Asked for it...

Well, Beth, I did ask for topics but didn't expect the only questions I got to send me spiraling into a self-loathing depression. Thanks so very much. I'll have to wait until Stacia gets back in town to answer the 2 questions about ambition and achievement. She'll remind me of one I'm sure.

As far as who I was in the 80's... I was a little kid. I was 6 years old in 1980 and was 15 when that decade ended. But in reality, I don't remember a lot about being a kid - just that I was not all that cool and not popular and was lonely a lot. My older brother was the most popular kid in town and I was in his shadow. When I was 11 I started being "bad" - not so much for attention but for the escape that it provided.

That's also when we moved from Tennessee to Texas and then I was marginally popular. When I was 12 or 13 I started going to a private school and met Stacia, which has turned out to be one of the very best things that has ever happened in my life.

Now the 90's were a different story. I completed the 10th grade 1990, is that right Stacia? 1989? God, I'm old. They told me I couldn't come back to that school because of my drug/alcohol use. I started 11th grade by doing home school and then continued those studies in rehab at Teen Challenge in Maui.

I met Lee at Rehab and we hated each other and then we didn't and then when rehab was over after 15 months, I came home and he came to visit, and I moved back to Maui again. Then I came back to Texas to plan our wedding and I got cold feet and called it off. I can't say it was the wrong decision but I can say that I really think it was one of the worst things I've done to another human being. When I decided that I had screwed up bad a few months later, I called and he put me in my place by telling me that he was moving to Pennsylvania. I respected him for doing that but God did it hurt. Then I got pregnant.

I was 19 when I got pregnant with my oldest and I was scared to death. The boy that I was with was self centered and chilly and I knew it wasn't going to work. He proposed to me when I was 3 months along and I said we had things to work on. We tried to make it work - rather, he tried his best to change me into who he felt I should be, when he failed and I decided I couldn't be molded anymore, our daughter was 2 years old. Concluding that relationship was the easiest thing I have ever done - I have no regrets on that front.

Then I was working at a company in my first sales job and was making really good money - I had a pretty normal existence for a little while and then I became friends with a couple of people from work - a guy and a girl. The guy was funny and nice to my daughter and easy to be with and when the girl got herself a boyfriend - our trio turned to a duo and after some resistance, we started dating. Even though he was 11 years older than me, even though he had a criminal trial pending from prior indiscretions before me. Then I got pregnant again in 1997 - my second was born in 1998. This time I was totally scared and really very disappointed in myself. He told me he wanted to do the right thing even though we were in the wrong situation and we were married. 42 days after the wedding he was incarcerated for 4.5 years. Needless to say, that marriage did not work out. The girl later accused me of sleeping with that boyfriend she got, so then, angry at the accusation and after their demise, I did. That was the 2nd worst thing I've done to a person. I lost a very good friend.

So then there were 2 kids and one mom and a big house, etc. Are you following this? I loved them so much that nothing else mattered and my job supported us well.

Then Stacia and I went clubbing in 1999. I saw this GORGEOUS guy and I couldn't speak, that guy was Bart and the rest is history - a new decade, a new century, a new millenium, a new life.