Baby Boy

Yes, again it has been a very long time since I wrote. October was a very long month. I was intending to only work my yearly Fright Fest job doing makeup out at Six Flags, but things did not go quite as planned. I ended up needing to have a surgical biopsy done which meant that I needed to keep my Starbucks job and insurance. That complication led to me working two jobs; it was a pretty exhausting run. Then in the midst of that I had surgery to have lymph node removed and biopsied. Praise God, the lymph node ended up not being cancerous. Oddly enough, it was filled with blue black tattoo pigment. I didn't even know that was possible. Google it if you are skeptical. I was and I did and it does happen. It is not harmful; it just mimics cancer b/c it causes a very suspicious looking calcification. It was a day surgery which I thought I would quickly recover from, but, as it turned out, now three weeks later, it still hurts. The combination of the above really kind of kept me in survival mode leaving no time to blog. Not that I needed all that as an excuse b/c sometimes I go longer for no good reason. This post, though, has been rolling around in my mind for literally 3 or 4 weeks.

I love working Fright Fest. It is my favorite job of the year. I begin to get excited about July knowing that as we head into fall we will begin planning for the season to begin. I have so much fun working Fright Fest. There are a lot of reason for this. I love Halloween. I love zombies and gore. I love the creativity I get to exhibit making different characters and wounds. Most of all, though, I love the kids and people I get to work with. I become very attached to them over the month of October. However, I realized coming home the second weekend of Fright Fest that I wasn't having nearly as much fun as I usually do. I began to think and wonder, "what is going on with me?" "Why is this just not as fun as it usually is?" I have had to work Fright Fest and another job before, so that wasn't it. As I thought about it and analyzed myself, it hit me what it was. My son, Stephen, had not been coming out. He was what was missing. He made Fright Fest fun for me. I didn't even realize how much joy he brought to the job. It wasn't until he wasn't around that I realized that he was a major part of what Fright Fest was to me. Fright Fest was, "our thing". Because I home schooled him for 2 and half years, he was basically with me every day around the clock for those almost 3 years. We would begin to get excited together and count down the months prior to Fright Fest starting. As it would get closer the excitement would build and even make it hard for him to focus on school. He would stop about every 5 minutes to ask about something or talk about some aspect of the upcoming season. Then it would start and we would begin planning and getting ready every Thursday. We would try to get ahead on school so that Fridays work would be light. We would get up on Friday morning and start packing and prepare to leave. We would drive together in the car, most of the time just him and me. We would listen to music really loud and drive the 45 minute drive into Arlington. The weekend would be exhausting and exhilarating. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I would do makeup and he would watch and wait for time to go to the haunted house to scare the patrons. He would scare from open to close with no break; he would often go without eating all day long and he did all this for free (no pay, just for the joy of doing it). He would come even if he was sick; he never wanted to miss a moment of it. So, it was Stephen; he made Fright Fest so much fun; his excitement was contagious. It was not the same without him.

Over the last few weeks being at work at Fright Fest and especially driving home, I would think about how much I was missing Stephen being with me. Everyone else missed him as well. He is such a fun and energetic force to be around. I began to realize that I was grieving over the loss of that experience. I would sometimes come close to crying as I realize that my little boy is very quickly growing up. He is becoming more independent and needing me less. This year it has really hit me that the time we get to spend with our children is so short. It is over before we know it. They will always be our children, but it changes. When your in the middle of the day to day living, day to day fun, day to day fighting, you think it will last forever. It did not occur to me last year to cling to those moments with Stephen; I did not take time to relish the energy and excitement that we had together. When it ended, I just thought, "we'll do this again next year." last year was really the last year for that. I never get to go back to that. I have the memories, but that season will never be again. People always told me to cherish those moments you get, b/c they are gone before you know it, but I didn't believe them. Now I get to be the one telling people who won't listen to beware b/c in a flash it is over. This year I went from spending every day with Stephen (more time than I thought I really wanted to spend with him) to him going back to school, not attending Fright Fest with me, and pretty much pulling away from me very quickly. He doesn't have much time for me and for the most part finds me to be pretty annoying. I just figured he would always be my little boy. I realize now that I did not stop nearly enough to "nuggle" with him when he asked. He won't even hug me right now. There has always been so many other things I needed to do when the kids were wanting my attention. Those things seem so stupid and unimportant now.

Now, I am absolutely stupid about getting his attention. If I have a moment that he will give me the time of day I will do almost anything from enduring wrestling and arm punching to listening to any and every song that he wants to share with me. If he stops to tell me something or says hey listen to this song mom, I am there b/c I know that those moments will continue to become less and less at least for the next couple years. His latest obsession is Kid Cudi so guess who is newly a fan of Kid Cudi. I don't always appreciate the language, but I do appreciate the opportunity to share something with my son. Stephen also introduced me to T.I. (talk about language). When I hear those songs, though, they remind me of the moments I get to share with Stephen.

Maybe what I really want to share with everyone is take the moments when you can get them. There are so many more when they are young, but remember they don't last forever. Grab up every moment they will give you. When they get older, you may have to share moments in a way different than you may want to or think about. I may not appreciate all the music Stephen appreciates, but if I just forbid it then he will listen to it elsewhere without me. At least if we are listening to it together, we get to share it and I have to opportunity to talk to him about it and maybe give him some perspective on what is being talked about. Just remember there comes a time that you don't get as much control over the moments; you can either try to be picky and miss moments or you can relax a bit and have more moments; they may be different moments than you would choose, but they will be moments none-the-less.

Yeah, it has been a really long time...

I know. Things have been so super busy adjusting to my new part time job and learning to balance everything. I really didn't think that adding a part time job would throw things into such upheaval, but it has. This week I am finally starting to feel things level out after a month, but up to this week I just couldn't seem to find equilibrium in my daily life. As I get used to getting up earlier than I really care to admit (I am an early riser, but the time I have to get up to be ready to open Starbucks is ridiculous.) and as the school year comes to an end, I hope to have time to write on my blog again and to be creative. This week is the first week I have not felt totally out of sorts. I know that when you make a change it takes a while for everything to shift and find balance; it just took longer than I was hoping it would. Adding the 5 hours of work to my day caused me to have to reassess priorities and rearrange things. Since I am a person who craves order and consistency it has been a little disconcerting to try and find a new rhythm. I have prayed every day about it and although I was very uncomfortable during the shift process, I knew that God would show me how to find a new rhythm. I knew that He had asked me to take the job with Starbucks and that He was leading me into a new leg of my journey so I knew He would help me find balance and a new rhythm. I also had a sneaking suspicion that being flexible and diligent enough to find a new balance was actually part of the point in all of this. So as I struggled and wrestled and prayed I also tried to look with eyes of faith knowing that no matter what things look like or how I felt, God was in control and He was still busy working in my life to make me more like Jesus.

I am accustomed to having great deal of time to spend talking to God and studying in the morning. I know that time with God does not necessarily have to be in the morning, but it has been a rhythm in my life for a really long time. Being the creature of habit that I am, losing my usual way, time and rhythm of life has been kind of difficult and extremely uncomfortable. The last couple weeks leading up to this week, I have really missed my time with Jesus. It kind of felt like being married to someone who is gone oversees or something. I was still in relationship; it was just different and a little distant. I knew that He was not actually distant, but it sure did feel distant. I was a little sad and crying out desperately every chance I could for Him to help me find a new rhythm that included being able to spend time with Him in the midst of this crazy schedule. It did make me very hungry to to seek Him and cry out for His help to find time to be with Him. To make matters worse, my treadmill went out on me. That would be the second treadmill that I have killed. I guess they aren't really made to put a lot of miles on; they are more for sitting in your room hold clothes, because I use mine a lot and it seems to kill them. I went like two weeks without it. I was riding my bike, but it is not the same. Yesterday, one of my friends gave me a treadmill. She is a wonderful friend. I guess really Jesus gave me the treadmill. I just really seem to need that time on the treadmill in the morning. Nothing else effects me quite like running on the treadmill in the morning does. I made a very resistant Larry go and pick it up last night. I have to say that I was giddy getting it into the house. I actually could not wait to go to sleep so I could wake up and run with Jesus. I felt so much better today. I haven't felt like this in several weeks. I think it must be a combination of things that makes it so beneficial to me. I believe that it is physiological and spiritual. Running does something to my brain chemistry that nothing else is able to do. It is like my antidepressant/ mood stabilizer. It also does great things for my soul and attitude to have that time to talk to God and process through struggles, responsibilities, goals, etc. Running puts me in a very receptive mindset. I am able to work through so many things and get the Lords mind on life, situation, etc. I don't care what anyone says, that is my place of solitude; that is where God meets me, deals with me, and teaches me. It doesn't matter if anyone else gets it; that is me and God's place. It is also interesting that each time I have put a treadmill to death, He sends me another. So, I run in the morning and I bike in the afternoon. It works well for me. I felt so much more balanced, stable, at peace and alive today after my run.

As I was saying, I am getting used to getting up super early. I am finding ways to connect with God and I am beginning to develop a new rhythm to my day. I guess some of us are so natural at developing habits and being disciplined that God has to shake us up and disrupt our order to do a new work.

I love my new job. It is such a blessing to be able to work early in the morning and be able to get off by 10 or 11 am so that I have the whole rest of the day to spend with my children and friends. I love that I get to see so many of the same people every morning and build a relationship with them. It is so great to be able to learn to genuinely care about them and connect with them. I get the biggest kick out of remembering their drink and remembering their names. I absolutely love that I get to work with such a wonderful friend as my boss. She is so amazing and teaches me so much about loving people and serving each and every one of them. I really, really love my job and feel like it is such a blessing in my life. I say all that to lead into the process of taking the job. I was so, so, so resistant to taking it. I really did not want to take it. And that resistance was all about my ego. I really did not see Starbucks as a real job; even after I knew that God wanted me to take it, I was really put off by the idea. I was willing to take the job, but only b/c I love Jesus and do not want to disobey Him. I also know that anything God asks us to do is a blessing and is for our good. I just kept thinking, "I am a makeup artist and I have a hair license; I have a college degree and you want me to make coffee. What am I going to do when people who know me come in and see me?" I was so concerned about how it would effect my "status" in the mind of people. I was concerned about being looked down on and treated like others were better than me. I was kind of ashamed of going to work at "Starbucks". There are still times that I struggle with telling certain people, especially people in the hair and makeup industry. How terrible that I felt and sometimes still feel that way. Why would I be ashamed of obeying God. Why does it matter what people think about me and my job? Really the only thing that should matter is "Am I obeying God; is He pleased with where I am working?" My status in the world or among peers really means nothing when compared with His love and what He thinks about me. After all the struggle, I love my job. I love the people I work with and get to interact with every day. I love knowing that God is still at work in my life changing me and using me. And the truth of the matter is that anyone who looks down on me has a problem they need to deal with. It really has nothing to do with me and does not reflect on me at all. What reflects on me is that I choose to obey even when it is difficult and not glamorous. The most important thing is that God asked me to do something and it turned out that when I obeyed, I loved it.

I hope to be able to write more frequently again now. I have quite a build up of thoughts, lessons and experiences to pour out again.

Little Easter Revelation

God has been working on this for a couple of days, but this morning He really drove the point home.

Many of my friends know of the ongoing drama of the "drug house" that we moved into. We have had several visitors that were hoping to find the former tenants. To explain the latest piece of the puzzle, I have to rewind to right before we moved in. A new kid started at my daughter's place of work. Through the course of conversation they figured out that he had just moved out of the house we were living in. It was a strangest sort of "coincidence". Then it got complicated as his apparently mentally ill girl friend decided that Ally was trying to steal her boyfriend. Ridiculous! She began calling repeatedly and hanging up. She would do this for hours straight, literally call hang up and immediately call again. Ally ended up on the phone with her some time at the beginning of this; the girl had been screaming at her boyfriend and asked to speak with Ally. When the girl accused Ally, Ally just laughed, said "Don't flatter yourself, I have a boyfriend and I have no interest in your boyfriend," then hung up. The calling went on and on. When Ally would answer the girl would call her a bitch or worse. Finally, the place of employment fired the boy and pressed charges on the girl. I was not too concerned about the matter, until she showed up at our house. We realized that they knew where we lived b/c they lived here before us. They also know where Ally works and leave after 10 pm on most nights. By God's grace, the two showed up when Ally, my mother and I were gone. Only Larry (my husband), Chloe (my youngest) and Larry's brother were home. I have to be honest, I would have taken that girl out and asked Jesus to forgive me later. Call it fleshly instinct, mother's instinct, or whatever. I am a short somewhat tiny girl, but I am strong and I lived on the streets almost 20 years ago. In case you aren't aware, I am not someone you want to really tangle with. Thankfully, I am generally a peace loving hippie type. Anyone who knows me at all, knows I just want everyone to get along and love each other, but deep inside of me that homeless punk girl still lives. I would have shown her crazy like she has never seen. She probably would have been horizontal before she even realized that I have made a move toward her. My husband said,"If I would have thought about it, I would have told her that Ally's mom used to be homeless and she is crazy as a loon." With my rooster hair and my sleeve,I am sure she might have been a little intimidated when she saw me. I am not really what most people expect when you say mom. Needless to say, I was livid. I was ready to kick that girl into next week. I did not care about being a Christian, or living a crucified life at all. She talked smack to Larry, who refused to engage her. He just kept saying "I don't care what you have to say about her, you better leave my daughter alone; I don't play games." He just kept repeating it like a broken record, so they finally left. I am so glad that I was not home. I would have reacted and probably landed myself in jail in the process.
By the next morning God was already at work in my heart. As I ran, I realized that I could not hate the girl or be angry at her. I had to pray for her. She was me. I was crazy jealous like that. I was a nut case before Jesus turned me into a pecan pie. I would have totally gone to some poor girls house and yelled at her. I actually would have probably started beating on her. How sad, b/c Ally really didn't do anything. She really" loves" her boyfriend; whatever that means at 17. But she does care about him and has no interest in this other kid. But had I been the girl I wouldn't have been reasonable either; I would have beaten up an innocent girl b/c I was threatened by her. I started praying for her and the girl with the rotten teeth to come to the Kingdom. I prayed for the Spirit to go ahead and prepare the way and make their hearts open to the gospel and for God to send authentic Christians into their lives to love them and show them the way home, but I was still angry about her.

I prayed the next day for the whole crew, dad, mom, son (boyfriend), girl friend, and the girl with the rotten teeth.

Then this morning as I ran and prayed, and I prayed for them b/c I committed in my heart to pray for them something deeper happened. I saw the whole thing in light of the last day, when we stand before the Lord. I saw the situation outside of my small little story and say it in light of the much bigger story being told. The story that began before I was born and will still, probably, be being told when I am gone. The story that I am in for only a moment; our time here is like the flicker of a lightning bug. We forget that next to eternity and even history, our time here on earth is so fleeting. I saw a much bigger story that I am blessed to be able to have minute in. All this "coincidence" could not possibly just be coincidence. Seriously, what are the chances of the boy being hired at my daughters place of employment. Of all the places, of all the stores in a chain, with the girl who is moving into his house, a house where drugs were dealt. No chance in my mind that this was a coincidental chain of events. God was in the middle of the whole big mess. He orchestrated the whole thing. He chose this house for us. He decided that we would move into a former drug house. The former drug addict, in a house that will quite possibly see many former customers at it's door. The crazy girl friend deciding she hated Ally and stalking her. God has a plan. He knows my heart and He knows what I do when someone does something to me. I get angry for a minute, then I begin to pray. And when I say I am praying for someone it is not with pretense. I am not one of those who says they will pray then walks away and forgets. If I say I am praying, you can take it to the bank. Once you get on my list, you will be there for a while. As a matter of fact, I have a really hard time removing people once they are on. My list just keeps getting longer and longer. Call it a twitch. I feel very responsible for the people on my list of prayer. Not responsible to fix them or something, but responsible to lift them up every morning. I am a creature of rhythm and habit. I pray every day, like I breath and eat. I am not trying to say I am something special or spiritual, or whatever. I am just stating that prayer is as much a part of my life as eating is. It is something I spend a lot of time doing every day. God has given me a gift of being able to develop habits and rhythms very easily and in that He has made prayer a very rhythmic part of my life. So, He purposefully, brought this situation and these people into our lives b/c He has them in mind for the Kingdom. He wants them to come into the Family of God, so He has assigned me to them to seek His face for them. I don't know everything about prayer; as a matter of fact, I don't know much about prayer except that it works, it is a mystery and it is something that beats inside me like my heart. So, I have no doubt that these people are coming to know God b/c I have been assigned like a prayer marine to storm the gates of hell until the shackles fall off of their hands and feet and they are welcomed into the arms of the one who died for them.

There is no coincidence only Providence.

Then when I read my devotional for this morning, God drove it home for good measure. Luke 23:34 says, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." Jesus prayed for all those around Him. He prayed for the religious leaders, the Romans, the disciples who abandoned Him; he prayed for all of humanity, including this family who used to live in this house. If He can pray, "Father, forgive them, in regards to the ones who nailed Him to the tree, how can I do anything less for the girl who just yelled at my daughter. Haven't we all done at least that, yelled at someone.

I am quite sure that God probably raised up stealth bombers to pray for me. There is no telling how many people prayed for me to come into the Kingdom. I am so grateful that He loves me enough to assign people to pray for me. What a beautiful day it was on earth and in eternity when those prayers found fulfillment. What an amazing day when the "the girl with the mohawk" came to Jesus. Who know someone may have prayed for me just like that, just like I pray for the girl with the rotten teeth. I stole from so many people and did so many terrible things, who knows, God may have directed my destructive behavior to one of His prayer warrior just b/c He know, like He knew with me, that they would pray for me. What a good and gracious God we serve.

I would like to ask for all of my friends and followers to pray diligently for these individuals. God has eyes for them. Jesus loves them and we have no idea what amazing works God has for them to do.
Ephesians 2:1-10
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just s the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. FOR BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED THROUGH FAITH, AND THAT NOT OF YOURSELVES; IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD, NOT OF WORKS, LEST ANYONE SHOULD BOAST. FOR WE ARE HIS WORKMANSHIP, CREATED IN CHRIST JESUS FOR GOOD WORKS, WHICH GOD PREPARED BEFOREHAND THAT WE SHOULD WALK IN THEM.

Who knows what works He has for them to do. Pray for them. J and T (mom and dad), T and girlfriend, and girl with rotten teeth. I don't want to put their names out of respect for them. Please pray diligently for them. The enemy has them and wants to keep them, but we must pray for them and fight for their salvation. I don't want a pretense of prayer, but I pray that God puts passion and love in your heart for them and compassion for the suffering they are undergoing at the hand of a very cruel master.

I am praying for myself as well. I pray that God will break my heart and fill me with His Spirit, love and compassion so that if I am faced with them I will share my story and how Jesus changed my life in a way that is authentic and loving and impactful.

What a beautiful Resurrection gift. I am so glad that God does these things. He is so good to me and I love Him with all my heart.

When God shows you your heart

God has the most unpleasant way of showing me what is really in my heart. I am so glad that He does it, but it is usually pretty disconcerting. We think we have come so far, which I definitely have, but lest I get proud God is so faithful to show me how far I still have to go.

This morning, as I ran, there was a knock on the door. It was pretty early, 830ish. I felt, at first, a little annoyed thinking it must be Ally needing in after locking her keys in the car. First, for those that do not know, the house I recently moved into used to be a drug house. Apparently a lot of Chrystal Methamphetamine came out of this house. The narcotics officers came to see the first week I was here. They did not realize that the house had been vacated and was now inhabited by a family that did not sell or even do drugs. We have only had knocks on our door twice so far that were for the previous tenants. I was kind of expecting a lot more of that.

Any way, on with my story. As I opened the door I say a youngish girl, with pretty rotten teeth (clue number one that you are dealing with Meth, for real). She asked for Tracy, the lady I have already been informed was one of the main players in this little Meth drama.

I, haughtily stated, "They don't live here any more, we do."

To which she replied, "Oh. I love your hair!"

I responded, "Thanks, there are no more drugs here and no more drugs dealers."

"Oh," she said and walked off.

I was so proud of myself and feeling quite amused with my quit witted response. I went to inform my husband with a grin on my face. Then I got back on my treadmill, where as most everyone who follows this blog knows I run and pray every morning for longer than I really want to admit to most people b/c I know they think I am crazy when they here how long I actually run every day. I enjoyed my amusement of myself for about 60 seconds on my treadmill before God started gently talking to me about what I had just done.

I missed last Sundays church service b/c I was sick as was the whole family. I like to keep up with the sermons b/c Mark (our teaching pastor) is spending this year going methodically through I Corinthians. I didn't want to miss out. So I listened to that sermon last night before I went to bed allowing for God to pull from what I had listened to Mark teach last night. I won't go into the whole sermon, but it was over 2 verses. The main thing God prodded me with was, "We are the temple of the Holy Spirit and He inhabits us like He once inhabited the physical temple in the Old Testament."

So God says to me, "Are you not the Temple of the Holy Spirit?" "Do I not inhabit your very being?" "Was there not someone just standing before you that needs me?" "My Spirit dwells in you to give you power and to love people." This girl is obviously held captive by a very harsh slave driver. I have been addicted to Meth; it is relentless; it is like being chained up in a darkness that there is not escape from. This poor girl with rotten teeth is chained to the gates of hell with chains that she had no idea would hold her so tightly. She was deceived at some point into willing putting her hands into the shackles that now hold her in an hopeless grasp, a dark, hopeless, painful grasp. I stood before her with the answer to all the longings in her heart, with the power to set her free. The only thing I lacked was the compassion to reach into her darkness, take her hand and lead her into the light. I lacked the heart to care about someone God brought onto my porch. "Jesus had compassion" is written so many times in the new testament. Jesus dwells in me and He had compassion on me or I wouldn't be here. Because He had compassion on me, I am now the Temple of the Holy Spirit. I have been pondering, chewing on, and trying to digest the idea of taking up my cross daily. I cry out to God every day to make me a lover and servant of people, to help me take up my cross and here stood before me the opportunity to take up my cross and act like Jesus and I missed it. I don't even know her name. I didn't even ask her name. My ego, my pride, the ugly, ugly part of my heart overlooked her need. Now, I may not have been able to make a difference in her life, but I will never know b/c I didn't even try. How different could that encounter have been if I had just reached out? How might things have turned out if I had instead said, "Tracy doesn't live here anymore, but I do. What is you name? I would like to pray for you. Do you know Jesus?" I will never know if possibly she was desperate enough this morning to hear that someone loves her so much that He died so He could redeem her, walk with her and make her the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Oh my God, have mercy on me, have mercy on all of us. Forgive us for not having a heart of compassion and eyes to see the desperate states of so many around us. Help us to know that we have you dwelling in us and that you dwell in us not so we can walk around glad that we know you while the world around us goes to hell. Help us to remember that we hold the answers to all of life's problems, questions, and needs. Forgive us for taking for granted all that you have done in us and all that you have given us.

What really makes this horrible is I personally know what it is like to be chained up with those chains. Even in the midst of spending time with God in prayer, my first reaction was pride, arrogance, and lack of compassion. What an unpleasant realization to have to come to this morning.

I am so grateful that God knows our failings and our tendency to do the wrong thing. I am grateful that He knew that I would react in such a flippant insensitive manner. He will send another. As a matter of fact, I began to pray for her as soon as He had taken me to task. I prayed for Him to send godly, authentic, sincere individuals into her life to show her the way home. I prayed the he would life the veil off of her heart and give her eyes to see the truth and that He would not let the enemy blind her to the truth of the Gospel. I added her to my prayer list, "the girl with rotten teeth". He will send someone to her and He will be faithful to remind me to pray for her. I may not be able to be the one who takes her hand and leads her out of darkness (my loss, truly), but God, in His grace and mercy will allow me to participate in her life by praying for her. I have repented and so am no longer guilty of that sin, but I have learned a lesson; I have seen my heart and I did not like what I saw. I will not beat up on my self and continue to feel guilty, but I will pray diligently that God will change my heart and not let me do that again. He is so good that He would show me, b/c we do not work on what we do not see. If we are not aware that we need to change, we don't seek Him to change us. What an amazing and gracious God we serve that He does not let us be complacent. "He who began a good work in us, will be faithful to complete it til the day of Christ."

I am filled with the Holy Spirit and He gives me power to love, impact and care. We should be so finely tuned and aware that He is in us and He leads those in need to our paths. If we will just open our eyes to see the need and realize that we have the answer, if we could only have compassion, what could we do in this world. Why has the church become the laughing stock of the world; why is the church so impotent that we hardly change any place we are? It is b/c we don't love. We don't see that every person we pass each day was created in the image of God and is one that He died for. Lord, give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to care. How many times do we walk by someone who desperately needs what we have and we don't have to heart to see it and care enough to share, to reach our hands out?

I didn't even just walk by, God brought her to my door and I looked the other way. Change my heart o God!!!!

Just wanted to share; I hope that my harsh lesson opens the doors of your hearts so you can learn from me and maybe do better in the face of the test than I did.

Its been a hard couple weeks

It has been a while since I wrote in my blog. It has seemed to me like someone has had their finger on a fast forward button in regard to my life. I have been so busy and had to go so many places in the last couple weeks. I keep looking back at the end of a week and wondering what happened to the week. I really want to slow down a bit and find a slow motion button. I need about 48 hours in slow motion I think. We moved and then it seems like life just sped up. What seems to happen when I get in this mode is that, when it does slow down, I feel out of sorts. I keep feeling like surely there is somewhere I need to be or something I need to be doing. I haven't sewn in probably 4 or 5 weeks, the blog has been neglected for about 3 weeks. Today, once I confirmed to myself that I really didn't have anywhere I needed to go or anything I needed to do, I decided to write about the last couple weeks. Then I hope to be able to sit down and be creative for a few minutes.

This last couple weeks I have really been confronted with how temporary life really is. I have been jarred out of the attitude I tend to walk around with that says bad things don't really come my way. We have not had health insurance for about close to 6 years. I just kind of operate with the idea that we will be okay and we are somehow immune to serious illness. I have had that illusion shattered for me in the last few weeks.

First my very good friend was diagnosed with Lymphoma. I am very sad about it, but I know that we will beat it as a team (her whole huge support group). Her diagnoses has caused me to re-evaluate my fairytale idea that my family is immune to any kind of sickness.

The thing that has really rocked me is losing someone that I once spent a good amount of time with. My friend Charla passed away this last Wednesday/Thursday. We were friends and she was one of the most accepting and wonderful people I have met. She had many long term health problems so I guess we all knew that it was possible that she could leave us at any moment, but I don't think anyone was really expecting it. I know she just seemed to me like the cat with more than nine lives. She would have problems, but she just kept kicking. B/c I didn't really expect her to go any time soon, I was really bad about putting off going to see her for a visit. Weeks turned into months, turned into over a year. I would feel in my heart that I should go see her, but I never stopped and took the time. It's like God would whisper to me, "Hey you should go see Charla." I would think yeah, I need to go see her, but somehow something else always came up. I would run into her and she always had a huge hug for me and, more times than not, she would be so happy to see me that she would start to cry. Over the years, as she got sicker, I found it harder to go see her. It was so difficult to see someone so sweet and talented and amazing be trapped inside such a broken body. I just always thought, I'll go tomorrow. I know that she did not hold it against me and still considered me one of her closest friends. When I first got the news, I felt so guilty for not having gone to see her more; she had been somewhat home bound for a good while. I sort of felt like that I had let her and God down b/c I hadn't spent more time with her. I have since realized that it's not that she needed me to come see her and it is not that I need to feel guilty for not being a "good Christian" and spending time with my friend who "needed" me to come see her. The truth is that I missed out on being able to have the gift of Charla in my life that last year or so. God wasn't wanting me to go bless Charla, He was wanting me to be blessed by her. I have learned a very hard lesson this week. We have to stop being so busy that we don't love the people in our lives and allow them to love us. Most of what keeps up busy is stupid and meaningless. The people are whats important. I read a book one time that talked about people being the "treasure" we store up in heaven. When we invest our time and money into people we are putting our priorities in the correct order.

I have been really quite sad over losing Charla. I am very sad that I did not take better advantage of the time I did have to spend with her. I feel like I can learn and take away a lesson, though, which makes it a little easier to bare the loss. I have to weigh my priorities very carefully. People must always hold the highest weight. The dishes will always be there; the house will always need to be cleaned. Running is fun, but I am not sure that I will look back with fondness over running 12 or 13 miles on my treadmill. I will look fondly back at all the people I have had the opportunity to know, love and be loved by. I find myself praying these days that God will help me be a better friend and to love people better. I want to be engaged in the lives around me and be always on the lookout for someone new to love and impact.

In the beginning part 4b

Okay, new house, hopefully new rhythm of writing several times a week. I have received so much positive feedback the last couple weeks about my blog that I am feeling very encouraged.

I decided to write part 4b b/c I feel like I skipped through the California time too fast and missed some details. I wrote about all the big stuff, but I didn't really talk about the day to day things of California squatter years. California was such a strange environment for me. Even though, I wasn't a Christian, I had been raised in the Bible belt and so I had a bible belt set of morals and standards that I wasn't even really aware of. I would imagine many of the people I know who were raised in Texas probably take for granted the things that we think. Amongst our group of squatters, which was a pretty big group, there were a couple of the guys who were pimps to girls who were prostitutes. I remember, even in my state of little or no morals, thinking that it was really strange that everyone treated that like is was normal. I had never really hung out with any prostitutes. In Texas there was just kind of a stigma and taboo about the profession. Now I am not saying what I did, which was trade favors for drugs or just not value my body enough to be dignified, was any better, but the overt way it was promoted just struck me as odd. The girls would go out and do there thing and come back with money; everyone just treated it as normal. I even remember them sending the girls out so we could get money for drugs for us. It was just not something I was used to seeing. Some of the girls also seemed a little developmentally delayed which I also found odd. They were either developmentally delayed or had done so many drugs that they had become delayed. Not sure why I felt to write about that except that the sense of weirdness about the whole things still strikes me as strange.

I was also struck by the vast numbers of homeless teens in Hollywood from all over the place. I met people from all over the US. Alexandra's dad was from Utah, for example. We knew of about 20 squatters in Dallas (Young, punk squatters that is). In Hollywood there were probably close to 500 to 700 spread out all over. They arrived fresh daily.

We found a squat with about 10 others off of Melrose Ave. I am not sure why all these houses were abandoned. Up on the Blvd there were tons of kids staying in abandoned warehouses. I do remember having to sneak in after dark and get back out as soon as we could in the morning. I remember we used the bathrooms in spite of no water. The tub and pot were full of human waste. (Sorry, I know that is gross.) It smelled horrible. We used to steal toilet paper from the restaurants on Melrose. There was this food stand where we would all go get food called Okey Dogs. They had the biggest burritos. I think they were like 2 dollars and would totally fill us up. We would go out and start pan handling to get enough change for a burrito and some cigarettes. Then later in the day we would start pan handling for money to drink. I remember exactly what I would say; I said it over and over so it stayed with me. "Hey, you got any change you can spare? quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies?" When they would ask me why, I would say b/c I want to get high, and believe it or not, that worked for me. People would give me money. Then we would start drinking or tripping or whatever we decided we wanted to do that day. That was before I met the guys with the meth. The meth changed things a lot. I have always been a speed freak. Well, once I started doing drugs. I have spent most of my life feeling like I wanted to sleep. For whatever reason, I ended up with way more drive than energy. In recent years that is much better do to change in food choices, exercise and life changes. But b/c I always felt like sleeping, I did not want to do downers; I wanted speed and a lot of it. I really never gave much thought to doing too much or overdosing. I took all I could get my hands on and as fast as I could get it in. Funny I have always been a person of excess. I guess one might see excess in my running 10 to 12 miles a day, but I choose to call it discipline. Anyway, when it came to drinking or doing drugs, I did it hard and fast. When I was drinking, I could out drink most of the people I knew, including my husband. I didn't wait for it to hit me; I just hammered it down as fast as I could pour it. What used to worry my husband was how much I could put away and still walk and talk normally.

So, on one of the last nights I was in Hollywood is the night that the whole Sunset Strip was tripping on LSD. On the weekends we would all go up to the strip and hang out all night. We weren't in clubs, just on the streets/ side walks hanging out. Sometimes the strangest things seemed to go on. One night we were all sitting and this whole bunch of our punk friends were walking in a line down one side of the street, across and up our side of the street. They were walking in this big square for a really long time. I don't know why, but I can remember thinking it was really strange and not having any idea why they were doing it. I guess that's what we did when we were really high. So, I was panhandling for money to get some LSD. I was using my standard panhandling method. "You got any spare change, quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies?" These guys asked what I was panhandling to get and I told them LSD. (For those who aren't familiar with drugs, LSD is a hallucinogen. Depending on how strong it is, it can take you quite far from reality. You never know what you are going to see.) These guys asked how much I had; I said $4.32 (something pretty close to that-I know you probably are shocked that I can remember the amount. That would by why my husband likes to call me rain man. Because I can remember the strangest details about stuff.) They said give us what you have and put out your hand. I did and they poured a hand full of liquid LSD into my hand. (Liquid is really strong and hits you really fast. It usually only takes a couple drops and I got a LOT!!!) That night these guys had come down to the strip to distribute a lot of LSD. They were following the Grateful Dead on tour. They weren't really looking to make money b/c they were pretty much giving it away. Several people ended up tripping who did not necessarily want to be tripping. I heard that dozens of people were tripping on the strip that night and there were people running up and down the strip naked. It was like something that happens in a movie. I don't remember much of anything from that night at all. There are a couple fuzzy moments, but most of it is a complete black out. I believe I left Hollywood the next day. My best friend, Star, stayed behind. I left in a white stolen jeep Cherokee. It was driven by Pilot and contained me, Crabs (Ally's biological dad), and a girl called Chaos Pony. Yes, we all had really strange street names. Mine was Spider. If you have ever wondered why I have all those stupid spider tattoos even thought I am petrified of spiders, that would be why.

So we took off for Dallas. The clutch went out right outside of California. Of course no one had the money to get it fixed. This is where I learned to power shift. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is how you shift a car that is a standard without a clutch. Yes, you can drive a standard without a clutch. It is not good for it and probably not very safe, but we got all the way back to Dallas that way. We would stop and panhandle for money for gas; we may have done a couple of gas runs too. You start out in 2nd gear and chug a lug to get the car going then you shift with the rpms. The hardest part is getting it going. I remember that Nirvana had just gotten really big at the time. We listened to Smells like Teen Spirit all the way back to Dallas. It was on all the radio stations, so we heard it a lot as we went from station to station across the US. At some point a long the road I called my mom to tell her I was on the way back. She let us come and stay. We didn't tell her we were driving a stolen car. It is so funny that we managed to get all the way from California to Dallas, Texas in a stolen car that we were having to power shift to drive. I think it was pretty close to Christmas, too. I am not sure, but there seems to be some kind of remembrance in me that says it was. I am pretty sure we were in Cali for Thanksgiving. Mom, let us all stay with her a couple days in her apt. We smelled super ripe. She tells me that she had to throw the blankets we used away when like 3 washings did not get our stench out. I am not exaggerating. We were nasty. I personally had 1 set of clothes I wore. Every once in a while I would go into a gas station and wash out my underwear then wear them around wet. Man, I cannot even imagine that now. I don't ever go a day without a shower.

We ended up in Deep Ellum drinking and eventually left Dallas. Crabs got put in jail for fighting while he was drunk. When he got out, we went to Austin for some reason. On the way back from Austin we did a dye and dash (we went into a Sally's and ran out with a bunch of hair color. Man, we were idiots.) Then about Waco we did a dine and dash. Right outside of Hillsboro we got stopped by a state trooper. He actually took us in for having an open container. It was a bottle of vodka with literally 1 gulp in it, but it was enough. They arrested the 4 of us and impounded the car. The next day 3 of us got out, but the girl who owned to car stayed in for warrants, I think. We were stuck in Hillsboro, though. We all had mohawks and were wearing leather jackets, combats boots, etc. The folks in Hillsboro did not like us at all. There was one place that could take wire transfers in the town. We were trying to get someone to wire us money to get the car out of impound. The police got us kicked out of the only place where we could have money wired to us. They kept telling us to get out of town, though. I am not sure what they wanted us to do. I remember being really scared that once it got dark they were going to make us disappear. We finally convinced someone to drive down and get us; we left the other girl and her car. We just wanted to get out before we woke up buried alive or something. We got back to Dallas. We went to party at some really big ritzy house, stole a bunch of stuff and took off for Minneapolis. We had convinced these two girls to drive us. We also convinced them to do all of our dirty work b/c they looked normal and we didn't. They used to credit cards we had stolen to gas up and buy all kinds of stuff. We had them pawn a ring for us too. That happened later in Columbia, Missouri. We all took off in a Sunbird (tiny with a hatch back). I am pretty sure there were like7 of us in it. I was laying on top of the three people sitting in the back seat. To make the trip go by fast I took 2 xanax (which I had stolen) drank a bottle of nyquil and drank a couple beers. I am lucky I woke back up. We ended up stopping in Columbia for a few days; I am not sure why. We met some people some how and stayed at their house on the floor. Crabs and I had strep throat really bad. We were so so sick, running fever and all. They ended up leaving us in Columbia b/c we all knew we were probably going to be squatting in Minneapolis and were afraid Crabs and I would end up dead b/c we were so sick. Eventually Crabs and I took off hitch hiking. We ended up stuck on the side a a highway. No one would pick us up. The midwest is a really bad place to hitch hike. They don't like to pick people up. We even had hats on. I remember we kept going back to this truck stop and couldn't get any help. My toes were frozen to my wool socks in my boots. It was so miserable. This is where my absolute hatred for cold was really solidified. Finally someone picked us up and drove us into Kansas City, Kansas. We went to a shelter in Kansas who helped us get to Travelers aid. All they did was put us on a bus that took us into Kansas City, Missouri. At the bus station we called a shelter. They picked us up and took us to the Hospital where we got treatment for our horrible strep. Then they took us to the shelters. We had to be in separate shelters which we didn't like at all. We left on foot after like 1 day. We asked around and found the place where all the punks hung out. We met some folks and found a place to stay. I think we were in Kansas city for a couple months. It was here I realized I was pregnant. I got tired of Crabs. He was a jerk for the most part. I called a friend from Dallas and he drove up and rescued me. He actually lived in Norman, Ok so I stayed with him for a bit. Finally, I ended up back in downtown Dallas. I hooked up with one of my old friends ?? (I decided to remove his name, due to possible incrimination of him- that is not my place to expose) and moved in with him and his room mate.

Now we are coming up to the part where you get to hear how I met Jesus, but alas, I must go pick up Chloe so this part of the story will wait for another day.

In the beginning part 4

Okay. I am posting less and less often. I am moving this week and have been packing on top of everything else I have to do, so I hope that getting moved will help me get back to posting more often.

A friend asked me the other day about the term "gutter punk" stating she was afraid to find out what that meant. Gutter punks are punk rockers that are homeless. They don't shower, brush teeth, change clothes, etc. Those behaviors are not really uncommon to the homeless; the difference is that "gutter punks" are really quite proud of being dirty. He who stinketh the most wins.

As I said in the last post, I got married to a guy named Squid. We broke up and I went to a few different places to stay after that. I ended up moving in with my friend Star (who would later become my best friend of 20 years). She had an apartment that her mother paid for while she was finishing up high school. We didn't stay there too long before we decided we would skip town. Our friend Mark had moved to California to live with his mother, so we thought we would hitch out to see him. Star and I packed up a couple bags worth of stuff; we had maybe $50. I can't remember for sure. Our friend drove us out to 35 and left us with our thumbs out. One guy picked us up and drove us back to the bus station where he said he was going to buy us tickets so we wouldn't have to hitch to California. He left us there which really made us mad. I guess he thought that if he left us back in Dallas we wouldn't hitch. We got another friend to drive us out to Mesquite to the truck stop so we could find a trucker going to Cali.

Not to confuse my readers, but I just remembered something. As a teenager at 16 or so, I was staying down town on the streets and one night I slept on the JFK monument. It doesn't fit into the time line here, but I thought it would be interesting to add it since I forgot it. The JFK monument is a flat marble square about 3 feet off the ground it is about 5 ft by 5 ft. It is really, really uncomfortable to sleep on. It is really hard. The reason I slept on it, though, is that it is surrounded on all four sides by these tall stone pieces like walls. You get in trouble for just sleeping on the side walk or in a park, but they can't see you in the monument. Funny, huh?

We found a trucker who was going to Cali; he said he would take us all the way there. He was kind of scary. He looked like Abraham Lincoln meets Charles Manson. When he would stop to sleep I had to lay beside him b/c he wouldn't keep his hands off of Star. He would literally try to crawl over me to get at her. It was great fun, but we tried to just endure so we could get to Cali. We did finally make it out there. It took a few days, but we were so glad to make it. We called Mark and found out that the trucker had left us like right down the street from his apartment. We stayed with him for a couple days, then the three of us got on a bus and headed for Hollywood Blvd. I forgot to mention that he lived in Los Angeles. He helped us find some folks to hang with and then headed back home. The time on the Blvd is kind of blurry. We drank a lot. It is a really weird atmosphere and culture. It was very different from Texas. We ended up hanging with some people who were squatting on Melrose avenue. Like I said, very blurry. I did a lot of LSD there. We could not trust anyone. Everyone tried to scam everyone else. We all slept in our Doc Martins and used our leather jackets as pillows so no one could steal them from us. Eventually I worked my way into hanging out with some people with a lot of Meth. I was doing lots of Meth and LSD. I actually walked away and left Star stranded b/c I wanted to do more speed and the people with the speed did not want her to come. I abandoned my best friend for speed. After being awake on speed for like 120 hours straight and I started to lose it. It had been a few days since leaving Star stranded and I didn't really have anyone I could trust.

I should interject here that I am naturally a very paranoid person. Okay, maybe I should not say naturally, but I tend toward paranoia. Even to this very day I tend toward paranoia. The difference now is that I am able to talk myself down out of paranoia now. I can look logically at the situation and tell myself that what I am thinking is tainted by paranoia and center myself. I do firmly believe in a lot of conspiracy. My husband loves to say that it is just b/c I am crazy.

Take that tendency toward paranoia and add the other factors in (1. not knowing the Lord yet and not being healed at all, 2. a lot of drugs going into my body and mixing of drugs, and 3. no sleep for over 100 hours) and you have a really big mess. The mess was big enough that I cannot tell you today what really happened. I have had a lot of hallucinations in my days, but usually once I came down I could see what really was going on during my drug induced hallucinations. The events that went on this day have no base in reality for me to say what happened.
First, as I sat in an apartment, I kept seeing this shadow on the wall. It looked like a man holding a butcher knife. I would get up and walk over to where it was and look around and look in the bathroom and no one would be there. Then I would go sit back down. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. I was too paranoid to tell them what I was seeing. I started to think the man must be crawling up into the ceiling when I would go look for him. One of the guys was moving back to Dallas so we took a several boxes of his stuff to the post office so he could mail them back. For some reason, they kept all leaving me in the line at the post office with the box. I think they were outside smoking cigarettes, but it really kept freaking me out. I really and truly thought that they were plotting to blow up the post office and let me be blamed for it. I thought for sure that the box must have explosives in it. I kept walking off and leaving the box in the line by itself b/c i didn't want to be alone with it. Then I thought I saw one of them drop a box in the mails slot and knew that it had to be a bomb. I don't know what was really going on, but I was convinced that the bomb was going to go off and I would be blamed for it. We finally got done at the post office and went back to the guys apartment where the girl I had been hanging out with was. She had stayed behind b/c she was starting to crash and wanted to sleep. As we approached the door to the apartment I had a flash in my head and I just knew that my friend was going to be dead inside. Someone had murdered her and I was going to take the fall, or so I thought. I could see how the blood would look all over the walls. I was thinking that the man with the butcher knife was going to kill her and then crawl into the ceiling and somehow I would get blamed. We opened the door and she was fine. There was no blood and no dead person. At this point I was really starting to lose my grip on reality. Me and the girl left the guys and went back down to the blvd. We had some meth left and I had a big knife that I kept in my boot. Somehow I got the idea that one of the people around was going to narc on me so I started plotting how to get rid of the stuff. I ended up dumping my knife in a trash can. Then I dropped the baggy with the last of the meth right behind a cop. I thought that if I dropped it behind him I would be safer. We wandered around more; we ran into a friend of mine who, I would have sworn dropped something into my boot. I just knew that he was trying to frame me for stealing something. I must have taken my boot off a dozen times looking for whatever I thought he dropped into my boot. I never found anything. At this point I was really losing ground. Just when I thought I might really freak out, we ran into my friend Mark (the one I knew from Dallas). I begged him and his girl to let me hang with them. I needed to be with someone I had known before and could trust. I also asked him to help me find Star. She was the only one I knew I could trust and could count on. I had left her stranded, though, so I wasn't sure if she would have me back again. I proceeded to tell Mark about all the weird stuff that had taken place that day. I just wanted to come down and go to sleep so I could find reality again. We were driving around with one of the other punks, I think in a stolen car. I kept seeing shadow people come out of the pavement and mail boxes. It was not a fun night. We hung out and that night they helped me find my way back to the squat on Melrose. I met up with Star; she was still pretty mad, but she let me come into squat to stay and threatened to kick my ass if I didn't got to sleep so I would stop being crazy. She convinced one of the guys who was driving around in a stolen car to drive me back to Dallas.

Before we left for Dallas, there was a really crazy night that everyone on Sunset strip ended up tripping on LSD. I will pick up there next time. It is late and I am sleepy.

In the Beginning part 3

I am trying to keep all the details in the right order, but there are some points where things start to be blurry and a little confused.

After I left Parkland, I was in a hospital in Denton. I cannot really remember what it was called. I don't think I was there very long, though. I was one of the first young patients, my psychiatrist was starting a new adolescent program. The first couple weeks I was actually on the geriatric ward of the hospital. I do remember that the wing that the adolescent unit was on was undergoing some construction. I had to go to another wing to shower and it was creepy to me. I had just read IT by Steven King and I was really scared to be over in the empty hospital wing.

When I got out of the hospital I started hanging out with some of the people that had gone to Straight and dropped out as well. I remember there was some kind of law suit going on that we were participating in. They took pictures of my arms; I don't think anything ever came of that law suit. As I said, I was hanging out with ex-straight kids and things went okay for a bit, but eventually fell apart as they always did. We started drinking and doing drugs again. We were living in Irving still and I ran away. At that point my mom couldn't make me come back b/c I was 17. I stole a bunch of stuff from the house and sold it. I had dropped out of school after finishing 9th grade at about 16 (I think?). We were spending a lot of time in Deep Ellum hanging with a bunch of punks. I ended up hanging out with a guy named Phillip who led me down a very very dark path. He was into a lot of really strange things. I let him pierce my nipple with a safety pin (what was I thinking?) I cleaned it for weeks by pouring liquor on it (brilliant, huh?) Needless to say it got infected and did not go well for me. One night riding back to the house we were going to stay at with strangers who were drunk, we got into a very serious car wreck. I have a scar on my temple still from it. We were crammed into a tiny hatch back car 9 of us. One girl cut an artery being propelled from the hatch window and coming back in (blood was spraying out of her arm), another girl never walked again, the driver and passenger got out and ran away leaving us there. I cut my head and everyone else was okay. Shortly after Phillip and I hitch hiked to New Orleans. I learned a lot of extremely disturbing behavior from Phillip. We made it to the French quarter and set out to meeting people. I drank a lot and did a lot of drugs there. It is somewhat foggy. I was there a few months and ended up engaged to a guy named Smurf. Then I went to Covenant House (a run away shelter). They helped me get back to Dallas. I wasn't back long before I decided I wanted to go back. I saved money and took a bus back. I stayed for a while and have no idea how I got back to Dallas the second time.

Around this time, my mom ended up finding a therapist who specialized in Multiple Personality Disorder. This is where things started to come together for us. They admitted me, my mother and my brother into the Bedford Meadows hospital on three separate MPD units. It is at this hospital that someone figured out that the key to the whole family was my mother. If they could get her okay, eventually we would be okay too. My brother was transferred to a hospital in Lubbock and I was discharged and went to Tennessee to stay with my childhood best friend. My mother still worked for AT&T so she had good insurance and was on long term disability so she sent money to me to live on while I stayed there. She met Jesus at that hospital and did a lot of work on her issues. I, on the other hand, had still quite a ways to go before things would change. Tennessee was pretty strange for me. I was a death rocker (what people call Goth now) and Tennessee is very, very country. I drank with all the hicks, but eventually left. Mom paid for a bus ticket back to Dallas and helped me find a room to rent. She was still in the hospital. I went to AA meetings and tried to stay sober and function. After a few months she finally got out of the hospital and we moved to Richardson. My brother got out of Lubbock too.

Oh, I forgot something important in Irving (after Straight, but before Bedford Meadows). Somehow my brother got acquainted with racist skinheads. We hung out with them for a little while. They ended up finding out that I had had physical relations with an African American person (or dozens actually), and that did not go well for me. They were going to beat me to death, not sure how I got out of that one.

In Richardson, I attended a lot of AA meetings and stayed clean for a while (maybe 6 months). Eventually I met a guy named Matthew through AA. We started having a relationship. He was a recovering heroin addict who introduced me to the speed ball (cocaine and heroin). This was my first experience with intravenous drug use, but I was always down for a new experience. I slowly got into the circle if shooters that he was acquainted with. I shot up a lot of drugs with a lot of people all using the same needles (see, I am truly blessed b/c I should have HIV, TB and hepatitis). I got tested once a year for about 7 years after I got saved before I felt safe that I was clean. Fortunately for me, I met up with some pretty hard core punks at this point also and they were very anti-needle so I migrated toward them and spent less time with the junkies. It was here I met my first husband, Squid.

Squid and I were married about 2 weeks after we met b/c we thought it would me fun. The Justice of the peace we went to was less than thrilled with us. We had a bunch of punks with us and we were all obnoxious. We all lived in a squat (an empty building). It was some abandoned apartments off of Spring Valley (they aren't there any more,:it is a self storage place now). We broke up within about a month. I actually never divorced him; I was working on the paperwork when I had been walking with Jesus about a year, but he was stabbed to death by his girlfriend in California; mutual friends told me about it. It is through this group of friends that I became a gutter punk. More on gutter punk and what follows later.

In the beginning part 2

Just one more thing about the early years. Just remember when you see that kid that doesn't fit in and seems different, that is unkempt with sad eyes, that was me. Love the kid and pray for that kid, b/c it just might be that you don't know what kind of terrible suffering the child is going through. You could be the one person who can impact and change the life of that child, if by no other way, but by praying.

I did forget one things that happened in the early years. My mother began going to a drug abuse recovery program when I was pretty young. I really grew up around that program. It was called PDAP and was mainly teenagers. I looked up to those kids immensely. I would hear them talk about doing drugs while they smoked cigarettes. I thought they were all so cool and I wanted to be just like them. This was not really the intention my mother had for allowing me to spend time with them. I heard all the drug stories and learned so much about drugs. It's not that they necessarily told me about it or tried to influence me, but they talked about them in front of me and I soaked it in like a sponge. I was just a little kids to them and didn't really fit it with them, but I figured out that if I did drugs then I could be in recovery and I would be cool and fit in; then I wouldn't just be some little kid. I think I decided after having hung around them for most of my middle child hood in 5th and 6th grade that I wanted to find a way to start doing drugs. I am sure that is not what my mother would have thought was going on. I forgot that I was also in gymnastics, Mary Lou Retton was my hero and I wanted to be in the Olympics.

From this point on there are some pretty gory details so buckle up. You may find out more about me than you want to. I have done some things I should be pretty ashamed of only I have been forgiven and redeemed so the shame is gone and I can tell the stories.

In 7th grade, Bell and AT&T were split into two different companies. My mom went with At&T which moved her work place from downtown Fort Worth to Irving. We moved north to Bedford. I really, really did not fit it there. There was so much money in Bedford. I guess kind of like Plano, only I was certified "white trash". I started off the year ok and was on the gymnastics team, but it did not take me long to gravitate toward the "stoners" and "headbangers". I had begun to get into metal music in 6th grade. I was also into new wave and a little punk. I saw my first real mo hawk at Bedford Junior high. It was on the head of a girl named Katie and I thought she was the coolest thing I had ever seen. The skaters/new wavers did not really welcome me so I ended up with the stoners. There is no way that I would have fit in with the "preppies" as we called them. I did not have the clothes, shoes or the look. I slowly gravitated more and more to the stoner crowd. For me 13 birthday my mom took me to see Kiss and WASP in concert. My wall quickly became covered with all kinds of posters of metal bands. The metal gave way to death metal (straight up satanic music). I started smoking cigarettes, pot and huffing spray paint. I got in with the older crowd and was introduced to heavier drugs pretty quickly. I was 13 the first time I tried Cocaine. At 13 I had sex by choice for the first time. The summer after 7th grade, I was sneaking the car out every night. One night I drank ??? who knows how much. I cannot really remember much after driving to Lake Grapevine. I know that one of the boys wrecked the car and I drank to black out. My mother found me unconscious on the floor of the bathroom and had to call an ambulance. I had alcohol poisoning. In the ER they were asking me what drugs I had done and if I could be pregnant. This is where my mother found out how bad things had gotten. I went to my first rehab shortly after that. I was in for about a month. I got out and continued to progress. I was skipping school a lot and taking any drugs that I came across with no thought to what might happen. Around this time the Crystal meth started. Things are a little fuzzy about some of these years. I do remember thinking I was cool and could fit in with all those kids in the drug abuse program now b/c I had been to rehab. I wasn't just the the kid anymore. I also remember thinking I was really fat (I weighed 115 pounds, but when I looked in the mirror I saw a fat person). I kept on doing drugs and being destructive; I ran away for a little while then ended up back in Psychiatric Institute for round 2. I had started cutting on myself and taking hand fulls of lithium pills. I played the game really well and was released to a halfway house. One night on the way to an AA meeting while staying in the halfway house, I stole a package of straight razors. When I got back to the place, I cut my wrist. They were not deep cuts, but I succeeded in being admitted back into the hospital. This time it was HCA Plano. I became more and more depressed and very violent. I was diagnosed with personality disorder. One night I took an earring and reopened the scars the had developed over the cuts. This hospital would give me Valium and Klonopin when I got upset and hit people so I got upset quite frequently. They would pin me down, drag me to the quiet room, put me in restraints and shoot me up with drugs. It was a fun game to me. My mother caught onto the game and had me transferred to Green Oaks. I spent about 6 months in Green Oaks. I did therapy and stuff. I don't have many memories that stick out to me from Green Oaks. I do remember one things. One girl mocked my scars and said her mom had sliced her arms all the way up to her elbow. Well, being the competitive person I am, I decided that when I got out I would out do her mother.

My mother ended up in Green Oaks; here is where she began to remember being abused by her father. This is where we started the journey toward dealing with all the secrets. She, at that point, was operating under the thinking that it had stopped when she was young.

At some point during this hospitalization, I began to realize that I had also been victim of this abuse. I believe I was about 14 to 15 in Green Oaks. This is the point that we cut ties with my mother's family. We have not seen them since. When my mother realized what had been happening to us, she divorced the whole family. I graduated Green Oaks and went back to the halfway house. In total, I was locked up for 2 1/2 years.

Somewhere, in all this (I can't place where it goes chronologically, but it seems like around 14 or15) I moved in with some people from the drug abuse program. We were supposed to be being sober. We were not. We ended up drinking and partying. We dealt X for a while and I did massive amounts of X. There was some weird witch crafty stuff going on too. My mom gave us money to help with groceries, but we spent it on drugs. I shop lifted the food we ate and the baby formula for their baby. Finally, I got caught and put into Juvenile until my mom could find a hospital for me to go into. It seems like this was right before the 2 1/2 year lock up stretch, but I can't remember for sure.

When I got free, I did pretty good for a little while. Then I hooked up with a girl I had met in Green Oaks. That was a pretty dark time of my life. I had sex pretty indiscriminately . I ended up feeling pretty used and worthless. I also decided I didn't want to be white. I hung around some pretty rough people (crack dealers). They had money and guns and I was a "white girl" so most of them like having me on theirs arms. I got infected with diseases that you don't really want to be infected with. I am damn lucky that I did not end up with HIV. That has to be God's grace. I tell you that really ugly part of my story for one reason. I had VD's many times and got one to the point that I was very, very ill; I am not supposed to be able to conceive children. I had pre-cancer at 17 and had to have surgery performed on my cervix. Yet, my great and glorious, gracious and forgiving God gave me 3 beautiful children.

I am not sure how long I was free, but the next place I went to was called Straight. It was a scary, scary place. They took a boot camp approach to recovery. My mom was at the end of her rope, though. We had moved to Irving by this time. Sometime between Bedford and Irving we also lived in Fort Worth again. Anyway, Straight was not a fun place. They basically used boot camp tactics to break a person down and the rebuilt the person in "recovery". We all sat in a room, in plastic chairs all day. We would be stood up and screamed at in the face over and over. One Fridays, they parents would come to parents meetings and stand us up and ridicule us for all we had done. The program required them tell us that if we didn't finish the program that they wouldn't be our parents anymore, that we wouldn't exist to them anymore. We were led around like dogs with our higher level person holding onto our belt loops. We weren't aloud to read anything but the Big Book (AA) or the Bible. We had to admit if we read even billboards or food boxes. At night we had to sleep in "host homes" which were home of the other parents who had children in Straight. When I finally got to Level 2 where we get to stay in our host home and have a new person to lead around, I escaped the first night. I ran off wearing boxers and a sweat shirt. The windows had alarms on them so you couldn't open them. I removed both pieces in a sheet and climbed out the window. I went to friends houses, none of whom would help me. I finally found someone to let me in. He told me if I slept with him and his cousin he would let me stay. (sorry for the awful stories, but if I am going to tell my story, I have to include these). I did (sex was ugly and cheap to me anyway, I didn't think I was worth saying no to anyone-I felt like I had been used up as it was.) They made me leave after the acts were performed. I felt so humiliated, used and alone. I had been being berated for months and told by my mother that she wouldn't be my mother if I quit the program. I didn't see that I had anywhere I could go. I walked to the grocery store and stole a package of razors, a pack of cigarettes and some white out. I then went behind at 7 11 and smoked and huffed the white out (it was all I could get my hands on). Then I began to slash my arms. I remember feeling so angry, alone and hopeless. I hated myself so deeply; I just wanted to hurt myself as much as I could. I slashed myself over and over and over on the front and back of my arms. I slashed my legs and put some small cuts on my face. I wish I had pictures of what I had done to myself. You would not believe the damage. I pulled my sleeves down over my arms and lay down to go to sleep. The next morning I woke up to the sun and realized I had no where to go so I called straight. They came and picked me up. When they called my mom to take me to the hospital they told her I had a gash on my arm. I was covered in blood, head to toe. My sweat shirt, boxers and shoes were stiff with blood. There was dried blood down my legs and every where else. She was not prepared for what she walked in on. When I got to the hospital, they had to rip the sweat shirt off of my arms. Then they took plastic brushes and scrubbed the wounds til they bled again. It was excruciating. I think I had to be held down, but the fuzz from the inside of the sweat shirt was fused with the scabs that had formed. There were huge pieces of subcutaneous flesh sticking out of the gashes. I had finally outdone the girl from Green Oaks mom. They then began to stitch me up without numbing the skin. There were to many cuts to be able to put lidocaine in them. I ended up with 90 stitches. Then it was back to Straight. I can remember how bad my arms ached for weeks and weeks. It wasn't the skin; it was a deep muscle ache. You can see the scars if you look at my arms. Children are usually the ones who notice and ask what happened. They were bright red for about 5 years. They are all white now; when I got my sleeve it was pretty painful to tattoo over them.

I forgot to mention that my brother was in straight too. He went in first, then mom put me in. After my arms healed and the stitches were removed, we both began to "misbehave" (that is what it was called when one stopped working the program). We were a pretty violent team. The boys sat on one side of the room and the girls on the other. One of us would start throwing chairs and hitting people then the other would start, so we could get the whole room in an uproar. Finally, they decided that we were uncontrollable so they shipped us and 3 other misbehavors off to the Straight in Florida.

I wasn't in Florida Straight too long b/c I hit a staff member and gave her a concussion so they committed me. I went into a place called Horizon for a bit (not sure how long). Then mom flew up withdrew me from Horizon and with drew my brother from Straight; we rode a bus back to Irving, TX. I had just had it. I was tired of being in pain and feeling empty. I saw not reason for my life or suffering. I planned all the way home on the bus to take the bottle of pills I knew that my mom had in her purse. I think my mom had it set up for me to go back into a hospital a couple days after we got back. We got home and went to bed. My intention had been to take the pills when she fell asleep. I fell asleep and woke up very annoyed at myself. It was still a couple hours before anyone got up so I went into the bath room cut my arms again and swallowed 170 Tegritol. God must have made me fall asleep that night b/c as it was that 2 hours almost killed me. I would not have been alive in the morning if I had taken them when I had intended to. They found me passed out and called an ambulance. I was already going in and out of consciousness. The paramedic kept waking me up so I bit his hand. I really just wanted him to let me go to sleep. At the hospital I ripped out several IVs and pulled the tubes out of my throat. They had to put me in restraints to pump charcoal into my stomach. One of the doctors decided that I was psychotic and put me on Haldol. (not a pleasant medication to take.) I was in a come in ICU at Parkland for a week. The doctors told my mother that I should have been dead, I should have had kidney failure, heart failure and should have been brain damaged. They did not know why I was okay, but I do. God had a plan and He was not ready for me to be gone. The Haldol caused me to have muscle spasms called a dystonic reaction. My neck would tense up and my eyes would roll back in my head. I wouldn't be able to move so I thought I had brain damage from the overdose and I was freaked about it. I hallucinated that the doctors and nurses performed a ritual on me so I could sell my soul to the devil. It was so real to me that I believed it really happened for a long time. My psychiatrist and mother set up an ambulance to transfer me to another psychiatric hospital and gave me medicine to counteract the Haldol reaction which had progressed to full blown seizures.

I am going to stop now. I will pick up from here later.

Birthday blessing

This morning, as I woke up and ran, I pondered what a birthday means. Today was the day God chose to bring me into this world. He ordained the exact moment that I would take my first breath and He has ordained the moment I will take my last breath. He ordained who my parents would be. He looked from eternity and saw every agonizing abusive moment that I would endure and He rejoiced in it. He rejoiced b/c He also saw today and tomorrow and the rest of my days. He was not limited to seeing only the present or past. He knew what I would endure and who it would make me and how He use it to help so many people. I don't know how many people I have helped at this point in my life, but He has promised me that the day will come when my story is told in such a way over and over that people will find life, freedom, hope and trust in Him. I am not trying to make myself seem important or seem like I have some great "calling". What I am saying is that I am at peace with all that my life has been b/c I know He is my redeemer and He set a plan in motion before breath ever entered into me to bring me to a place where I could write His story in my life and be able to tell people my story. I am a bringer of the light, a carrier of hope. I am evidence and can testify that no matter how bad the beginning is, the end can be so beyond our comprehension. My name, Dawn, is a name He gave me. It is a name that He chose for me b/c it is who I am. He uses me to bring first light into darkness. He uses me to plow and pioneer a way for others. B/c my darkness was so dark, His light in me is so bright. I can rejoice in every part of my life b/c He has given it purpose and beauty. He has turned my mourning into dancing, and given me beauty for ashes; I can say, without hesitation, with every fiber of my being and with total sincerity and authenticity, "I would do it all again. I would change nothing (not one thing)." I am who I am today b/c of the path I have walked; the pain is part of that. Because things were so tough when I was young, I am resilient. I am like a cork in the water. You cannot keep me down. I will always float to the top. Knock me down and I will stand right back up. (I Pray that I will stand back up prepared to hug, bless and forgive.) I feel like so much of my life I have been treading water with 100 pounds weights on each leg. The weights are gone now, but I have gotten strong from carrying them. Now I can swim out and rescue (with God's help) those who are drowning. The strength gained from carrying all that weight for so long makes me able to carry others who cannot walk for themselves, yet.

This morning my devotion was really all about this concept. The scripture was

Romans 5:3-5
And not only that, but we also glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and and character hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

I would have to say my life has been characterized by a great deal of tribulation. I would not be exaggerating to say that there are children and people who have not been able to survive some of the things that I have endured in my life. I can glory and rejoice in that tribulation b/c it developed in me perseverance. I am not one to give up. When I know that somethings needs to be done or God is telling me to do something, I will not give up; I will not let go. There is a strength and passion inside of me that will not be put under. Now, I cannot depend on that strength. I need God, but He has worked a tenacity in me that is fierce. That is a gift born out of the tribulation of my childhood and early adulthood. There is also a hope inside of me that nothing can put out. I hope and pray that my hope pours out onto people and touches them, impacts them, and infects them with hope. The tribulation also worked in me a fierce passion for life. I delight and rejoice in every day I am given. Life, for me is full of zest, adventure and excitement. I know that I, by all rights, should be dead many times over, so how could I waste a day I am given. Not that I feel forced to do anything b/c I missed out. I am just so grateful for each day I am given and I greet the day with eager anticipation. I am not sure that I would see life as so full of beauty and zest if I had not walked in the valley of death and sorrow for so long.

Today I rejoice that I was chosen to walk this path; I rejoice that God entrusted to me this story and calls me to share about His goodness, grace, and redemption. I rejoice that He redeemed my life from the pit (and is was a pit, maybe more like a sewer). I am grateful that my mother brought me into this world; I am grateful that she raised us the best she knew how; I am grateful that she prayed for me to know Jesus; I am grateful that she has helped me and impacted me more than I may ever really know. I am grateful that God has healed and restored our relationship so we can love each other. I am so grateful that my mother lives with us and that I get to see her every single day and that my children get to be so close to their grandmother (in a country where it is more common for there to be great distances between children, parents and grandchildren).

God has been so good to me. "If all the trees were pens and all the oceans ink, I could not write out all the ways He has been good to me ." (borrowed from the band Me Without You).

In the beginning.... the start of this path I'm on

Since we got back from Holiday break, it has been so hard to find time to write. I want to write every day; I know also that I have to put certain things in top priority in my life. That leads to other things being pushed to the bottom and many times being neglected b/c I run out of time. My life sometimes seems like a world wind. I have so many responsibilities and so many things I try to be faithful at that sometimes what I would like to do never happens. School with Stephen has to be priority number one; then there are things that I do at the school and church activities and mixed in comes cooking, cleaning (not a whole lot of that actually), grocery shopping, etc. I never seem to find time to sew or create; that breaks my heart, b/c I want to grow that area so badly. Writing I get some time to do. I am praying for God to help me order my days and remove the things that use up my time unnecessarily. I strive to see what I can remove and reorder to make time for responsibilities and for creativity and me.

I arose earlier than I have been arising this morning. I was very excited b/c I knew that meant I could get my exercise and prayer done earlier and have a few minutes to write before hitting the school with Stephen. As I pondered what I might like to talk about I settled on starting to tell my story. That is the real reason I actually started this blog. We're going way back to the beginning. Or what I know and remember.

I was born January 19, 1973 to Deborah Lynn Washburn and Jerry ? Ingersoll. I may not have been planned by them, but I was definitely planned by God. He saw every detail and minute of my life before I was ever conceived. From what I remember about what I have been told, they were married so that I would not have illegitimate stamped on my birth certificate. (Did they actually do that back then?) I think my mother was excited. She was a mess, but excited. I have seen pictures of her pregnant and she seems genuinely happy about it. My mother and father did not stay together too very long. By the time my brother came along almost 3 years later it was all but over.

So my mother started the very difficult journey of being a single mother. This is a difficult journey for anyone, but was further complicated for her in that she was carrying some very painful secrets that she would not even be aware of until I became a teenager. Having suffered many terrible and unmentionable things in her life, my mother became different people and locked those painful memories away deep inside of herself. Her denial of and even lack of awareness of her abuse caused her to suffer extreme clinical depression and also caused her to be unaware that her children were suffering similar abuses at the hands of her abusers and others. I can't remember much at all about the early years, but I know they were very dark for her. She was very depressed, overwhelmed and somewhat paranoid. I know that she did the very best she could to try to protect us and take care of us. She was just not well enough to raise us in a healthy environment. When she realized that she was incapable of being in a healthy relationship with a man, she just retreated from having any type of relationship in an effort to protect us. She had been raised by an alcoholic mother who got into abusive relationships. Her mothers boyfriends would beat on her mother and at times abuse my mother. She did not want us to grow up like that so she just avoided relationships. She would later realize to her horror that her family had been the ones we needed protecting from. She suffered under the weight of that guilt until the last year or so.

I can remember being very young in a house we lived in on Green street, somewhere in Fort Worth. It was so filthy that you couldn't see the floors. I can remember my brother playing with her glasses and them getting lost. My mother is blind without her glasses and I think not being able to see evokes a great deal of fear in her. I remember her yelling hysterically at my brother to find her glasses. She needed to go to work; there is no way she could drive anywhere without them. As an adult I can understand to fear and panic of knowing she had to go to work and could not without the glasses. I remember being spanked with the plastic tracks from the race track my brother had. I remember spilling Mercurochrome (Monkey blood) all over our wooden kitchen table. If you don't know what Mercurochrome, it is an antiseptic that we don't really use in the U S anymore. It was red and stained everything for days or even, in the case of the table, forever. I was orangy-pink for a few days. I remember a big white Alaskan Husky my cousin gave us; his name was Kemo. He was beautiful, but one day we let him out and he never came back. I am sure he was stolen; he was a gorgeous dog.

I have very few memories from my early years. I can remember some really key memories that had a part in shaping who I became and who I am today. I can remember a really nice lady who used to babysit us. Her name was Mrs. Miles and she had a daycare in her home. I remember lunch time. She made the BEST grilled cheese sandwiches I have ever tasted. It is so funny the things you remember vividly from child hood. Those grilled cheeses were perfectly golden with perfectly melted cheese; they were cut into triangles. She also made PBJ and fried bologna. I always ordered grilled cheese except for one time I ordered fried bologna. What I did not realize was that she put katsup on those. I have always hated condiments and still do to this day. I had to eat it and I never ordered it again. I also remember Cheetos, the table we ate on and coloring pictures that we would turn into paper airplanes. We would ask her to staple them, to which she would reply, "staples don't grow on trees," but would staple them any way. I went into detail with those memories b/c they are some of the few really good memories I can remember.

In first grade I had a teacher who was not very nice. I don't know why, but she just must have been really unhappy. I can't remember if she was mean to everyone or just me. I remember thinking it was just me, but I can't honestly tell you whether she was mean to me or just mean all around. She impacted my life more than any other teacher all the way until college. She thought that little girls should have their hair up in pony tails and was very vocal about it. Of course, my mother did not take time to put my hair up. As Ms. Watson, an enormous woman who wore a moo moo type dress every day, would pace the room pointing out all the girls who had their hair up like good little girls should, I knew she was talking about me not having my hair up. I can remember that the ruffle on the bottom of her dress would sway back and forth. One of the most devastating blows to my creativity and artistic nature happened in her classroom. We had all colored pictures. She held up my picture and said, "this picture looks like a kinder gardener colored it." She didn't say who's picture it was, but I knew it was mine. Then when I told my mother and she confronted Ms Watson, Ms Watson denied that is was picture. Two major issues in my life can be traced back to that teacher. I am not shirking my responsibility in these issues or passing the blame off on her. What I am saying is that, after praying and digging deep inside myself over some issues, I feel like I traced them back and this was the root from which they grew. The belief that I was not an artist and was not capable of being creative finds its beginnings here. Many other things over the years just confirmed the belief that it was not safe to be creative. The other issue, though silly, still had power over my life. I became obsessed with the appearance my children from their birth. I was especially obsessed with them ALWAYS having their hair neatly done. When the girls didn't even have enough hair to have real pony tails, you better believe they had tiny little pig tails going on. I did not let loose of that drive to protect my kids from being judged unworthy based on their appearance until my youngest was in 2nd grade. I do brush her hair now, but it does not have to be up every day now. She doesn't want it up, so I don't inflict my pain onto her hair choices. And, if you haven't read the blog entitled "I am an Artist??" read that one. It chronicles the journey and where I currently am with art and creativity.

Life was pretty hard in the early years; none of us could really explain, or even remember why things were hard, but I knew we were not like everyone else. I always felt like I had secrets to keep. I never felt like I fit it. I always felt dirty, unloved, unworthy and alone. I felt like no one liked me; I was depressed, empty, and hopeless. I can remember feeling the need to have something to look forward to every day. If I could have something to look forward to everyday then I had a reason to be alive that day. (Gymnastics to days a week, etc.)

We moved a lot. The house was always dirty. There was never enough money; sometimes the electricity and phone would get cut off. My brother was totally out of control; he started being hospitalized and heavily medicated at 8 years old; we got kicked out of apartments constantly due to his behavior. I had been sexually abused by several family members and some others outside of the family, but did not tell anyone. What I remembered was only the tip of the iceberg. Many things far worse were going on that I would not remember til later.

I can't really remember being in 2, 3, or 4th grade. I was at a school called Bishop Elementary, but there is like a veil over my memories of that era in my life. In 5th grade, some good things happened academically. I had always done pretty good in school; it was very easy for me. I didn't have to study; I just remembered things. While in 5th grade I took some kind of Math test that all the 5th and 6th graders took (6th was elementary). I got the highest score on that test of all the 5th and 6th graders in the school. I was also put into the Gifted and Talented program. I was in the first group of students to do the programs; it started in our district that year.

I had always been the good child and got no real recognition for it. My brother kept everything so stirred up that he was the center of attention. Now, that is my perspective. I am pretty sure if you asked him, he would say he was never as good as me and felt like I was perfect and he couldn't measure up to the standard I set academically. Who knows? It just goes to show there are ALWAYS to sides to everything. Our perspective is based on what we see and experience from our side, but on the other side of things it looks different and a different perspective emerges. It is always wise to assume that there are two sides to every story and that standing in the shoes of each side will give you a perspective that you can't see if you only stand on one side of an object.

I am out of time. This is pretty much everything important up to 6th grade. Next time, 7th grade, a turning point in my life.