How I got here - Part 1: In the Beginning

After reading The Happy Housewife's story on her blog I have been truly inspired. I have to keep fighting for my marriage.

In order for you to understand who I am and why I feel the way I feel today I have to start from the VERY beginning and then work up to my marriage.

My mother had me out of wedlock while in her early twenties. She vowed to never be married unless she could do so before I was two years old. Wouldn't you know she was married by the time I was two?

My father (the only man my mother has ever been married to) was/is a hard person to understand. He's a minister, but he has always had a dark side. He was abusive. Both physically and verbally.

Up until age fourteen my life was strange, but simple. I was always an outsider at school. At home there was always fighting and after the fighting we went to church. We were ALWAYS at church. I had a very spiritual/religious upbringing. We always said grace, always tithed, always read scripture and had prayer and we ALWAYS went to church.

The summer before I turned fourteen changed everything.  First my Papa died. Papa was everything. He was my father's stepdad, but he was my favorite person in the whole world. He was the only person I felt safe with. The only person who made me feel like I belonged. I loved him with all of me. As if this tragedy wasn't enough, my sperm donor emerged from thin air. Yes you read correctly. My parents sat me down and proceeded to tell me that the man who raised me as far back as I can remember wasn't the one who helped bring me into this world. Sperm donor wanted to visit me. Great! Seriously, great! What my parents didn't know was that I secretly dreamed of this day. Anywhere had to be better than home. I was tired of it all. Well, sperm donor came and went. Turned out his family was more interested in me than he was. I believe his exact words were "I don't want to cause any trouble." Are you effin kidding me? I just told you my father beats my mother and I (although my mother swears she was the only one abused...I was spanked) and verbally abuses us. You don't want to save your own flesh and blood?

The next few years were a mess. We moved from California to Texas to be closer to family and I began running away. First I ran to my bff's house. Big Mistake! That was the first place my parent's looked. Next I went to stay with my "boyfriend" at the time. LMAO...if I only knew what I knew now. I hardly knew him. We talked on the phone for hours every day, but he lived on the other side of town. Needless to say that didn't last long because we were from two different worlds. I was a bourgeoisie (see how it's spelled people...not bougie) girl from the suburbs and he was straight up hood in the heart of the ghetto. I had never experienced life this way before. No hot water, no central ac and heat, and no freaking food. I'll take the craziness for food. Finally my parents let me move in with my Nana.

Nana made things too easy for me though. I was fifteen by this time and changing everyday. I'd become fast because at my new school the boys loved me. I was thick with a voluptous rear end that I just learned was wonderful to black men. You have to understand I was never raised around more than a handful of black people. I also picked up shoplifting. I was tired of being an outsider and I was determined to do whatever it took to fit in. I skipped school and thought I was having the time of my life. Then I got caught shoplifting. My life came to a screeching hault because Nana was sending me back to live with my parents.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Texas to New York and Back Again

♥ SailorWifey