The Criminal's Daughter

Chapter 9: My Battles In Life

I think about the stuff I endured in my life, which has been crazy. You probably want to know how I got out of it. Unfortunately, I haven't reached that end of the story yet, but I'm getting there. There were times I felt like giving up on all the childhood myths and fairytales. I stopped thinking there were no such thing as soulmates, no signs, no happily ever after. For a while I lost myself and felt like I didn't get enough love as a child. Probably why I ended up loving the wrong people but me. I have always had a sick sense ever since I was a child, my grandmother said I had a "Old Soul". I couldn't break free from my terrible childhood because I was a child. But there were times I remember how my sick sense or God protecting me from bad situations has truly changed my life. There was one time I was playing with my friend at a playground near my house. It was around dusk and we had been there for about an hour when we both stopped and immediately sprinted back to my house without saying a word to each other. Turns out we had both had the same dark, terrible feeling in our gut and knew we had to get out of there. I have always had those feelings. The next day, the cops were there, something or someone had killed a bunch of animals, heads were laying around where we were sitting.

We had television in the house, my brother and I would watch it Saturday morning cartoons and watch movies and sort of see or at least get the idea that not everyone lived like this. Television is full of happy middle-class families. And we wanted to get out of there. So, one day my brother and I packed our backpacks up with a change of clothes and some food and grabbed a roll of money we found in my dad's stash when everyone was sleeping. We got on our bicycles and rode into the woods and made a fort to live in. My mom had been looking for us, but we were on the outskirts of town. For a while we were worried someone would come looking for us but it didn't happen. Eventually I did call my mom from the pay phone, and she was angry, but it was clear she was worried and just happy we were alive. We didn't talk much more than that, she just said, "I didn't tell your father", probably for fear he would beat us.

I watched my mother miss out on her life from being hurt by those who were supposed to love her. All those could have been's became her sacrifice. Going through pain, broke some chains in every chapter of my life. In my late forties, I've realized that every chapter of my life, now I know what will be good for my happy ever after. I took some lefts and rights, now I know who I am and what I want and don't want in life.

God gave me strength to find all my dreams. I overcame all the disasters in my life. No one is ever going to hold me back from what God wants me to become.