Good Parenting, FTW*!

There were a lot of times through middle school and high school that I got away with stuff I probably shouldn't, I did more then most of my friends and I easily could have taken a different path. I'm not sure if my parents really knew what they were doing with me or if they were just winging it and hoping for the best. Most of the time they were so wrapped up in whatever trouble my brother was causing to worry about what petty crimes I was committing. Usually, this worked in my favor. 

I was a junior and I'd met this boy from another school during a wrestling tournament. He was older and cute and I was a complete dork around him. I sat starting at him talking and laughing with his friends, wrestling and even when up against my school hoping for him to win. At some point he noticed me, I don't remember the details anymore but we started talking. When his school was visiting ours I made a bet with him. It was his idea and I laughed nervously, turned bright red, and agreed. 

If his school won I'd give him a blow job. 

I was nervous as hell the whole time, I had no idea what I was going to do if they won. Our guys were good and I was supposed to be keeping score but I couldn't concentrate on anything else but this ridiculous bet. 

We lost. 

That night we kissed just before he got on his bus and then talked a few more times. He invited me over to his house the following weekend, his parents were out for the night. 

I was nervous and scared but I agreed. I told my parents I was going to go hang out with some friends. I didn't lie, my mom knew that I was talking to this boy from another school and that he would be there, of course I left the impression that other people would also be there. As I was telling them my plans I was already getting ready, doing my hair and changing my clothes. 

Except, they said no. 

What? No? I didn't get told no all that often so needless to say I was pissed. I cried, I pouted, I begged, I probably yelled (although not loud because my dad was home and you don't yell when dad is home)

I had to call this older boy and tell him I couldn't come over. I was mortified and maybe just a little relieved. That night my dad came in and told me he just didn't want to mess things up with me the way they did my brother. It's one of the few heart to hearts my dad had with me. He's not a talkative man. I didn't say much then I was still upset and in sulking teenager mode. How did they know?! I wasn't acting any different then if I were just going to hang out with the girls. I'd been over to plenty of boys houses when no parents and they'd never questioned my stories. How did they know that it was different this time? 

A week or so later I did end up going over to his house. His family was home but we went upstairs and made out. He of course tried to collect on his bet but I managed to get out of that. He wrestled me and pinned me down, we kissed, it was weird and uncomfortable and all I could hear in my head was my dad's voice. I ended up leaving that night feeling strange and eager to get away. We broke up a few days later. 

I'd like to think if my parents had let me go that I wouldn't have done anything I would regret, but I'm not so sure. I was at a point in my life where I wasn't exactly making smart decisions. I was still mostly innocent but I was also self conscious and enjoyed the attention I received from the boys in my life. Maybe a little too much. And yet, something in the back of my head, or maybe in my heart, kept me from crossing the line. Good parents and good friends, they really do make a difference. 

Good parenting - 1 Pervy boys - 0

*FTW = For The Win, incase you didn't know. I didn't until recently because I'm just not that hip :)

Important Moments

There are things in my life that I remember like they happened yesterday, things that a song on the radio or a smell in the air bring back and it's like I'm living it all over again. Sometimes this is a great feeling and other times I have to blink back tears and force the ache in my chest to go away.

I'm pretty lucky in that I've never had anything all that traumatic happen in my life. My parents are still alive and married, I have an amazing family, a fabulous husband and friends I couldn't live without. That being said, there are a few pivotal moments in my life that had a significant effect on the person I am today. There are other events that are just as important, if not more so, but for whatever reason the memories are not as strong and they fade more every day. I find myself struggling to remember the details of having my boys, the details of how it felt to bring them home on the first day. My wedding day was perfect, I ended up being the Mrs I always wanted to be, yet so many of the details, so many of the things that I probably should remember, I just don't.
The things I do remember, the simple moments in my life that hit me out of nowhere while driving down the highway are things like the day my aunt picked me up from school. It was completely out of the normal and I knew in that instant without even asking that my Grandmother had passed away. I was 9 and she was my everything.

When I was in high school and met my now husband, I didn't know we'd end up married, I didn't know he'd be any more then a cute boy my best friend had a crush on but I knew he was different and sitting in my bedroom talking for hours, sometimes I can look at him and I'm back there all over again. I don't remember what we talked about, but I will never forget that feeling of just knowing something was different. He was different...different and everything I said I didn't want.

My freshman year of college I was at lunch with my cousin, my dad called to ask if I'd talked to my mom. I hadn't, but it was only mid-afternoon. I can't recall the words but I remember my heart racing, my head spinning and feeling as if I just wanted to cry but couldn't. My mom had left, she'd hopped in a car with a friend of hers and left, went to Florida. The rest is a blurr, I know at some point I talked to her and she was looking for a job, she was ready to move on...to leave us. The moment I remember clearly is sitting in my college dorm, on my top bunk and crying. Sobbing. Feeling completely and totally alone, feeling as if the one person in the world that was always supposed to be there for me...had just...left. My heart felt like it was broken in to a million pieces and I didn't want to make sense of it, I didn't want to understand. I'm not sure my relationship with my mom or with my best friend (and roommate at the time) has been the same. It's a time in my life that part of me wishes I could forget, wishes I could just erase but I can't. I go months and sometimes years forgetting all about it but then something happens, something triggers that memory and I'm back on that top bunk, totally alone.

Let's back up

I've recently been walking down memory lane and thinking a lot about who I am as a person, a wife and a mother. So while I don't update this blog often, it is my story...and I'd like to back up to before my first date and my first kiss, before my parents moved me away from all the friends that I knew and that I thought were important to me. Let's talk about a first of a different kind, that first time I officially became a woman. The first time I realized that my life would never be the same again.

I was 11 or 12, I don't remember exactly. I know I was in 6th grade. I'd started shaving my legs the summer before when a friend of mine, a few years older, commented on the forest that was my legs. I'd seen my mom shave in the shower, I knew that this is what women did but it hadn't dawned on me to do such a thing. I mean I was just a kid. At any rate, I was embarrassed and that night when I took my shower I lathered up with whatever soap we had handy and swiped one of my mom's razors from the medicine cabinet. I didn't ask for help, I didn't even want anyone to know I was doing it. I mean, that would just make it even more embarrassing.
As I got out of the shower, my legs stung and I had several tiny little cuts all over them. I wore pants the next day and couldn't figure out why this was so much better then just letting it go. I have to say, as an adult, I sometimes wonder the same thing.
Later that year I would go in to the bathroom and discover red. Yep, this is what they told us about in health class. This is what it meant to get your period. I was terrified, again, I just hadn't expected it to happen so soon. Sure, some of my friends had gotten theirs but some of my friends were also having sex and giving their boyfriends blow jobs. I wasn't one of those girls and for whatever reason I associated a period with the same sort of growing up.
I again went and found my mothers stash of pads. I would put the long super absorbency mini diaper on and then hide in my room, certain that you could see it under my jeans and everyone would know. The horror!! I took my neurosis one step further. I would wrap the used pads in toilet paper, stick them in a plastic back and then hide them behind the tub. We had an old claw foot bathtub that sat against the wall. At the time I'd planned on sneaking them in to the trash when I would empty the trash cans from all of the rooms (my weekly chore) but I would soon forget because, hey, I was 11 (or 12). I did this for the first probably 3 months. I actually don't remember how long it was. I couldn't bring myself to tell my mother, it was humiliating and we just don't talk about those things in my house.
At some point my parents decided to remodel that bathroom, this was around the same time that my dad decided he was going to move us out of that house. Of course I didn't know or realize this. He started to take apart the bathroom and I remember hiding in my room in a complete panic, there was no way for me to get my dad out of there so I could confiscate all those little plastic bags. He would know that I had gotten my period and he would know that I was hiding it. He would tell my mom, she would be hurt and upset and she would probably cry and want to know why I didn't tell her. Then, OMG THEN, she would want to TALK ABOUT IT. Oh no, I couldn't have that. It was much easier to hide out in my room. To pretend it wasn't happening. (I'll later in my life realize I do this with a lot of things...from the every day to the big stuff)
At some point, my dad did tell my mom what he'd found. She came to me and asked if I'd started my period, she asked when and why I hadn't come to her. I gave her short 1-2 word answers, I played the annoyed sullen pre-teen card well and she backed off. *sigh of relief*
The upside, she started buying me age appropriate pads so I didn't have to hide in my room wearing my mini-diaper. I still walked around for that week every month feeling like a freak, wanting to hide and using every excuse in the book to get out of gym class.

I realize now as an adult and as a mother, how upset my mom really must have been that I didn't come to her and tell her.  

Survival

Once I'd managed to survive 7th grade (which was sort of a blurr), survived introducing my parents to all of my new friends, survived my dad picking us up and dropping us off at football games and movie runs....I was beginning to enjoy my new world and my new life. I'm not sure I came out completely unscathed but I made it.

In 1994 I started 8th grade. I think of all the times in my 28 years of life, this was my favorite. I was young, I had friends, I had family (even if I found them unbearable most of the time) and I didn't have a care in the world. Life was so simple. That fall when school started I wasn't the new girl anymore, I didn't bite my nails while sitting through class and I didn't try to hide behind my books. I walked with my friends, I passed notes, I laughed and just before the first football game of the season, I had my first boyfriend.

I was 13 and I thought he was amazing. He said he loved me, we talked on the phone for hours and I was literally walking around on a cloud. That Friday my friends and I took our saved lunch money from the week and bought the tickets to the football game. Football games are sort of a right of passage, I went to nearly every home game for 5 years and can honestly say, I'm not sure I ever once sat on the bleachers for an entire game. It was for socializing...or in my case, sneaking in to the woods to make out.

Yes, here I was the girl who hadn't even had her first kiss standing in the woods on that chilly September night making out with a boy I called my boyfriend. It was awkward at first, my hands were cold, from nerves and from the temperature and I didn't know where to put them. He wasn't much more adept at the whole thing but we fumbled around and figured it out. I suppose practice makes perfect. As time passed he worked up his nerve and attempted to go up my shirt...except in my infinite wisdom I'd worn a body suit. It was my favorite outfit, the one I thought flattered my 13 year old body. My jeans that fit just right, body suit snug against my curves (or lack there of) and of course the standard flannel shirt. Not willing to give up his hand moved through my sleeve, except there really isn't much room to those shirts...not matter, he settled for cupping my breast over my clothes. It was strange and not entirely unpleasant but strange none the less. My friend and her boyfriend weren't far away, with a similar situation going on. We'd later sit and laugh and swap notes and contemplate what people would think if they knew. These were the girls we were, we weren't trying to play the popularity game, we weren't trying to get boys to like us...we were simply going with whatever happened and trying to figure it all out as we went, in our own way.
It was a time of firsts, it was a time of innocence, of joy and pain, of laughter and heartache...and a time I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.

That same boyfriend broke up with me not long after that night. We joked as the football season went on that he took a new girl in to the woods each week. For roughly 4 hours my heart was shattered, I cried, I sobbed. I sat in front of my mirror attempting to do something with my hair, curling the out of control bangs that were just so "in" and giving up and throwing myself on my bed. My best friend called, she convinced me to finish getting ready and go to the dance as we'd planned.

And that my friends, is where I met my first official rebound boyfriend. Yes, even at 13, there was a rebound guy.

Crushes

I had two very distinct crushes that first year. I was shy and awkward and I never would have dreamed of acting on these thoughts. I wasn't that girl, I didn't know how to flirt yet and looking back now, I realize that I probably shouldn't have known how. Even though I'd come from a school where girls my age were already sneaking around with boys and some were even already sleeping with them...the idea of even kissing a boy made my throat close up and my stomach tighten so much I thought I'd keel over.

The first crush: Mike. He was friends with my brother and a year older then me. Friends with my brother = bad boy. I'd sit in my room and wait until I knew he was in the living room, I would then make an excuse to go out and talk to my brother. I'd perfected this, or so I thought, over the years. My brother had no shortage of friends, some of which I liked more then others. Looking in the mirror before leaving my own bedroom had become habit. Checking my hair and my makeup, seeing if my shorts were just short enough and my tank just low enough. I wasn't one of those girls that had the body of a 16 year old. I, sadly, had the body of a 12 year old so there really wasn't much to show off.

All of my friends knew about my crush, he was cute and bad...and the kind of boy your mother told you to stay away from. Of course, not my mom. My mom was the one that told me for as long as I could remember not to settle down, to date around, to explore my options.
I went to my locker one day at the end of the day and opened my locker to find notes and streamers and signs inside with hearts and Mike's name all over them. My face turned bright red instantly and I again cursed my pale skin and Irish heritage for giving me away. I slammed the locker shut, looking around to be sure that nobody had seen. Everyone seemed lost in their own hustle and bustle of getting out of class that it seemed I was in the clear. I tried to open my locker a tiny bit to get my bag and my books without anyone noticing. Mike walked by, he smiled at me and said hi. I almost died, my whole body resembling a lobster at this point only to see my friends off to the side holding their sides from laughing so hard.

I don't know what happened to Mike. Our middle school was 7th and 8th grade, so the following year he was in the high school and at some point he and my brother stopped hanging out. It was probably for the best, really.

Phil: Phil was in my class. He was mysterious and polite but again, kind of a bad boy. I didn't know a lot about him, but he lived in my neighborhood and I'd sometimes get to sit by him on the bus. On the rare occasion we ended up in the same seat, I'd sit there silently trying desperately to think of something to say...and when I did, I generally would wish I could take it back.
My friends and I had a nickname for Phil, which was PopCorn. We thought we were so clever. Of course I realize now that everyone probably knew what/who we were talking about, but at the time, it seemed like the best thing ever.
We'd spend hours in my room, talking about Phil and Bryan, the boy Katie was crushing on. We'd talk hypotheticals about 'going out' and about kissing boys. Swapping stories of first kisses, of course mine was fictional because I couldn't admit that I hadn't had my first kiss. That seemed like the worst thing in the world. I mean, everyone else had kissed someone and since I was the new girl, I had the luxury of making up a story that seemed believable. I'd kissed a boy while at a wedding, he was 16 and we danced all night while he slipped me glasses of wine. Now, that part of the story was true....but in my version, he kissed me before we left. I had to drive home with my mom and my grandparents, my grandma insisting that he had his hands on my butt while we danced. I claimed he did not and then pretended to sleep the rest of the way home. I most certainly was not discussing where anyone had their hands with my mother and my grandparents!

Part 1

I survived that first day...and the days that followed. I can't say I survived unscathed, but I think I came out a better person then I was going in.

I eventually gave up on hating my parents for moving me away to places unknown. Although, I'm not sure my dad has forgiven me for the phone bills I wracked up calling my best friend. What did he expect? I was, after all, a 13 year old girl.

Katie and I became friends almost instantly. I'm not sure what it was but we just clicked. It turned out that we'd met 2 years earlier at a church group with a mutual friend. We were pretty much destined to be best friends.
Tara was quiet and sweet, we had English together and she later told me that she thought I was kind of a snob because I didn't talk much. It didn't take long before the note passing and laughing between classes started.
Natalie was always the independent one, the girl that loved her friends but knew how to deal without us. I always envied that about her.

The four of us quickly became our own little group. We weren't the popular girls and we weren't the outcasts. We had each other and in the 7th grade, that was enough.

The first few months were still rough, even with new friends. It got to the point where my parents were pulling me aside, asking if I was okay because I went to school and then came home and hung out in my room. Truth be told, what else was I going to do? Of course, within a few weeks they probably wished they hadn't brought it up. It didn't take long before I was begging for a sleep overs, asking my dad to drop me off someplace or wanting to know if I could walk to Katie's house.
That's something else I should mention, my mom. She didn't drive then and doesn't now. It was always up to my dad to do drop off and pick up...and it wasn't always an easy task to get him to agree to. Still, he'd take his turn piling all of us in to our family car to trotting us off to the football game or the movie theater. I would secretly hate it when it was my turn, I would pray that he wouldn't be wearing his cut off jean shorts, smelling of cigarette smoke and beer. I'd keep my fingers crossed that we wouldn't run out of gas or pray that he'd actually remember what time to pick us up.

The rest of that year was rather uneventful. My friends parents were still trying to feel me out, trying to figure out if I was the bad seed. To some, I most certainly was and to others I was just that nice red headed girl. The reality was that I was somewhere in the middle. I was certainly no angel, but over all I was just too paranoid to truly be bad. My brother had done a pretty good job of scaring me into behaving, and no, not because he was such an exceptional big brother. More because I saw how difficult he made everything on my parents, I saw him drink and do drugs and I saw him scream and storm out of the house. I learned all 4 letter words from him and I watched as my parents would shake their heads and talk in hushed voices not knowing what to do. While I didn't know who I was or what I was going to be, some where I knew I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to be that girl, the girl that put my parents through that again.

That first year in a new town with new friends and trying to be a new me, probably impacted my life more then I realize. The year was a bit of a blurr, lots of half memories...boxes of notes and note books filled with hearts and boys names that I would keep hidden beneath my school books. It wasn't until the following year that I actually started on the slippery slope that is "going out".

From the beginning

Life of an average, middle class American girl.

My parents moved my brother and I from mid-sized city to small town USA in 1993, I was 12 and not at all happy about it. I was going from a school with over 1000 students and more hallways and stairwells then I could count to one with 300 students, 2 hallways and and 2 sets of stairs. I was leaving my best friends, the girls I'd been in school with since Kindergarten. Yes, there was that time that Kelly told the boy I liked just how cute I thought he was and when he laughed she rehashed every embarrassing detail for the whole class to hear. And okay, there was that time that we got caught drinking Mad Dog on the way home from school. My best friend at school did make fun of my hair, my clothes, my boobs...or lack there of...but that's what friends did, right? At any rate, I had no choice, I was moving. My schemes of taking down the for sale sign in front of our house and refusing to clean my room for showings didn't work. I was leaving my big house on the corner in the neighborhood I knew like the back of my hand for places unknown, in to a house that didn't even have a McDonald's near by.

I sat down the first day of 7th grade feeling nervous and scared of all these new people with their matching clothes, right down to their socks, perfect hair and friends they've known since birth. How would I ever fit in, sporting my thrift store clothes, curly red hair with big bangs and fake nails. Why oh why did I wear the fake nails?

As I sat there that wishing I could crawl under the table and hide, 3 boys came over to introduce themselves. I could feel my face turn bright red and I secretly damned my pale skin and Irish background for giving me away. I choked out my name and answered their questions of where I moved from and what class I had next. I found out later that Bryan, Adam and Chad were three of the most popular boys in school. I, being the new girl, merited their attention that morning. I was sort of like a freak on display at the circus. In a school this small, new kids were a big deal. That was essentially the most contact I ever had with those 3 and while at times maybe it made me feel inadequate, I was never really meant for the popular crowd. I, simply put, wasn't that girl.

I somehow made it through the day, although the fake nails were not so lucky. As each hour would pass, I'd chew off yet another piece of plastic. By the end of the day I was hiding my hands in my lap and beneath my books to keep from anyone commenting on the bits of pink still stuck to my real nails with super glue.

At the end of the day I got on the bus, the only time in my life I'd had to ride a bus from school, and headed "down town". Down town really isn't much, it consists of a library, post office, car dealership, ice cream stand and a few other stores along the tree lined street. Yes, one street. You see, we hadn't moved into our new house yet so each morning my dad would drive the 30 minutes from our old house to our new school and drop us off. He would then turn and drive 45 minutes in the opposite direction to work. Each day after school we'd get dropped off at the library with our food money in hand and wait the 3 hours until my dad would come get us after work. We did this for 3 weeks, 3 very long weeks.

My brother was 16 and cursed this new town even more then I did. He clashed even more then I did, with his baggy bright orange pants to 3 sizes too big shirt. At his old school, he would have just blended in, but here, he was a 5' 5" 16 year old boy with bright red hair. He was quickly nicknamed Chilly Willy, something he did not take kindly to. We rehashed our first days, him plotting how to get out of school the next day and me just hoping to survive un-noticed.

What I didn't know is that on that first day of school in that small town I cursed my parents for moving me to, I would meet some of the greatest girls I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. They changed my life and looking back 16 years later, I wouldn't change anything that happened.
This is our story, the parts I can remember and retell without incriminating us too much. The good, the bad and the ugly, from the beginning.