Before Chapter 4  Preface 

Before moving on to chapter four, there are a few things I felt I needed to address. It’s hard and weird to release a story that contain portions of other people’s lives as well. It is not just my story to tell. I want you to know that anything shared about people in my life that I still have a relationship with, I asked their permission. For example, I asked my mom, dad, stepdad, and little sister permission to write all of this out. Not that they have control over what I share but many of the things I am sharing is very personal to them as well and I just felt it was the respectful thing to do. I can assure you that If I have a relationship with them in any capacity and I am sharing something extremely personal that involves them, I have asked their permission to share. If they say no, I will change their name or not include the details at all, out of respect for them. If it’s about someone I don’t have a relationship with anymore, I will choose whether it’s necessary to change their name or not and if I choose to share their actual name, I won’t share their last name. I hope that makes sense to yall! I just want it to be known that I am not sharing such deep things without taking into consideration the feelings or privacy of others. With that being said, the things I want to share moving forward contain some pretty hard things about my parents and before sharing those things I want to share where I stand with my parents as of today. It would be unfair for me to stir up even righteous anger in any of my readers hearts for the decisions my parents have made before I share the redemptive side of the story. Therefore, this here is me touching on the redemption that has occurred since I was younger in an attempt for you to read further chapters with a bit of grace when it comes to my parents.

My mom: I love her with my whole heart. She is one of the dearest people in my life. We have been through just about everything together. It does not matter to me what she did when I was younger or what she’s doing now. She is my momma, and there is an undeniable connection I have with her that I don’t have with anyone else. I’m really bad at resenting people and that’s probably a good thing. I don’t hold grudges, therefore all that my mother chose to do years ago is long gone and forgiven. Do I think about it sometimes and does it make me sad or make me feel a tinge of pain? Of course. But, I just love her so. The amount of love I have for her gives me the ability to have unending grace for her. It wasn’t always that way but there was a point in time where my mom and I lost contact. For two years straight I had no idea whether she was dead or alive. Our last words to each other during that time weren’t pretty. We were fighting and then she went missing. I went to bed bawling many of nights wondering if she was laying her head down on concrete under a bridge somewhere or if she was even alive. It was miserable. So when she finally reached out to me and we reconnected, I extended every ounce of grace I had in the realization that no matter what anger or hurt she has caused me, living without her was far worse than anything she had ever done. I don’t want to release my story, which will inevitably put her in a bad light during some parts, and have my audience hate her. So this is my attempt to get you to view my mother with some grace, please. I love her. She is precious. She wasn’t and still isn’t’ perfect but my grace for her is unending so I beg you to also extend grace to her when reading the really hard things I will write about her in which she has given me permission to do.

My biological dad, Casey. At some point I’ll be opening up about him as well. Whatever I write about him, please know that now, my dad is the only parent that calls me weekly and tells me how proud of me his is. He always makes it known that he loves me and that I am the only treasure in his life. He made a ton of mistakes my entire life and we aren’t the closest. Our relationship is weird, but it isn’t rocky. He loves me and shows me love the best way he knows how and for that I am really grateful. There is a role that parents are supposed to play and no matter how independent we are, I believe we all desire for our parents to love us, accept us, approve of us, etc. Not all of us have the luxury of loving, approving parents, and we work through that and move on but most of us, to our core, desire that love from the ones that raised us. If there is one thing my biological dad gets right, it’s that. He calls me to tell me he loves me and is so proud of me. For that, I am so grateful. There are days that his words just really mean something deep. 

My stepdad, Richard. Our relationship has always been rocky, and it has continued to be that way. I struggle the most with him which I’ll explain throughout the chapters I release. Truly, we still don’t have the best relationship but if there is one thing that I have grown to understand about all three of my parents-it’s this. They are addicts. For many many years they were all addicted to hard drugs and alcohol. They are all doing much better now. Despite all three of them still smoking weed, none of them do meth anymore to my knowledge. But the brain-damage it caused in the three of them is irreversible, unfortunately. That might sound rude, but I don’t mean it that way. It is just the reality- scientifically speaking, years and years of drug and alcohol abuse changes the human brain. I would say my stepdad has been the most effected. He has some strange thought processes and anger issues. He can be really sweet when he wants to be but can also flip a switch rather fast. But, I just love him well when there is opportunity and put-up boundaries in place when there needs to be. Realizing that my parents don’t have the normal brain function that non-drug and alcohol abusers have, has given me an ability to understand their downfalls a little more. Some people would call that making excuses for them but to me, it’s not that. It’s realizing their reality and understanding the parts of them that I can’t change and loving them despite it. 

I hope this helps my audience to understand that although there were really rough parts to my childhood and even afterwards, there is redemption held within these relationships and grace to be had. I hope while some things that they chose will rightfully make you angry, that you can also understand that what I am sharing is in the past and we have all moved on with love and grace overshadowing it all.