Sophomore, Junior and Senior years of high school

Where did I leave off? Oh yes, I was in public school and I had met Jess.

Throughout the year, Jess and I became close.  We had three classes together and the one class we didn't have together our classroom's were right next to each other! So, during class we would right notes to each other, and after class was over, we would exchange!  We even had our own way of folding the note so that no one else could open it and then refold it the way we had.  Wish I could still remember how to do that!!  It was fun to fold it knowing that almost everyone that tried to open it ripped it!! After my sophomore year, I went back to being schooled at home and Jess and I lost contact with each other.  She went down a road filled with multiple types of drugs and I went back to "life as normal" or at least normal for me.

My youth group was mostly boys with one girl in it, as I had mentioned before. One of the boys, my brother's best friend, came up to me the summer after my sophomore year.  He told me of how he was impressed that I stood up under so much pressure. I didn't smoke, do drugs, drink, date the thugs that hit on me, and who knows what else I could have gotten into. He was homeschooled too, and before I knew it, we were dating. Near the beginning of our relationship, I told him that a kiss was going to be saved for the man I would marry. So, he honored that and didn't kiss me. We were both part of a co-op for homeschooler and we were in some of the same classes.  We also went to the same church, therefore, we were at all the same events!  We saw each other a minimum of 4 days in a natural progression of each week! That wouldn't include times we hung out outside of church and school events or any of the special events at church, such as movie nights, sports nights or couples banquets. We became close friends! We could talk about scripture, events throughout the week, sports (which I still have very little interest in), or just silly nothingness! 

He was a high school senior and I was only a junior at the time. He invited me to go to his senior prom near the end of my junior year. That was the first day he had ever tried to venture his hands under my clothes. I was shocked and didn't really know what to do about it, so I didn't stop him. He was not only my boyfriend but my friend and my brother's BEST friend!  So I didn't say anything.  At my house, I had a roof right outside my window. That night I went and sat out on the window and cried for a long time.  I decided that he must have gotten carried away with the night and just decided to dismiss it. Well, it happened again, then again, and again and again and again. I had tried several times to talk him out of it, but didn't have the guts to get up and walk away. There were many things going on in my head about walking away. All of my friends were also his friends...in fact, they had only become my friends because they were his friends.  If I left him, I would lose all my friends.  If I left him, I would have to explain to my brother why. If left him, I would have to explain to my parents and probably his parents why I left. So, I stayed in the relationship.  I had a very low self-esteem and didn't know a good way out. Near the end of the summer, before I went into my senior year, he raped me. The good news was that he didn't get very far, because his father walked in on him. He took me home that night and we spoke very little. The next day, when I got home from my job at a photography studio, there was a note on my pillow.  The note said that he felt we should "take a break." In other words, he broke up with me.

Obviously, this did not help my self-esteem. Back when AOL messenger was used, I decided to get online and look through the profiles.  I typed in male, single, and then I typed the city we lived in at the time. There were two guys online that night.  One was 40 and divorced... ugh!! And the other just said single, so I thought I would give him a try. That night was September 13, 2001. I was still 17 at this point but I was desperate to talk to a guy, so that he could tell me why another guy could treat a girl the way I was treated! The guy I talked to was so sweet, listened to everything I had to say and was encouraging me that not all guys are like that. We talked approximately 7 or 8 hours, into the wee morning hours of the night. Come to find out, he was a pilot, so he had lots of time on his hands because all the airplanes were grounded because of what had happened on September 11, 2001. 

So, each day, I hurried through my school work and then signed onto the internet to talk to him!  I had absolutely NO interest in a boyfriend at the time because of everything that just happened with my last boyfriend. But as I had originally predicted, when I lost that boyfriend, I lost all of my friends too. So, this pilot was my only friend, his name was Michael. After 2 weeks of talking to him several hours every day, I invited Michael to a sports night sponsored by our church! He said he could come! I was so excited to see what he looked like!! He never showed up. When I got home that night, I rushed to the computer to see why!! He had sent me an e-mail saying that he had been paged for a flight and would be back the next day.  I was disappointed, but I understood. Since he was going to be back the next day, he was going to be back in time for church!! I invited him and he said he would love to come!!  I waited outside the church for 30 minutes after church had started and finally gave up and went inside. I was disappointed again. I went home and sure enough, he e-mailed me and he hadn't made it home in time to make it to church. The following weekend, we had a movie night at our church.  We were going to see October Sky! The church provided hot dogs, soda and popcorn! It was typically one of my favorite activities of the month! So I invited him. He didn't show up.  I had another email, he had gotten called out on a flight. I was still talking to him almost every day on the internet, so, I knew it couldn't have been a lie!

One day, I went to my mom, I told her everything that had happened, and how he hadn't been able to come to each of the events. Michael and I had talk almost every day, if not every day, for 2 months!! But we still hadn't met in person! She suggested that we invite him out to our farm for supper!! I said to mom, "What if he is an ax murderer?  We live 1/2 mile away from our closest neighbor!"  She said, "You have been talking to him about two months. Right?"  I nodded. She then added, "Well, your dad has a 22 and your dad and brother will be here, it won't be a problem. You have told me that he doesn't have any friends, and that you aren't interested in dating. I think a friend will be good for you." I hesitantly said, "Ok." I went upstairs, and as always, he was online. So, I asked him if he would be interested in joining me and my family for a home cooked meal.  He agreed.

Michael showed up at our house the next day for supper. I still remember sitting on our porch swing with my dad, anxiously waiting for his arrival. He drove up in a purple Dodge Dakota! PURPLE! When he got out of his pickup, I leaned over to dad and whispered, "Look how short he is!!" Dad smiled and said, "I thought you weren't interested in dating."  I said, "I'm not, but he is so short!" He got up to us and shook our hands saying it was nice to finally meet us. And who knows what other pleasantries that I don't remember. (that was 13 years ago!!) But what I do remember is his smell... He had the weirdest smell of anyone I've ever known. It was bearable, but didn't smell good. I couldn't identify what I was smelling though. 

We had supper together, and he got along really well with our family. Before we knew it, Michael was having supper with us on a weekly basis, then almost a nightly basis when he wasn't flying. He was 21 when we met and I was 17.  My dad predicted that as soon as I turned 18 and I was "legal" to date, we would start dating.  On my 18th birthday, I wanted to go to a country dance club. I went with my brother, one of his friends, Michael, and another female friend I had gotten to know along the way.  Michael was the only one of the whole group that was old enough to drink, so he had a couple.  Once he had himself loosened up enough to dance, he danced a couple songs with me.  I mostly did line dances and danced with my brother and his friend.  We had a great time that night!! I will never forget it. 

A month later not only were we not dating, but Michael was dating someone else! I couldn't stand the girl!! And to this day, I don't know if it was because I was jealous or because she was ugly or because I knew she was bad news. Maybe all three!  I was still talking to Michael every day, but he started ignoring my calls one weekend. I started flipping out!! Where is he? Is he ok? Is he alive? Is that GIRL telling he cannot be my friend anymore? So, on my way to church on Sunday morning, around 6:30 am, I drove by his apartment.  And that girl's car was there!!! I tried calling him and he didn't answer the phone!!  I instantly knew what was going on!!  She had spent the night!! But I was a very trusting person and I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Later that day, I called and left ANOTHER message on his answering machine.  Apparently, the girl he was dating told him that I was in love with him and that he better call me back. So, he did.  And he dumped her pretty soon after that. 

Three months later, sure enough, we started dating! He took me to the Louise Mandrel Show in Pigeon Forge.  That summer, (Summer 2002), I had graduated, and I had the opportunity to meet his parents from NE. They were separated at the time, so I got to meet them individually. The first time I met his mom, she was hysterical! She talked about how glad she was that I was in her son's life.  She cried in my car for almost an hour talking about how Michael always said he wasn't going to get married and that I would make a wonderful daughter in law.  She asked if I would ever consider the prospect.  I was dumbfounded, that wasn't even on my radar yet. 

Soon after, in September 2002, I was buying a wedding dress!!  We later got married in April 2003!!

Next time, I'll move into the first year of our marriage! Exciting time!

Until that time! May God bless you in your path!

Beginnings

Well, I have never blogged before, but I have wanted to try it for a long time!  So, I finally decided to jump in head first!  I've always been told that I need to tell my story. I haven't found it to be incredibly exciting, but apparently it is to others.

I'm not entirely sure where to start. So, I guess the most obvious place is in the beginning!

I was born in a small town in Texas a few hours away from Dallas. I was homeschooled along with my older brother.  He is 2 years older than me. That age gap made us close enough to enjoy each other's company.  But left a big enough age gap that he convinced me to do things that got me in trouble even when he knew better.

I moved away from Texas when I was 6, so I don't remember a whole lot but I'll tell you what I do remember!! The people!!  Granted a lot of my family live in Texas, I remember others too!  I lived in a neighborhood with quite a few kids.  We had one boy that lived a couple of doors down.  My brother and I always got into trouble with him.  Several times we decided to build bike ramps in a nearby church parking lot. Once, my brother went up the ramp thinking that he was some kind of trickster flipping over and on his way down he smacked his face into the neighbor's fence. This stunt was something like what you would see on America's Home Videos.

I was getting ready for church one morning, for some reason my mom wasn't available to help me get dressed, so my dad was picking out my clothes.  He pulled out a purple dress and some pink panties. I HAD to have matching clothes, so I told my dad that I needed my purple panties!  My dad looked and couldn't find them so he insisted that I wear the pink ones. I asked him to look for my pink dress if he couldn't find my purple panties.  He couldn't find the pink dress that matched my pink panties so I refused to get dressed!! I ran through the house naked throwing a temper tantrum about my clothes not matching!! Finally, I hid in the shoe closet, thinking I could blend in with all of my dad's boots.  My mom thought that was so cute that she took a picture that we STILL have to remind us of that day!  My mom finally decided it that it was best for my dad to help my brother get dressed and that it was best for mom to dress me.  Well, she found a blue dress with blue panties and I happily went to church.

Another fun time in Texas was a day that my dad laid concrete. My dad had worked all day, and probably the day before to get the sidewalk from our house to the shed  nice and smooth.  He borrowed some tools from the neighbor for the project.  When he went to return the tools, he told me and my brother that we were to stay off the sidewalk while he was gone. Well, we watched out the front window until he was out of sight and ran to get our big wheels! We were so excited about riding on nice smooth concrete instead of the bumpy sidewalk in front of the house!  And dad would never know if we just tried it a couple of times before he came back!!  Well... he knew...at the time of getting my spanking, I didn't know how he knew.  But later he showed me how he could see the tracks of our big wheels in the concrete.  And due to the different tread marks on each of our big wheels, he knew that we had BOTH ridden on it!  It was a good "learning moment."

I had a little boy that was "in love" with me.  He was the same age as I am. For Christmas, the year before we moved, he made a cute little bench.  I went on a scavenger hunt all over his farm to find it. We went through the chicken shed (FYI... I'm terrified of chickens).  I cannot specifically remember my feelings of that day (because I was 5) but I know that it had to be humorous to see me looking around a chicken coop for a paper clue!!  His house had a fence around the whole yard.  He had many animals within that fence, including an emu, a horse, a couple pigs, a cow, several dogs and cats, a few guinea hens and who knows what else. Those are just the animals that stuck out in my head. I eventually found the bench in the second story of his house.  But because there were several weak spots and holes that would drop me down to the first level, he made a walking path with construction paper and I had to only walk on the paper to get to the bench. Our fathers had to carry it downstairs and to the car because it was too heavy, but also because I didn't know where I could and couldn't walk.

We moved from Texas to Tennessee. The day we unpacked some of our stuff into the house was halloween!  I had never celebrated halloween because I was homeschooled and sheltered from it. A little after dark my mother sent me out to get the mail.  And there was a woman in a night gown with a green face and curlers in her hair walking down my driveway!! I ran inside and got mom. About the time I got her to come look this woman had rung the doorbell.  When my mom opened the door the woman said trick or treat and held out a Walmart sack! I hid behind my mom trying to figure out why someone would come to a stranger's house dressed like that and then talk in some code. The good news is that mom could speak the code and told her that we had no candy!  I had nightmares of that woman for a couple weeks after that!

We got the moving truck in the next day! The first things that came off the moving truck was bikes!! Mom and Dad said we could ride while they unpacked the truck!! We had just come from super flat Texas to east Tennessee in the Smokey Mountains!  We didn't have to build ramps anymore! My brother and I took off to go explore the hills of our neighborhood.  My brother figured out that if we went on our neighbor's driveway, across the cul de sac, then down the other neighbor's driveway we could go faster on our bikes than ever before!!! We could even catch some air at certain points!!  Being the cautious one of the two of us, I finally got up the guts to follow in my big brother's footsteps... I went to the top of the first neighbor's driveway... took a big gulp of air and went! I didn't even half to pedal, but I did just a little anyway!  I got to the bottom and hit my pedal breaks as I turned to tell my brother how much fun that was!! From that point, everything went into slow motion I went to lift my foot off the pedal and I couldn't get it to move!! I remember looking down to see my shoelace tied all the way around the pedal several times!! I looked at the asphalt drive as I was starting to go over on my bike.  I decided I should try to pedal again but it was too late! I went face first into the asphalt!!  So my brother helped me limp home. I'm not sure how he did it, but he halfway carried me AND got both of our bikes. My mom had to take me to an emergency dentist appointment because I knocked out several teeth that day.  The good news was that I only had baby teeth in my mouth.  The bad news was that it was moving day, it was Saturday, and we didn't know a dentist or anyone else for that matter, so getting a dentist in on such short notice was a challenge.  But my mom was supermom, so she took care of it.

At the age of 8, I accepted Christ as my Lord!  I repented of my sins and chose to follow Him for the rest of my days!! Little did I know then what an amazing commitment and journey that was! I am able to depend on God for the power, strength and endurance to make it through everything that this world throws at me!!  God has given me peace, joy and comfort through the years... that is when I asked for it and had the faith to lean on His strength instead of my own. My faith has grown a lot since then, but that doesn't mean that I don't try to lean on my own understanding sometimes even now.  All good things come from God!  I praise Him for that!

Skipping ahead some years... When I was 11, we moved from out neighborhood in Tenneessee out to our mountainous farm! By this time, my parents had started up a church with some other folks.  My mom was the Pastor's secretary and my dad was an elder.  After about a year at the farm, my brother got into high school and we would have youth group events at out house!!  In the youth group, from that time all the way until I graduated high school, there was 1 girl and the rest were boys. Of course, with me there, the group had 2 girls. The other girl saw me as a threat to her dating each and every boy in the group, so we were never able to have a friendship that really flourished. I was a tomboy at heart, so I didn't need girly friends anyway!

My sophomore year of high school, I got to attend public school for the first time in my life!! I hadn't ever been kissed or even had a boyfriend for that matter.  But because I was around boys all the time, I didn't see a need to pick ONE of them!! I like to play games, go hiking, ride horses, and talk to any and all of them.  I wasn't ashamed of that fact either because I didn't see it as a benchmarked of who I "should be."  Anyway, when I got to school, I sought out the christian club and joined.  I love the Lord and saw no reason to be ashamed of that either!  I enjoyed the first month or two of public school!  I was in choir one day and I started talking to a girl about Christ! I was so excited! This was the reason I wanted to go to public school! I could share my faith and win others for Christ!!  She started asking questions about church and youth group.  Then the questions turned to me.  I didn't feel like I had anything to hide, so I told her everything she asked me, including if I was a virgin and how many boys I had kissed!! The next day I came to school, I had multiple people want to confirm that I was a lesbian!!!  I was like, "WHAT?!?!?!?!" That day my life changed! Despite my efforts to convince people that I was straight, I was kicked out of the Christian club. I couldn't sit with the friends I THOUGHT I had anymore.  I was only able to sit at the "gay" table. There was a courtyard where all the smokers went to smoke and they accepted me there. So, I began staying in the courtyard during lunch time and started skipping lunch most days because I couldn't handle eating food around such awful smelling stuff!!

Come to find out, the people in the courtyard were a mix of potheads and other forms of drug addicts.  I didn't know what ANY of it was. I knew what cigarettes were but any of the other drugs were a new to me. They also used a lot of language that I didn't know or understand. So, I found one person that I felt like I could trust and I asked her what all the words meant that I didn't understand.  When I came home and used some of them, not having a true understanding of what they meant, I got in a lot of trouble!!

The friend I found, Jess, was a pothead.  Even though I didn't know what that meant, I knew that she needed Jesus and I needed a friend. So we spent a lot of time together over the rest of the school year.  At one point in time, my mom got called into the principal's office.  The principal called her simply because he didn't think it was wise for me to hang out with such a bad influence. My mom told him that Jess was one of my only friends and it was apparent that Jess didn't have any positive influences in her life.  She told him that if I started getting into trouble then she would reevaluate, but for that point in time, she wasn't going to tell me not to be friends with Jess.  I didn't even know about that conversation until several years later. Jess and I are still friends to this day!

I couldn't handle being considered a lesbian throughout most of the school. So, my mom allowed me to finish my schooling at home. That one day in the choir room was the turning point in my life and on another day, I will continue to unfold the repercussions which I call, "walking in my path." (I wanted to call it walking my path or walking on my path, but those were taken.) So, I will walk in my path!! :-)

Until another day! May God bless you in your path!!