intriuged...or insomnia..you decied

friend (11:25:40 PM): im trying to get closer to god here
me (11:26:24 PM): really?
friend (11:26:55 PM): well i do have faith finally
friend (11:27:06 PM): i didnt believe in god for awhile and blast changed all of that
friend (11:27:11 PM): it really brought me back to god
friend (11:27:13 PM): so yeah
el mano 08 (11:27:16 PM): thats cool
el mano 08 (11:28:46 PM): last year was really good
friend (11:29:13 PM): i wish i wouldve went
el mano 08 (11:29:21 PM): me dos.
el mano 08 (11:29:25 PM): u remind me of me alot last year
friend (11:29:31 PM): now next year is my last year at blast
friend (11:29:33 PM):
friend (11:29:38 PM): why do i remind you a lot of last year?
el mano 08 (11:29:54 PM): minus the whole guy part lol
el mano 08 (11:29:59 PM): umm....
el mano 08 (11:30:02 PM): its kinda hard to explain
el mano 08 (11:30:11 PM): but
el mano 08 (11:30:24 PM): just like where ur at w/ ur family is where i was last year
el mano 08 (11:30:31 PM): i started going to stuco right b4 blast
el mano 08 (11:30:47 PM): i dunno...there are jsut things that uhave said and i have been like...ive been there
el mano 08 (11:30:49 PM): afew times
el mano 08 (11:31:21 PM): i dunno if that has made sense. but...yeah.
friend (11:31:38 PM): well thats good to know we've been in some of the same situations
el mano 08 (11:31:45 PM): yeah
friend (11:32:07 PM): its kinda weird i told you when i first met you i usually dont open up to people that easy


So this is going to be another one of thoes, I cant sleep, but I really want to, but I need to sort my thoughts out blogs, so just go with it.

I was talking to my friend earlier about how they remind me alot of myself last year. Shortly after this conversation my friend went to bed, and I opted for not doing homework and attempted to do the same, but I couldnt. I keep thinking about me last year.

One year ago, I was the girl that went on a church retreat hung over. I was the girl that did what other people wanted to make them happy. I was the girl that was from a broken home. I was the girl whos dad didnt care about her. I was the girl that was letting achoalism consume another generation of my family. I was the girl that was living for myself. I was the girl that one year ago if you told me I would be a student intern at a church, I would have laughed at you. I was the girl that one year ago if you told me I would have baptised my brother and 4 8th grade girls who, I lead in small group ever Wednesday, and Sunday would have again laughed in your face.

Not to say that a year later I am perfect, but the key word in everyone of thoes sentances is WAS. Let me tel you who I am.

I am the girl who does not let my past dictate my future. I am the girl who has had rough times, but lived through them, and still has a good heart. I am the girl who choose to live for God, not for myself. I am the girl who went up EARLY to a church retreat to help. I am the girl that is a student intern, and I love it. I am the girl that baptised my brother, and the same one that he talked about who he looks up to for spiritual guidance. I am the girl who would do anything for that group of 8th grade girls I lead every week, and text almost daily. I am the girl who is taking live one day at a time, not perfectly, but to the best I can.

I am also the girl that has a nose ring...but that is another story all in its own.

I AM who I want to be, and I am living in Gods image.

I choose to be happy. Everyday when you wake up you make a choice, the choice to be happy, or the choice to not be.

This is kinda not on the same topic, but it is after midnight and this is my I cant sleep blog, so I am going to go a diffrent route now.

Tonight we talked about scars. As soon as I heard that we were doing scars, I knew it would be similar to CIY this summer.

That whole pain caused by others thing is a really big deal to me.

My family is not the greatest. I don't talk to my dad. Or he doesnt talk to me rather, and he wont be comming to my graduation. That hurts, so much. The thing about my dad is he choose me. He is my brothers dad, not mine, but he choose to be mine, and his wife choose for me not to be his daughter anymore. In the last few years it has just been a downward spiral that started the year my sister was born, on Christmas when he said, "I don't need you anymore, I have my own daughter now."

To fully understand what I lost, you need to know what I had.

When my parents got divorced it was really really hard at first but then it got so much better.
He was at every swim meet, he would time, and he would always make sure to time in the lane I was swimming in so he could watch me, he would work consession, he would come to EVERY practice and sit in the stands and do homework with my brother. He went to every football game I cheered at. He always let me have friends over no matter what, and he would always take us to get pizza or movies or anything. On his days off from work he would hang out at school with us, EVERYONE would tell me how cool my dad was. Actually there were a few girls who would call him hot, and I would always say the same thing, "He has never grounded you, he isnt that cool." Bring your kid to work day I always went with him. Everything I always did it with my dad, he was sooo cool. I could tell him anything. And then one day, he met my step mom, I was there and she thought I was his little sister. We were neighbors, she played the victim thing up real well, she had her son in high school, and his dad wasnt around. About 2 months later she was pregnat. and a few months after that they were married, and not long after that, there was my sister.

In the matter of a year I lost my dad. It was gradual at first, in the begging, it was just, you cant have friends over because Jen said so, or the baby is sleeping. Then it was, we have to do things as a family I cant hang out with just you anymore. Within no time, his wife said he couldnt hug me because it freeked her out, and he stopped telling me he loved me. I stopped comming over on weekends. He started not being as happy. All of this continued until I moved in with them, and a month later was kicked out...and found my stuff on the front lawn. It was very Jerry Springer.

My dad makes me so upset. I always said when I was 18 I would have my last name changed to be his because he was my dad. If you go on my myspace and read what makes a real dad in the blogs, you can kind of start to understand it. But on my 18th birthday I didnt get a phone call. I got a card with some money, and I called to thank him...and three weeks later he has yet to return my phone calls.

Scars are funny. They arnt always noticeable eaither.

Someone once told me when they look into my eyes they see someone who is constiantly trying to prove something to someone. Someone who is really unhappy but puts up walls and acts like everything is okay. And anyone from the outside looking in sees it as a really happy person.

I think there is alot of truth to that. I am ALWAYS smiling. I am always laughing, and for the most part, at least lately I have been alot more happy. But I do have scars. I lived in a home where it was okay for my step dad to abuse me and my brother. I grew up in a home where alcohol was the deciding factor in EVERYTHING, and our lives were dictated by the mood that one person woke up in. Everyone was always on edge in the mornings, because you couldnt tell if it was going to be a good day, or a bad day, and even if it was going to be a good day how fast that would chage. Everything was always on edge.

I remember one time, I dont even think he had been drinking. But Bradley had a baseball game, and I stayed home to do homework. They were late comming home because they went out for ice cream, and I needed ink to prink my homework. They went to go get it, and everything seemed fine. I am sitting on the couch watching tv, and the door slams. I looked across the room and I saw my mom going for a walk, knowing I was alone in the house with him I got really scared. He came into the living room, and started yelling at me, calling me all these horrible things, telling me how lazy I was for watching tv and how my grades were horrible...when I was on the honnoroll. I started crying hystarically and ran outside to my mom. I started yelling at her telling her how I was moving up north and she was taking me or I was getting on a plane that night and she was like what did he do. I had not done anything, and I tried to explain that. She made me go inside with her and told me to just go up to my room and not to come down. So we walked in the front door and she was pissed and they started fighting. All I remember was on my way up the stairs hearing him yell at me about how I ruined everything, and how I this fight was all my fault. My mom kept saying it wasnt and yelling at him for saying that. Im prettysure that was the first night the fights got physical. We lived there for another year.

Now we live here, but with the way things go back and forth, and she will talk to him and then she wont. He will come up and visit and then they will fight. Everything is so wishywashy. I hate it. I hate knowing that at any given minute he can show up at my house, because my mom was careless and let him know where we lived. I am scared that she will let him back into our live, I am scared that its not over. More then anything I am scared that I will make a mistake and repeat that lifestyle.

I try so hard not to let my past come back.



I took this of my little sister, my step dads daughter, and our dog bud a few years ago. My only regret in leaving, is she can't escape him. I wish I could tell her that here is a light at the end of the tunnel but I cant. I just have to hope that God shows her what is right, and just because you have crappy parents doesnt mean it is your destiny.

Shawn talked about how there were kids in the room that fall asleep listening to music because they hate silence. Because anytime of quit you start thinking about stuff, and its just so much easier to block it out.

I have not even remember alot of this stuff in a really long time. Im not sure why I actually wrote it out, and I know that it has no corrolation with each other on this computer screen, but internally these scars all cross. They are things I deal with on a daily basis.

Tonight I decided to not listen to music when I fell asleep, just to prove I could do it. I cant. I keep moving around in my bed, I keep thinking of things. And I feel sick, not becasue of this, just ingeneral, but it does not help.

Silence is so loud. -J.J. Barrows