My Happy Ending.

My son is my whole world. There is nothing I wouldn't do for him. I know some people find that odd to say when he will only be 6 months old on the 26th. Truly as I sit here typing, I mean it with my entire heart.

I've been thinking about life, my life, my husband, my son, my family, and my friends these last few days. I've come to realize a bunch. I wont bore ya'll with some of the details, and some things I will keep private; simply because some things are private and should remain so.

In regards to life, really I don't know why I listen to anyone. I don't know why I seek their worldly advice, or confined in people sometimes, because all they do is bring me down. Sometimes it's helpful, and I know in their hearts they think they are doing the best thing. But really, sometimes they aren't. Sometimes people should learn when to be quit. I know the answer to this, I've known it for a long time, and I keep coming back to it over and over and over again. I know why too. It's a lesson that's hard to learn, hard to grasp, and hard to understand. Simply put, we are commanded by God in Jeremiah 17:5-8, "⁵Thus says the Lord: Cursed [with great evil] is the strong man who trusts in and relies on frail man, making weak [human] flesh his arm, and whose mind and heart turn aside from the Lord.

    ⁶For he shall be like a shrub or a person naked and destitute in the desert; and he shall not see any good come, but shall dwell in the parched places in the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

    ⁷[Most] blessed is the man who believes in, trusts in, and relies on the Lord, and whose hope and confidence the Lord is.

    ⁸For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters that spreads out its roots by the river; and it shall not see and fear when heat comes; but its leaf shall be green. It shall not be anxious and full of care in the year of drought, nor shall it cease yielding fruit."

Far too often I forget that I am not to trust man, because man is frail, they can lead to temptations, they can lead us to the wrong path, whether intentional or accidental, I'm to solely trust in God alone with all my life's issues.

Romans 8:28 says: ²⁸We are assured and know that [^[a]God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.

Knowing that, I should take comfort; that He will do only what is good for me, what He has planed for me. What He see's fit for me. God is not vengeful. He loves us, He wants us to be saved and sit with Him in our Heavenly Home. So I need to quickly learn, so that I do not have to repeat this lesson, that I need no man, I need only God. 

What does that mean exactly? Well I've always said you need a direct relationship with God. I use the example of best friends because it's suiting. For me at least it is. You tell your best friend everything. All the good, the bad, the fears, the pains, the sorrows, the joys, and your dreams and wishes. Why not take these same things to God? Most children have imaginary friends at one point or another. I did, her name was Sally Sunshine. lol. Don't ask. In any case I told Sally how hurt I was. How I didn't think it was fair that I was raising my siblings at such a young age. How tired I always was. Yeah, eventually Sally Sunshine and I parted ways, when my childhood abruptly ended. 


To this day, I believe that was God. I know this sounds weird. I believe it was God with my whole heart. I always felt this sense of love talking to "Sally". I always felt like things were "Ok" even during the worst of times, like living in a place with no food in the refrigerator, because we had no electricity or running water. My dad, was only God knows where, my mother was dancing on a pole. What exactly were they doing, I can only speculate. I can't be for certain because parts of my childhood I have forced myself to forget and parts are so fuzzy that I can only make out certain things, and events. 


I pleaded with "Sally" and God, asking for a way out. I kept saying there has got to be something better than this. I can't go on sneaking my siblings to school and hiding them on the playground, I can't keep sneaking them food from my lunch tray. I can't keep climbing bee infested fruit trees to give them something for dinner. I can't keep asking the neighbor for a bucket of water so I could wash us up.


I remember standing next to one set of grandparents crying my eyes out telling the judge I wanted to go with them. The judge, for whatever reason, did not do so. I had three sets of grandparents all pining for us. Whatever the cause and affect, or reasoning behind it, it's neither here nor there now, he sent us to the one set of grandparents I did not want to go to. It cut me deep. But I never complained. I had a warm bed, a roof over my head, electricity, water to bathe in, and plenty of food. I may not have had the love I desperately needed and deserved, but I had the basic human essentials of life. I was okay for now.


A lot of my childhood shaped me. I will let you in on a little secret I have never told anyone. I don't tell you this secret to excuse the things I have done in my past. I tell you to show you how I was shaped, and how I keep fighting every day to over come it. I'm not perfect, I know that. I don't use it as a handicap, or as an excuse, I use it as a teaching tool, as a means to progress and not revert.


A few years ago, I decided I was done living the life I was leading. I decided that I would be dead before my 25th birthday if I did not quit drinking, and sleeping around, and lying to everyone. I decided that since everyone had given up on me, everyone except God that is. It was time to make changes. I did this by seeking counseling. In secret, no one ever knew, I sought the services of a Christian based counselor that has forever changed my life. She has the divine power to ignite fires in me, to show me God all around me.  


In any case, it came to light, that I manifested and told lies, and believed them, because I had to as a child. It wasn't only to be better than so and so. It wasn't for anything other than safety. It was to ensure that I was safe, my siblings were safe, and that no one would separate us. I didn't have much, and I grew up fast, but I did have two very important siblings that loved me and needed SOMEONE. Being the oldest, I automatically got that role. 


I lied to the teachers when they asked where I got a bruise. I lied to friends about them too. For YEARS everyone knew what they were and who they were from. However, I denied it, and made up these stories to protect everyone. I knew, if I had told the truth, my sister, brother and I would be split up. 


For years, I was asked if I was sneaking food home. I lied and said no. For years I was asked why my parent's never went on a field trip. I simply said because they both are at work, when really they were at home getting their next fix.


For years, I was asked if I was being abused, why I was so skinny, why I was so quite, why couldn't I focus in school. So many questions that when it boiled down to the bottom, could possible force the separation of my siblings and I. So I lied. I lied to everyone about everything. The last thing I had to hold onto was my sister and brother, and I was damned if anyone was gonna separate us. 


There came a time where I didn't need to lie out of safety any more, but rather out of shame. For the longest time, friends asked to come to my house and play, I always declined and asked to go to their house instead. I did not want to admit that I was living with my grandparents. I didn't want people to look down on me because I did not have a mom or dad in the picture at the time. I was ashamed. Here I had all these friends with happy loving mothers and fathers, that took good care of them, and I was shuffled off with my siblings to our grandparents, to a place we didn't want to be. I was ashamed of it.


Then one day, my secret got out. I feared the worst. I don't know why I did. She was accepting of it. She had a single father, her mother had left them when she was young. She understood the absent mother. Then another friend came out and admitted he was living with his grandparents as well. That he hadn't seen his parent's since he was 3. One by one, all these broken homes came out to light. Don't get me wrong, plenty of friends still had very happy in tacked loving mother/father homes, but I was so surprised how many didn't have that.


I finally felt comfortable. I could relate. Our friendships took off. Life was Okay again, for a little while.


Then we started growing up and changing, suddenly boys were just boys with cooties, and girls weren't just girls with cooties. Friends were having boy friends, and girl friends, and I longed to fit in.


My grandparents would allow it. So I went behind their backs. I had a boyfriend, or few. Nothing serious, this was 6-8th grade. I realize at the time it felt serious, but it wasn't. 


So why didn't the lies stop here? Good question, it's something I asked myself over and over and over again. 


I had gotten so used to keeping secrets, getting what I wanted and needed by lying. That I couldn't stop. Then freshman year hit. The biggest secret of my life got out. The one I had desperately hid for years.


I came to school in a long sleeve shirt, long pants, my hair down, a hat on, and sunglasses. This was in the middle of August. This was in marching band class. We were going outside to practice marching. If anyone knew anything, they would know, I would have died from heat alone dressed like that.


My then boyfriend, now husband, came up to me to give me a hug and I couldn't hold it back, I winced in so much pain that I nearly collapsed. He felt so bad, he didn't know what he had done. I just lost it. I completely broke down.


With the help of two of my best friends at the time, they knew my dark secret but never said a word, they knew what had happened, and they knew just how bad it was. They began to spill my secret to my boyfriend. I was terrified, I didn't want to lose him because of how messed up my family life was. I was scared for many reasons. I still had the fact that my siblings and I could be split up if our secret ever got out.


See while with those grandparents, if my siblings ever did something and we were gonna get a beating, I always chimed in and said I did it. I said it was me. No matter what. I took the brunt of the beatings. I was deemed the "bad apple". So I compensated for it in school and after school activities. I excelled in school, pushed myself as hard as I could to be superior in school, and in my after school activities. Everyone knew this secret. It's text book.


My two friends who had spent the better half of my childhood with me, knew what had happened. They knew it went beyond too far this time. I tried and tried to lie and say I was okay. I attempted to say I fell down the stairs. They knew it wasn't true. They saw right through my attempts to lie. Eventually I was taken to the school social workers office with my then best friend and boyfriend. He loved me so. He was there for everything. My then best friend tried to be.


Ultimately I was taken from our home that day. Subsequently my sister and brother were taken 3 days later. My worst fear had started to unravel. 14 years of being strong, keeping the three of us together, was unravellings before my eyes. I couldn't do it anymore. I was exhausted. I was worn out. I needed rest. Little did I know, I still wouldn't find that rest.


They next several years I fought CPS every step of the way. I lost many battles, including the man I loved so desperately. He showed me love like no one has ever done before. I had lost him. That was the final thread for me, because in the day I lost my love, I lost a few of my best friends. I wont go into that story now.


It devastated me to the core. I didn't know if, how, or when I would ever recover. So I did what I naturally had grown to know how to deal and cope. I threw myself into school and after school activities. I threw myself into lies, and manipulations to get what I wanted as best as I could get it. I lied about my age just so I could get a job and not have to be in the awful group home one minute longer than I had to be. I got myself a cell phone and lied that I had one. 


The lies kept coming, they kept getting easier and easier. I don't think anyone has ever known the real, down to the bone and soul me. I don't think anyone has truly meet that person. I know a few have tried, and come awfully close.  It was never because I didn't want to. It was because I didn't know how to. I didn't know how to let people close to me, because every time I did, I got burned so bad, that to this day I have those emotional scars. I still bare the weight of the world and my life on my shoulders.


So I lied. I manifested things, and believed them. I trusted no one, but myself. I kept the horrors of my life a secret. I tried to behave and act as normally as possible. I put on a happy face and faked it to the world; when secretly inside I was crying, and dying. Inside I was a wreck, screaming for help, screaming for someone to simply love me. I even went as far as to wear my heart on my sleeve thinking that would make me more lovable. When that only broke my heart worse, I took it back, and became withdrawn. I left everyone, everything. I didn't care who I hurt in my path. I didn't care who was in my life or who wasn't. That's what lead me to my breakdown. 


You have to hit rock bottom to start picking up and moving upwards. I ran away to a quit secluded place where I thought no one would find me. I worked on myself. I sought counseling. I grew up. Didn't know that hitting rock bottom after a 23 year battle could be so empowering. It was.


Piece by piece, I picked up, and glued back together. Person by person I made amends to. I dispelled stories and fantasies I had told them. One day, my love was back. The man I had loved sine the day I had met. He was here. Holding me, loving me, helping me put my puzzle back together, and I helping put his back together.


We finally made it. We finally got it right. But we are far from perfect. We realize this. That's what makes us work harder, what makes us love deeper.


I still find myself wanting to lie sometimes. I still find it hard to break that habit. But I do. I have a child to model for. I have a husband who depends on a sane honest wife. I have so much to lose that it would kill me if I lost it. I can't lie. I wont.


So, to be honest, my past may be recent, heck it may even be today, but none the less. I'm still a work and progress. I'm okay with that. Obviously my husband is okay with that. He wouldn't have married me if he wasn't. Most importantly God is okay with that. I repetively go before God. I continually have that daily relationship with Him. I mean a deep one, I tell Him everything. 


Slowly I'm revealing my true spirit and soul. Slowly my husband is even learning more about me. He told me today, that each day that passed, each day he learns something new about me, and each day he loves me so much more than the last. Wow, I must be doing some thing right. I must be growing and progressing upwards for him to say that.


So I depend on no man, I depend on God. He knew what His plan was for me all along. I made the mistakes, I redirected His plan over and over and over again, because I was being selfish, because I was being insecure, because I wanted it my way and not His way, because I didn't have Faith in God. 


I made mistakes, and that's okay. God doesn't hold them against me, and that's the one that means the most. My husband has learned to forgive me, and that means 2nd most. I have the three men in my life that mean the most to me. I have God, My Husband and my son. I will chose those three men over any one, all the time. 


I am stronger than people give me credit for. I am better than people give me credit for. As long as I know this and where I stand with God, then what else matters?


My life is a horror story no one should have to live. I still live with the repucusions of the choices my family has made years ago to this day. Do I love them any less? No. Do I hold it against them? No. I have forgiven and moved on. I can't change the past. I can only change the future.  My future looks bright. So no more letting people get to me, or get under my skin. I know what's in my heart, I know where I have come from, and why. I know where I want to be, God willing. I know just how far I have come. It's not perfect, it's not all the way, but man, it's been a long haul, and it's just perfect for now.


On my husband, this is a man, that has seen most of my horror story played out. This is a man that even through all of it, and despite all of it still chooses to love me. This is a man that snuck around to see me; even when he had a girlfriend. This is a man that has never stopped loving me, and I know now, more than ever, he never will. I know now, that if something were to happen he'd always be there. He may be mad or disappointed, but I never have to worry about losing his love, or him. We finally decided to marry, because we realized, that it was silly. We knew we would always at least have each other. We knew that nothing, and no one could separate us. The love we had, and the love we have, has essentially always been the same. We hid it for a number of years, but it was always there. Despite me desperately trying to run from it, it always caught up to me, and despite him always trying to run from it, it caught up to him. 


God had a plan for us. Both of us were too stupid and young, and naive to see that. My issue, because I can't speak for my husband on this, is that I was mostly too scared of it. WHAT if, I had loved him, and let him close to me, would he hurt me again, would he hurt me like so many have in the past? I was afraid for many years and that tore us down. I remember very clearly the day I quit being afraid. I remember the very day I sat down and told him. I remember very clearly this small still voice inside of me. I simply said, I choose you. I always have and I always will. I am not afraid. It wont be all good, but it can't be all bad by default. So here I am. This is the real me. I then preceded to tell him everything from start to finish. 


Afterwards we sat in complete silence for an hour. Then he finally said, I love you. That's all I ever wanted was for you to let me in. I think I love you more now in this second, than I have ever loved you before. I can't believe it took you this long, but it's a good thing, because I was starting to think you could never do it. 


I knew that was a sign from God. That I had done the right thing. That I had finally set my heart and soul there on the table. I knew he saw me for the first time. Man, I remember that like it just happened. I can see the living room we were sitting in, I can see our dogs running around at our feet. I can see the lighting, and his face. It's so surreal. And in that day, my husband saw me, he loved me on this scale that I can't even describe. I finally FINALLY after so long knew what true love was really about.


Since then, we have kept that very real, very down to earth, communication open. We have sat down and just spilled out guts to one another. I finally got the closure from out past that I desperately needed. He finally spilled his guts to me. In that moment I felt unbelievable and indescribable love for him. They type of love you instantly get when seeing your child for the first time. I knew I had found my Happy ending. 


On my son, he's my son. He may drive me up the wall, to the point of wanting to bash my head into a wall, but he's MY son. I created that. I gave life to that. He is my son. I can not describe the love and admiration for him that I have. Other mothers know exactly what I'm talking about, but can not simply put it to words with out doing it injustice. 


The love I have for my son has made me realize the Love that God has for me. For all of us. I can do so much wrong. I truly can, but at the end of the day, God is going to love me, just as I love my son. How powerful is that?


On my family. They have hurt me, I have hurt them. We have caused harm, pain, turmoil to one another, and yet, I love them. I have forgiven them, and I can only hope they do the same. One day some of them might, and then again they may never. I can't concentrate on that. I know in my heart I am right with God in forgiving them. I have done so.


Same goes with my friends, past and current. 


Well, That's it. That's my spilling of my guts for tonight, that's what my soul searching has gotten me. That's as much as I'm gonna share because the rest is private. 


Have a good night. Oh and Congrats to the Knobel Family Baby Callum was born today. He's a wee lil Irish man, born with red hair and all! Congrats Lori!