Growing Up

Bills keep piling up and getting bigger, job keeps cutting the hours, life keeps pitching and I'm still warming up my swing. Last night was the first time I sobbed in a few weeks since losing Ry and it feels like the whole night was just meant to keep me down. It wasn't even crying about him not being here anymore, it was tears of pain missing my innocence. Denver was scary...we went through some very rough times and each of us resorted to the wrong things to deal with those times. In my ways - I scared him...and in his - he scared me. Some of those memories will be burned in my mind forever, just like the final memory I have and I have to say...I never knew my life would end up like this.

Yesterday I had a beautiful conversation with a bright 6 year old who told me about her birthday party, the cupcakes she got to make, and she even offered to pretend to be my mom so she and I could make some of them together. Her youthful innocence and cheer made my heart feel so much better from the ache it was feeling. I don't remember it exactly, but I remember how carefree my life was when I was 6. I had a daddy and a mommy, a baby sister, a dog, and my barbies. The biggest thing I had to stress about was what party dress to put Barbie in for the night.

No one knows when they are six years old the trials they will have to face as they grow up, but today as I'm almost three months shy of another birthday - 20 doesn't quite sound right. I feel like my soul is 30 and only my body is 20. I was listening to a song today, one that Ryan put on my MP3 player actually, and it said "I've created the sound of madness, wrote the book on pain, somehow I'm still here to explain - that the darkest hour never comes in the night.......when ya gonna wake up and fight for yourself?" The first part of that really got to me. I don't want to sound cruel, and another persons pain is never a joke, but it upsets me to see friends whose boyfriend left them and they say they want to die, or they flunked out of college and somehow that is justice enough to end their life. I want to just stand up and scream -- no its not. I lost my daddy way before I should have, and two years later I found the love of my life after he took his life...I still will proudly stand up and say that I do not think this is a reason for me to end my life. Life is a game, sometimes we are winning - sometimes we are losing, but to give up entirely and walk away? That's not fair to the rest of people playing, or to yourself because who knows...maybe if you stuck around for the next roll - you would be on top.

I guess I titled this growing up because five years ago, all of this would have been perfect reason to do it. Actually - five years ago a boy abused me in the worst way I thought possible and I thought that alone was enough to go. In my years though I've been forced to grow up a little bit faster than my peers. I face my life very differently now that I've lost my daddy and the man I love...some ways are better because I'm standing up for me, others I fear because I know in the future I will be the hardest person in the world to be with because of all the doubt I feel in ever being good enough. One way or another though, I now take each challenge and grow from it. That's a huge step from the 14 year old Arianne I used to know.