Tears at Wal-Mart

Before we got married, I explained to Rick that I wanted a child.  At first he wasn't really into the idea, but I told him that one day I would be a mother, and that we couldn't go on with our relationship if he didn't want any more children.  Eventually he said alright, but I could tell that his heart wasn't really into it.

About a year into our marriage, Rick came around and decided that he really wanted a baby with me and that we should start trying.  I was scared.  I knew that I would have to go off all my medications as not to hurt the baby, and my chances of conception and carrying a baby full term were slim, but I wanted a baby and thought about it.  The more I thought about it the more frightened I got which made me not want to get pregnant.  After time, I realized that becoming a mom was too important to me, and no matter what the ill effects going off my meds would do, it was worth it, but I still hesitated.

One day I was shopping at Wal-Mart and walked past the baby section.  I saw all the tiny little clothes and diapers and bottles and burst into tears.  I needed a baby, and I needed one now.  I finally just walked out of the store without getting what I needed and went home and cried.  I really needed a baby.

Luckily, I had a doctor appointment that afternoon.  My mom always went with me and without even discussing it with Rick, I blurted it out to mom that I was going to talk to Dr. Rana about having a baby. She was so excited.

At the doctor's office I explained that we wanted a baby and asked what I would have to do so that it would be a safe pregnancy.  She told me how to step-down my medications over the next 6 weeks and that I should come back in 2 months for a follow-up.  I followed her instructions over the next two months, and although the pain was horrible, and my mobility was suffering, I knew that a baby was worth it, so I endured.

After 2 months I went back and the doctor told me that we could start trying as soon as we liked.  She gave me a huge hug and told me to stay in touch in case things started going south and I needed help.  After the appointment I went home looked at my calendar and counted ahead and realized that I was more than likely ovulating...Today!!! 

We tried that night, and I got pregnant.

Mother's Day

Mother's day had always been a really hard day for me.  Mother's across the land were celebrated for giving birth, and I just sat quietly in my shame.  As a birth mom, I wanted to be recognized, but I didn't dare tell anyone, because I wasn't parenting and therefor did not deserve recognition.  R. and J. always sent me a thank you card and that really meant a lot.  At least someone acknowledged my status as a mother, and the agency always sent me a birth mother's card, and still do.  At our church all mother's were given a flower as they exited the sanctuary, and I just walked out quietly, because I couldn't dare tell anyone.  I tortured myself all the time.

There are lots of difficult days when you are a birth mom.  Mother's day is really bad.  Birthday's are always hard and any time that family is involved, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc.  Sometime a commercial on the TV or a song on the radio or a picture of a cute baby can just tear you up, but you just shove it down inside.  I don't know where this idea came from, but shame had a tight grip on me, and I didn't know how to let it go, so when times got hard, I just shoved down the pain, not knowing that eventually there is no more room to shove the pain down, and eventually you will blow.

Even as a step-mom. Mother's day wasn't good.  The kids made it very clear that I was not their mother, even though I never tried to be.  Even when their mom abandoned them and moved to Nebraska without even saying goodbye, I was still the horrible step-mom.  Once again, I came in last.

Things were filling up, and an explosion was imminent.

Model Behavior

Since my adulthood, I have looked to women who I admire on how to be a mother.  My mom, my sister, my friend Jan, and another friend named Dawn are just a few.  These women are not "perfect" moms, but they love their kids and only want what is best for them.  On the other hand I have noticed a few people that I do not want to model my parenting after, and Rick's mother is one of them.

It is hard to describe this woman.  When Rick and I first started dating, she was so sweet and wonderful to me.  Rick's ex was horrible in her eyes and had nothing good to say about her, and I was the exact opposite.  She loved me.  That didn't last.  As soon as Rick and I got married and Rick no longer needed her to help him with the kids, things started changing.  Little things at first, but soon it was out of control.  I never really liked the way that she treated Rick, but I didn't say anything, because it was his mom and I didn't have any right to butt in.  However, when she started in on me, I wouldn't put up with it, and neither did Rick.

She never supported Rick.  When he got a really good job, she couldn't even say congratulations.  If we told her that the kids needed to be home by 8 so that they could shower and get to sleep for school in the morning, we were lucky if they were home by 10.  No matter what we said, she ignored and did what she pleased when it came to the kids.  She would buy them toys that she wouldn't allow them to take home.

I finally drew the line when she was in my home an called me a liar and a thief.  I'll not get into the long story of why, but it wasn't true.  I told Rick that I would never say that his mother wasn't welcome in our home, but that I wouldn't be around when she came over.  He said that he would never ask me to leave our house because of her.  I said that I wouldn't ask him to choose between her and I, and he said that he already did, when we got married.

Rick walked away from his mom.  She has only seen Olivia a couple of times and has never seen Madeline.

I could never imagine treating one of my children the way that she treated Rick.  Nothing that he ever did was good enough for him and she made sure that he knew it.  When Rick and his ex went back to court over custody of the kids, Rick's mother paid the attourney for his ex and sat with her in court.  I don't think that he can forgive her for that.

Rick receintly heard that his mother left her abusive alcoholic husband (not Rick's dad), quit her job as a teacher and moved to the hill country.  He never talks about her that I don't still see the pain in his eyes.  She really hurt him.

Step-Parenting

I knew that being a step-mom wouldn't be easy, but I really had no idea.  Don't get me wrong, I loved those kids.  I wanted to do my best as a "parent", but every step of the way my hands were tied.  To start off, Rick had little influence on his kids.  While he was in the Navy, he was gone for months at a time.  Once out, he worked so much that again, he was gone a lot, so his wife did the vast majority of the "parenting" in the family.

So here we are.  In our house we have rules.  You will do your homework.  You will eat healthy meals.  You will clean your room and do chores around the house.  You will have a bedtime.  You will not sit in front of the tv all day, and you will go outside and play like normal children.  This was not popular.  When visiting their mother's house, or for that matter Rick's mom's house, there were no rules, and we were completely shot down.  We or rather I was mean to the point of abuse to the children.  Rick's ex and his mom felt that I was too harsh on the kids and was doing them harm.

When Rick and I got together, his children were horribly overweight, to the point of obesity.  It broke my heart that these beautiful children were so unhealthy.  I cooked them healthy food and encouraged them to play, not exercise, and within a year they were no longer overweight and were healthy children. Rick's mom however said that I was starving them.

I never disiplined the children, it was not my place and they knew it.  Rick worked and I was there with them all the time, and the two boys did whatever they could to torment me.  Most days ended for me in tears.  They would lie and we soon found out that they were stealing.  I wanted our family to work so badly, but all the cards were stacked against it.

One day I got a call from child protectice services that the children had been picked up from school and that Rick and I had to go and be interviewed by them about abuse allegations.  Rick's mom later admitted to calling them to "protect" the children.

Nothing came from it, other than the children going back to live with their mother,  Rick was interviewed by the police and they found no abuse, and therefor no charges were filed.  The case worker claimed that she would be interviewing people about the "abuse", however, she spoke to no one that we knew.  I was friends with most of the kids teachers and volunteered at the school, none of their teachers were interviewed.  In fact, when one of them tried to contact the case worker, she wouldn't speak to her, even though this woman knew all three children and taught two of them.  Now that is some good investigating.

When the kids left, it broke my husband's heart, but to be honest, it was somewhat of a relief.  I couldn't take the stress anymore.  I missed them, but they didn't want to live with us anymore, and turned their backs on their dad.  How could we compete with their mother, who would let them watch whatever they wanted on television, eat whatever they wanted, stay up as late as they wanted and let them come and go as they pleased.  They were kids, and mom's house was way more fun.  Within only months, they were all obese again,  And when Rick's oldest daughter was 15 she got pregnant.  One of the boys ended up moving out at 15 and lived with a friend to get away.  My soul aches for these kids.

About 2 months after they left, Rick was on the phone with his daughter and she was telling us how his mother was drunk again and screaming at everyone.  Her exact words were "we made our choice and I guess we just have to deal with it".  They never asked to come back and live with us, but on many occasions they mentioned how much better it had been at our house.

To this day, our relationship is still very strained, and I don't ever see it getting better.  Their grandma convinced them that I abused them, not physically, but in every other way, and that I was a horrible person.

Bargaining with God

Rewinding a little, I need to speak about my faith a little.  It's the only thing that has gotten me through all of this, wheter I knew it at the time or not.

After my depression was somewhat under control, I had to face the facts that I was 23 years old and would more than likely NEVER get any better, in fact, it would only spread and get worse.  I had to come to grips with the fact that the pain would be a part of my life forever.  How do you do that?  When you can barely make it through the day, how do you think ahead to say 50 years from now?  I had heard of people with whole body RSD.  Every inch of their body was in agony all the time.  That is a nasty little habit of RSD.  It starts out in one area, but like a grass fire in the wind, it rarely stays put.  It spreads and envelopes until you are all burned up.  Mine started in my ankle, then spread to the top of my foot, then the arch and toes, into my calf, up my shin then into my knee.  This took about a year to go this far and I was scared and eventually I got angry.  Angry at healthy people who wasted their lives, angry at people who had headaches and whined and complained, angry at myself for not being the person I used to be and most of all I was angry at God.

After I got hurt, I prayed every day for Him to take it away.  I begged him for relief from the pain.  I pleaded with him to give me my old life back.  Nothing ever changed, except for the worse.

I got mad, I mean ugly mad.  I would scream and yell and feel so far away from God and I knew that I had messed up things so badly that even God didn't want anything to do with me.  He, much like most everyone else had given up on me, and I guess I deserved it,  For a long time, I figured if He didn't want me, then I didn't need him.  That is when I started self-medicating.  We all know how that worked.

How dare He take my life away.  I was young.  I was supposed to be going out and having fun and enjoying life.  Instead, I was barely surviving.  WHY???  Why are you punishing me?  As usual, no answer, so I walked away.  I didn't go to church, and when my parents made me go, I just sat in the last pew and ignored what was going on.  God didn't love me, so I didn't need him.

As we all know, anger is one of the stages of grief, along with denial, bargaining, and on and on.  I did all those.  I was greiving the death of my old life and of my health.  Little did I know that when I finally let go and embraced my "new" life, it was so much better.

One day, I was having a particularly bad day and I decided to bargain with God.  I said, ok, if you don't want to fix me, then at least give me the strength to make it through today.  Guess what?  He did.  And He has ever since.

My path at that time wasn't to be healed, it was to learn to lean on him and not myself.  I had strayed so far from the path that I know God wanted me on that I couldn't have found it, even if I had wanted.

I tell all my post accident friends that they wouldn't have liked me before I got hurt.  I was not a nice person.  Heck, I didn't even like myself, so how could anyone else.

I've Been There Too

After playing pool and talking, I finally asked why Rick was in Pearsall.  His answer broke my heart.

He left his wife after learning that she was cheating on him with pretty much anyone and everyone, including who he thought was his best friend.  He grabbed a few clothes, the three oldest kids and left.  He went to his mother's house and tried to figure out what to do.  Soon, he decided that he needed to talk to someone because he was becoming depressed.  He started seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist.  They were helping, but with the added stress of his mom and step-dad, along with the head games that his wife was playing on him, he soon got to the point of what he felt was no return.  He was taking a walk one evening and decided that it would be much better if he just stepped into traffic and ended it all.  He couldn't take the pain anymore and wanted to die.  Luckily, he called his doctor and told him that he was going to hurt himself and the doctor found him a room at a mental health facility in Pearsall.  He could come and go as he pleased, but had to be there at certain times for check-in and for medications and doctor appointments.

He was at the lowest that he had ever felt and needed a friend, and he thought of me.  He looked my parents number up on the internet and gave it a shot.

Over time, I realized what an emotional train wreck he really was, because I had been there too, and knew how he felt.  I knew that I still loved him from the second I heard his voice, but I was so afraid that in his fragil condition, nothing good would come from too quick of a relationship.  Well, that worked about as well as most other plans I have made in my life.  A month and a half later we were living together.  I know that it is a sin, and I have begged God's forgiveness for it.  At the time, Rick needed me and his kids needed me.  I know it's not an excuse, but it is what it is.  My life is one huge sin after the next, and that is why I am so lucky that when I realize how stupid I am and am sorry, God forgives me, even when I can't forgive myself.

I helped Rick with his divorce, and his soon to be ex-wife made our lives as horrible as possible.  She is an alcoholic who thrives on chaos, and wants to spread the drama around.  It was so difficult at times to not just go ballistic on her, but I tried to respect the fact that she was the mother of the Rick's kids, and we never spoke negatively about her around the kids, even though she trashed me on a daily basis.  Oh well, I lived through it, and it made me a better person for it.  My skin definately got a lot thicker through all this.

That Rick

Rick and I talked as if no time had passed.  The sound of his voice was as soothing as it had ever been.  I found out that he was currently going through a nasty divorce and had custody of 3 of his 4 kids.  Four kids, wow.  We just talked and talked and it was like I was 16 again.

Soon he said that he needed to go, but would like to see me.  I said sure, where can we meet?  He told me that he was in Pearsall and would love it if I could come to see him.  He would explain later why he was in Pearsall, but really wanted to talk in person.  I said that I would be there around 7 and looked forward to seeing him.

Oh my gosh, what was I going to wear?  It had to be perfect, but not too perfect.  After about 20 outfit changes I decided on a nice green sweater and black jeans.  That'll do.  It will have to, because I need to get going.

The drive to Pearsall seemed to take forever, but eventually I was there.  We were supposed to meet at a grocery store there on the "main drag" of this tiny little town.  I walked around the store and didn't see him.  As I was walking out, I heard his voice.  "Robyn?"  I turned around and there he was.  Rick, my Rick.  It was wonderful to see him again.  We hugged and leaned against my car and talked for what seemed like forever.  Finally, he suggested we go to a little bar and shoot some pool and talk some more.  To this day, he still claims that he "let" me win, but I know how good I am and how not good he is.

It was comfortable with Rick.  I could just be me and it was nice.  We talked and laughed and I enjoyed myself so much.  It was easy.  I needed easy.

Rick who?

Things were going well.  I was in school, almost done with my classes, I was no longer working at the PASS Center, but had got a job with the IRS entering tax returns.  It was a horrible job, but paid really well.

One day I came home from school and Dad said that someone named Rick had called and would call back around five.

Rick?  Rick who?  I don't think that I know anyone named Rick.  Who could it be?  Unless...  There's now way.  It couldn't be.  Could it?

The only Rick that I have ever known was my first boyfriend, from high school.  All other men in my life were compared to him, and all had fallen short.  I still loved him, even though it had been ten years.  He graduated before I did, joined the Navy, moved away and went on with his life, so did I.  Could it possibly be that Rick?  If it was, what was I going to say after all these years?  Why was he calling?   How could I possibly wait nearly two hours to find out?  My stomach started turning and I thought that I was going to vomit.  I didn't want to get my hopes up, but what if it was him?  I had thought about him so much over the years, and always wondered how he was and how his life had turned out, hoping it was better than mine.  I'm sure he married and had kids, and was happy, so why was he calling me?

As the clock ticked closer to five, I could barely breathe, and at five on the dot the phone rang.  I slowly picked up the phone and answered.  "Hi Robyn."

It was him.  I almost fainted.

My Secret

Not long after Ryan's adoption was finalized, I told my sister and she was and still is wonderful.  Her and Greg have met Ryan and his parents and are super supportive.  With my sister I feel safe.  Her life has not been perfect and has made choices that she may or may not regret, but I have never judged her, because it is her life, not mine, and she is the same with me.

However, I have many relatives that are not so loving and supportive.  My mom's siblings and her mother were never told about Ryan.  I really don't believe that my grandma would have taken the news badly, but by telling her, my aunts and uncles would have found out, and it would have destroyed any relationship that we had.  Even when my aune D. was adopting foster children, we (my mom and I) didn't dare say a word, because she is so judgemental and hateful that it just was better to keep our mouths shut.

Two years ago my grandma passed away, never knowing her great-grand child, and it still haunts me to this day.  As it turned out, our horrible family turned on my mom and I and my cousin Jackie while my grandma was dying in the hospital and we have not spoken to them since.  I still cannot fathom the amount of anger that they carried for my mom and I.  I don't understand how family can treat each other with such hatred.  My poor cousin had to end up calling the police on her own father because he was threatening to kill me and her.  It was horrible.  I am just so glad that my grandma didn't have to see how her children were acting.  I have relived that night over and over in my head a million times, wondering what I could have done differently to make things better, but because I did nothing to instigate the situation, nothing I could have done, or not done would have changed a thing.

When we drove out of Lincoln, Nebraska, we knew that we would never have a reason to return, because we no longer had any family there.  In essence, when my grandma died, so did the rest of my family.

Friends for Life

I would be remiss if I only spoke about my friend Jan, because I met another friend in college that means the world to me as well, Loralee.  She and I met not long after I started school and we are still close, even though she lives in Round Rock, which is like forever away.

We are a different as night and day, and that is why I love her.  I am very conservative, she is liberal.  I am a christian, she is pegan.  She is much more a free spirit, I tend to plan, plan, plan.  But for all our differences we love each other.  She came to my wedding and my babies baptisms, I went to her and Robert's hand fasting cerimony.  We respect each other's differences and hopefully learn from one another. When her first son was born, I was there when he came home, and when she was sick in the hospital, my wonderful husband drove me to Round Rock to bring her flowers.  She is a wonderful ray of light in my sometimes drab world and I thank God for her.

The really cool thing, is that Loralee's parents only live a couple of miles from my house and because of it, I get to see her and her beautiful family.

I ask myself, how did I get so lucky to find such wonderful and diverse friends that I have kept for so long, and as of yet, I haven't got an answer.  I have stopped questioning, and just love my friends.  They are like sister's to me.

My Friend

While in college I met lots of new friends, however, I had no idea that I would meet someone who would change my life.  Her name is Jan.  I just started working at the PASS Center and since it was the begining of the semester, we were hiring readers and looking for work study students.  Jan was a work study.  She was wonderful with our students and had an amazing work ethic.  She was an older student, like me but with a little more life experience and I admired how she worked at a law office, at the school and at a golf course and took classes and was essentially a single mom.  Wow!  I met Lalo and Elisabeth when they were 4 and 5 years old, she also has two older sons.  Elizabeth stole my heart immediatly.  She was so well spoken for a little girl.  So smart and cute and just a little firecracker.  We were instant friends.

Jan and I were also instant friends and she took me for who I was, for what seemed to be a first in my life.  She didn't expect anything from me but friendship and it was so refreshing to have a companion who liked me for me and not what I could do for them.  She is a christian.  In fact, a wonderful christian.  When I needed it, she would pray for me and with me.  I needed that.

Jan and I have been friends for almost 13 years and I treasure every moment of that time.  She loves my kids and my husband and parents.  She is strong when I cry and I try to do the same.  We laugh, cry, pray, worship, celebrate and mourn together.  She is exactly who I need in my life.  When I moved to Pleasanton, she was there, then she bought a house about a mile away from where I live now.  We are in the VFD Auxiliary together and try not to make too many people, including our husbands, mad at us.  We have the same bizarre sense of humor and we love each other.

Elisabeth graduated from high school just weeks ago, and I it feels like my own child walked that stage.  I am so proud of her.  She has grown into an amazing, beautiful woman.  She is going to Texas Lutheran University to study music.  Woo Hoo!!!   Go Bulldogs!  I always knew that Elisabeth had a little Lutheran in her.  She calls me Aunt Robyn and Olivia calls Jan Aunt J.J.

Jan knows almost all my deep dark secrets, and next to my mom, she is my best friend.

Jan just found out that her parents are ill and will need her help as time moves on.  I don't worry about her, she is strong, one of the strongest people that I have ever met.  I pray for her daily and hope that she feels me lifting her up to the Lord in prayer.  I know that it weighs on her heart the fact that she will not only be caring for her parents, but she is also raising two of her grandchildren, who are one and two.  She has raised her children and is now starting over with grandbabies.  I wish that I had her strength.

The Smell of Desperation

If you ask Yanni, he felt that I was too needy, and I may have been, in fact I'm pretty sure that I was, but if you smell desperation, you run quickly, don't draw it out.  We were together for over two years.  He took me to a jewelry store to look at engagement rings.  How could he?  Seriously?  I know that I was not in a healthy place then and still needed time to get myself together, but a little honestly on his part would have been nice.  Up until that fateful night, he assured me that he was coming to San Antonio.  In fact, he had me looking at houses here for us.  

Still to this day I don't understand the game that he was playing.  It really hurt.  That was cruel.  When it was over, I asked him to send somthing of mine back to me, and he told me that he had spent way too much money on me already.  Ouch!  Now, with time and reflection, I can see that with him it was all the bottom line.  Money.  He is still single.  My sister and brother-in-law still see him from time to time and apparently he just broke up with a wonderful women after almost two years together.  She wanted to get married, and he just isn't ready.  Sound familiar?  

I see his mother occasionally when I visit Pensacola and have even seen him a couple of times.  His mother and I talk and she looks at my sweet Olivia and I can see the hurt in her eyes, that she isn't a grandma yet.

In the end, breaking up was what was best, because I can't compete with money.  Apparently it keeps him very happy and if that is what he wants, then more power to him.  I loved him, and I do want him to find happiness with someone, but I am afraid that he will grow old alone, and that saddens me.

Distractions

School and work were wonderful distractions.  I would occasionally call and talk to J. and they were really good at sending pictures regularly, and life marched on.  Ryan was almost two years old, and it just seemed like a horrible nightmare.  In 1998 I went to my sister's wedding in Florida and met a guy.  He was really nice and sweet and very Greek.  His name was John or Yanni in Greek.  He lived in Atlanta, Georgia, and with me in San Antonio, somehow we decided to try to make it work long distance.  We talked on the phone all the time and e-mailed .  We talked and talked and learned quite a bit about each other.  Finally I decided to tell him about Ryan and he was less than supportive.  He wasn't hurtful, but he just kind of ignored it all and chose to change the subject whenever it came up.  Like an idiot, I just looked past it and moved on.  He flew me to Atlanta for Christmas break and then we drove to Pensacola to visit my sister and his mom.  She was wonderful!  To this day I still love Sophia.  She is the epitome of Greek mommas.  She lived to cook and clean and spoil her little boy.  It was fun.  This was the first time that I had ever spent Christmas away from my parents, but my first Christmas with my sister.  Being 12 years older than I am, and growing up with her mom, we never spent holidays together, it was really nice.

I flew to Atlanta and he came here quite a bit, at least 5-6 times a year.  He was an engineer and made good money and had no problem driving down, or flying me up.

Once again though, I chose wrong.  He cared about me, but couldn't stand that I was always trying to loose weight.  I don't know if he liked me overweight, or what, but once again, he didn't accept me for who I was.  Eventually, I would just not eat for about a week before I saw him so that he wouldn't say anthing if I didn't want to eat much.  Stupid, I know, but I was still sick.  Oh yeah, and he was a liar.

He told me over and over that he was trying to transfer to San Antonio with his company and even came down once to speak with the office here.  Come to find out, he had absolutely no intention on coming here, in fact, he was planning on moving home and expected me to move to Florida with him, even though I made it clear from the begining that San Antonio was my home.  After 2 years, he dropped that bomb on me and I told him to go to hell and that was that.  He told me over the phone, so we broke up over the phone, just like the rest of our relationship, all on the phone.

Once again I was alone again, and I needed a distraction.

College

It had been a year and a half since Ryan was born and I was merely existing.  I was doing much better with my therapy and was up and walking and driving and doing pretty well, but I was still very much alone.  Chris was in Germany, and I went and visited him for a week there and had an amazing time.  I would love to go back and see so much more.  We went to Berlin and I must have taken about a million pictures, but I couldn't believe that I was actually walking the same ground as my ancestors.  Very cool.  I have lived and visited all over the United States, but Germany was so foreign.  Well duh.  The people were very kind and it was soooo clean.  I loved it so much.  I wouldn't want to live there, but would very much like to go back and visit again.

It was time to start doing something, I couldn't remain static forever.  I had to start living again.  I went online and filled out a FAFSA and applied to Palo Alto College.  Got some money, and registered for classes.  I was scared to death.  Would my pain and disability inhibit me so much that I couldn't do it?  I was just going to have to find out once I got there.

First off I needed some kind of job.  I needed money and the little bit of worker's comp. was not enough, so I started looking around campus.  I saw in the special services department that they needed something called Reader/Scribes.  The special services department helped disabled students with accessibility to the campus through a variety of services.  Sign language interpreters, note takers, extended test time, and readers and scribes for blind and low vision students.  Since I knew some of the people there, I figured what the heck and filled out the application.

I handed a woman named Renae my application and sat for about 5 minutes and she called me back for an interview.  We talked for awhile and ultimately she didn't offer me the job of Reader/Scribe, but as her assistant, she being the Reader/Scribe services coordinator.  Woo Hoo!!  More money!  The only problem was that I had to lie my butt off to get it.  I knew Microsoft Word and how to use that, but they used Word Perfect.  I figured that it wouldn't take me long to muddle my way through and get the hang of it.  I did, and it all worked out.

Self Medicating

I tried to be "normal".  I tried to continue my life and "move on".  I met a guy, not dating, just a friend.  Chris was great.  He was really what I needed.  He didn't want anything from me that I was not in any position to give.  We hung out and did fun things and drank.  And drank.  And drank.  Chris was in the Air Force and liked to unwind after a long day at work, so we partied, way too much.

I soon found out that when I drank, the pain wasn't so bad, physical and emotional.  I drank so I didn't feel, and looking back now, I know how dangerous that was.  My grandfather was an alcoholic and I have addictive tendencies, so medicating with alcohol was really stupid.  Before I knew it, I was drinking every day, and all I wanted was to not hurt anymore, and liquor made the hurt go away.  Another bad thing with drinking was that I never get hangovers.  I wake up and feel just fine, so I never paid for drinking way to much.  Oh yeah, I also have a very high tolerance for alcohol and medications, so I could drink and drink and drink and it really took a lot to get drunk.

Thinking back, I can't believe how incredibly stupid I was, I drove when I had no business behind the wheel.  I could have killed someone, or myself.  The really sad thing was that I don't really think that the latter ever scared me, I just didn't care anymore.

This lifestyle went on for months.  Drinking and thinking about when I was going out again.

Fortunately, one day I woke up at 2 p.m. and realized that I was blowing through money like water and that if I didn't stop now, I wouldn't ever be able to stop.  So I did.  Chris and I remained friends, but we just did different things, and still had a wonderful time.  I will always think of Chris and the male version of me.  We were so alike it was disgusting, and we both loved it.  Sadly, Chris got re-stationed to Germany.  I lost my one and only friend and it once again broke my heart, and again, I was alone.