I didn’t move much when I was growing up, just once. Although it was still hard switching schools, especially as a shy kid with anxiety. It sucked actually. But, a few weeks before I turned 19 my older brother died and for the next few years I truly did not care whether I lived or died. I was so depressed and the whole thing just zombified me for years. I was numb. At 21, the guy I was dating and I got one way bus tickets – headed South. We got on the Greyhound and went about 30 minutes to the next quick stop, and our drug dealers were there waiting for us – my ex owed them money, I didn’t know. The dealer’s girlfriend stole the tickets out of my back pocket. I had around $80 to get us half way there. Somehow or another we fell asleep on the bus, no one woke us up, and we woke up on an empty bus in a bus garage with nobody in sight! We walked to where some workers were, and someone gave us a ride to the nearest bus station. Our luggage was 4 hours ahead of us. At the next station, it was a Saturday night and my exes brother was wiring him money but Western Union didn’t open until Monday. We had no food and just change on us. Somehow, as I was sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette, I saw a worker pushing a rolling cart with a bunch of bags on it and I saw one of my bags and grabbed it up! And then, an angel in human form, a teacher from Bowling Green, Kentucky, bought our tickets for us for the rest of our trip. That was truly a blessing! And, next thing I knew I was planted in another world on 60 acres of soybean fields feeling quite homesick. I never even said goodbye to anyone when I left; I wasn’t in a great headspace or getting along the best with my family. Plus, we were dabbling in drugs and I was no way, no how going to tell them about it!

I got over the homesick feeling pretty quickly though, as we started off staying with an old boss of the exes. I remember one night for dinner they had ham loaf sandwiches, and I was trying so hard to be cordial and eat it but I couldn’t stomach it! I had soon found out I was pregnant (I was clean) and we shimmied between his brothers house and a few local hotels. One motel, the cheap one, was dirty, and they cooked what smelled like Indian food at night and it was a strong odor, and it was just gross. We had a car with no air conditioning and one window didn’t go down. Not exactly enjoyable in 110 degree heat! When we got the car, it was a stick shift and I didn’t know how to drive it at the time. It was completely ridiculous the way it happened. My ex took me to a parking lot one night to try and teach me and threw me to the wolves the next day. I had to drop him off at work the next morning by 7am and pray I could get around. I remember going maybe 20 mph uphill because I didn’t have it figured out yet and the guys in the next car over were looking at me all crazy. But, somehow I learned and actually enjoyed driving stick, unless I was in stop and go traffic as that is no fun.

Every Friday, I would have to load all of our belongings jam packed into the car until 4 or 5pm when my ex got paid again, because check-out was 11:00 AM and they just wouldn’t let us skate by until we that next check. And, wow, it was hard to only have a microwave, mini fridge and coffee maker. We lived on McDonald’s, pringles, cups of soup, and a local food bank that was at a local church.

We migrated to a nicer hotel that was really like a one bedroom apartment, it had a living room, bedroom, kitchenette, and a pool. I mean it was pretty awesome. But it was so expensive to stay weekly in a hotel like that. especially when you add it up and realize we were paying around $1600/month back in 2007. Let’s just say in 2006 I had a small 1 bedroom apartment over a 1 car garage for $285/mo! So, obviously it made it extremely difficult to save money. At my job, my boss told me we had a mandatory staff meeting one weekend morning, but being pregnant I felt sick and called her trying to call off. She told me I would lose my job if I didn’t show. I’m sure she laughed when she got off the phone! I walked in to a huge baby shower and was utterly speechless; it was the nicest thing a group of people had ever done for me. They had me all covered: I mean I got the stroller, the bassinet, the clothes, accessories, diapers, everything. What’s crazy is that a guy I worked with bought me a whole glider chair rocker with an ottoman for me and the baby. I knew he was a bit off but I didn’t think that much of it, and I don’t like saying murderers names, but the local police came into the restaurant one day and questioned him. I don’t even remember how he explained it but he must have been spooked because what they actually did was finally found him after he fled another Alabama city and came in questioning him about a disappearance of a college girl that was a re-opened cold case. He ended up taking off out of state, so we knew something was fishy. Years later we all found out he was found guilty of killing that poor college girl, and they did a 60 minutes episode on it all, and it was also discovered that he killed two family members as a 12 year old, and was in juvenile detention until I believe he was 21 years old. A freaking serial killer?! Too close for comfort! I worked at that restaurant for 5 years and loved it there. It’s still crazy to think about.

As I was approaching my due date, my family rounded up $1,000 to send to us to get us established in our own place so I didn’t have a baby in hotel, so we got a really nice double wide trailer on an acre plot of land. But, my ex still had a drug problem. He was making good money but I had just had a c-section and was recovering and he always needed ‘lunch money, gas money’- this, that, and the other. The very next month, the landlord’s wife came and spoke to me asking about our rent. My ex was supposed to pay it and didn’t so he lied to me about it. I couldn’t even count on him to pay the rent while I was recovering, and I was just sick about it. So, they had no choice but to kick us to the curb when my baby was 6 weeks old. We moved in with another old boss of my exes who lived on a horse farm, and was also a police officer of all things. It was horrible. I hate living with other people anyway but the wife was rude and not welcoming one bit. She made a comment under her breath about how I should have known Sunday was her laundry day when I tried doing laundry on a Sunday. Well, how am I supposed to know if you don’t tell me? It was misery. And I thought a ham loaf sandwich was bad? They made us their favorite meal, and I thought it was a joke, but it was cubed hashbrown potatoes, not cooked where they were crispy, but just thrown in a pot with a lot of broth and ground beef and a few other things to make this mushy, meaty soup. All of us ate that, choking it down looking at each other like- God help us! I know this police officer couldn’t have been that dumb to not have noticed my ex always seemingly out of money, or high. I think he just turned the other cheek, because my ex was making him a lot of money in his side business. I felt like I was questioning my own sanity like I know I cannot be the only one to see this in real time.

I guess I did luck out with living with a cop because it just so happened I got pulled over after dropping the ex off for work one day. I didn’t have a license at the time because they were suspended from 2006 from a D.U.I. When I left home it became a warrant because I never completed the community service. At the first restaurant I ever waitressed at, they put me behind the bar what seemed like when the clock stuck midnight on my 21st birthday. I got free drinks every night when cleaning up, so it was easy to be tipsy on my way home. It caught up with me when a friend asked me to go out, and it’s funny how shit like that happens. I wasn’t even wanting to go out so I literally left the house in red fuzzy slippers, I didn’t care. Yeah, well a few shots and few hours later I was doing the heel-to-toe in those big clunky furry red slippers at a gas station. What’s even worse is I blew a .08 roadside which was the lowest limit for a D.U.I. in my state, but when I got back to the station it was over double that! And I never saw the numbers, that was just what I was told, and very hard to believe. My lawyer even asked me if I took a few shots right before walking out the door, but I didn’t. I had to do a three day stay at a hotel and basically attend all day AA type of meetings. Even some of the people there left one night to get alcohol to bring back to their hotel. It’s ridiculous to me how much a joke the system is.

But back to me getting pulled over in the South, I was shaking life a leaf when I handed the police officer my non-driver identification card. I thought, ‘this is it.’ Turns out that cop was the partner to the one we were living with and he was talking to him on the radio and happily handed my card back to me and said I was free to go. My God I thought I was going to have a heart attack! So, when I say I left everything behind back home, I left it right where it was, messy and unfinished. A year or so later I had my toddler in the back of the car and went through a sobriety checkpoint and had no license or insurance and was so grateful the police officer let me go. He looked at my baby in the back seat and probably had some compassion. He let me go when my car should have been impounded. These are the things I look back on and I know how much of a hassle that would have been and additional charges I could have gotten for driving without a license, no insurance, and surely would have lost my car. I knew I couldn’t keep going on like that, especially being a mother now, so I called back home and transferred all my charges to the South and finished my community service at the Tennessee welcome center. I actually kind of liked it. Well, that community service was for a paraphernalia charge when I was smoking pot back in the day. I got lucky again when I called the department where the D.U.I. was at and the guy literally said to me, “well today’s your lucky day, I am going to cancel all the community service.” That guy must have gotten laid the night before or was in a seriously good mood because I got the benefit of that. See how God can work, even sometimes when you aren’t even doing the right thing?!

When Obama was in office and we got those stimulus checks, we moved yet again, but this time into our own little house, that was a cute, quaint little house one town over with a half circle driveway with stocky brick pillars on either side of it. But my ex wouldn’t stop with the drugs and alcohol. And, having a child now, I knew we would never have anything ever financially if I stayed with him. So I started stashing money aside. A co-worker told me that her aunt always said ‘a woman should always have her walking money.’ And, I did just that. I was folding 20s and hiding them very strategically in my makeup stuff. I mean like taping it to a mirror in my powder compact, and he found it and was angry! It was a huge fight. The sad part is I know he was hiding a lot more from me. But, I just had way too much pride to call my parents and ask them to come rescue me. I am not so sure they would’ve anyway. I figured I had gotten myself into this mess so I have to get myself out. Luckily, my job was so accommodating they let me keep an envelope in the safe and every night, I would stash $20-$60 bucks away and held it there until I needed it. At one point I had a storage unit but didn’t have the balls to move so I quit paying for it but I was determined to leave and I took a male boss with me to go buy a little cheap red hatchback car with only 67,000 miles in it for $500. What a steal, and I was used to the no air conditioning so I didn’t even care about that. I kept it at my friends house for two months, just waiting for me when I needed it. That same friend would kind of joke with me about coming to her house to stay.

I never like asking for help because I always feel so indebted to the person and I try to be as independent as I can. But I kept finding more and more drug paraphernalia with the ex and I got sick of it. “Hey, were you serious about coming to stay with you?” I asked her. She said yes. So that was all I needed to hear and the same day I packed up what I could and moved in with her. We took turns switching shifts and taking care of each other’s kids; my one and her three. I didn’t mind, she was charging me next to nothing so I was grateful just to be there. But it was 45 minutes to the job, and with no air conditioning..it sucked. I would even wash my work uniform in cold water, put it all on soaking wet and cold, and it was oh so uncomfortable!! But, after 45 minutes, I wasn’t having a heat stroke and my outfit was dry by the time I arrived at work. The worst part about that is that it was a German restaurant and I dressed as a St. Pauli girl, so when I say uniform I meant the entire layered getup: wet pantyhose, a dirndl dress, and a white frilly blouse. Oh my. I would have drove that car until the wheels fell off, but it just so happened I was driving one day and a bag of manure was laying in the road- so I literally hit a pile of shit and it made me run into a tree. I remember the lady came out of her house with the strongest southern accent ever to make sure I was ok. Thank God I wasn’t going fast, but that car was done for.

We lived there for about six months and then me and my baby got our own apartment in a cute, safe little town; it was an upstairs apartment with a balcony. I loved it there so much and that town is still home to me. Everyone was so nice, I even had befriended a few of my child’s daycare teachers and they would come over and eat dinner with us. I had some very old people living next door. I told them my name was Lyndsay but they were hard of hearing, and after a while I stopped correcting them, so to them I was Lisa. They even got me a cake that said “Thanks for being a good neighbor Lisa,” on it. The old lady, we called her granny. She was in her 90s. I remember asking her what was the secret to living to that age and she said she took fish oil every day. I kept in touch with her when I moved back home years later and went down to visit her years after that even, but we lost touch and I know she has since passed now.

I loved Tennessee so much I told my mom I was never coming back. The sunshine, lack of snow, and the laid back, slower way of living was everything I needed to improve my mood. Plus I never really listened to country music and I loved it. I felt like I fit in more too. It was 2007 when we went down there, and I became the head waitress at my job, worked my ass off until the day before I had both of my kids. I always liked the Head Chef of the restaurant, and I knew of him, but after I became single we started dating and he is a good father and who my first child calls dad. And I respect him for that. But, I was on birth control and I swear I got pregnant the second time we had sex, I could have swore I felt it somehow. I was so happy with him and we had a work/life balance that worked, got along together, and was even looking at a home to buy. But then I got news about another woman. And, welp…what can I say…I walked into my job, cool as a cucumber, politely asked for my key back, cried my eyes out to my boss about why I was leaving (It was now 2012) and she listened to every word with sadness for me and I took off for an almost 10 hour drive back home.

So, myself with 2 kids in tow now, found a townhouse for a few years in a small nice little town. I had then met a man I worked with and we got real serious real fast, and moved in with each other after only six months. We needed to expand since the kids were growing, so we moved to the city. That relationship started off golden but he became abusive and controlling about one and a half years in. Me and the kiddos ended up going to the domestic violence shelter for three months. Thank God they liked it there and weren’t scarred from being there. At one point they actually asked to go back, so that’s how appreciative I am of that place because it wasn’t some slop hole they threw us into. Every mother and child(ren) had their own bedroom, some with bathrooms and there was a miniature clothing area that was racks of clothes we could have if we needed, there was a dining room that was more of banquet looking room since so many people stayed there, as well as a huge living room area and an enormous kitchen with about 3 refrigerators and 4 stoves for all the families. They helped me get my house now and we have stable ever since. The girls working there were awesome and they had people to help get protective orders. It was just sad to me that some of the women were almost going there to punish their boyfriend because they would still be on the phone talking to them like they are about to be back. As for me, no way. I might put up and put up for so long but when I am at my breaking point, I am gone with the wind, never to be seen or heard from again. I don’t enjoy living in the concrete jungle but it was the best place I could find that didn’t charge extra for a dog, had a fenced in yard, garage and a basement that wasn’t dark and creepy but actually useable, plus it had a little area between my house and garage that was my patio set up that was nestled and felt a little more private for me, plus we needed the room and the low price but as I said in my first post, there is mold in this home and I need to figure out how to get out of here before it causes us more health problems. It’s been about ten years and that’s the most stable we have been, but I could have gone without the crimes so closeby.

I am leaning on GOD to provide, because I have been striving so much lately trying to expand my knowledge and learn different things. I don’t know about you, but after all those moves, I got maybe one or two left in me and the last place I end up, is where I am dying. It’s too exhausting. The whole process is so tiring when you truly don’t feel like a house is a home, or just the feeling of being unstable.

That’s why I enjoy the simple things in life. Because once you’ve been through difficult things, everything else becomes easier. I appreciate the sunshine, rainbows, a butterfly, a good joke, the smell of the rain. Because I am so grateful to have a roof over my head and I thank God for carrying us through. But, as I am rebuilding my life, I am taking baby steps daily to figure out God’s plan for me. Even after many failures, the key is just to never give up. Because when you give up you stop growing, and I refuse to do that. I know I have a lot of potential to change my life and I am ready to do exactly that and God has placed that hunger in my spirit.

Reflection Qustion: What is a period in your life that was incredibly trying, unsteady, or stressful? How did you fix it? You can reply, I would love to read them!