I have thought about my life a lot lately and what made me who I am today. I wish I could say it was always great and fun. My life started out pretty hectic. When I was 3 years old I remember my parents splitting up. I remember my mom picking me up and putting me in her car. I was looking bad and just watched my dad sitting in the doorway, on his knees crying. We moved a couple of times in the next few years and she got remarried. By the age 7 I had police show up and take me away and put me into some strange persons house. It was a foster home. Apparently beating a kid with a belt and leaving big bruises was not legal. My foster mom was rude and always saying I was a bad kid. There was this room that I was not allowed to leave except to use the bathroom, and or for school. Not long after that the courts granted my dad custody of me. By age 7 I had moved 7 times. I stayed there for a couple of years until I moved again, and my dad got remarried. This is when the bullying got started. It wasn't too bad, but it was everyday. It was mainly words, very little harsh physical hits, just jabs. It still bugged me, because by age 9 I really felt no one wanted me. My parents spilt, I moved so many times I never got to keep friends, had an abusive step dad, and cops came and took me away to put me with a mean foster mother. I started to feel like a mistake. As years went on I stayed in that same school until high school. That is when the worst bullying started. This was getting pushed down a flight of stairs bad at times. During all this time I had lost hundreds of friends or family due to moving or death. The worst ones were, when I was 14 by best friend's sister that was only 7 got hit by a car and killed right in front of her parents. I would spend every waking minute with him and his family on most days. The most recent was a friend that was trying to get her kids back and better her life. She was killed by her former boyfriend and buried under his shed. One of her kids that she got back and that was living with her during her death is still missing. Other life events that have happened are I broke my neck in a car wreck, and at one point I had to work 92 to 100 hours a week to make ends meet. I was paying 115 to 330 dollars a week in support. 115 was what I was supposed to pay, but after a paper work court error when switching counties, I would sometimes get double taken. So even working 92 to 100 hours a week between 3 jobs it made things very hard.
I have had some many people help me a lot. Just random money, ride, food, and what not. My dad was the best help I have had. When I was a child, he would drive 12 hours every other weekend to get me and my sister. Sometimes he would make the trip just to spend a few hours with us. I also learned at a young age in life happens to everyone and they make it. So knowing all bad things will pass eventually helped. After almost dying in the wreck I have become grateful to be able to do anything.
Life's best moments are the simplest. Like being so close to that special someone that you can feel their heart race at your touch, and you see their face light up. Hugs from your child. The confused look your puppy makes when you sneeze. Everything is a gift. The bad things are just reminders to be happy when things are at their best and to respect them. Reminders that you are alive. Just remember someone has been through your same problem and has made it, and life is all about making memories, because when everything is said and done memories are all you have.

"You cannot really begin to appreciate life, until it has knocked you down a few times.You cannot really begin to appreciate love, until your heart has been broken. And you cannot really begin to appreciate happiness, until you have known misery. Once you have walked through these valleys, the view from the mountain-top is 'breathtaking'!" :-)

[Susan Gale]

To hear never-heard sounds,
To see never-seen colors and shapes,

To try to understand the imperceptible
Power pervading the world;

To fly and find pure ethereal substances
That are not of matter
But of that invisible soul pervading reality.

To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul;
To be a lantern in the darkness

Or an umbrella in a stormy day;
To feel much more than know.

To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain;
To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon;

To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves;
To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets
Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching.

To be a smile on the face of a woman
And shine in her memory
As a moment saved without planning.


[Dejan Stojanovic]

"The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It's the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows & the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years."

[Audrey Hepburn]