Starting Over

Today is my birthday. I'm 49. In a way, I guess you'd say I'm in the middle of my life.
Have you ever stopped in the middle of something and ask yourself, "How did I get here,"?
I've been doing that a lot lately. Wondering how did I let my life come to this. As a young girl I dreamed of being a dancer. Sadly I had no talent for dancing. Sing, I can do. Like an angel. Or so I've been told. But dance? No. I don't have two left feet. My whole body is left. The rhythm in my mind simply won't translate to my feet. So, I moved on, left that dream lying among the scattered pages of the scrapbook of my life.
I had other dreams to pursue. Dreams of love. Of passion. I've spent most of my life chasing those dreams. You might think by now I would have at least caught the tailwind of one or two. But no, it seems every time I ever came close, the scared little girl inside did something to sabotage the budding dream. "For every time someone has done me wrong there are probably five times I did it to myself." ( Brian)
Brian has an excellent post on sabotage. Apparently he, like myself, is an old hand at doing himself in. Being my own worst enemy is a talent I have down pat. I've used every means known to man. Drugs, alcohol, guilt, food, you name it I can probably tell you how I've used it to screw something up.
I had a therapist tell me once I do this because deep inside I don't think I deserve to be happy. This is most likely true. Of all my memories from my childhood, the one that stands out is the memory of my sister telling me over and over that I was a spoiled brat that everybody loved just because I was pretty. I hated being pretty. I hated that the person I loved and wanted to be my friend couldn't stand me. It didn't matter that other people made a big deal over me. The only person that mattered ignored me. I knew that meant I had to be bad. I didn't deserve all the attention. Those people didn't really care about "ME". All they cared about was that cute little girl with blue eyes and blond curls.
As a teenager I can remember hearing other girls talk about me behind my back. Teenagers can say the most hateful things. They hated me.
By college I found a way to handle the hurt. Drugs. When your stoned you don't feel the pain. It's amazing the feeling you get from coke. No not cola. Of course cola was good, with a little rum. But I preferred tequila. Straight with lemon thank you. Give me a tequila sunrise and I'd dance all night. Well, I'd try. Until I passed out. Wow, at last I was dancing. And people liked it too.
I look back and I wonder how in the world did I manage to never get myself in a situation where I got raped or worse. I guess there was always someone around to take care of me. I was lucky that way. Unfortunately the guys who wanted to take care or me weren't the guys I wanted. Oh no. I wanted the bad boys. Of course it was inevitable that sooner or later my luck would run out. I didn't get raped, but when your drunk, and stoned, things can happen. I was young, naive, and careless. Reality came knocking on my door when I realized I was three months pregnant and had no idea where my baby's daddy was. Oh I knew WHO he was, just not where he'd gone to. Don't get me wrong. I didn't sleep around. But one night, one mistake and my life was forever changed.
to be continued....