how i named my blog

i saw someone else's post about how they named their blog, then a friend of mine renamed her blog (with the help of some bloggy friends) and it came to me...a post about how i came up with the name. the story may be long, and cover many years of my life, but i think it will be somewhat interesting. you may learn things you didn't know about me, and things you may have wished i kept a secret, but my history is part of me. it doesn't define me, but it shaped who i am and what i hold dear.

when i decided to start this blog, i tried to think of something witty to call it. being that i am not humorously inclined, i failed. we had just had a 10 year high school reunion, and i thought "hmmm, what did most people think when they saw me?". to understand where i am coming from, you must know how i was.
when i was 13, my parents went through a nasty divorce. my mom actually left my dad 3 weeks before my birthday. it was a pretty tough time for me. it left me a little unsure of myself. ok, who am i kidding, i was way unsure of myself. i was shy to begin with, but changing schools made it worse. i had a mom that thought school should teach her children to put condoms on bananas and that high school was for "experimenting". it didn't matter if that was drugs, or alcohol, or sex. i was always a good student. that never changed. even after i started smoking pot my sophmore year, or when i started doing some stronger drugs my junior year. i never tried meth, or coke or heroin. i did try pot, lsd, hash, well, and some pot laced with stronger stuff. i used them pretty regularly on weekends, and my junior year, when a friend had a car accident and died, i started using them more often. in fact, i smoked pot everyday from march through may. i couldn't handle not being stoned. it is pretty sad to think about how i felt so out of control. the summer between junior and senior year i met my hubby. we both had moderate drug issues. i decided, a month into senior year, i was going to get clean. no more drugs for me. well, i wasn't perfect, but i was doing better. it amazed me how blue the sky was and how green the grass was. i felt like a hazy mist had lifted from my eyes. i was totally clean by december.
now let me back up a little. when i met the hubby, we became "physical" within the first couple of weeks. i don't know how serious we were about our relationship. well, i know i wasn't all that serious. i was planning on going away to college. i didn't want some majorly serious relationship messing that up. he was a really nice guy, but he wasn't going anywhere. he was 19, he didn't go to college, and was working at a convenience store. so i was pretty guarded with my emotions. flash forward to december. in december, i missed my period. no big deal, i had friends who missed theirs pretty often. just because i was like clockwork all the time, didn't mean anything to me. then january came, and still no period. i decided to take a pregnancy test, just to show myself i wasn't pregnant. well, no such luck. i was. i was 17 years old, a senior in high school, and pregnant by a guy i had known for roughly 6 months. yeah, every parents' dream for their child. i had to tell my parents, my teachers, the school nurse, school administration, my friends, my boyfriend, his family, his friends...yeah, it still hurts to think about.
now, i still had several months left of school. i had decisions to make about the fate of my baby and myself. abortion was never a factor. i never believed in it, and getting pregnant at 17 didn't change that. adoption was a possibility, but i wasn't ready to look at that. i felt lost. not to mention the kids at school who said things like "you should give it up or have an abortion because you'd make a crappy mom". really positive and uplifting things like that. not all the kids, just a select few. a select few that i had been close to up until that moment...and then distanced myself from pretty quickly. i also had some shining angels that made it ok. my friends joe, molly, jeremy, and nike made me feel like i was the same person. they didn't treat me any differently.
now, here i am, 11+ years later, with 5 kids, a great husband, and a life i never would have thought possible. i went to college before and after alex was born, but it only lasted a semester. i wanted to focus on being a mom. my hubby asked me to marry him on my 18th birthday (30 days before the baby was born) and we were married the following may. life fell into place. i can honestly say, i haven't wanted to do any drugs since i gave them up. when i became a mom, all that was in my past. those wonderful friends fell away, but i still love each and every one of them for what they did for me. i don't think they even realized how much it meant to me.
and that is why i gave my blog this name...because "who'd of thought" my life would turn out like this!