my life; the way most dont see it as…

I fell in love with CA, although, I was only going to elementary school, I didn’t want to leave. Being the spoiled one and daddy’s little girl, I talked my way into staying with my 6^th brother ,Jared, with a family friend since my grandparents were busy working 24/7. Those bad months of living with the lady was horrible. She wasn’t nice and always took the money that our parents sent us and use it on her stuff; we were still selling cans and bottles and earned our own living. My brother, 17 at the time, worked at fast food restaurants and supported both of us. When he turned 18 we moved out. We lived in an apartment for a few months before my parents visited us for the first time in almost a year. They successfully opened a nail shop and was doing well. They bought a house in CA for my brother and I to live in. Then middle school kicked in for me. Sixth grade was a good year. Like most middle school kids, we were classified into the pop crowd, the nerds, the gamers, the losers, and the normal kids. I was just a normal kid and somehow had a “pop crowd” boy had a crush on me. His name was Roy. He was the one who had high school siblings and basically knew everyone. I didn’t like him like that but he was a great friend. We hung out a lot and got to know each other pretty well. He soon became my best friend. We hung out everyday since he lived on the same block as I did. I soon started to chill with his friends also. I became a pop crowd girl. He introduced me to his HS friends and I started to hang around them. I had no idea what kind of people they were but with such an innocent mind, rides to go to places, lunches off of school campus, and after school pick up in a cool car was the coolest thing a middle school kid can ask for.

My brother was way too busy with school, work, and voluntary work, he gave me 100% trust. I took most of it for granted. I was always out and never home. I always told Jared that I was at grandma’s house or my best friend, Val’s, house. I was out, at coffee shops, house parties, drug sessions , and long road trips. Then it came to one day, I was 12 at the time, and I met him, Anthony. He was a junior in HS. He flattered me in every way possible. Picked me up from my house and drove me to school, bought me lunch, and picked my up from school. He was always really nice and I thought he was the one for me. He acted different when we had people around though. I didn’t really care, at least he was nice to me. We weren’t officially together yet but I knew I was falling for him. One night when he was dropping me home, he asked me to be his girl. My heart stopped and I was in heaven. I said yeah and we kicked it off from there; March 22nd, 2000. It was really weird. I lost my virginity to him two weeks in the relationship and it wasn’t because I wanted to. I soon became a rebel. I moved out of the house and moved in with him and for the next two years of my life, I was doing drugs, school was whatever to me and I just didn’t care about nothing but him. His happiness was always my first priority. I loved him with all I had and I would have done anything in the world to make him happy. Then my life became a living nightmare when I was 15. His friends started to touch me in disrespectful ways, raped me, and told him about it. He seemed to never care and yet, it made him happy and he encouraged them to continue. For his happiness, I held everything in and went along with it all. I loved him. I stopped myself from drugs and just trying to pick up on school work and be somebody. It went on for almost a year when I found that I got pregnant from one of the rapes. I had an abortion. My family disowned me. They said I was a disgrace.

Now all I really had was him. Jared always snuck me extra cash and buy me things but he’d never stick around for long because my family would have killed him. Jared didn’t know nothing about how I was living. I always told him I was happy and that Anthony treated me really good. He didn’t know that I come home and literally sink into my own world of lies and fantasies. The only place in the world that I know I can find true happiness through my denials from reality. I worked at any place that hired me and supported him and myself. Out of the blue, he was really nice to me again on my 16^th birthday. He said he’s sorry for everything and none of it would happen again. I was foolish enough to believe him. For the next couple months, he was really nice; never really home but was really nice when he was. Around August, I found out that I was pregnant. He seemed to be excited at first but once I reached 5 months and could no longer have any thoughts of an abortion, in which never crossed my mind, he totally changed. He was back to his old self; cold, mean, and heartless. I soon found out that he was cheating on me with Val, the person who I would die for any day. She was the only reason why he was nice to me again, she told him to be. She told him that guys were trying to get at me and that I might change my mind and break up with him. He was scared of me leaving him and decided to get me pregnant and made it look like he was ready to settle down and spend the rest of his life with me. The news devastated me and I sunk into depression.

My last months of pregnancy weren’t healthy at all. I had dramatic weight loss and I was constantly in tears and bad thoughts. Then labor comes. I had the worse of pain and had no one to help me. I drove myself to the emergency room, went through 23 hours of labor pain and on May 3^rd, 2005, Jarron Quach was brought into the world. The next day was my birthday and I spent it in the hospital with my son. Anthony had no idea where we were and we couldn’t get a hold of him. Then worse comes to worse, I had a lot of difficulties after Jarron’s birth and doctors tested me and diagnosed me with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart disease. I came home and he could care less about our son. I started to lose my feeling for him. He was no longer the most important person in my life, I would not die for him any day, and he don’t deserve half the love I gave him. My son became my everything. I worked hard in school, although repeating grades was not fun at all, I did my best. I wanted the best of everything for my son and it made me so happy when I know I can do it. Time passed and I no longer loved him. I stayed with him because I wanted my son to have a daddy figure and never thought that I would be capable of raising him on my own even though Anthony had no contributions in raising our son. We basically lived our own lives for a good year and a half before the changing point in my life that literally ended all the misery and pain. On December 28^th, 2006, Anthony got in a car accident and died at the scene. I didn’t love him no more but that was almost 7 years that I spent with him. One third of my life was with him. I had my first heart stop when I heard the news. I was hospitalized but I recovered quick because I knew I had to be there at his funeral. I went with his family to pick out his casket, bought him the new shoes he wanted and just gave him everything he wanted. I cried and sobbed for days. That was when I contacted my family and told them everything. They flew on the next plane to come see me. I had a family again. They hated Anthony and refused to attend the funeral but they did it for me. I didn’t shed one tear at his funeral because I believed that he don’t deserve a drop of my tears. Closing the casket was the most painful thing to see. I couldn’t let go of it and I was literally jumping into the casket. The walk to the burial site was morbid. His family sobbed the whole way, I was carrying my son and we were walking there in silence and happy moments came rushing back to me and I realized how much I really loved him. I searched deep down in my heart for that feeling again, but it wasn’t there. I knew at the moment that it was gone forever. Throwing my handful of dirt onto his casket was so hard to do because I know that once everyone’s done with their handfuls, he’d be six feet under the earth and that my son’s going to have to grow up without a daddy.

After his death, I learned to put on a hard front. I was always the biggest bitch everywhere and I never showed emotions. I blocked myself off from love, always fearing that I will end up with someone like Anthony. I had to stay strong for both myself and my son. My family became a great help after the whole incident. They were there for me through everything. When I needed a shoulder to cry on or when I just simply needed some help with school and work. I don’t regret nothing that happened and I’m actually grateful for them cause they brought me here to where I am today. I mean, we all fail in life and it just allows you to learn a lesson in life. Understand this: you WILL fail. But failure is not fatal, as long as you recover from it. Everybody fails in life. We make mistakes in judgment; we become careless or selfish. Sometimes we just plainly blow it. These things happen. Your life will never be judged by the day of your greatest failure, but by the day after. What did you do next? What adjustments did you make in your game plan? If you learn from failure, you grow. If you become determined through failure, you succeed. If you are angered by failure, you’re motivated to change. If you rise from failure, you go on to greater things. And most importantly, never treat someone as a priority if you’re only an option to them. I’ve learned to be a happy person, no matter where it takes you. Be happy that you’re still here and never take a second for granted cause you’ll never know when your life is going to be cut short. However, all that is above this line is the past.

I’ve learned to love again and HE, Dan, taught me to love again. We haven’t met in person but I’m going to let my heart do the judgment and I hope he’s all that he had shown me. I’ve fallen in love with him and I really don’t ask for any in return. I’ve never loved anyone so truly and unconditionally and it’s just a great feeling. Due to my heart problems, I might not be able to live for much longer but I’m not afraid of death. I’ve had a good life and I know that there are people who had it worse. I’m happy to have found love again but it just hurts every part of my heart to know that when I die, he will have to go through the grief and pain of losing me. I care for him a lot and I really want to him to be the best he can ever be and know that I’m always right next to him through anything and everything.