I finally fell asleep I would wake from terrifying nightmares. I was scared of everything, I couldn't leave the apartment without being afraid, I hated being alone as much as I despised being around people. I was terrified of dying while at the same time I continued to try to think up some way to successfully eliminate my life. Then there was a night when I was unable to sleep. I was reading a book, which was what I did ninety percent of the time. It was around 2:30am when I heard loud noises outside. I had not slept for at least three days at this time so I was somewhat delirious as well as already jumpy. I became so terrified I was pacing the apartment, I would sit down and try to read only to be distracted by the noise I had heard and to wonder what had happened and if God was coming back and was it thunder from a bad storm...
Needless to say I was irrational, but God used it. I was sitting there crying and frustrated that I was so afraid and couldn't control myself and I couldn't sleep. So what was the answer? Well, my choices were to 1) Take an overdose of sleeping pills and hope that I would die in my sleep and if I did not hope that I would not have the nightmares. (anyone that has had real nightmares will understand why one would go days without sleeping to avoid having them.) 2) I could cut myself to try to relieve the fear and get some control of my emotions. (This however, was no longer as effective as it had once been and was now landing me in hospitals and nut houses.) or 3) I could try this salvation thing that my sister had been stuffing down my throat for the past four years. 
I chose three, this was not the first time that I prayed for help through a night, but it was the first time that I prayed for God to deliver me and vowed that I would change if He would just take it all away; and He did. I felt a little calmer, but immediately I was bogged down with a tiny little voice in my conscious saying 'get rid of the books'. I wanted to cry, I did cry, I bawled as I began gathering hundreds of wicked books that I loved and read daily over and over. I stuffed them all in bags and piled them near the door ready to throw them away first thing in the morning. I sat down sure that all was good. But that little voice cam back 'all of them' I sighed and I pulled out my special box, with my most cherished books that I had hidden from my mother because she did not approve of them, they went next to the others. Again I thought I was done when again I heard it 'take them now'.
Now this command was hard for two reasons. First because as long as those books were still in the room with me I could always take it back in the morning when the sun was up and everything was back to normal, second I was terrified of going outside. It was dark and my list of irrational fears included walking outside at night. But I was determined to be free as they all kept preaching would happen. So I swallowed my fear, looked up and said God if anything happens to me this ones on you, and I lugged I believe it was four bags of books to the dumpster at 3:00 in the morning. I cried because I was scared and I just kept praying and thinking this will be over soon and then I can sleep! 
And I did! I slept a beautiful long dreamless sleep. I was thrilled the next morning, at least until I looked at my empty bookshelves.There was a tug, it wasn't easy to give up my whole existence  Books had seen me through many hard years and I would not have survived without my stories and daydreams. And there were still night when I had terrible nightmares, but as time when on they were less an less to where now-Thank the Lord- I no longer have real nightmares. I have bad dreams, but not nightmares! I still faced my fears everyday for a long time. It all did not disappear overnight, but overtime, I have grown more confident and I am not scared of people and well everything. I am able to embrace life and enjoy it. So tonight I am determined to turn over a new leaf and start finding all that God has done and is doing instead of all that is going wrong in a life that is so much simpler then what I endured as a child.