Heck if I know.

Where they heck am I and how do I find me and start again.

There is this picture of me I remember. I was probably 14. I am sunkissed and sunbleached blonde. I have this very calm serene look about me. I see strength and confidence and self- esteem. Jason is in the picture with me, but I'm not really aware of him, I'm staring ahead, strong.

I love this picture. I think I'm going to blow it up and put it on my wall at home. I want to see that picture everyday. I was healthy once. I was self confident and lovely. I had dreams and goals and I knew myself. I was in excellent physical condition and I knew I had power.

Although I will never be that girl again, I have lived a life that has taken that girl and changed her into a woman that is altered, but she is ME. THAT IS ME!

If she could trade places with me right now, there is no way anyone would treat her like I get treated. When HE insults me and hurts me it wouldn't even effect her. She knows she is more worthy of love than he is. She grew up with an amazing childhood with parents that loved her. She had a sibling that believed in her and never wavered. She never accepted defeat. I remember pushing harder and harder to win races, it was impossible to pin me in wrestling, I ran fast and had a natural ability at most sports. Grades were never my forte, I didn't really have an attention span for education. I wanted freedom and I wanted to run and laugh and think. I was always a great thinker. Perhaps that is why I would get into so much trouble, and what I mean by trouble, is skipping class to eat pizza at the lake or to sneak out of the house at night to sit in the park and hangout with my curfew free friends. I have never done drugs, I have never hurt anyone, and I was always aware of my boundaries. NO ONE talked me into anything I didn't want to do. Boys would want to experiment with me and I would punch them in the head. Mom got lots of calls to the school. I didn't have a problem with that. SHE was the good cop in our household.

I was fun to be around, not because I was crazy or wild, but because I was...crazy and wild. Ok I wasn't an angel but I did things in light fun, not to rebel or hurt anyone.

My dad and I had an amazing relationship then. He was PROUD of how I would knock a boy out for making passes at me, we would joke around and he would lecture me and my friends about rules and responsibilities. Sure, Dad and I would have our wars, neither of us would back down when we were mad at each other. Mom would constantly come between us and tell us to go to our own corners. I would slam my bedroom door and cry, dad would storm off downstairs and watch the news. Eventually we would both meet up and be sorry. We never said sorry, but it was assumed. We drove my mom crazy with our stubborn attitudes and inability to admit we were wrong. By the way, he was always wrong. Just kidding...I think I was wrong in 1980 so THAT time I admit I was wrong for sure, maybe a few times after that...probably not.

How do I become that girl again...ok well not a girl, but a woman version of her. Who would she be if she wasn't abused?


Heck if I know!!!!

I know this isn't a very deep blog but I swear I don't have a clue how to get to love myself again! It's inbred in me. I blame myself of my mistakes. I was smart and smart people don't screw up as much as I did. They don't get beat they don't lose themselves! Only idiots allow abuse. How did I let someone take me apart.

My brother said to me a million times, "Nell, why are you letting him do this to you? You could kick his butt, I have personally seen you drop guys bigger than him"
WHY DID I!!!!???


Hell  if I know.

Why did I think I deserved this abuse? Because I got pregnant at 16 and disappointed my whole family? So the heck what? Did I give my son up for adoption? Did I starve him and neglect him? Did I leave him alone while I went partying? Did I put myself in front of his needs...ok sometimes I did, but did I continue to screw up? No. I tried to finish school. I actually understood how much my education meant to me and my life. I was 16 and after i found out I was pregnant I enrolled (by myself) for school, a teen parent school. That doesn't sound like a loser to me! I tried to do it, I really did. It got to be too much with my son being kicked out every other day because he caught something from the daycare. I saw the other teen moms with herpes, and partying with their kids sleeping on crusty sheets and living in a hovel. That wasn't me. I refused to screw up that bad. I could have screwed up a lot worse than I did.

I think because I was that girl in the picture I didn't. I was brave, I was smart and I was determined. Did I see that then? No. I felt I had to prove I wasn't a loser, I had to fix the mistake I made. Running away, embarrassing my parents, getting pregnant. I had to be more than I though I was. This was a 17 year old running an adult life. There is no way I was going to make ALL the right decisions. No way at all. I didn't have the maturity or the focus to "make up for" my mistake. I also had "HE" telling me how unimportant my life was now that I had our son. How HE had to finish his education so he could provide for our child and me. He did work hard, I will give him that, but he had the freedom TO work and finish and complete his childhood.

My parents were frustrated, exhausted and mad at me. I kept making mistakes, I kept screwing up, I kept...being a child...because you know what? I WAS A CHILD! I was a child with a child. I chose to keep my son, a choice I wouldn't change. I chose to quit childhood and try and grow up and be a responsible parent. YEAH RIGHT! You can't choose to grow up, your body and mind and soul grow at the same rate it doesn't matter what responsibility  you put on it. They have proven your frontal lobe of your brain doesn't attach until your at least 21. The frontal lobe controls your impulses and seeing the consequences of your actions. As in, you finally learn at 21 that your choices have consequences. 21!!!! I had already made a billion bad choices before then!!!

With that child mind I believed if I married the guy who got me pregnant, no matter how flawed he was, everyone would think I was normal and forgive me. That is honestly what I thought every single day. I have to keep him, because he is my salvation.....he is my ticket out of being an embarrassment to my family and a failure to my life.

HOLY  CRAP !!!! This is huge. This is huge!!!

So I accepted and took all sorts of abuse, to get my salvation. HOLY CRAP !!

And salvation came.

I married him.

I remember crying on my wedding day, I won. I won my salvation. Today everyone will forgive me and see I'm not a loser, I thought. Today I have redemption. Today they will love me again.

And it worked. I watched my wedding videos and heard my uncle who was recording it say "So proud of that girl" I replayed that part a hundred times. I also replayed me crying a hundred times. Everyone thought I was so captured by love that the emotion over took me, no, I was so excited to be forgiven that I cried because I wanted that love back.

To get there, to get to that day I had sacrificed...ME.


For what? For the love of people that didn't know me or my sacrifice? For acceptance? For redemption of sins I committed with other sinners that were forgiven for free?

Heck if I know.