After my father passed away I can remember the whole process being kind of a blur. We have all lost someone important in our lives at some point or another so we know how it goes. With my family things were kind of different...My family that I barely seen over the years crawled out of the woodwork and suddenly decided they wanted to help and be there. Which this inevitably ended, much like I thought it was going to. The parts that I do remember were having to stand there while countless people came up to me and told me they were sorry or that they understood. I couldn't help but think that they didn't understand and they never would. After my father's memorial service we went home and things started to go back to normal. Family members quit caring and I got the occasional sorry from my friends. My dad was cremated so we didn't have to go through the burial process til we got them back, but that is later on. My mom decided that seeing a therapist was what would be best for me. I couldn't walk into my parents room without the vision of my dad dying on the floor flooding my head and I couldn't even handle seeing and ambulance going down the road. I noticed I was not feeling like myself as time went on. I would not feel like getting out of bed and just lay there thinking about all the things I could have done or how I could have changed things. Nothing made me feel worse than the day that my mother blamed me for my dad being dead. She had somehow got it in her head that I simply didn't do enough and I was to blame. This caused our relationship to drift more. The therapist I started seeing helped a lot. It was nice to have an escape and someone to listen. I have never had a problem opening up to people in the past and that didn't change when I started to see her.
As my depression continued to get worse, I found myself becoming more irritated with people at school and just people in general. I hated the idea of people being happy around me or simply acting like I was overreacting. Though I am sure that that wasn't a thought to them.
A few months later I met a person who was probably one of the more toxic people in my life that I crossed paths with. The day I met my cousin's best friend was a day that I thought things would get better. He had recently lost his dad a month before mine and he just seemed to understand me. He was my cousin's age so he was 2 years older than me, but that didn' t matter to us. After hanging out a few times with my cousin and him we exchanged numbers and began texting. We became each others support system and we would often call each other late at night when our demons would invade our minds. The real trouble started when I began drinking with my sister and cousins. I would spend every weekend getting drunk to try to kill the pain. My cousin's friend, we will call him Adam, was always there to party with us. We became closer, but I did not notice that his problems were worse than mine. When I was around him it was just harmless drinking and having fun, but what I didn't know is that my new friend Adam had started a life of stealing from people and doing drugs. I had never personally witnessed him doing drugs, but I do know that in the later years he was admitted to a rehab center. I had trusted him for most of my life and at one point I had convinced myself that I loved him and we were meant to be because we were both troubled souls. As time went on I slowly started to realize that when I would start to leave my dark place he would pull me back in. It wasn't until he stole liquor from my house and left without telling anyone that I realize that he was a bad person. I cut ties with him after that and didn't speak to him for years. The last time I hung out with him I was 19 and thought it was a genius idea to go visit him and his friend and party for a bit. That night after I left he was upset that I didn't stay and became very mean to me. He actually threw his phone at phone point when we were talking. I didn't speak to him after that. I recently seen him a few months ago at the local grocery store in my hometown. It was a simple smile and pass by, but it was enough. I wish him the best and hope he finds the help he needs.
After meeting Adam my drinking continued to get worse. I would party any chance I got. But hey in a small town it wasn't unheard of to have a bunch of minors partying on the weekend in a field somewhere. I didn't have many friends in high school. I had a few people I talked to, but there was only one person that I still speak to today. I will call her Brenda. When I met Brenda I was told by my parents that she was a bad person because she was different than everyone else. She worse dark clothes and listened to rock music so simply she had to be bad. You must remember that my family is close minded like most of the people in the town. I ignored the comments and persuade my friendship with Brenda anyway. She too struggled with depression like me so we found comfort in each others company. We were the type of friends that would sit around and complete silence and feel content. She actually is the one who showed me this website. We had the usual best friend fights, but things always worked out. I mean we are still friends now or at least I would like to think that. If you are reading this Brenda, I miss you. Get in touch with me. ;) When I hung out with her I didn't get drunk or anything like that. Our friendship was the typical teenage best friends. We would stay up and watch movies or play video games all night. Granted we did sneak off and smoke cigarettes in the woods sometimes. I do remember one night when I had a meltdown over my dad and telling her that I couldn't go on anymore. I didn't want to. I just didn't feel like life was worth living anymore. She was quick to have her mom come check on me and I will never forget that. Thank you Brenda.
Now that I have shared both the bad and the good people I grew up with I would like to talk about my now husband. When we met I believe it was 7th grade. I was in reading glass and this nerdy kid from Kentucky walked in and was introduced. I remember thinking how nerdy he looked and just brushed it off. He was a guy and I didn't go out of my way to talk to new people. When I say nerdy you must know that I don't mean that in a mean way. He was scrawny back then and just had that appearance to him. I guess...Let's think Micheal Cera body type. haha yea that is what I was to describe him as.
Anyway, I didn't know that my cousin Joey had decided to make friends with him and we ended up all hanging out together. The first night we met my husband said that it when he knew that he loved me. Of course at that point in my life I wanted a bad boy so I wasn't interested at all. We quickly became best friends though and he was always there for me. I guess you could said he was kind of in the friend zone. It wasn't til after high school that we decided to try dating and here we are. 1 year of marriage in the books and I wouldn't change it for the world. I will tell you that since then he has put on muscle and no longer has his little boy body as we like to call it. haha. I don't know what I would have done without him through all of this. Even today he is there to pick me up and try to make me smile.
Well, I feel like this blog post as gone on for way to long. So I am going to stop here for the day. Next time I hope to share more about my sister and our relationship. I may just go right into talking about it. I don't know. Wish me luck guys this telling my life story thing is harder than I thought.
