30 Days of Truth / Day 3

Day 3 - Something you have to forgive yourself for.

This is my second attempt at posting. My computer had issues and I lost the whole thing I had typed up. I used to have that happen all the time over at AOL...but never here at Blogger. It was very weird. Oh well.....I can't cry over it.......I just have to do it over.

I am finding this writing exercise is bringing so many things to the surface. Which makes it so difficult to pick just one thing out of my brain to write about.

But alas.....I will pull something out to write about.

Growing up it was installed in all the younger generation that you had to respect your elders. It was drilled into all the kids. I swear it would come time to leave grandma's house and it would take almost an hour to say "goodbye" to everyone. Because if you didn't say "goodbye" to someone you would hear about it later because someone would say something to my mother. I could have gone around the house and said "goodbye" to 40 people....but I would get condemned for the ONE person I missed. LOL!!! It was crazy growing up in my family....but it was never a dull moment. My family was so darn dysfunctional......I would love to write a book about it some day.

Well......I hit my teen years and my attitude took a nose dive. I was hanging with the wrong crowd. Doing things that were quite inappropriate. And to say I was disrespectful toward everyone would be an understatement. I started to smoke cigarettes. I experimented with alcohol a bit. I tried marijuana and didn't like it. I had sex wayyyyy before I should have. I did all of these things and put my family through hell.

I moved out when I was 18. I left home 5 months before graduation. A month before graduation I found out I was pregnant. A month after graduation I split with the boyfriend and went back home. I was in a pickle. My parents didn't know I was pregnant at first. I was home for about a week before it came out. We were sitting at the table and my mother said something like....well, at least you didn't get pregnant!! The color completely drained out of my face and my mother knew. My parents were furious with me. They wanted to crush the guy who got me pregnant. (This same guy is who I am married to today. Almost 20 years now!!)

Well.....here comes the part I have to forgive myself for. Well....for the reasons of this writing assignment...I have to forgive myself. But I asked God for forgiveness years ago.

I know that I was pregnant with twins. I didn't know until after the fact that I was pregnant with twins. I knew the gal that worked at the abortion clinic and she told me. For years I told people that I miscarried twins. Horrible of me to do, I know. But I did. But I was ashamed deep down at what I did. My parents forced me to get the abortion. They were Catholic. They told me I brought shame to them. They actually went to Georgia for a family reunion and told me that I had better not be pregnant when they came back from the reunion. Yeah......that actually happened. It was a horrible time in my life and it scarred me in such a way that I thought I would never recover. I spent a month inside the house and refused to go out anywhere. I finally got dragged out by friends and they were a blessing to me.

In September I got a job, I started going to Business School and was moving on with my life.

A few months later my husband came to the Bazaar of All Nations- where I worked. (This was a Mall of sorts) I worked in a restaurant at the Bazaar. We talked for a bit. We agreed that we needed to get together outside of my job and talk things through.

We ended up getting back together and have been together ever since. I got sick in December and was on antibiotics. I was also still smoking cigarettes. John asked me to marry him and we went away for the weekend to celebrate. I was on the pill. I wasn't supposed to get pregnant again for at least a year- according to my OB/GYN. Well....that weekend I got pregnant.

There's more to the story.....but I will leave that for another time.

We got married 9/14/91. Our son was born 9/16/91. That's what I call a shotgun wedding....LOL!!!!

I went several years with the guilt of having the abortion. I was young and very, very naive about things in the world. I don't remember the day I asked God for forgiveness....but I do remember this huge weight had lifted off of my shoulders.