I'm not sure I'm ready to write tonight. I'm not really sure where I'm even going with this post. I will say right off the bat that I'm depressed and having a tough night. Granted, women aren't known for being chipper at this "time of month," but I'm unusually down even for that. I don't want to move. I don't want to watch TV. I don't want to eat, or to exercise, or to do anything except sit here and click mindlessly at my Spider Solitaire game.
More than anything, I'm lonely. My best friend lives hundreds of miles away, my sister is at sea (and isn't allowed to tell me where), I'm in a useless relationship...I do have my lovely children, but I can't talk to them about my problems. You just don't do that with your kids, period. I try not to speak of my problems in front of my oldest son at all because he is very sensitive and gets upset fairly easily. I don't want to sound whiny or anything like that but I just...this would be a good night to be somewhere else. To be at dinner with a friend, engaged in deep conversation. Something more than shopping, something more than just going to the movies...an actual friendship, something true, something REAL. I do have a few people in my life that I consider friends-some are very good friends, actually-but due to our conflicting lifestyles/schedules it's hard for us to arrange any time together. Plus my schedule at work is nuts right now. If I should get the job I just applied for...I can only imagine how I'll feel when traveling and away from my children. But you know, I'm ready for the challenge. Who knows-maybe they'll have a gym in the hotel and I can work out bunches and come back all hot and skinny. Or maybe I'll meet a wonderful person there that I could hang out with and get to know.
But that's enough of that. I'm not going to let myself dwell on it. I just have to trust that by continuing to do the right thing I'll grow, both professionally and personally. Hell, I'm already improving some-I'm down by 10 pounds since expanding my duties at work/writing. I'm not as tense all the time. My breakouts are clearing up. Between my progress at work and my progress here, I'm feeling better more often. I used to be depressed ALL THE TIME. I was on Citalopram, which was okay, but I didn't like it. I don't want to be reliant on a pill to make me happy-to me, it was "fake" happiness. I was more complacent than anything-not truly enjoying life, not feeling good about myself or anything like that....more like not feeling. Just floating through. It's very similar to being extremely drunk or high-to the point where you can't remember half of it. I don't want to not remember half of my boys' childhood. I don't want to forget half of my life. I want to figure out what actually makes me happy, what I'm good at, what I enjoy doing....and with God as my witness, I'll do it. It will take time, I realize that...but I've never been known for my patience.
So I haven't gone over much lately...but it's not like there's much more to cover. Before long it will be me just decompressing and getting over any issues I currently have or any flashbacks I might be dealing with. I can't really do that without having gotten my past out there...it's part of me. It's who I am.
So. High school. I went over a few of the relationships I had. I had many many acquaintances, but in retrospect, I didn't have that many friends. People I knew from middle school had better things to do. This actually includes my best friend Delaney-there was a period of time that we just did not speak to each other. I'm still not really sure why...it just happened. And then one day we were talking again. She has always been the closest person to me and when she wasn't there, it was terrible. Really and truly terrible. Since I had a perpetual boyfriend of course I was spending time with the current flavor, but...it just wasn't the same. The loneliness really kicked in at that point in my life.
Then Nathan came along. I was completely and totally in love with him. He was gorgeous, sweet, caring, and devoted. He was everything I had ever wanted. We spent every possible second together. He would come pick me up for school in the mornings and bring me back home at night. He took me to and from work when I got my first job.
The day I looked up in the hallway and saw him, I got butterflies. Big, insistent ones that kept trying to push their way up into my throat. Then he saw me stranded at the foot of the stairs-I was on crutches, trying to make it up to class. He carried my books and backpack, helped me navigate the stairs, then got my phone number before I went inside. He called me the same night, we went out the same night. We went to the mall, aimlessly walking around for hours. We kept asking each other, "What do you want to do?" 'I don't know, what do you want to do?" over and over. He looked at me and said "So...." and by this point, I had had it with the questions. I told him not to ask me that question again. "Well, I was going to ask you out, but okay." That was single best instance of someone asking me to be their girl. From that moment on, we were inseparable. There was prom again. There were our separate jobs. We often sat and played video games together, or watched movies, or read. We were into a lot of the same stuff. I felt he was "the one."....which led to me sleeping with him shortly after I turned 16.
I remember it very well. It was the first time I had willingly let someone have me...and even now, I'm glad it was him. It was special. He was gentle with me-he knew my background. I do admit I didn't see all the appeal at first-I think everybody has to grow into that-but I liked it. Not too long after, he began spending the night with me, in my bed-I was only 16, yet Minnie allowed this to happen. Of course I enjoyed it, but as a mom I don't get it. My own mother didn't get it either when she found out...and the she proceeded to call everyone in my family and tell them her baby was sleeping with her boyfriend. Just...ugh. I'm not even going there tonight.
Lovemaking was always special with him, every single time. It wasn't until later, at night in bed alone, that it hurt. I didn't tell him this, but....sometimes in my dreams my present got mixed up with my past. It was confusing for me...and so very painful. The nightmares of my father would transition into dreams of Nathan....or a dream of Nathan would shift to Dad. If I was having a particularly bad dream about Dad, remembering his breath in my ear, suddenly it was Nathan behind me, and he was holding me...rescuing me. Those were the times I woke up feeling okay. But if it was the other way around...it was like Nathan couldn't protect me from Dad-nobody could. He could get to me no matter where I was. Depending on the dream I was either terrified or comforted. My fear of my father just followed me...it was a recurring dream that I experienced for quite some time-but there was never any other guy in it but Nathan. He was, in so many ways, my knight in shining armor.
Being a teenage girl though I couldn't be happy with that. I wasn't happy with myself and I tended to project that into my relationship. We did break up temporarily...and it started a major change in my life.
Before I get to that, let me first say this-sometime after having met Nathan, my family moved back to Arizona. I don't remember why, I don't remember the details...and I didn't really write about it. This time it was nothing new, this abandonment was no big deal-I was kind of used to it by this point. I wanted to add this in so the rest of it made some sense.
I've already discussed my inability to be single, so of course I was looking for that next relationship immediately after my breakup with Nathan. I found it in a friend I'd known for a couple of years-in this case, a black friend. Minnie and I already argued about everything, but this she was extremely unhappy about. She always claimed not to be racist, but she always used racial slurs and made derogatory comments-including washing my sheets and spraying air freshener on all the furniture after a friend of mine that happened to be black spent the night. When I announced my plans to date this particular guy, the shit hit the fan. We had a full-on screaming match, resulting in her telling me she was going to place me in foster care. She wound up making me call my mom and ask her to come get me, saying that if she didn't then the state would have to come get me. Mom said she'd be there, but I was allowed to finish out my junior year of high school.
I didn't really tell my friends why I was leaving, just that I was going. I said my goodbyes and got my transcripts, quit my job. I reconnected with Nathan-I went to Rogersville with him for a bit, and next thing you know we're together on the couch, clinging to each other like there was no tomorrow. I already didn't want to leave, but now it was worse. All that drama, having to leave for dating a black guy for a couple of days, not even but about a week. Now I was back with my Nathan and she still wouldn't let me stay.
I had a bank account and had saved up $400 towards buying my first car. I hadn't even been working a full 6 months but had been trying really hard, was determined to make something out of myself. What happened to that $400? I bought myself a stereo before my parents took the rest to cover the gas to come get me and bring me out to Arizona. Byebye savings. Byebye Tennessee.
Ah, Arizona......despite my father being in the house, despite working and going to school full time and never being home, Arizona is where I first started learning to be myself. I got my bellybutton pierced with Mom's permission. I got to shop at Hot Topic because Mom didn't care how I dressed. I spent hours and hours writing in my journals, doing Pilates, talking to Nathan on the phone. I experimented with hair cuts and colors-sometimes I had blue in it, sometimes purple. I quit band. I made friends. I lost weight without trying-I was down to 143 pounds, which was the smallest I had ever been. I looked good, I felt good. Dad stayed in his cave on his computer-he seriously only came out every 3 days or so-but if I was never home it didn't matter. I shared a TINY room with my sister, my brothers had a room by us, then there was the massive kitchen and living room, and then my parents' room. Mom usually slept on the couch, so there were lots of barriers. And really, I had nowhere else to go, so I was willing to take the risk.
I'll go on from here later. I want to end this one on a happy note...because I was happy there. Happy and hopeful. I still believed I would have the future I always wanted after high school. I was so close to graduating with my new friends and heading off to college back home where I could be with my Nathan. We talked about what we'd do when I came home, what our futures would be, if we'd ever get married. I talked to him just about every day on the phone. We wrote each other letters. He sent me film and I send him pictures-I still have some of them. They were pretty good-my sister took them. It kinda makes me ache a little to talk about him, so I'm gonna stop for the night.
<3
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