ROOTED RENEGADE

As I was going through an old Day Runner Organizer this morning that was from 2015, that I had believed was long since gone as well as forgotten, I was flooded with both harsh and humble reminders. At first I thought my mom was just mistaken when she said she had found my organizer as to my recollection, the last place I had seen it was at an old friends house just before I had left back in the middle or latter part of September of 2015 when I was put on a Mega Bus and sent to Florida to stay with a mutual friend to “get my life together” and get away from the man I was madly in love with yet was detrimental to my life as well as have some medical issues resolved. It turned out to be a trip from hell that resulted in a one way stay to sitting at the bus station from eight in the morning until it closed at midnight with empty promises of that so called friend always being on her way to pick me up to a 3-way phone call about how I had been sneaking to see this boyfriend behind their backs while I was still in Georgia (because it was none of their business and they wouldn’t understand). This deception resulted in what they felt was leaving me homeless in Orlando with no money in a place I had only been on vacation.

Apparently these two friends had known before they put me on the bus that I had been seeing him and this was their way of rectifying the situation. Mind you I don’t condone deceiving them about sneaking around to see this guy by any means, hind sight is always 20/20. We all make stupid decisions, some just don’t warrant being left homeless in another state.

My mom was gracious enough after all the heartache I had caused her by wiring me the money for a hotel room for a couple of days so I could figure out what to do and long story short, I ended up at a homeless shelter after a nice couple let me stay with them for the night when my stay was up where I was. The next morning after being up all night sick as a dog from stress they took me to the city bus and told me how to get there. If I ever learned humility, this taught me how to be humble, but a lesson that would not sink in until some time later. I had already been homeless many times before. Slept in my car in parking lots, or at the river, and in a house that had no water or power, but I was high and didn’t care. This time I had no money, no drugs, nothing to stop the pain I felt burning inside my heart like acid being poured directly on flesh.

I arrived at the shelter with a 50 pound suitcase and about another 40 pound duffle bag in tow and stood in line waiting my turn to get in the shelter. I had to wait to see if someone was late for their already taken bed from the night before or was a no show. God definitely had his hand on me that night because the woman was late and they gave her bed to me. If they hadn’t, I could not tell you where I would have ended up. I was already heart broken and destitute. Scared and desperate. I was given the top bunk in a room that had 50 other beds in it and I trusted no one (my luggage already had locks on it). I tried showering which was to me a nightmare like the time I went to jail because women wouldn’t leave the bathroom and the curtain didn’t close all the way. Needless to say I showered quick (to this day I can shower and shave in 10 minutes or less). You learn to be quick when survival instincts kick in, you just don’t realize that is what they are until some time later when you go through your healing process.

I did the only thing I knew to do since I was already told I would receive no help from my family anymore. I reached out to my off and on again boyfriend that I had been sneaking around to see and begged him for help. I knew somewhere deep inside he would help me get back home, he would want to be that “knight in shining armor”, because that is how narcissists are, the rescuer’s. As long as they are the ones who do the saving and always keep the upper hand, they will help. Let them look stupid, play them the same cards they play you, turn the tables on them, and they will leave you exactly where you are to rot until you feed their egos and allow them to have the upper hand. I knew the manipulation game, I had been engaged to him, planned our wedding, experienced the fullness of every range of his narcissism and knew that I had to bend to his will if I wanted to get back home and not be in a shelter in Florida because some friends were just pissed off.

On another Mega Bus trip I went the next morning. We were gonna try again according to him, even though I knew better than to believe it would ever go anywhere than it had any other time before, at least my head said that, my heart still longed for it to be true. He text me from the time I got to the bus station, the entire nine hour trip, and when I arrived back in Atlanta he was already there waiting on me. At first sight I honestly can still express my relief to see a familiar face and to be back home, regardless of whether or not I knew deep down inside of what was going to happen later down the road. If you have ever been through anything similar, you instinctively know when it is not the best situation but sometimes the only option. I can still remember his facial expressions, the fact that he had bought me a green Monster energy drink and a pack of L&M Menthol cigarettes (shorts in the box) and was in his moms old green van and was still in his work clothes when he arrived. We embraced as usual and he cried as usual although whether it was genuine or not I couldn’t tell you anymore.

So began another journey with him that ended up as it usually did…broken. Sure the first couple of days were good, a little awkward being back at his mom’s after the last breakup which was pretty bad, so the eggshells were thicker to walk on, many people in the house didn’t speak to me, because of course it was always my fault. No one ever saw what he did behind closed doors, or when they were gone, or read the text messages, or saw the girls he cheated with (well not all of them), etc. Even if they did they didn’t care. He was the baby boy, and while I was no perfect angel, I fought back, I never cheated on him, and every time he asked something of me I did it whether I wanted to or not (sometimes I raised hell about it and sometimes I didn’t).

It only took three weeks this time before it all fell apart. He didn’t want it anymore and his mom had found out that after he had beat me up while we were living out of state and come home for a visit, I had a part to play in having him arrested for a minor unrelated charge. Of course, being as stupid and “in love” as I was, instead of leaving him because my friends were only trying to give me the opportunity to leave him safely (yes there was some vengeance involved as well, I won’t lie and say there wasn’t), I took him all his whites, put money on his books, and went to his visits for the six days he was in jail then went and picked him up when he was released. Okay so I never said I was smart back then! I should have left the first time he hit me when we first started dating and saved myself two years of verbal and physical abuse but I didn’t. It wasn’t like he was physical with me on a daily basis and I finally got tired and started swinging back, so I again I justified my love for him and stayed or returned. I was an addict, who had no concept of real love, only what I had known growing up, and perceptions change as people get clean and go through a rigorous healing process.

Anyway, back homeless I went again, expect this time it was at least with a homegirl who was going to let me crash on her hotel room pull out couch while I figured things out -AGAIN! See a pattern here? Sound familiar? Same luggage, same attitude, same addict, same heartache, same mindset, but different setting. I thought this was rock bottom, but I could not be more wrong! My 37th birthday was a week away and what a way to spend it – sleeping in a slum hotel not with my kids, my family, no home, no life, absolutely nothing but a few clothes, my laptop, drawing books, and shoes.

You see, in that brokenness, the pain I had experienced through all of that mess, my mind was shattered also. God needed to remind me of how far He alone had brought me. So much pain ensued after all of this. Yes, so much. But God! Jehovah! Our healer. Our redeemer! My comforter! My everything! Took all that mess and made me a new creation! Yes! YES! YES! Even after all of that pain, He saw me through!

Psalm 40:1-3 states: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.”

How glorious is our God and how truly blessed I am that I am a Daughter of the Most High King!!!