My Place : Anna, Texas I never imagined

I have wanted to write forever and have not given myself the time. It has been months and I have started many times but with packing moving and unpacking and working all the while time seems to escape me.  Today I just have to stop to be grateful for the place that I have found, the place I am in. There are so many things to be said to be shared to be kept secret.  Things that I never imagined, feelings I don't even understand.  I am still surrounded by boxes, there are pictures still to hang and there is a peace that I never imagined I would have.

I would visit other places looking for such a place, looking for a place to make me whole a place to make me feel complete, to make me feel like i belonged anywhere anywhere , and I have found that a few places and I often wondered well wow this feeling is here, is this  where I am meant to be ??

I found it in Colorado and thought that maybe one day that might be my place.  The things that I feel there my soft place to fall, my forever people even on my most annoying days, the place I am welcomed with all my weirdness and embraced. The place where I can laugh and cry and just be.  I love that place but its the people. Those are the people that made that place.  And I love them more than I love almost anything but being there is not my place because its my soft place my place to go when my heart needs to rest when my world is spinning, there everything stops and I get to be.  I can, cry and laugh and be quiet, I have space there.  I talk about people holding space and those amazing people that I love there hold space for me and I can not even begin to tell you all that means with words.

I found a place while I was in washing DC.  I felt whole I felt understood I felt listened to.  I felt pieces of me that I didn't know were there.  I again felt cared for and the people there made room for me.  I was welcomed with such open arms. My deepest darkest secrets were there and yet you would never know it.  I was given the gentlest kindness in the tears of others, and the softest touch to my check, that I will cherish forever.   I was given time, I was given safety I was given pieces of myself back.  Those were forever people, people that hold a place for me,  I in some crazy way touched a piece of their heart and they touched mine and that is the things that life is made from.  Those are the things that make a person whole.

The two places are places that I fit, that I belong, that I cherish but they aren't mine.  I would have been happy in those places,  oh so happy but the problem would be that I need my own space.  These places have people that hold space for me, that give me just what I need but I have to be able to find that on my own in my very own place.  If I went to those places, there would be a part of me that would want to hide in the safety and not shine in the light.  Oh I am not even sure that this makes sense only it so does!  I would be that person wanting others to fix the broken pieces to heal this wounded heart to care when there is no one else.  But really none of that can happen when you can't stand on your own two feet and do the things that need to be done.  Its just about a year ago that I was asked to leave a place that I thought was a safe place and my heart was broken.  People were mean,  people ignored, people pretended that everything was my fault. People wanted less than for me, and I coudln't understand when they knew my dreams.  It was a conversation feeling so less than, so unimportant, so uncared for, so thrown away and my forever person said what do you want ?  And I had an answer in the same breath.  I knew what I wanted I knew what I needed to do and I made it happen.  It felt more real than anything I could ever hope for.  And for the first time in I can't tell you how long I stood up for myself my family and we found the perfect house in my very own place :

Anna, Texas   

I have lost oh so many friends, or those that I truly thought were friends but I have gained so much more than I ever imagined.  This place far away was mine.  Everything about it was perfect and true and honest.  I was home, my home.  There were times I would cry my self to sleep hoping that I was doing the right thing, times I would sit in the back yard screaming at the trees, times I would sit , just sit.  I did what was right for me,  and it made a difference.  I mattered, what I needed and what I wanted mattered.  This was a place where there were no bad memories, there was no trauma here,  there was no violence, no hurt, no pain, no past, no flashbacks of houses that haunt my heart. Nope, this little city had my heart.  Here in this little town was me all graduated with a degree, had a job that I loved with my whole heart and for the first time in forever I did what was the best thing for me and Vincent and Mariska.  This was my place.  And a year ago I never imagined that I would have left that place to find even more amazing things.  Like my very own house my very own mortgage,  WOW.  I write that and fight tears.  I never imagined in a million years.  I would ever be writing sitting in my very own house where everything is mine.  No one can ever tell me that I am not wanted, that I am a burden, that I don't belong.  This place is mine and those that have loved and supported me are welcomed with open arms.  This place has more love than you can possibly imagine.  I have seen the darkest of dark days.  But today I am seeing the brightest of the bright.  I still wake up every day and look down the stairs amazed and in total disbelief I have fought to be where I am my entire life.  I have fought through school to do what I was meant to do; for that perfect job for the right place and the right people.  And I have found so much, I have found my own place.  And I hope that my own place will be that safe place for others.  I hope this will be a house that holds hope and holds space for others at just the right moment.  My place was always something so very far away , that I only imagined existed, something that I thought was only in my dreams.  But I am not dreaming its here.  It's here in Anna.  And I am sure that there are many more great things to come and amazing kind people to meet.  My heart is happy.  

I heart your heart. 

ALWAYS

Off the Record

So I am not sure where to begin really.  My heart is sad and I want to be proud and think wow I did this and look where I am things are ok ! But I don't I look at it and think, I am proud of myself. I think  wow, My hair, glad it was a good hair day but man I talk to much with my hands,  and cry oh my goodness I am such a cry baby.  I watch in awe of Tami and Jaime. They speak so well and so clear. They are speakers and do it so well. Me, I think oh my goodness I am such a mess, there were to many ugly cries going on.   And it all comes back, and I can remember getting home from that first report and hearing this song on in my car. I cried all the way home not remembering how I got there. Then I got home and stood there in my room, crying thinking  what in the world have I just done.  The room was spinning and I felt oh so small was I doing the right thing, With out a doubt I knew that I was but at what cost to myself.  I had no clue.

Jewel:  Hands

I got the email late Friday night from Val sending the link and   I froze.  I was terrified of seeing my story,  I was terrified of how I would see myself.  Emotions went flying everywhere and nowhere,   literally I froze,  things flooding my head,  the pictures of being little, my father, wearing his shirt, that look of innocence on my face,  it was real and maybe more real than it had ever been.  It stopped everything in its tracks and all I really wanted to do was go to DC and get a hug from Val and Neil.  I wanted to be in that hotel room and feel the power that I did that day with my story.  Those people in that room Jim, Val and Neil, MJ were literally holding me up, they were holding my heart in their hands.  I wanted more than anything just to be back in that room feeling so understood and supported.  Those people are my people because they get it,  they understand .  And I didn't watch the preview until later.  I went to bed nightmares every second, around 3 am I got up and watched a few minutes of it, and there was a feeling of numbness and I couldn't watch it all at once.  I was scared to watch,    these people were so amazing Tami was so well spoken and so strong,  Jaime, how he spoke,  you wanted to listen to him and hear what he had to say.  Me I watched but was in another space.  I went back to bed, not sleeping really, tossing and turning and watching a little at a time, bits and pieces.  I was between the nightmares, and awake.  I looked at my phone and there was a missed call from Val and a message, I am one that answers right away and yet I was still frozen. And another call, saying that she was worried about me and wanted to make sure that I was ok, I felt like she had my heart.  I was grateful, once again I was back on earth.  I listened to her message over and over and finally took a minute and answered her telling her how much that I loved her that it was amazing that I was a huge crybaby.  So much of me wanted to apologize,  I was the messy cry baby not strong and proud.

I was helping my mom pack, all day and just stayed busy, I want to apologize that I wasn't more, more proper, more I don't know better spoken that I felt like  , well I don't know really I am trying to figure out the feelings and I am not sure that I have a clue.  When you have grown up the way that I did, and then meet people like Val and Neil people who hear you and listen with their whole heart, who look at you and see past the hurt to really hold your heart I can not in words even tell you what that means.  When you are on your own from the time that your 5, with only a few sticking around to see you, truly see you it means more than words.  It means EVERYTHING.  I didn't get that until I was in my thirties, that's a long time to be alone, and when someone reaches out to you when you feel so awful you hold on for dear life.

When you see a part of your life in black and white like that, its all there right in front of you, and you can't turn away.  I can't turn away from those pictures, I can't pretend that this is for everyone else.  A part of this has to be for me.  To recover to heal, to find my voice in all that has happened to me.  Val helped give me my voice,  I see Off The Record and I think oh my goodness there are so many things to do, there are so many places that I need to visit there are so many words that I still need to speak, and I want to do more.  There is a part of me that wants to share it with everyone one who was there who helped me who listened Det plemmons, I am not sure what I would have done with out him, he was never doubtful just showed me the utmost kindness, Sam Schoenfeld who understood my need to protect and   wanted the same.  To people like Neil who fight for people like me, who see the injustice and want to make things different.  I feel like he saw the depth of the pain that day, and standing in front of that hotel, him touching my face and holding me, that is a moment that gave me years of safety that I never felt before.  People like Val who in going through her own hell wouldn't let it go and wanted to make it different for others.  Who reached out to me as a nobody and wanted to hear my story.  When I first emailed her her first words to me were how can I help ?  WHAT, how can you help, she didn't even know me but yet she saw my heart. you just by speaking by giving me a voice by listeneing you have helped beyond words.    She is a woman so strong and brave, and I long to be all the things that I se in her.  She is everything honest and true.  Oh I love these people.

I could't wait to see the end result and when it came to be I was terrified.  Its out there I can not deny the impact.  I can be ever so grateful for all those that have helped but I also have to hold my own heart and maybe that is the part I have been missing.  I am just so very sad in the documentary and I don't like that part.  I don't want to be sad, I don't want to be affected so maybe this is the next step.  This is out there a part of my life that I can't get back that I can do over, but that I can choice today to have a voice about and to make a difference for others.

I am sure there is a long road ahead of me,  I want things to change I want detectives to be different I want the system to change and I need to be a part of that, I want to be a part of that making things different.  I can't forget myself.  When I did this all those years ago I forgot about me , it wasn't important.  Today I have to be important and continue to make a difference if I feel that dread, and shame the rest of my life I will never find the things that I truly long for.  I have a feeling there is going to be a flood when those feelings come.  I am scared, terrified but I have a few forever people that are never going away and for them, they are my world, they are making things better for me and for so many others like me.

At this point, its not about everyone else , its about me and I am not comfortable in that place, but I have to if I am ever going achieve the dreams I hold in my head.  I have to if I am ever going to let go of that sad that I hold so tight.

Oh Goodness these people, I heart your heart.  I miss you more than words. 

My Person, 

The song I listened to on repeat while going through the entire court process, I feel like they help me, they were my snow on the sahara, they were there when I had nothing.  I will forever love them,  and I look forward to their safety, their loving arms, and ultimate kindness again. I heart your heart. 

 

A day of Miracles

This day is sometimes hard, often confusing and always brings many questions, tears, heartache and joy.  I look at my children and there is a peace, they are true joy in my life, they are my miracles of August 22, 2003. I can tell you that I started the day as many others. Just another day, I write that and it doesn't fit, it was just another day but to me this day changed EVERYTHING.Its a day that will affect my life, and the lives of my children forever. Because in 2003 I just wanted to be normal more than I wanted anything. I thought I was going to do normal things and for once be a normal girl.  I had no idea he had other plans.    This year on this day I have everything that I ever wanted and more and yet there is still a pain in my heart and I am not sure what to do with it. So on this day this year I am going to be grateful.

Today I woke up not really thinking about the day it was the first day of seventh grade!! Wow how crazy is that.  The kids were up early and  were ready to go they may not admit it but they were more than excited that school was starting again.  Today is an anniversary for me that people don't want to hear about, talk about or  even acknowledge.  Some years that has been really hard.  There are no cards no calls to make sure that I am doing ok. No one checks, its just me and this day.  This is an anniversary that isn't important to them.  But it is to me, this is my day of Miracles.

  So today Monday August 22,2016  I will be in my class, I will be loving life as a teacher,  my first year as a real teacher, totally certified in every way. My mom dropped the kids off at school, so I could make it to work by 7 and meet my kids at school. I hoped  that it is everything that Vincent and Mariska thought it would be; this first day.  I will beg for that first day of school photo, not believing its the start of seventh grade.   I loved hearing all about their day, friends that were in their classes, who they ate lunch with, the teachers they had.  They have an amazing math teacher this year from the Bahamas and he has an accent and the kids just love that. They were in need of a really good teacher and they got many this year I am more than excited for them.  Vincent is playing his game on the x-box his man time before dinner, I used to think it was crazy but he needs those few minutes of down time before dinner. Mariska is on you tube looking up dinner ideas and desserts that she wants to make.  Me I am here. Writing, grateful for the day that I had.  Thinking of my miracles. My heart is full, I am getting ready to make dinner, the kids will sit at the bar and again tell me all about their day and their teachers and things that they might need for the year. While dinner is cooking we will look over all the paperwork, I will sign and sign and sign some more.  We will eat dinner together watch some crazy reality TV I am sure, and we will laugh.  I will say goodnight give them a hug and a kiss grateful that they had the most amazing first day of seventh grade! Wow how did that all happen so fast.  I will clean the kitchen, fix the pillows on the couch, line up all of the channel changers on the coffee table making everything just right. I will check all the locks for the hundredth time, I will look around the house making sure that everything is in its place.  Practically perfect.  I will crawl into bed and be more than grateful that the day was full and wonderful and I might cry a little because my heart is still a little broken on this day every year. But I will smile at my special  miracles and know everything will be ok.  Someday. Today was a great day, a more than awesome great day. My job is amazing, I love the people that I work with,  my kids are extraordinary, my house is perfect and today even today was perfect .

I heart your heart . 

And so it goes

Things happen when you least expect it too. And so it goes.   Last night the nightmares began only last night they were about Bella.  I was happy and laughing people were there friends were there,  I was going crazy looking for pictures, pictures of the kids I think how they have grown and changed.  It was over a few days I think.  I was happy but there was a sad,  and then someone came into my room and sat on my bed, and they put two little outfits on the bed and asked whose are these?  And the dread, the shock, the oh my goodness, what do I do now hits. And I sat there on the bed unable to produce any words.  Tears streamed down my face and I said I can't I just can't and I left the room,  this person was kind and caring and everything perfect but I just couldn't.  I always say that I want people to speak about her yet this was my chance and I couldn't.  I didn't have the words,  couldn't explain the feelings.  So many little details running through my head,  I wish that I could have truly experienced something like this.  Someone giving me the time, someone wanting to know about her.  I just never did.

The entire nightmare,  I was running and yet when someone came there were no words and I spent the rest of the dream knowing that this is what I wanted and I didn't know how.  I don't know how to say the words I don't know how to sit with it.  And I finally called and asked if we could meet and talk, and it was everything perfect only I woke up before any words are spoken, the story of my life.

So many words need to be spoken and yet, I am quiet.  There are not people to share with.  There are not many people willing to stay.  Someday, I have to believe that someone someday will be all that I hope that can listen and still stay.  That can understand those days when there are no words.  They can understand those days when there are only tears.  That can share the joy on the days my heart smiles.  Yes someone someday for all of my days.

               I HEART YOUR HEART

10 7 5

So I heard this this morning and how telling that it is.  So I think that I am going to try. I mean really should it be so difficult, well yes I do believe that it is more difficult than it looks.

10 life defining moments .

7 choices that I have made

5 people that have made a huge impact on who I am.

I can't put it in one post that would be more of a book so I will split them up and lets see what happens.

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Defining Moments , OK so there are 11 that's OK right :)

1.  Praying at 5 to die, because you didn't want to wake up and endure another day.

2.  The night that I couldn't stop crying, and woke up my father.

3.  The night that I woke up and had to hold his cross.

4. The moment that I knew no one was going to help me , I was on my own

5.  Albert killed my tadpoles

6.  Pressing charges /Det Plemmons

7.   Testifying for Angela

8. Charles

9. My children

10. James holding my hand

11.  James coming for my graduation

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7 Choices that I have made

1. To continue with school

2.  To keep fighting , always

3. To prosecute Bob

4. To be a mom

5. To go to DC, participate in a documentary about going through the court system

6. Continue counseling

7. Allowing my mother back in my life

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5 most influential people

1. Bob

2. Albert

3. Det Plemmons / Sam

4. James

5. Valerie and Neil


So here is the short list , more to come.    My life how crazy unbelievable it has been.

I NEED constant fixing

Yea this I heard this and it was like a light bulb went off, I do I so do, I need constant fixing and I can not even tell you how hard that is to acknowledge to even write down.  I want to be OK, I want to not be affected, I want things to be just what they are and not remind me of other things.  I want to be some kind of normal, and I am not sure what that is but I know that I have a picture in my head of what it looks like.  It means not seeing the things of my past.  It means no more flashbacks.  It means not being scared all the time. It means that my past isn't always there.  Because each and every day it is ,  its in my head all the time no matter what I do.  I have really good awesome days, and there are hours when my past isn't an issue when it is not affecting my daily life but then BAM it hits me hard and I want to curl up in a ball. I want someone to cover me protect me and keep me safe, I am an adult woman and that is just something that doesn't work. I don't want to have those moments anymore.  I don't want to have to go to counseling the rest of my life,  I have found a few really good ones but then there have been others, that were not so kind.  Others that have hurt my heart and I pay the price, there have been those involved in church make comments about keeping my legs closed !!!!! EXCUSE me , you have no idea.  People that have said well i made my bed so lie in it, when I was talking about how tired that I was being a mom and trying to do everything. What !!!!!  So I need to find someone that is going to stay that won't leave me in this incredibly hard work, because I know for sure that I can not do it on my own.  I know for sure that I do not want to do this on my own but I also know the kind of person that it takes to stay. And there are a few and I am thinking I need to hold on to them with all that I have, because I am little unsteady and I need help .  I need to be carried sometimes be held, because I am not as strong as I often pretend to be, really.  I am just doing what I have to do,  Surviving.   So in this life of mine I need strong people that can understand that a lot has happened in this life , I have survived it all and that is kind of amazing so every now and then just hold on to me,  just hear,  just be with me.  Hold on to me, I need that so very much.  So I am not sure how to just accept the fact that I am going to need constant fixing, its more than sad. And how do I expect people to stay , I can't.  Because I was taking with someone who truly gets it she gets it all and we said how people have no idea, they have no clue and that is really hard in this life.  How does a person go through being mostly misunderstood, who and how do people like me connect with.  I know that not everyone is going to understand my journey,  or where I am coming from or where I have been, and even the smallest acceptance would make a difference.  But I am most often not accepted not valued not looked at as someone that matters whose feelings are important. Am I sometimes fragile yes, but there are so many things for me to share.  I have a feeling I am going to spend my life in this place people coming and going,  and honestly most just go so I have to hold on to those that have decided to stay.   For those I am truly grateful.

x ambassadors: Unsteady

If you choose to stay I am grateful. 

I heart your heart.

Friends Far and away

For some time this has been on m mind. And I look through face book and think yea, that is someone else's friend, oh yea that's her friend, that's his friend that is "THEIR" friend  and that is something pretty recent.  I look at some of the relationships or lack of and I think why and how come , people get busy, I get left and that is just the way that it goes. I wonder if it  goes that way because they were never really my friends to begin with they were other peoples friends ?!?   I have begun to delete some of them because I am not one to pretend,  I am me. Strange crazy passionate, heart broken me, always in repair!   At this point in my life I want my own friends, people that I can connect with, people that can see my passion and not look at me like I have 12 heads. People that see me. People that hear me.  I think all of this became so clear a few months ago when my favorites came to town.  There was a dinner for my favorite people, and I had decided it wasn't good for my heart to go,  not that I didn't want to see my favorites but that I didn't belong there those people were not my friends those people do not check in to see how I am or know what is happening in my life, they are other peoples friends.  And for too long I have believed that those other peoples friends were mine,  but really they were never mine.  Some of those people that I have called my friends were not they were actually other people's friends,  and I can not pretend when I am the one who has had my heart broken.

As an example when I moved out of mothers house, people showed up helped me moved they asked how I was they were more than helpful, they moved my furniture, they were there.  I believed that those people wanted the best for me that they were my friends.  When they would come to the house there was a cordial hello, but there was no connection to me, and I thought it a little strange but that was just the way that it was.  I never heard from them seeing how I was, people were not there for me,  many of those people I don't remember the last contact that we had.    As the time came to move into my own home a little over 2 years later, there was no help there was no connection there was nothing, just silence and I realized that those people were only there for someone else and not for me.  I was crushed but that is the way that it was, and I saw things a little clearer, no one called to see if I was ok, if there was anything that they could do because I was not their friend. I was alone, and out of the blue a guardian angel sent me a message and I was helped to get movers.  Because I mattered because, they knew what it was like moving as a single mom.  Such a blessing, that I will forever be more than grateful for.  I was thought of,  I was a thought, and I cried and cried I wasn't alone.

There are church people that I once  did bible study with  then I was forgotten, I didn't belong with those people they write bible studies and I question it all.  Not my people, I never fit there, I once thought that I did. People I once had coffee with I was forgotten, and I have reached out I did, I tried to keep the connection but a person can't keep a connection when they are the only one fighting.  It truly becomes exhausting, and not worth it.   I am not sure if there was ever a connection in the first place.  Of coarse I think there is something terribly wrong with me,  because I would ask, I literally spoke the words," is there something wrong with me ?"  Why am I so different ?  The answer was always the same no not at all everyone loves you, they talk about you and a smile comes to their face.  That is puzzling, if those things are true then why am I mostly alone in this world?

I know I have to face it, I don't do friends very well, childhood was spent as far away from people as possible they were hurtful and dangerous so for a second imagine that being your foundation. There was no childhood best friend,  no one to do school with , to share things.  Come on I spent lunch in high school hiding in the library,   So maybe I view friendships different,  I don't hang around just to have someone there, if I call you a friend I would jump in front of a barreling train for you, that is who I am.  I do not say that I love you lightly. I love with my entire heart, probably to a fault at times.  And at this point I am expecting the same thing from others.

Believe me I know that not everyone can be your friend, some personalities and people just are not meant to get along, I know that but I will not for the sake of saying I have friends pretend to be something that I am not.  I will never forget when one woman that I truly admire, who is a favorite said to me well not everyone can be your best friend, I heard that on repeat in my head! At the time it was like a knife through my heart, I was never asking for best friends I was asking not to be forgotten. Even today that moment has been stuck like gorilla glue in my mind.  I don't want others to have to pretend to be there.  Either be there or don't, but don't you dare pretend to be there, and be something that you are not.  DO NOT do that to someone like me who values friendship like family, like forever people.  I guess those people were just not meant for me.

Today there are true friendships in my life.  The people that I work with are amazing and I am crazy me and we support and really care for each other.  We sometimes get on each others nerves, but we laugh with one another and want to make sure that we are ok. We support each other and it all gets done. There are my favorites in Colorado that provide safety and protection and a listening ear anytime that I need it.  I am sure I receive more than I could ever give them,  its a back and forth and I am sure that they were one of the first true friends that I had in my adult life.  And the people that I met, while filming in DC, those people have a caring those people hold my heart,  they make sure that I am ok, they have an understanding that goes beyond any explanation.  I have known them a short time, but feel like they are soul people.  They may be far away but they are forever so close in my thoughts.  They fought for me, when I wasn't sure that I had any of my own fight left. I can even say that on Facebook I have found a few people that I have never even met that get me that understand that have the same kind of compassion for others that I have, that have survived the unimaginable that still love people and they have a love of life that only you can understand when death has been at your door.  I am sure to meet some of these people, I know they are there and everyday I send them good thought and I heart their heart in this crazy world that we live in! I even think I found people at the church I was going too, these were amazing people, true people I just feel l that right now they are on one side of the grand canyon and I am on the  other,  I long to be on the other side close to them, and am working on the ladder but its just not long enough yet.   I am struggling to get to the place where they are, to fit in and be a part and I just am not sure how I fit yet.

I think in all of this I am learning that I value people differently, I am not one that needs thousands, I need a few close that care, that understand .  Would I like more, absolutely,  I wish there was more constant in my everyday,  but I am working on that,  I usually don't have a clue what in the world I am doing,  but when I say that you are my friend oh I can not even tell you how I carry and worry about your heart.  Maybe the best friends come when things have been so bad and you were so alone and I know exactly what that feels like and I never want any of my friends to ever have to experience that feeling ever ever.  To my friends,  I can not even begin to tell you how grateful that I am for you and what you meant to my heart. How much that I love you.  There just are not any words yet in any language for you to understand .  I am more than grateful for each one of you, for commenting on my crazy posts, for just letting me know that you are there.  For reaching out to me because reaching out is not something I do well, I would never want to be a pest !!!  If you are my friend know how I heart your heart, with all that I am.

Enya : one by one 

Much love, So much LOVE I heart your heart.