Old Cries and New Enlightenments...The Move Forward

"Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world. Took the midnight train going anywhere."

Finally decided to give in and try blogging. Not sure if it's going to work out because I've never been able to commit to actually finishing something like this. I have hundreds of journals and diaries begging to be filled, but whether writing my personal story in the empty pages of a $3.99 book or the fear of what will come out of those written words, I've never been able to keep up with it. I don't know if typing it out on the internet for everyone and their mothers to read will actually help. I just needed to start a catalyst for change in my life. I need to be selfish if even for just a moment in the click of the keyboard. I need time to get me under control, to get my life in check. I hope this will help me. And I've been inspired by two friends of mine who have their own blogs to start one. I'm just really optimistic that this is what I need to do. I can only tell my story to my closest friends hundreds of times and it still has the same effect. I've been contemplating therapy to help deal with some stuff in the past, but I haven't fully convinced myself to go through with it. Maybe blogging will fill that void inside my head to where I won't need therapy. I don't want to say I'm broken, but I'm not completely whole. And maybe the progression of this blog will help me discover stuff about who I really am and what's missing in life.

"I not only just love you, but I love who I am when I'm with you."

"Yes, he has my heart. He's always had my heart, and always will. Even when my last breath leaves me and I'm being lowered in the ground, he will still have my heart. So, yeah, it's kind of a forever thing."

"Sometimes, right in the middle of life, love gives us a fairytale."

So, there's this boy. He may just be the greatest thing to ever happen to me. He's everything that I never knew I needed. He's my kind of funny. We can laugh at the most horribly offensive things together, now that's true love. He accepts my dysfunctional family, or at least tolerates them very well. When things get bad at home, he's always there to pick up the pieces and make me feel like nothing in the world is wrong. Sometimes words just aren't enough to really say just how much he means to me. We can be perfectly content talking about everything and nothing all at the same time. He is the yin to my yang, the cheese to my macaroni, the stud to my muffin :) He's everything to me that is important. And I plan on spending every waking moment for the rest of my life with him. He makes every bad day better, every good day that much better, every ordinary day extraordinary. Since 5/26/10, he's had my heart, but he can keep it <3 Jeff is my lovebug, and I don't know what I'd ever do without him.

"Friendship is like peeing your pants. Only you can feel it, but everyone can see it."

"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies."

"Ain't nothing like punchin' babies and laughing at cancer to know who your true friends are."

"Fuckin' altima and its fuckin' gas. OMG that granny has a glock!"

"'What's 1600-400-50?' 'I don't know...I don't do that kind of math."

So, I have friends that mean the absolute world to me. My best friend is my wifey, my other half, my morning coffee, Ashlee. She's the strongest, funniest, most amazing person I've ever met. She is always there for me no matter what. She loves my "kids" so she makes up the former of my statement: the wife & kids. I've known her for years and years. She was the first friend I made in first grade after I started school at Fraiser. She was my best friend in elementary school. We split paths in fourth grade when I transferred schools, but somehow destiny wasn't through with us. She moved to Brownsville in 7th or 8th grade. We became friends again, but the years had divided (but not conquered) us. We went through high school almost as separate entities always connected by some common thread. After high school, we began to really start talking again, and that's when it happened. She hit my life like a blazing comet, lighting up my world to a whole new light. She was the driving force to pull me out of my shell. I would not be nearly the person I am without her constant support and pulling me to talk. She got me to open up about some of the traumas in my past. I was able to tell her stuff I could never really tell anyone else because she had either been through it, wouldn't judge me, or just let me talk. She'd let me talk without interrupting me, just let me spill out what I'd bottled up over my 17+ years. She is my biggest inspiration in life. She pulls me up when others bring me down. She is my positive energy in life, and I absolutely adore her.

This year at Cal U, I've been getting really close with people I've know less than a year. Through Women's Studies & Upward Bound, I met some of my closes friends ever. I laugh so hard with these people that I literally cry. We have such amazing times together in the short time Fall 2010 semester has begun. Dianne, Cary, Nate, and Shane are becoming some of my closest friends, ever. Though I have not known them years and years, it doensn't matter. I still trust these guys more than some of the people I've known for years. And they have no idea how much the laughter and jokes and conversations I have with them remedy some of the worst moments ever. If I'm having a bad day, all I have to do is call/text/facebook one of them and I'm better. There are so many inside jokes that bring tears to my eyes from all the laughing. These guys seriously make my life <3

This past summer also changed my life. Upward Bound '10 BITCHES! I met and worked with some of the most amazing people I've ever met in my life. The staff was more likea  family than anything. We clicked so fast, and I have memories that will never fade because of the awesome people in UB. But my favorite part was meeting all the students. As a former UB Student, I understand the "UB Effect." You are thrust into a new environment with nearly complete strangers without many familiar faces. You are left alone to discover new things about who you are and who you don't want to be. You  make new friends, new enemies, new love interests, new memories, and new experiences. The short 4-6 weeks you are with these people, they grow to become your family. I remember when I was in the program, on sleepover nights we would stay up all night talking about life, love, issues we were facing. We could cry, laugh, and just support each other. Those nights will stay with me forever. I missed UB as a student, but as a RT, it was so much more than I had ever envisioned. I got so close with most of the students, and I love them dearly. No matter what was happening, they were the best part of the job. Hell, it wasn't a job, it was so much more. I didn't want to leave. If I could just stay forever I think I would have. It was just amazing. Nothing can replicate the UB Experience, and I cannot wait for summer '11 :)

Other important people in my life are my boys. They are my cousins but they are practically my own kids. Isaiah, Jamal, and Ayden are my life. They make the bleakest moments of life worth living by their childlike innocence. I've helped my grandmother raise them since I was 16, and they are the little lights of my life. They are the "kids" to my "Wife & Kids." They make every day better. The other most important thing in my life is my dog, Lexy. She's like my daughter, just slightly furrier. She brought light back to my life after a void of darkness. When everything was falling apart, she was my glue. She loves me because I'm me, no other reason. The unconditional love of a pet is like no other. She is my babygirl. She smiles at me, and I see remnants of my first dog in her. I swear she is my dalmatian Rosie reincarnated. She is the only reason I stay at home. I couldn't imagine living without her. She's the littlest love of my life.

"Live the life you love, and love the life you live."

"Life is about the number of breaths you take, it's about the moments that take your breath away."

"Life is my moment, I'm gonna make it happen."

So, here I am. At a crossroads in life. The difference between stationary and exploding at the speed of light. I feel like I'm on the right path. I'm in school, working, maintaining good grades while balancing an overbooked and extremely busy social life. I feel like I'm doing something to better myself and rise above my circumstances, but something is holding me back. Whether it's the fear of the unknown, the fear of failure, or just the fear of success, I don't know. I feel like I live two lives. There's the outgoing, funny, passionate, proud feminist & activist, free-spirited Amber that I am at Cal U, work, basically everywhere that's not home. But at home, I feel like I am trapped beneath things beyond my control. I come from a pretty dysfunctional family. In all honesty, I don't know how I'm not screwed up. (Well, I do...It's all in thanks to my grandmother who stepped in and took care of me when I needed someone. She is the strongest woman I know, and I love her more than anything.) My childhood wasn't perfect, hell, far from it. I have a lot of memories I have repressed because they really sucked. I've seen things that no child should have to see. I've been through things that no child should have to go through. Now as a woman on the brink of the rest of her life, I know what not to do. If that is one thing I have learned from my parents, It's what not to do. I know they love me, but they don't know me. They don't know who I am today or who I plan to be tomorrow. And I refuse to be something less than what I am capable of. I have the capacity to be so much more than just a small town girl. I'm not saying I'm better than that, I'm saying it's not me. It's not what I dream of. Although I don't know what for sure what I want to be after college, I do know that it isn't anything Fayette County can contain. I know what I want and don't want. And the life my parents have--I refuse to have it. I see the misery they create for themselves and know I cannot survive like that. There are some beautiful moments with my family, but mostly it's all tension and fighting because we are all so different. Especially me. I think I am the black sheep of my family. Sometimes I think how much easier it would be to fall into the same patterns they did, but I know in the end it would destroy me. This is what I struggle with though, in all honesty. I struggle with the fact that I think I'm losing my family, and it hurts. But they are making decisions and doing things I cannot condone. And it hurts like nothing else to know that I can't really depend on them. But that's where my friends and other family comes in. Although they fill the void as much as they can, they can never truly replace the hole left by the absence of my parents and brother. They are supposed to be the most important people in my life, but they are preoccupied with their own habits and addictions that I fall on the back burner. And I know it may always be this way. So this is what I need to overcome. I need to rise above that hurt and loss and live for the people who love me for who I am, not because it's an obligation because I am their child. And hopefully, this blog will be my catalyst to just say what I need to say, to get over the issues at home and just move on. I have always been independent. It's just part of my personality. But it is still hard to try to let go of the natural impulse to be "daddy's little girl" or "my mother's daughter." I know I won't completely lose that because they are my parents, but I know I can never fully depend on them. That's why I am glad I have friends and family I can count on.

So, here's to the past. May it stay there as a reminder and not an indicator. I'm hellbent on making sure I don't fail at whatever it is I will set out to accomplish. And I'm thankful for the people I have in my life that love me regardless of anything. They are my truest inspiration and strongest lifeline.

So, in the words of an old quote I once heard: "Every end is only a new beginning. Something bad ends so something better can happen. If the door closes, look for a window, there's always a way in."