Before I dive into this next blog post, I just wanted to thank all of my reader's for yesterday's events.    A Mother in Boston and Dear Martin have received many hits and it is all thanks to you.  You took it upon yourselves to make sure that those two letters were seen by as many people as possible.  By you having faith in my and my words, you gave me the confidence to post and re-post those letters as many times and as many places as I could. I am so grateful for you, my reader's.  You are why I do what I do.  Thank you. 

October 2009 Age:  26

Today is a good day to talk about my twenties since this is the last day I am in my twenties.  Tomorrow, at about mid-morning, I will be 30.  Wow, that last sentence was surreal to write.  I honestly never thought I would be here.  It's strange how life takes us; through its twists and turns and ups and downs.

I look at my twenties in two parts:  before and after.  There was a breaking point, a cusp if you will, that was reached at about my mid-twenties.  To be blunt:  I got tired of the crap.  I was so tired of waking up and feeling the same way every day, dealing with the same things over and over, and seeing certain people that just had no use in my life anymore.  That may sound harsh, but it was all for the better.  All of it.

From the age of 19 until a month before my 22nd birthday, I was in college.  Well, I was enrolled.  I wasn't really trying to get anywhere looking back on it now.  I was more interested in partying and drinking and pushing my limits at that age.  Thursday's, Friday's, and Saturday's were party days.  My friends and I (that term I use loosely because there isn't one person that is still in my life from that time with the exception of my husband and my best friend.  My best friend lived four hours away so it isn't like we were hanging out all the time.)  Anyway, I was  a mess.  I was a drunk.  There, I said it.  I would spike my Diet Coke's with Jack Daniels before I went to class.  (Sorry, Mom...and....everyone else who didn't know that about me...)  Not one of my finer moments.

2007 Age 24

I knew I had a problem.  I knew it.  No one would listen to me when I tried to talk about it.  And by "no one" I mean the people that I thought were my friends.  Sara would get all sappy stupid drunk and go on and on about how horrible her life was, and they would just pour me another drink to shut me up.  I quit college in March of 2005  (ironically, this is the same month I met my husband...at a gas station....in the wee hours of the morning...) and started looking for full time work.  Ha!  Basically what happened was that I got a part time job and my parent's paid for me to live in an apartment two hours from my hometown, in the ghetto, and I just wasted away.

Into nothing.

I was an empty shell.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't eat.  I wasn't hungry.  I would chain smoke the hell out of some Camel's, drink my soda, and scrounge up money to go out and party.  Then, I got "smart" and started having house parties.  That just left me with a mess to clean up the next day, totally hungover.  Nice.

I finally had an epiphany (after a night of being completely drunk and thinking about just killing myself...yep, that happened...) and sought out help from a therapist.  I will admit, she was good.  She helped me unravel myself and really helped me to start to see thing's in a new light.  When I came to her, I had what she called "Can't-get-out-of-bed-and-go-to-Wal-Mart" syndrome.  I was paralyzed by the outside world, honestly.  I hated myself, I hated everyone, I just hated.  I allowed things to happen to me that kept me in a hole.  I allowed people to mistreat me and use me and just leave me for dead.  I didn't know how to say no. I just wanted people to like me, to love me, to accept me.  So, I did what I thought would make that happen.

The only bad thing about therapy is that they like to attach drugs to you.  I had drugs to wake me up in the morning, get me through the day, and put me to sleep at night.  Then, I had drugs to counteract some side effects with the original drugs.  So, roughly, I was taking about 7-8 different kids of pills a day.

I couldn't cry.  I couldn't get angry.  I was a zombie.  I would leave my house at 10:30-11 o' clock at night and mosey my way down to the gas station where this really cute boy worked.  I would get me a soda, a pack of smokes, and sit there and talk to him for two or three hours.  Then, I would take my butt back home, take me a little blue pill, and pass out.  (Bear in mind, I had actually stopped drinking at this time because, well, while I may have not been smart about my alcohol intake, I knew that drugs and alcohol DO NOT mix and I was scared.  See, that just shows you...I was too chicken to die.)

So, I spent the next couple of years straightening my head out.  Eric made me flush the pills, said I didn't need them.  I do believe his exact words were, "You don't need that shit.  You do it on your own.  Flush them."  I don't think I hesitated for more than five seconds.  It just shows.....I knew I didn't need them.

2006 was a bad year.  I got sick.  I was diagnosed with endometriosis and spent most of my day's on the couch in a different apartment, in a different part of the city, still in the ghetto, still pissed off at the world.  There aren't really any pictures from that time because I look like I was dying.  No, really, I do.  My mom has a picture of me from Christmas and I look like I am ready to just be buried.  No color to my skin, dark circles under my eyes, rapidly losing weight.  It was a nightmare.  That was a time in my life where I wished to die.  I was in so much pain for so long, I just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up anymore.

2007 and 2008 were actually when my life started to turn around.  I got back into school.  I had a new zest for life.  I kept to myself and my very close friends.  I had managed to get rid of a whole bunch of "friends" when I dropped out of college-go figure! I took things one step at a time.  I really thought about things and I concentrated on my part time job and my school.

2009 was hard. Eric went back to IL earlier in that year and we were sorting things out between us.  I spent a lot of time reading and crying and writing after he left, trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do.  Sometimes I think two people can't figure things out when the other is in their face all the time.  I think sometimes two people just need to breathe in their own space for a while.  That time was dark, but it helped.  Sometimes, you just need to do you for awhile.

March 2010 Age 26 (almost 27)

The last half of 2009 until the summer of 2011 (a month before Lynzi was born to be exact)  I lived with a girl from my partying days and was finishing school.  I had a job that I clocked in 25-30 hours a week and full course loads.  I was busy.  I was up to my eyeballs in school.  I LOVED IT!  I was enjoying life so much for the first time in I think ever.  I felt like I could BREATHE!  It was nice to be able to enjoy things and be comfortable in my own skin.  Eric had proposed, we were doing great, school was great, and I had learned to deal with set backs calmly and rationally instead of trying to find the answers at the bottom of a bottle or in a pill or in people.

I got pregnant in October of 2010 with Lynzi and while Eric and I were happy, scared, freaked out, etc. my roommate decided to be less than happy.  That "friendship"  (To this day, I don't even think we ever had one.) quickly deteriorated and June of 2011 I moved out of that apartment, in with Eric to a new apartment (yea, I moved A LOT) and Lynzi came in July of 2011.  We got married in April of 2012 and the rest is history.

April 2013 Age: 29

I did a lot of work in my twenties to get me to where I am today.  The first half was kind of crappy, but I believe I needed to go through all of that to be where I am today.  I like myself today.  I can deal with things today that I wouldn't have been able to deal with ten years ago.  I have my moments, but I can quickly assess things and get back on track.

I never gave up.  I always dug down deep and pushed.  I would find that little part of me that isn't a quitter and I would bring her to the surface and she would help me through.

Thank God for that little part that did so much.