Running Home

This is supposed to be my 9th grade post but it has grown into something more. Rather than dragging out my dirty laundry and sharing these next painful years, this will be my last post. There is also an issue of time; I am a Senior in college and started back this week-so no more fun time.

The way I choose to tell my high school years is not year by year.

I was a lost child during High School and I don't know why, but I had definitely lost my way. I grew out of the life that I should have been living. Writing about the years leading up to this time I can see where and how I broke down and how I should have changed and it has been painful.

I turned my back on my family and my beliefs and started a life with people I had no business being with. This lead to me being a pregnant Junior and very much alone. I had a beautiful baby boy, finished my Junior year, dropped out of High School, and got my G.E.D. Instead of a Senior year in high school, I had a Freshman year at a local community college which ultimately did very little to improve my decision making skills. I found myself once again with child while I still was one.

At 19, I had an infant, a toddler, I was the sole caretaker to a man, my young son's father, dying from Leukemia, and was taking care of his young boys as well. After he passed away my life tail spinned even more. I continued to make poor decisions, I engaged in unhealthy relationships, and I was taking my boys along for the ride. Of all the things I've done and all the choices I've made that it what I regret the most. They may be stronger for they've seen and done, but they shouldn't have to be.

I'm been married for almost 5 years. The marriage has had some crazy ups and horrible downs. But I think that we are all in a more stable place now. Through this marriage I have been able to find out more about who I am and what makes me work. I am fulfilled through my work at college and highly anticipate the job that will come with the completion of school. My boys are more amazing than I deserve and I don't know how they got that way--probably the village that has helped raised them.

I hope that this is a new chapter in my life, that I can use my past to strengthen me and not to hold me back. I hope that my children look at what I was and choose to be nothing like that. I hope I never forget the love from my family that got me to where I am today. But my biggest hope is that my heart will remain open to the changes God makes in me every day and that I remember that I am running home to Him and that I will run with the faith of a child.

The next year

8th grade! Big fish in a little pond!

Started the year with cute haircut, contact lenses, and no braces on my teeth. Life looked good.

I had some good classes that year.

US History with Mr. Jack Rushton, who very recently passed away. Mr. Rushton is really one of the reasons I want to be a teacher. The passion he felt for the subject washed over all of us--imagine a room of 8th graders fighting for the top grade in any class. He made us want to learn and that is a very hard thing indeed.

I also got to take advanced Home Economics which was a really big deal--this teacher had petitioned to teach this class to us because she liked us so much as seventh graders. I remember that Mr. Rushton came to class that day and made us all hush puppies and fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, all the while telling us stories about Elvis! We made Quillos- a quilt that folded up into a pouch and made a pillow! And that has been the extent of my sewing adventures. I figured I slip out of the  grind of the sewing world gracefully. I might still have that blanket around somewhere, but I probably lost it in a move. But more than anything, I remember a teacher who cared about us enough to give up her free time to take care of us.

And then there was English, not one of the good classes. Mrs. Brown, the teacher who only wanted to teach Drama but was made to teach English as well--or at least that's what her attitude said. I did learn in that class though. I learned the word juxtaposition that year and I still think of her when I read it. I learned that no matter how much I disliked Robert Frost that I could not memorize a Walt Whitman poem instead and expect to get a passing grade. I remember writing a short story where "and then I woke up" was the ending and thinking that I was a creative genius! Mrs. Brown didn't think so. But I did find that there was some kind of writer in me after I got a poem published in an anthology.

And then there were the other little things that made up the year. The not having many friends part. The feeling alone part. The classmate who's father the police officer was killed (I hadn't ever given much thought about parents being mortal). The field trip to the High School where I threw up all over the bus, and I was sitting in the front. Going to church and loving the people there who cared about me. A mother who gave me  more space and freedom than I can find to give my boys. Failing a 6 weeks of Math class cause I didn't do my homework.

And Oh My Stars, and am ever glad that I'm not there again!!

Hmmmm....

Here's the fun today. I'm sitting here trying to rite about the 7th grade and just this week, my oldest child started the 7th grade. I was hoping that going to his school, smelling the building, hearing the sounds would kick me back and I'd be able to write some amusing, funny, or even painful tale.
But it didn't work.
It's kinda like 7th grade didn't even happen.
I can't remember any teachers, I don't know what classes I took, or who I was friends with.
I can see the hallways of the school and even remember which part of the school all the 7th graders were in, but that's about it.
I do have dreams about being in those hallways. I finally quit having "stuck in high school dreams," but the hallways of 7th grade haunt my dreams. The usual, I'm sure-- don't know locker combination, can't find my classes, don't know the material on the tests.

I think that's the year we changed churches, from a Baptist church way across town to the cute little Methodist one right on the corner. I have lots of youth memories, but they really don't come into play until 9th/10th grade.

When I asked my mom about my seventh grade, she drew a blank too. So I think I'm going to believe that it was an ambiguous year with no big events and therefore has no reason to be blocking up my mind-I need the space for lots of other things anyway!