Peace Out, Fear In: My Story Part 1

I’m gonna back up.

My mom sweetly told me yesterday after I’d posted my first post in 5 years that my story is nothing to be ashamed of. That it needs to be told. In my heart, looking back at all this, if my story can save just one human from going through what I went through, then it will all have been worth it. So I’m not going to do what I was planning...I’m not going to skip the details of the nitty gritty.

I mentioned in my last post, that I moved in with a boy I’d know for 7 days. And of course I will be changing names to keep identities safe. But this is my story. This is my testimony.

You can actually go back through my blog posts, like I just did yesterday. I was alive, full of hope, gungho on waiting for God’s timing...so when did that stop? Well it stopped in Disney actually, at least a little bit of it did. When I moved back to Oklahoma, I was on the edge of a cliff. I was tired, bitter from a lot of damage done by working for Disney, and I was questioning what would happen upon my return to my small town.

But a boy entered my life. Not the guy I moved in with. We will call this boy Charlie. Charlie and I met through our moms actually. They’d known each other in their early childhood years, and Charlie found my blog. He read stories and from that, he expressed interest in meeting me. My mom told me about Charlie, and I was thrilled to pieces that I was being noticed. He was living in a different state, but I agreed to talk with Charlie. We messaged back and forth on Facebook, and soon became attached at the hip. It was cute at first, but then it became obsessive. Grabbing my phone the second it pinged. Not wanting to be away from my phone for any reason whatsoever. Skyping into the wee hours of the morning. Getting defensive about ANY questioning of Charlie.

My parents recognized some behaviors that caused concern. My mom has always been pretty black and white with me, which as a 21 year old at the time, rubbed me the wrong way. Anything she said that didn’t match up with my feelings immediately sent me into defensive mode. I grew to resent anything, and I mean anything, that she said. If she said go right, I went left. If she wanted pizza, I wanted Chinese. I think any mother daughter duo goes through a period where they don’t get along. But we were Rocky Balboa and that Russian. She was trying to keep her daughter away from the road of destruction, I was struggling with wanting to be an adult. Moving back in with my parents after being on my own for a year was the hardest thing to deal with, and it just added to the tension.

Well one day, I was Skyping with Charlie when my parents came home from a long day at work. My mom went to do a chore of some kind, laundry or dishes or something..and she asked me for help. I sighed and got fussy because I was on Skype with my boyfriend, ugh Mom!!!! Our tempers both went from zero to Code Red, danger danger! Things escalated, and I ended up leaving. Permanently.

That was when I cut ties. I was done. I was so beyond angry, and that anger turned into full blown hatred. So I moved out, and went to Kansas. That was when I got in my car wreck I mention in an earlier post. After my car wreck I went to the state Charlie was living in to attend a formal event. Charlie was awful. He was just a not nice person, but I was so determined to prove my parents wrong, I ignored every red flag that was thrown at me.

I continued  my relationship with Charlie. Since I couldn’t survive in Kansas, I didn’t have a car and I was pretty banged up from the wreck, I moved back in with my parents under the clear condition that I broke up with Charlie. I said okay, but I continued a relationship with Charlie anyways. Until eventually I realized I couldn’t stay with a man like him, he was just not the right man for me, and I didn’t want to spend forever with him. My mom was right about him, and I did eventually find that out in my own time. So I ended things with Charlie.

Another condition of living with my parents was to get a job. But I didn’t have a car so I would have to be able to walk to work from my dad’s office. I landed a job at a retail store, and started working there. That’s where I met Tanner. He was an employee at the same store, and he seemed genuinely nice. He waited with me at night to make sure I wasn’t alone while I waited for my Dad to pick me up. He didn’t constantly make lewd comments to me like every other male did that I worked with. He seemed normal. My parents even let me have him over for dinner. For a couple of days it seemed like everything would be okay.

Or so I thought.

My parents told me they were going to go away for the weekend. I would be alone in the house for the first time since I’d been there, a trial of if they could trust me or not. I was so excited, I really wanted to prove they could trust me again. Then Tanner texted me and said he was leaving town for the week and would really love to see me before he left. I told him that I’d like that too, but I couldn’t because my parents were away for the weekend. He said he could just come over real quick and leave, no big deal. I said no. He said “but I really want to see you”. I said no. He asked again, saying it would mean a lot, and they would never find out. I paused...then gave in. He came over, and while he was there, my parents came home.

My mom has always had a direct line to the Holy Spirit, and that night was no exception. They came back to what is probably every parent’s worst nightmare. They threw him out, and...well no one slept much that night. The next morning my parents and I sat outside and had the first honest conversation we’d had in a while. They told me the new conditions of living with them. No phone, no going out, no talking to boys at all, no being in the house by myself....and I knew I couldn’t abide by the rules. So they gave me a choice, you either pack a bag and we drop you off somewhere and that’s that. Or you go stay with relatives in another state. I was updating Tanner about what was happening. And that’s when he said it. “You can come live with me.” So I formulated my plan. Right then and there.

My relatives opened their home to me. They ministered to me. They tried to reach my already hardened heart. It was so blackened, nothing they said resonated with me. I planned it out, and found a window where I could run. Tanner drove all the way to their house, and I walked right out the door. I got inside his truck, and he sped off. I remember laughing. Throwing my head back hysterically laughing. I was free. Or at least what I thought was free. We made it back to his studio apartment, which reeked of boy smell. But I remember thinking “this is okay, I can survive here”.

I sent my parents an email to let them know I was alive. But I told them “I need to do this.” I needed to be on my own. I needed to walk this out. I just had no idea what that would mean. I returned to my job at the retail store, and my life continued on, fairly normally. I had four walls and a roof over my head, and a little money in my pocket. A nice enough guy. I didn’t love him. But I mean love was a fairy tale at that point. I threw that dream in the trash. True love wasn’t alive. This was life. I accepted it, and moved on. Then one day Tanner announced he was moving to South Carolina. I was invited to go, of course. I shrugged my shoulders and said “okay”. And then we left. Just like that.

I didn’t know I was walking through a door, and that God was the one holding it open. Carefully nudging and directing my path, even when I had tossed him aside.

I was free. Right?? Peace out, old life!! But at that moment, I let so much fear in.