About Me
My journey started when I was a very young child. At a younge age I experienced and learned about tragedy, loss, fear, dissapointment, death and dispair. I grew up in a family of fourteen children. WHAT?!!! No, that is not a typo...fourteen. I was the second youngest in the family which had its pros but plenty more cons than anything. My father died when I was five years old from cancer and my mother was left to pick up the pieces. It seems uncomprehendable to say that at the age of 5 my life changed forever, but that is exactly what happened.
We were poor and my mother had to work three or four jobs at a time to provide. I was raised by my older siblings and at the age of nine I was in charge of myself and my younger brother who was six years younger than I. Now if you look back and say....well her father died when she was five so how does she have a brother that is six years younger...well....my mother was pregnant with my brother when my father passed away....TRAGIC I know. At this point in my life I had no one, when my father died, so did my mother. She was not present in the home and I had to rely on my older siblings for comfort which was rarely provided.
Fast forward seven years and I am a forgotten, broken, hurt 16 year old girl. At this point in my life my family has fallen to pieces. My brothers are in and out of jail and rehab, my sisters are on trial for different crimes, and I am walking through my childhood home carrying my nieces as a S.W.A.T. team raids my home. I see my mother and little brother handcuffed on the floor at gun point. Up to this point this was my normal life. TRAGIC, TURMOIL, LOSS and FEAR. Some of you may think...."are you kidding? This has to be something out of a movie"...NOPE.
At this moment I decided I wanted something different for my life. Now all of us know that change is not easy, it is not easy on the person changing and it is definately NOT easy on the people around the change. To say the least my family resisted the change and I attempted to end my own life. In my mind my family was never going to let me go and my only way out was death. MORBID...but that is how powerful outside influence can be and make you feel like they have control over your choices. With the help of a handful of people I was able to escape the life I had known and could start to build a new me on my own. The five amazing life lessons I learned at a younge age that built the foundation of the next set of tragic events were:
1. Life Is Not Fair
2. You are who you want to be, not who made you
3. You have to work hard for what you want in life
4. Do NOT LET ANYONE tear you down
5. Good things are worth fighting for
Fast forward four more years and I am marrying the most amazing person I have ever met, he has been known to say, "he saved me", I chuckle at this...slow nod and mock him. The truth is I made the choice to save myself, my husband and his family provided the support and love I needed to feel "safe". So I will allow him to take some credit on this one. Jump forward 10 months and we have a beautiful daughter. Life is looking AMAZING!!!
1. I am married to an amazing man
2. I have a beautiful daughter
3. I am taking a break from school, working part time in my future field
Here we are going about life thinking life is great, we built a great relationship and now we are starting a family. OH MY GOSH....how did I GET HERE...ME!! ME....GOD SAVED ME!!! I did not know what I did but God thought I was special enough to be saved from my situation...I was feeling blessed. Then my daughter was a week old and the bottom fell out AGAIN!
My husband came home early one day from work and surprised...I asked, "what are you doing home so early"....stomach drop here.....he had been laid off and was done that day. HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?!! Me again...haven't I paid enough??? I was angry and scared. I called my work and said I was coming back to work early and explained the situation. The day I returned to work I was called into my boss's office and told I was also being laid off....stomach drop here..HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?!!!
We moved out of our rental home and into our friends extra bedroom, one car broke and we did not have money to fix it, our daughter was declined for medical insurance twice and we could not afford COBRA. Here we were 20 years old, a new baby, jobless!!! This is not the life I envisioned. I often wondered why God was punishing me?? What did I do so horribly wrong to deserve so much hardship? During the hard times I would tell myself that God was doing this to me because he was getting all of the tradegy out of my way in my young age so when I was older I could have an amazing life. (I think I was right :) )
After a raw emotional moment with some girlfriends, one girlfriend said she was reading this book that she thought I should read. The book was "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey. I was extremely resistant; even down right annoyed!! Here me and my husband are working multiple part time jobs while searching for full time work and making all our financial obligations...and you have the NERVE to offer me a book!!! I do not know where the anger came from or why I was so hesitant to a potential solution to a stressor. I got the book and read it in one night! LIFE CHANGER!!!
I was able to find a full time job in five months. My husband was not as fortunate, he found a full time job nine months after being laid off. I do not care who you are...this will cause tension and strife in a marriage. He and I built our relationship on trust and honesty. This was a turning point in our life where we could take a breath and evaluate what just happened in our life because up to this point it was a daily up-hill battle. We took a breath and at this point realized this is not living, this is surviving.
Financial stress creates relationship stress, kid stress creates relationship stress, which contributes to financial stress, which contributes to health stress.....do you see the pattern??? We were not going to live our life like this, I was DONE BEING AFRAID!!!! Anyone who has ever been laid off can relate to the feeling and fear I am about to describe. I was so constantly afraid and fearful of what was going to happen next, that I became a control freak. This is a miserable way to live. I realized that we did not have to live that way. I wanted freedom, security and peace.
I took that control back into my own hands!!! Step one...dammit, it felt amazing. I made the decision that I am in control. There were so many things I wanted to change and make better. Goal number one was financial security, that meant a budget and paying off any and all debt. That inspired me to better my health as I went from a size 12 to a size 4. That inspired me to be a better wife and repair the relationship with my husband so we read self-help relationship books. That inspired me to repair my self-esteem and I went back to college. Every positive change I made, inspired me to make another. The satisifcation I gained from making every change created confidence, courage, security and peace.
Of course bad things will happen in life. We are not in control of everything, however there is a feeling that comes over your body when you have a plan and you start to tell your life what to do. That is the feeling I aspire to give to others. This is a feeling everyone can have, it does not matter your gender, race, social class or any other way people would like to divide us, we all are meant to be happy, safe and secure.
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