Alright guys, I'm just going to jump right back in here. If you need to go back and read the post before last to remember where we are in the story, go right ahead. It might help you understand the order of things.
When Derik gave me this ultimatum of either him or the club, I was still living in the apartment with Chris and his friend Mike. I decided to quit dancing, but I needed a source of income, and quick, or else I was going to have a hard time. At the time, Mike was talking to this girl named Chelsea. Chelsea would come over to the apartment all the time and we would drink together and we really hit it off. She worked at Sonic and I knew that she made pretty decent money. Not nearly as much as I did on any given night, but as far as fast food goes, you can't really do much better.
She knew that I was trying to straighten my life out and so she told me that she would talk to her manager and see if she could get me a job. Turns out, he was willing to give me a chance and hired me without an application or an interview or anything. The day I started working there was when I filled out my application and talked to him the first time and I was just so grateful that he gave me a chance, especially because he knew my situation and knew what I used to do. I never felt judged by him and felt super comfortable working there. Sonic was a great transitional job for me, because I still made cash every day (which is what I was used to), but every couple of weeks I got a paycheck as well and that helped me to be a little more responsible with my money.
Up until this point, I never had a bank account. I always just kept my cash on me and never for very long, because I would spend it on stupid stuff. Drugs, alcohol, clothes.... anything materialistic. One of my biggest regrets is that for all the money I made over those 3 years that I was stripping, I have absolutely nothing to show for it. I basically threw it away on a man who was anything but thankful and on my own bad habits. I never even got my license or bought a car. Once I started working at Sonic, I still spent money on stupid crap. I still bought weed and cigarettes and liquor, but I also saved a little bit of it, which was a huge step for me.
I also kicked my coke habit. I am still pretty suprised at how easy it was for me to let it go. Once I wasn't at the club anymore, and it wasn't readily available to me, it was really easy just to let that addiction die. Make no mistake; I WAS addicted. I would go into the club every night swearing that I wouldn't buy any cocaine and by the end of the night I would have already bought 2 baggies of it. I felt powerless to stop it as long I was in that environment, but by the grace of God, when I wasn't around it anymore, I just didn't even miss it. That's not to say I didn't want it sometimes, but I was able to overcome that addiction pretty quickly.
I moved out of that apartment soon after I started working at Sonic. I talked about moving out in a previous post, so we won't go over that a second time. When I moved in with my mom again, I felt such freedom. I had lived with a man for 2 years prior to moving back in with her and it was so great to not have to answer to him anymore. Derik still lived far away at his friends house and although I was happy to be in a relationship with him, I was equally as happy to have some independence. I didn't want to play house anymore. I wanted to have a normal relationship where you date someone and see them a couple of times a week and then you go to your own separate houses. I am still a firm believer that living with a person before you get married is a relationship killer.
So Derik and I have been together now for a few months in a relationship that we didn't have to hide and things were going about as well as could be expected considering how weird our relationship had been up to this point. He would come see me at my mom's as much as he could since I still wasn't driving. I had already introduced him to my mom when she used to drop me off at the club and she seemed to like him, so when I told her that we were dating, she was ok with that. She was just relieved that I wasn't dancing anymore and I think she may have given him credit for that. That was okay with me! He WAS the reason I quit dancing and if that made her like him more, that was fine too. I wanted my mom to like my boyfriend; she had hated the previous ones.
In my mind, everything was going great. I had a real job, a life that was independent of my boyfriend, and new friends. I was happy, or so I thought. Then one phone call changed everything.
Derik called me one day and we were talking and I noticed that he sounded kind of down, so I asked him what was wrong.
"Dean's house has gone into forclosure and I have to move out. I don't have anywhere to go."
"Okay..... Are you sure you have no friends that you can stay with until you can get your own place?"
I didn't know at this point that he had already made the circuit of all his friends houses and had been kicked out of every one for not paying rent, nor did I know that his credit history was probably destroyed from previously losing his own house and that he would not be able to get his own place. I, the ever helpful girlfriend, just wanted to fix it for him. I didn't want him to move in with me, but I just HAD to fix it. That was my pattern; taking care of grown men who should have been able to take care of their own problems.
"Well, okay," I said. "I'll talk to my mom and see if you can stay here for a couple of weeks, just until you can get some money saved up for your own place."
I hung up and went to talk to my mom. My mom also has a pattern of taking people in. For my entire life, our house had been a revolving door of people coming in and out: my sister's friends, Nancy's son, Nancy's son's friends, my sister, my sister's baby daddy.... you name it. If they vaguely knew us at all, they lived at my mom's house at some point. So when I asked Mom, she of course said yes. That's just how she is. She loves to help, but she can also be taken advantage of pretty easily and I am my mother's daughter. I called Derik back and we made plans for him to move in, but only temporarily!!!
He was supposed to stay for 3 weeks and ended up staying for a year and a half. During that time he never paid rent, even though he was asked to and later I found out that Dean's house was never in forclosure. He just kicked Derik out for not paying rent after he lived there for several months.
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