How I Became Me Chapter 28

The journey I have experienced in my last has been unforgettable and very educational. Being able to view your life, pick out the parts where you could have made better choices is a good tool to have because in order for you to face the future you must accept the past and erase any regrets. I know personally speaking I have come a long way and I can say that where I am, is far better than where I was. It was like I knew enough and then some; I just couldn’t act on the thoughts swarming around in my head. There is a true to being blessed with too much knowledge and life experience at such an early age in life. Though you see children are walking this earth as if they’ve been here before and you automatically say, “That child has an old soul.” I have adults tell me that my entire life and I really didn’t understand what they met. To me, being able to communicate effectively was important to me. I struggled I struggled with for most of my childhood. Every other word that required you tongue to curl and form words that began with “S” were pretty hard for me to do. I remember getting frustrated when I had so much I wanted to say but the words couldn’t seem to catch up with the speed my brain was processing the conversation. After getting tired of people calling me cute and how adorable they thought my thick tongue and gapped teeth were I decided to try to figure out how to perfect my speech. While my other brothers slept I would read aloud so that I could form my words and hide the “sssssss” sound that it made when I tried to talk. After doing that for about 3 years I was able to control my speech pattern. I was always so self-conscious about pronunciation that I would catch myself speaking the incorrect words before they left my lips. I had that routine down so well that I would actually start correcting other people when they mispronounced a word. People started thinking I was trying to be a smart ass, but they didn’t realize the hard work I put in to get my words heard and understood. While in school I was teased by the other kids because I was told I talked like a “white boy” because my words would come out very proper and accurate. So after all of my work trying to be able to communicate I was black balled for actually articulating my words and not talking in the slang that was becoming wide spread around school. I talked mostly with adults so when it came to school and friends I couldn’t hold a conversation with them because they weren’t on the conversation topics I was ready to share. A treat for me would be during the weekends when me and my mom would get up together, drink coffee and talk about any and everything. My mom and I had this relationship that was deeper than any friendship or even deeper than the relationship I had with my siblings. My mother gave me the greatest gift any child could receive from their parents, my mother gave me respect and validation. Whatever I had to say mattered to her and she valued my insight and my opinion on things that was going on in our lives. Those moments are cherished moments when I start to feel the sadness of her being gone. The most important thing I learned in life is that you must hold on to the good times but don’t try to look away from the bad ones. There is always a rhyme or reason to everything. Finding out the root to anything is possible if you just hold fast to what you’ve learned and apply to what you do in your current life. I pride myself on my ability to communicate and share my feelings in a way that leaves the other person absolutely informed on how I was feeling, what I was thinking, and what I wanted to convey to them. Chase and I had to learn to communicate with one another. I am very long winded talker and when a topic is really something close to my heart I can start talking and before I know it hours have passed. In the beginning it was me being the talkative one and now I sit back and take in Chase’s conversation. I can see such a drastic change in our relationship. Our moments together are humorous, loving, fun, deep, and real. I always wanted a relationship with someone that I could never get tired of but after my experiences I felt that it wasn’t possible. My past relationships proved me wrong if asked if I could stomach being under someone all the time. That soon changed once I met Chase and it hasn’t changed since we’ve been together. We both always say that as long as I know you are around I’m fine, but that actually isn’t the truth. If we are apart from each other too long, one of us will find a reason to grab the other’s attention to get them under us. Chase’s relationship with his ex-wife and his children has taken a 180 and it only seems to be getting better and better. When Chase and I moved out of Elm Side and into Beverly Glenn I finally broke down and told Chase how I felt about his past and how he treated his ex-wife. Chase: “She just keeps causing me more and more grief. No matter what I do she is always trying to take more and more from me. I left her the house, I left her a car, and everything in the house except for my catering items but she is still so bitter and angry.” Though Chase never attacked her character or blamed her for anything that went wrong I still noticed that he would always jump over the part in his past that led them to divorce and her to become the bitter woman she became. At times I would bite my tongue and just let him talk, then there were the times I would talk just to calm him and support him. The issue that became apparent to me was he never truthfully took accountability for his wrong doings and his bad decisions while in the marriage. After giving him a chance to vent and get things off of his chest I decided to intervene and share with him what I felt being that I was outside looking in. Though I loved him, I couldn’t necessarily take his side just because the only encounter I had with her was negative. I had to think objectively and rationally. Me: “Chase I have been listening to you talk about your past for as long as we’ve been together. I admit that I actually joined in and naturally I took your side because you are my boyfriend and that is what I will always do. However, being your partner means that when you are wrong I have to call you out on it. I congratulate you for not stooping to her level and trying to retaliate for what she did to you, but there is a huge piece of the puzzle that I feel you have overlooked and still overlook. When you married her you had suspicions that you were gay. I understand that you were raised in a Christian home and believe me, just because my family is dysfunctional, we still lived based on our parents religious beliefs. Homosexuality was not tolerated in my home either but when things changed and my parents realized that they had gay children in our family they never stopped loving us and didn’t try to change us. It wasn’t her fault that you had to suppress your true self. It was not her fault that you married her and began popping out children left and right. It was not her fault that after you married her you decided to start cheating on her with men. Since we’ve been together I have told you my feelings on men that do that to woman and don’t show any accountability for their actions and the damage it causes their children. Because I love you I didn’t try to judge you for your past actions but I still wanted to make you aware that you were and are dead wrong. You are upset because your kids aren’t speaking to you right now and honestly you should be hurt because your choices led you to this point in your life. You lied to her and you lied to them. I found disturbing that you could trace your past relationships with men based on the ages of your children, when you first said that I was so disgusted by you and didn’t know how to articulate my feelings about that without hurting yours. Now that we have come to understand one another better I feel you will understand what I say and take it in the sentiment I’m giving it. I feel you need to apologize to her. You need to take aside from everyone else and you need to apologize to her for cheating on her, for disrespecting your marriage, for putting her at risk with your poor choices, for making her think she found a man she would stay with for the rest of her life, and for destroying the family your children grew into. You took everything away from them and you are feeling guilty but you don’t truly understand what your choices and actions did to them. I am the first to admit that no child should come at their parent the way your sons have attacked you. You allowed them to not only disrespect you; you allowed them to say that they hated me and that you shouldn’t take up for me, which you then responded, “I’m not.” I have been angry at you for a while and I tried not to let it change our relationship but I would be foolish to ignore the elephant in the room. You need to make amends with her, you need to get your kids in check, but let them know you understand that it will be difficult to adapt to their new father, but you will not allow them to disrespect you, me, and our family. If I hear that you allowed them to call me out of my name, if you let them get away with disrespecting me when they don’t even know me, then you and I will have issues.” Chase remained quiet and I could see the wheels turning in his head as the information I just shared with him started to break through. The thing about loving someone is you have to be honest with them and at times the truth hurts worse. For me to keep supporting him despite the fact that his mistakes caused his life to be in the ruins it was in would have only hindered his growth, salted our relationship, and create a dysfunctional life for us in the near future. I had to not be selfish and I had to respect his ex-wife and their children. I knew what it meant to have a father cheat on your mother and neglect his children’s wellbeing. Though he was a good father as far as being there and not running out on them, but what he brought into their security that eventually destroyed their family was something that could no longer be ignored. Once of the major things I wanted him to understand was that his past is messing up our future. I was pegged the villain in a story I was not even a part of. I was hated for what I represented but not for actions that would warrant me that title. I was paying for his past mistakes and it stopped us from being happy and being able to live comfortably. Out of his guilt he signed away money that kept us struggling and losing things which eventually led us to live with Peggy and Hoyte. It was those decisions that I foresaw when our relationship started to feel the effects of the stress. Chase admitted that he agreed with everything I said and he decided to make what was once wrong right. His relationship with his ex is now one that shows their children that though they are no longer married there is still a partnership and still this unconditional love for them. Chase’s kids are growing fast and they crave his input on their decisions, they keep in contact with him, and they have the father/children relationship I know Chase wanted for them in the first place. Our relationship has been faced with ups, downs, setbacks, and then there appeared so many open doors, so many wonderful people that opened their lives to us. Though we experience the occasional stresses at work, we have created a home that is truly our sanctuary and place where the outside world cannot penetrate. Now that my heart has been lifted from years of holding pain in and trying to make right what I did not wrong I have come to the conclusion that I can’t handle it alone, when I spoke to people I always portrayed to them that I didn’t need help getting through my pain. As I mentioned before, I said so often that I convinced myself that it was true. I finally allowed my vulnerability to show and Chase jumped right in to ensure that we found the means to help me transition from then to now. My present state of mine has calmed, my heart has renewed, my optimism has returned and I am so ready to enter the world as the person I knew I could be, the person that my mom and dad knew, the person that made Rick proud, and the person that has found a love in someone that truly has cured my pain and has replenished my heart. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner than Chase and I cannot imagine life without him being in it. I find myself giving relationship advice to my friends and it feels so good to know that my story can help others, it is magnificent that GOD has stepped in, laid out a plan, and I am sticking to it. My life is no longer on auto pilot and I am very aware of what tomorrow holds because I have taken back the control I gave to everyone else. Getting approval, praise, and validation is appreciated but no longer needed. I feel my presence in my life and I recognize that I am deserving of the wonderful things life is giving me and the wonderful things I am doing in my life. I just recently signed up to become a mentor and to also become a child advocate. My dream of being a father is not out of reach, in fact it is so close I can already settle my life to prepare for the moment I am blessed with little angels that Chase and I will raise to become as wonderful of people as we are. “Life is only as good as you make it. A painting looks beautiful but if you aren’t the artist you won’t truly appreciate the process of picturing that image, choosing the colors, getting the supplies necessary, and most importantly, having the patience to see your creation become visible to not only you, but to the world.”