So there’s quite a few of you who want to know what I was like before Cody came along. (My mom and dad are somewhere laughing so hard they can’t focus on their laptop screens. HI MOM! HI DAD!)
Truth be told?
I was trouble with a capital T.
We’ll just start at 15, because that’s when things started to get really ugly.
I started drinking at 14. WHOO! DID I START DRINKING. I maintained a 3.8 in high school and never dropped off the Honors List. I was in the National Honors Society, a cheerleader, Secretary of the Drama Club and in Dance Company. I knew if I kept up with my school work my mom, teachers and what friends I had wouldn’t have much proof that my behavior had gone off the deep end. (Hi mom! Again, SORRY.) But I drank any chance I had. And then came the boys. Boys, boys everywhere.
I got my first job at a restaurant and there is where I met the first big detour of my life. We’ll call him, Bart.
Bart was tall, handsome and much older. Bart and I were always together. Bart and I were going to get married! (oy, teenage brains) Bart and I went to every school dance together and eventually we ended up working together at another restaurant. Around the end of Junior Year, just after turning 17, I had really started to rub my mom the wrong way and one night she said,
“You can start obeying my rules or you can find another place to live.”
I packed a bag. Left, and never turned back.
I lived with Bart for a while until I found two roommates and the scariest little apartment in the world. It looked like a brothel, you think I’m kidding?
I’m not.
Brothel.
Things started to get ugly with Bart, I realized my new found freedom and realized I could now get away with a whole lot more now that I didn’t have parents watching out for me. I enrolled in my senior year of high school as an independent minor and worked my tail off to finish high school and worked nearly 30 hours a week so I could pay bills. (I didn’t do a very good job BTW.)
By the end of first semester I was a very heavy drinker.
After high school I moved in with different roommates and continued on with my destructive behavior. Boys, booze and a new pastime, drugs. I was becoming more and more irresponsible, more and more out of control. More and more dependent on chemicals and flammable liquid to get me from day to day.
Laced throughout this entire mess was a boy named Patrick. Yes, that’s his real name. Just hearing it, typing it, reading it or saying it makes my stomach sick after almost eight years. Patrick was the worst thing I ever did to myself. He was the only one that got away with breaking my heart. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder what my life would have been like without Patrick. Would I be were I am? Probably not. Would I still be wounded? Yes, just not by him. Cody knows about Patrick. Cody knows the inexplicable mark Patrick has left on my heart and my mind. Patrick was bad news. In every way. But I was smitten. And I was burned, bad.
Patrick, wherever you are in this life, I should hate you. But I don’t. AND I DON’T KNOW WHY. But I want to. I want to forget you. Please, find some way to let me be. I wish that were possible.
……………………..
Huh, wasn’t expecting that.
Curse you NaBloPoMo.
Well, anyway. After Patrick it was all just booze boys booze drugs a few tattoos and more booze until that phone call to the boy from Halloween night in 2000 that changed the course of my life forever. (FOREVER I SAY!)
making unbreakable - formerly moosh in indy. 
Now I know, we are sisters from another mister…
You and I are very similar.
LikeLike
These are the kinds of posts that NaBloPoMo were created. The ones that let us get to know a writer better than any other. I’m glad you came out the other side and met someone that made you want a better life.
LikeLike
WOW! It sounds like you and I are so much alike too! I drank, moved out in high school, had a crapy boyfriend that broke my heart just like that. That was fun to read, I felt like I was reading my story. Thanks for sharing!
LikeLike
Wow – who would have every thought? Thanks for sharing that story – this is going to be a GREAT Nov. Have a good one.
LikeLike
yes…looking forward to the rest of november!
isn’t life crazy…
LikeLike
Wow we are had VERY simular lifes, wow, i wont go into details but mine was a TAD worse haha, glad we both meet the men of our dreams and they made us change our way!
LikeLike
Wow. Thanks for sharing that!! I moved out at 17, too, trying to do full-time school and work. I did much better with the work than the school. I wouldn’t say I was ever a real heavy drinker, but I did my share (and a few others’ shares) of drugs. Sometimes good people have to go through a lot of bad things before they get set straight. 😀
PS – Love the story of meeting Cody..I love that you asked HIM out, I never had that kind of nerve. And I can’t wait to hear the rest!!
LikeLike
Thanks so much for this story. I can’t wait to hear the rest.
LikeLike
WOW! November is going to be AWESOME!!! Love the story, and I loved hearing how you and Cody met. Great stuff!
LikeLike
Interesting story, and I appreciate your willingness to share (especially the photographic evidence, which most people would have torched).
But what’s going to save you from law-school widowhood? What sort of phone call will THAT take?
LikeLike
The photos really tell the story. The brothel ones are, by far, the best. You were such a devil!
LikeLike
Okay very similar stories you and I have. When my parents said us or him, I chose him. March of Senior year. And we lived together for awhile, then married, then divorced. All in a span of 4 years. Life has a weird way of working out though, despite it all, thank goodness. Can’t wait to read more!
LikeLike
Man, sitting here reading this was hard, only because I wonder how hard this was for you to go through again. I have sat with you and heard it in real time, just…WOW! I love you so much. SO utterly thankful YOU asked out Radio Shack man…for if not, then where would I be? BFFless. Hugs. I heart NOBLOPOMO!
LikeLike
Wow, considering where you are now in your life, is it hard to look back on all that?
LikeLike
You try and not have preconceived notions about someone, but it’s hard. You think nice, Mormon girl, stay at home Mom, wife of a future lawyer. You have ideas of how that person grew up and how she came to be. And then you read this and you think, wow. I’m completely wrong. It doesn’t change how I think of you and your blog (love it). It just helps me to understand more of who you are.
LikeLike
What Teri said. And I love all the pictures!
LikeLike
It looks like many of us have alot in common! Thanks for sharing your story. When I drove home from my first date with my return missionary I cried all the way because I know he was the one and I had met someone very different from all the other boys I had been dating (getting drunk with at parties). Thanks again for telling your story with all of us. Moosh is very lucky to have you as a Mom! I look forward to the future with my kids because I feel like in my short life I have been through enough to help them when they stumble. Sorry so long. I am just glad I finally came out of hiding.
LikeLike
I think it’s great that you can share all of this with your readers. It’s a very interesting story and I look forward to hearing the rest of it!
LikeLike
Holy crap!! I would have never guessed.
LikeLike
This was my first post of yours that I’ve read… interesting. Am glad you shared, as I too have a “sordid” past. Maybe one day I’ll go into it? Maybe not. I think I’ll jus t sit and enjoy my new, better life! ha. Thanks again for sharing.. off to read more!
LikeLike
Casey, babe, you know I’m so relieved to know there are others out there like me. The first one to touch your heart is hard to forget, no matter how bad it was.
LikeLike
Wow-wee. Amazing! I can’t wait to hear the next chapter in the story.
LikeLike
It’s both sucky and comforting to know that other people have a Patrick.
LikeLike
When do we get to see the tats?
LikeLike
I’m so happy I didn’t see this until today (after you’d already continued on with the story) because I? COULD NOT HAVE WAITED TO FIND OUT HOW THIS STORY CONTINUED!
LikeLike
i’m telling you, kindred spirits…
drinking, boys, tattoos….i did refrain from the drugs (and miraculously even cigs)
hell, “Friend’s” first name is even Patrick…and let me just say, ” Just hearing it, typing it, reading it or saying it makes my stomach sick… Patrick was the worst thing I ever did to myself…Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder what my life would have been like without Patrick. Would I be were I am? Probably not.” seriously…i think you read my friggin mind…well, i guess you actually had ESP and read my thoughts before i thought them…
p.s. when you blogsit, please don’t mention him…i’d seriously hate to end up in the hospital
LikeLike
You bad.
No wonder you don’t want to go to Las Vegas with me. Or New Orleans.
I just now read this. I feel like I’ve been offering drinks to an alcoholic.
LikeLike
i\’ve enjoyed some of the readings on this site keep it up
LikeLike