Where did it start?

I cannot even begin to know when it all started or where it all began. How do you know for sure when no one really told you anything as a kid? Grown ups just keep it all to themselves. Totally get that now....hahaha. I understand now why parents shield their children from stuff. I don't necessarily tell my child everything about my past, but she certainly knows a lot of it. I think it is important for her to understand how my achievements are big to me even though they are not a big deal to others. I think she gets it, but I also know she is spoiled. Of course, it is easy to spoil her when I was nowhere near that growing up. Just having the basic necessity like a decent home and running water would have made me feel spoiled. 

I remember being at a friend's house in Magnolia, AR when the police first showed up. I felt the tension in the house earlier that day before they knocked on the door. The "Mom" of the house seemed stressed and was on the landline a lot in her bedroom. She didn't shut the door all the way so I could here some of it. The main part was that she definitely mad about something because she was yelling. I honestly do not know who she was talking to but I heard her say "You are not getting your kids back." Who could she be saying that to? Had to be my mom. Who else would that phrase apply to? 

I would say that is probably the first time I knew something was going on. I had no idea it would lead to all that followed after. I spent so many years feeling bad about my life, or embarrassed of the things that were happening. How it hurt to tell the other kids "I don't live with my mom." when they ask if they can come over to play. What do you say to the other kids? "I am not allowed to live with my parents." It was better to just say nothing. But I sit here today grateful it all happened as it did. Who knows what kind of person I would have been if I hadn't rode in the back of that police car or been placed in foster care. Who knows what kind of lessons I would be teaching my child if I had not seen the world through the events that transpired.

I don't see the cup as half full or half empty. I see it as not having a cup at all because I create my own outcomes. Sometimes I get down on myself and sometimes I shout to the world "I am so awesome!" That is what I have learned about life so far. It is full of ups and downs but everything that happens has something in it. Gosh it SUCKSSSS sometimes to go through it. To spend months not know what the hell is going on or what good could possibly come of it, but then... it does.

This is a picture of me in front of my second foster home in Camden, AR. We had just gotten back from my 6th grade graduation.