I went to live with my sister in Indiana the summer I turned 14, right before my freshman year. I was very excited about a brand new start. I was in a new state where no one knew me, know one knew my family history, and I could recreate myself. Sound familiar? But I was lonely at first. I moved at the beginning of summer and so I had all summer long to not have any friends, other than the few kids my age that went to our church. Did I mention I hated church? I had gone to church practically my whole life, but I just wasn't all that interested and no matter where I went, I was always just Cliff's little sister, or Andrea's little sister, and now I was just Jessica's little sister. All my siblings are serving God at this point, and I'm the one holdout.... It may have been easier for me to embrace God's love, if I felt it from the people who were supposed to be showing it to me. But I was always the annoying little sister that people just dealt with because they had to. Or at least that's how I felt. I so desperately wanted to fit in that I over did it and as a result, I became bitter towards the church.
Do me a favor. If any of you who are reading are churchgoers, and maybe you are involved in a youth ministry, stay on the lookout for that lonely kid. The one who doesn't have the best clothes, or the one that the prettier church girls don't pay attention to. THAT is the child who needs an extra dose of love. You may be saving a life with just a little bit of kindness. If someone had been that person for me, maybe I wouldn't have gone down the road I did. Maybe I would have. There is no way to know, but don't brush off that awkward child who doesn't know how to act. THAT CHILD WAS ME.
Anyway, that summer, I went through some interesting changes. I got contacts ( bye-bye thick ugly glasses!), my hair had finally grown out from that awful Madeline haircut I had when I was 10, my sis got me some pretty good clothes, which I had never had since most of what I wore were hand-me-downs, and I developed a curvy, womanly figure. I mean, I was pretty stacked for a 14 year old. When I started my freshmen year, I was hit by the realization that BOYS FOUND ME ATTRACTIVE for the first time in my life! They thought I was pretty and wanted to date me and I was like Heck Yeah!
The only problem was that I wasn't allowed to date. Rob and Jess had never raised a teenager before, particularly a teenager with issues who had never really had any discipline. God bless them, they did the best they could, but I was a devil child and we pretty much made eachother's lives hell for the next 2 years. I was always grounded for something, and spewing hate all over that household. It's a miracle they let me stay for 2 years. After my freshmen year, I begged my mom to let me come home and she wouldn't let me. I did, however, go home for summer break, and that summer I lost my virginity. It was awful, by the way. I was disappointed and ashamed that I let the most precious thing that I could offer go on an old couch at my oldest sister Michelle's house. After break, I went back to Indiana and confessed to Jessica and then I had to tell my brother-in-law Rob about it. It was mortifying.
There isn't really much to say about my sophomore year except more of the same. I was angry with the world, with my sister, with Rob, with everything! I think the only thing that kept me sane was my friends Kalie and Tara. We don't talk much these days, except on Facebook, but seriously, those girls were one thing that kept me alive. I tried to overdose on pills a couple of times while I lived there, but luckily I didn't take enough to kill me, just to make me really sick.
After sophomore year, I was done! I was going back to my mom's house and I was never going to speak with Jessica or Rob again. Right before I went back, I smoked weed for the first time in my life, started smoking cigarettes, got involved with a boy, got drunk for the first time and had sex again.
If only I had a sense of foreboding about moving back. Surely, the events I described above should have been an indicator that going to live with my mom again was a REALLY bad idea. But I was done with church, I was done with being forced to follow stupid rules and I could not WAIT to have my freedom.
When I moved back to Texas I was 15.
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