A rebel at 14

Amazing what can happen to a person in 15 months. That's how long we had been in North Carolina when I turned 14. And that is also how long it took me to successfully master becoming a "rebel". Mothers beware, if you have a teenager in your home who was a good kid yesterday and a rebel today keep in mind that fear, frustration, and hurt are expressed as anger. Anger being one of the easiest expressions for a child show. Most of them don't even realize the difference. When my mother packed us up and took us to North Carolina with her I don't think I had ever in my life been so "ANGRY". Looking back now I can see that I was just afraid, hurt and frustrated with the situation and wasn't familiar with any other way to express those emotions other than being angry. And the easiest way to express my anger was to become a rebel. If she said "yes", I said "no". If she said "don't", I said "do". I'm sure you have heard people say "you are what you eat" well that is also true about "children live what they learn". And with all my new wonderful friends I was quickly learning how to rebel. Like I mentioned before, smoking, drinking, lying, dating and many other rebellious actions soon became second nature for me. I mastered climbing out the window to go party with my friends first time out. It was so easy and no one missed me. A few extra hours out with my new friends then back in the window for a few hours of sleep before I would get up and start this same old crazy cycle again. I thought I was being "cool". My girlfriend liked me and the guys we hung around with loved me. I was young and fearless and nothing was going to stand in my way. I really hurt my mother during this time. She rarely knew where I really was or what I was really up to. I had mastered lying so well I believed it myself. My mother worked a full time job to try to take care of us as best she could. I had never known my mother to work outside of our home before so having her gone at least 8 hrs a day gave plenty of time to work on my new rebellious life. I had one girlfriend and we were together almost all the time. She had 2 brothers that were in high school and they could drive so being around them gave us a link to a older group people to hang out with. I grew up real fast. Fifteen months ago I had no idea what cursing was, never had the "sex" talk, (that was never mention in our family) and I had never seen or heard of alcohol or drugs. But I was coming to know them all very well. They were my new tools for self expression. I have often wondered what my life would have been like had we never moved to Carolina. I had spent the first 12 years of my life in a very loving very christian home and now at age 14 I went to church kicking and screaming and always making a deal with my mom that I would give her no grief about going to church on Sundays but once we were home she had to let me go and do whatever I wanted to until I was ready to come home. I should have never had that much control of my mother but looking back I think she hoped that if she just kept trying I would turn around. But willpower flowed through me like blood and the more defiant I was the happier I was. "Lessons better left unlearned"

she said it was cheaper than therapy

Let me start by thanking my daughter one more time for giving me a use for my laptop other than having Internet service for my youngest son and printing scrap booking pictures. Whenever I need a good laugh I read her blogs (toobusytoclean). I was not blessed with the sense of humor that she has but she tells me all blogs do not always have to be funny. She claims that blogging can also be therapeutic. In the past we have discussed writing my biography because most people are shocked when I share parts of my life with them. My life reads like a novel with what seems to be one tragedy after another. Truthfully it is more like one bad choice after another, hence the title " lessons better left unlearned".
I guess I could go back to my earliest memory and share with you what a wonderful (normal) childhood I had but I'll save that for another day. Let's get to the meat. I was 12 yrs old when my mom and dad divorced. The first of many causes for my poor decisions and the aftermath of each of them. Mom moved us to North Carolina (in the boonies) and dad stayed in Virginia (in the city) Not only was this backwoods country life new to me, I also had a great deal of difficulty acclimating myself to this new environment. Boredom can prove to be the devil's workshop. I made it through the second semester of 7th grade without too many problems. Making new friends was hard. These girls had obviously been bored a long time because they were way ahead of me when it came to doing things you had no business doing. It didn't take long before I realized that being the only green pea in a pot of black eyed peas was not very comfortable. So my first mistake...........changing colors to fit in. Hey, that was easy. Not long before I was one of the crowd. Now am I willing to give of all the morals and standards I had been taught to stay in the crowd. Unfortunately my answer was YES! I needed friends and they were really interested in having a "CITY" girl in the group. My the end of the 7th grade they had taught me to Lie, Smoke cigarettes, Drink a little Boones Farm Wine, have a boyfriend and how to climb out my bedroom window after everyone in my house was asleep so I could indulge myself in each of these. There you go........everything my mother had ever taught me "out the window" in less than one year.