Damaged

If there's one word that describes me better than any other, it's DAMAGED. I come with a whole host of issues. But through it all I have managed not to become a substance abuser. That would be totally counter productive. I grew up watching the people I love destroy themselves slowly with drugs and alcohol. The people I loved best were my prime example of: How Not To Live Your Life. But I really didn't get to observe the opposite of that. Least wise, not full time. I got little peeks into how things could be better when I visited friends homes or went to church with them. But I was stuck trying to figure out for myself how to get that big house on the hill. I still haven't quite figured it out. Or I wouldn't be sitting here in a two bedroom apartment, jobless, carless, waiting to become homeless.

Yet I didn't make it to adulthood without ever screwing up along the way. I basically failed my freshmen year of high school. My mother wasn't a strict parent. If I went to school, fine. If I didn't go, fine. I never got in trouble for bad grades, but she would give me money for good ones. My freshmen year I spent hanging out with potheads and smoking pot. As long as I had a little cigarette money, that was all I really cared about and I could do chores around the house for cigarette money. But by the time freshman year was coming to a close, hanging out and smoking pot was getting old. I began to take a good look at the people I was hanging out with. Most of them were a good five or so years older than me. High school dropouts that still lived with there parents. So, I began to pull away from them. My mother was worried because I was hanging around the house reading and smoking cigarettes instead of running in the streets.

My mother's solution, introduce me to a guy. She had made a friend who had a son. I met her friend and the woman instantly loved me and wanted me to meet her son. That was new for me, a white woman that wanted me to meet her son and not stay the hell away. I was reluctant, but my mother finally talked me into going over to her friend's house to help her babysit one night. So, all the kids we were babysitting were in bed, my mother was sleeping on the coach, and I'm sitting in a living chair reading when this tall sun bleached blond walks in. He looks at me and looks around to make sure he's in the right house.

Long story short, I was pregnant before the end of the summer. I gave birth to our son a month before I turned sixteen. And he didn't walk out on me until our son was ten months old. That might sound horrible, but I had this precious little person who was dependent upon me. I became a straight A student. Not only did I graduate from high school, but I went to college. In the prom picture at the bottom of the page, I'm eighteen. My son was two at that time. And no that's not my baby's daddy, but a very good friend. My daughter came along while I was still in college. Her father dumped me because I got pregnant. As if I did it to myself.

But men don't want women like me. That are damaged physically, mentally and emotionally. They don't want strong women who can think for themselves and don't take any shit from anybody. They want you to be young and dumb. I stopped being dumb a long time ago and I'm not so young anymore. So, here I am. Me and my damaged self and not much to show for it. But I try to remember, I've still got me, and I like me. I like myself. I may not know how to pull myself up right now, but I'm a good person and God is with me. I just wish He was a hugger.