Beginnings

My life story is riddled with abuse and alcoholism, very few happy memories and a few near death experiences at the hands of my bio father.
I lied a lot as a kid. If you grew up like I did, you understand this, you understand why. To tell your friends that you smell because your parent WOULDN'T buy soap or your hair is a mess because you'd been beaten with the brush until it broke just wasn't a reality kids wanted to deal with. I faced it all head on and had the spirit of coming out alive and I did.
I had MANY angels guiding me along these roads. I miss them as those early on angels are all gone from my life in one way or another but I have been blessed with new ones to guide me. I believed in angels as I do today....I went to Catholic church/school as a girl and I would pray so damn hard that God would help me. (I was 7-8 at this time)Sister Alberta, who lived at the school with the other nuns in the rectory/nunnery would invite me to come up and she would tell me stories of her abusive father and how she found hope in the church. She lit candles for me and prayed for me and I loved her. I loved the church. those were my first angels.
In years to come, I would suffer a great deal. A GREAT DEAL. Always holding steadfast to my faith although I stopped attending church. After time and being shuffled around I landed at my bio father's. If I had thought life was rough before, I was abut to realize the reality of hell. I was 9 yrs old. I was NINE yrs old the first time I remember him hurting me. I was isolated and he preyed on me like a good sociopath/pedophile would. I was alone. ......I'm not going into the shame and horrific details of what happened, you can imagine.

Fast forward 6 yrs and I finally had my chance to run and I did. I was 15 and had managed to tell just enough but not too much so I could get away but he wouldn't kill me. He had guns and never hesitated using them to restrain me and I believed he would kill me. I KNEW he would kill me if I told it all.... but I got away. Living with my grandmother, his mother, was at the time my only option. She was always good to me and we had a close bond but she was old and tired and had no real way of knowing how to raise me.
I laugh when my daughter jokes about how she has to "parent herself" when she gets a cookie... it's cute and we all know it's not true. My reality was I was parenting myself and had to use all the lessons taught by my angels. Even at this young age, I knew to take the good and leave the rest. Wise beyond my years....

Just after my 16th birthday, he started calling and wanting to see me, manipulating my grandmother and forcing me into a visit. Instead of going though, I left. I left my home and family with a pack of smokes, the clothes on my back and $3. It was 10pm when I got brave. 10pm on a Wednesday in late May when I walked away from HELL and made the call to my next angel, Jessica.
I would go and live with Jessica, her 2 boys and husband where I would start a new life and recreate myself.

I was never able to finish high school. I had to leave that behind when I saved myself. When I was able to enroll in GED classes, Jessica, my sweet angel became ill with cancer. I helped her and her boys and school got left behind, my choice, I wasn't asked to leave school. When she died, it crushed me. I started working full time and met my now ex husband. I got pregnant and pregnant again and I left school behind. Always putting the needs of others ahead of my own. I started drinking more and more and thus began my decent into alcoholism for the 2nd time in my life, again, forgetting about school.

Going through my divorce, I was working as a CNA/PCT at a hospital in the psych dept. I thought I had it all.... until I didn't. So, today I find myself with no high school diploma/GED, a lapsed CNA, no career, and virtually homeless but sober.

I made a decision to start into motion my going back to school. Not just the pipe dream of a nursing degree but to begin where I had left off. To begin with my GED. To put myself and my girls first.

This life, it's not an easy one. I have been punched down to the ground and got back up and I have royally fucked up a great deal  having many repairs and mending to do but I refuse to let my daughters see only the dark side. I want them to know and see and WITNESS how you can literally be near dead in a gutter to completely change everything....even at 39.

I remain steadfast to live a positive and good life. I refuse to waste more time with bullshit. I did not survive this far for nothing. This life that I have been given and the chances I do not deserve, have purpose. WE all have a purpose.