Hello everyone and Happy Monday!  I hope that your weekends were fantastic!  Mine was super busy and I am still recovering. This is also shaping up to be a busy week and weekend.  I will be spending this week preparing for my 30th birthday celebration on Saturday evening!  Add that with a teething toddler (oh, joyous molars....), normal housework, and whatever else happens this week and I am going to be so ready for the party on Saturday. 

This week I want to talk about certain things that I have lived these past thirty years.  I was going to do another list, but I decided it would just be better to talk about it all at length instead of trying to compile a list of 30 things.  Yep, I changed the game up-that's how I roll. :)

First of all, let me define "things I have lived".  Basically, this is stuff that I have lived through.  These are things that I have gone through and survived.  Some of these things I have talked about before, but I can go into more detail now.  There are some though that I have't mentioned, so they will be all new!  This should be pretty interesting, you ready?  Okay.  Here we go!

I lived in a really bad neighborhood...twice.  I was a minority in both neighborhood's.  Somehow I managed to keep all of my stuff, my life, and my car.  (However, someone DID break into my car, but they didn't steal anything.....Guess they were disappointed!  HA!)  Those years spent in those bad neighborhood's were not  very fun, but I learned a lot of skills to survive.  (For example:  Ramen noodles are da bomb and don't knock them till you try them.  Seriously.)  The only good thing that came out of one of those neighborhood's was my husband.  Yea, that's right, I met my husband at a gas station. :) He worked there and he shut my gas pump off on me repeatedly so I would have to go in and have him turn it back on.  Sly one he is.  

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I had a car repossessed in the very early morning hours several years ago.  I knew it was coming.  The tow company came and knocked on my door, said they were there to repossess the car, I handed the gentlemen both set's of keys, and watched them load "Josie" onto the flatbed and take her away. I cried.  I was so ashamed.  People were looking through their windows in the apartment complex.  I still remember the sound of the chains slamming against the flatbed and the sound of the winch pulling her up. I was in my mid-twenties then and felt very small, standing out there in my pajamas, watching them take my car away.  The gentlemen that was doing the repo said, "All you have to do is pay them what you are behind and they will give it back."  I said, "No, it's okay,  I'm letting her go."  

So, with that, I let her go.  I had to file bankruptcy.  I was in my mid-twenties with a bankruptcy.  And, let me tell you, having to go through all of that with a lawyer and then sit in front of a room full of other people and explain why you can't afford your debts is humbling and mind-numbing.  I won't ever get in that bad again.  Ever.  Ever.  Ever.  Every time I get the hankering for a credit card because I just have to have something, I listen for the sound of chains slamming against a flatbed and I decide that it isn't worth it.

That, and my husband would shoot me. :)

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It took me ten years to get my Bachelor's degree.  So, virtually, by the time I graduated with my undergrad, I could have had my Master's.  I had moment's where I felt like crap about it, but at least I finished.  That was the first thing in my life that I started and finished.  It felt good.  I still look at my diploma with pride.  It hangs in our living room-I see it every day.

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I remember 9-11 like it was yesterday.  I was working the drive-thru at McDonald's when a lady came through, tears streaming down her face, "They flew a plane into the World Trade Center," she said.  I dropped her money and ran to tell my manager.  We sat and watched it on TV my whole shift.  By the time my shift was over, my mind was racing so bad, I didn't know if I could drive.  It was a long drive home.  I drove home in silence.  I still can't get some of those images out of my head.

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I can honestly say, now, I know who my friends are and I know what a friend is.  I let too many people into my life for a long time that didn't deserve to be in it.  I got tired of the roller coaster, so I got off.  I am sure some of them are still riding it.  I also learned that when someone starts talking about someone else, I take it with a grain of salt.  People lie so easily anymore to save their own face or make themselves look good.  I have a handful of great friends that I wouldn't trade for the world.  I haven't talked to one in particular in a month or so, but you know what, he would defend me in a heartbeat.  That's what a friend is.  That's who you have in your life.

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I have survived my heart being broken countless times for various reasons.  Each time I thought I was going to die.  The weight from the sorrow was so big and so heavy, I thought I would suffocate.  I lived through some of the darkest moments of my life.  All because I allowed other's to treat me like crap.  You know what I have to say to them:  Thank you.  Thank you for making me into the person I am today.  You caused the pain and the hurt that fueled my fire and got me here.  You may think you won back then, but you didn't.    I won.  

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I lived a double-life for a long, long time.  I had stand off after stand off with that other life for years.  I finally got rid of it, one late night, in the darkness.  I took a chance and it worked.  I just put one foot in front of the other, took one thing at a time, and lived one day at a time.  It was liberating.  Some did not like my choice, but they were never very supportive of me anyway.  That is why they are not here.  They couldn't come with me.  I wanted more for myself while they just wanted for themselves.  For the first time, I chose myself and that is when I began to feel peace.

Still feeling peace....

Until next time,