My Story…..

 

I think it started sometime in 2005. In April I was blessed with a wonderful baby boy. I was excited, I had always wanted to be a mom and after a miscarriage the year before this was a very happy time.   The high faded fast with midnight feedings, lack of sleep and all the stresses of being a new mom. I remember looking at my life and thinking, So I’m here… Have I arrived? This is it… What I’ve been waiting for? This isn’t quite what I had envisioned. Is it hormones? sleep deprivation?  Where’s the “white picket fence”? I’m here but life doesn’t look like what I was expecting, it’s not what I thought it would be, I’m not who I thought I would be.

It’s OK, I can fix this! Right?!?

I spent the next couple years engorging every self-help book I could get my hands on. Making goals… Falling short. Challenging my thoughts, trying out churches, attempting to change me, my life, my husband. I was drowning! Why isn’t this working like it does in the books I read? What am I doing wrong?

At the end of 2007 I started working from home with a company called Melaleuca. It was a great opportunity to make extra money referring people to an online wellness store. (Sneak Peak- It was not for me! But if you like talking to people I will get you in touch with some super amazing and really successful women that can help you) I loved Melaleuca, and even more than that I loved the team of people it brought into my life! I was so blessed to have met these awesome, God loving women. They made me feel so loved and I really looked upto them! Over the next year I learned a-lot, about myself, about life and how to get to where I wanted to be. I wasn’t even totally sure where that was yet but, it was forming in my mind, that 2.0 life. That life in which you can finally exhale and know everything is going to be ok, where there is peace and joy. Where I felt worthy, accepted and loved.

In September of 2008 I left my husband. I think it will always be hard to say those words. That was the hardest day of my life. Here I am a stay at home mom, with an almost non-existent income and a three year old. I had no idea what the future would hold, I cried for weeks. Luckily I had an amazing friend that took us in and let us stay with their family for a few months. Together we worked our Melaleuca business and I started going to church with her and some of the other girls on our team.

In November I made the decision to get baptized. I was ready! Ready for a new life, a new start. A Clean Slate! That day was like a dream. I remember feeling weightless and joyful. And Loved, so so Loved! Everytime I think of that team, those amazing God Loving Women it brings tears to my eyes. I can’t put into words the ways they have helped me, they truly changed my life. Thank You!

The high faded as reality hit me like a ton of bricks! Where was I going to live?  How was I going to support my son? I finally got a job, as a cocktail waitress at a bar I used to work at. (Perfect idea- get baptized, go work at a bar.) It didn’t take long for that life to take hold of me. The next few months were a blur. The demons of my past were engulfing me. Memories… Traumatic memories of a lifetime. Memories I thought I had forgotten, taken care of, gotten over, they crept in and took over. Memories of Pure chaos, abuse, hard hurtful moments, drugs, sex, bad bad things.  Let’s just say I was broken. A lifetime built up of broken-ness that was now raging in my soul. Those lonely nights when there was no one to go home to, no son, no husband. So at night I numbed the pain, choked down the fear, I looked for love in all the wrong places. Then during the day I struggled as a broke single mom, looking hopelessly for a better job and trying to help my little boy be ok with his new, unstable life.

Until one day I burst. I remember sitting in my car outside of a party and balling my eyes out so hard I could barely breathe. HOW did I get here? How does my life look like this? This is wrong! All Wrong! This isn’t me, there MUST be some mistake!!

The next few days I was in a rage! WHY? Blasting the music, flying down the street, driving, just driving… Yeling at God at the top of my lungs! Why me? All my life has been filled with hurt and suffering. If you are so in control of everything then WHY would you do this to me? What did I do wrong to deserve this? That was a turning point.

I went back to my self help books and thought about all I had learned in the last couple years. “Wait! I think I might know how to do this!” I can’t change the past, I can learn from it and then I need to let it go. I need to focus on the future, I can change the future. I need to take full responsibility for me and my life now. That’s it!! I can do this! (Little did I know at the time that God was walking along side of me leading me on this new path)

 

It Doesn’t Happen Overnight

 

As a man thinketh, so is he.   Proverbs 23:7

”Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

“Things do not change, we change. ” ~Henry David Thoreau

“Our Attitude towards life determines life’s attitude towards us.”  ~ John N. Mitchell

Don’t wish for things to be easier, wish to Be Better, Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. ~Jim Rohn

I spent my days working hard towards finding a new job, but with a new attitude and a new outlook.  I started working on my thinking, feeding the positive thoughts and starving the negative ones.  Breaking away from my habits that were getting me nowhere. For the first time I started to pray and I asked God for help.  I wasn’t sure what it would do but I figured it couldn’t hurt. I focused on what I could do, who I could help.  I had started a few months prior helping out coordinating a night a month at a homeless shelter, that really helped me to see all I had to be grateful for. Each time I felt hopeless or frustrated I counted my blessings. Listing all the things I was thankful for. The sun shining through the trees on a summer afternoon. Anything I could think of.  I day dreamed and hoped for all the things I ever really wanted in life. I worked on seeing what all I could have done differently in the past so I could see what I could work on in the future. I realized I was responsible for more than I wanted to admit. I started in the direction to become the person that would live the life that I wanted.  The end of July of 2009 things started to turn around….

This requires a little background info… In my freshman year of high school I was sitting in the underground track during gym and in the weight room Someone stood out to me.  He had long brown hair that flipped up on the bottom and green eyes.  There was just something different about him. It was the first time I really noticed a boy.  That night I remember having a dream about him, which was really weird because I had never had a dream where the people in it had a face that I could recognize. The rest of the year went by and I never saw him again. Sophomore year I was walking to lunch and there he was, I saw him, that same boy. My face immediately turned red as I scurried into the lunch room. I went home that day and looked for him in my yearbook. Joseph Marino.  I had a few friends over, one of them peeked over my shoulder, “Whatcha looking at?”.  “Eh just some guy I saw at school.” After some serious coercing I fessed up to thinking this boy was cute. “Oh that’s Jay” One of the guys said, “He’s in one of my classes.” I was a little embarrassed but I didn’t think much about it.  The next day my mom called for me, I had a phone call. “Janeen?” “yes” “Hi, it’s Jay Marino.” My heart must of jumped out of my chest and ran away because I could barely speak. Apparently my friend went to school that day with a picture of me and my phone number on the back and gave it to him. I could of killed him! I can barely remember the rest of that conversation but he told me to come find him tomorrow at school. So the next day, I saw him by his locker and literally walked all the way around the school to completely avoid it. He called me again that night, I was so embarrassed I could not walk up to him! The next day, same thing, I’m not doing it! His car was getting fixed or something but he said when he got it back he was going to come over. I didn’t know what to think my nerves were so shot! But on November 11th 1998 there he was at my door. My mom did most of the talking at first, then we went down to my room.  I remember sitting on my chest, my eyes wandering through the room looking at everything except him. Which he told me he thought was adorable. Barf! What was wrong with me? I have never been so stupid around a guy! It’s not like I hadn’t ever had a boyfriend. What is so different about this one?  We dated for a few years on and off during high school. I was convinced he was my soul mate! I had never felt a love like that before, I had never felt a security like that before. But eventually life got in the way, he was 2 years older than me so he was starting his career as I was finishing up school. He was stabilizing his life, becoming more responsible and I was about to be free to go wander the world! We relunctantly went our separate ways.  I had some updates through mutual friends here and there. I knew when he got married and we ran into each other a handful of times throughout the years. I always hoped for the best for him. Whenever I was in a relationship and things were going wrong I would compare it to the relationship I had with him. Nothing quite compared to that love, that understanding. So I was always looking for it. For a time I thought maybe he was the one. Then after a few run ins with him and his wife I thought he was a different person now. But I was grateful to have had that experience.

Back to 2009, I had gotten off work early on a friday night, which was really rare. A week or so earlier I had a voicemail from an old friend that lived in the city. Since I had gotten off early I thought I’d call him to see if he was in the area and wanted to meet up.  He happened to be at Jay’s house, he told me to drive towards him and call him on the way and we would pick somewhere to meet. When I called we couldn’t think of where to go so he told me to come to Jay’s house. It was fun seeing everyone again and hanging out. It wasn’t until the end of the night that I realized that he might be the same Jay I had fallen in love with all those years ago. The next day it felt like it was a dream, but that night he texted me.  We talked for hours on the phone the next day, catching up on life. And Over the next couple months we fell in love again.

Meanwhile I had gotten a part time office job at a wholesale insurance agency, with a promise if things went well that it would be full time. Then in November I got fired from the Bar for calling in sick one time. That was such a blessing in disguise! By Christmas we had decided to celebrate together with our families. And in January we found out I was pregnant. Things got a little rocky there for a minute, since things had moved so fast, and done things a little backwards we defnitely had some growing pains. But by February I had a full time job and we moved in together. Other than the hormones and nesting, life was good! It had so drastically changed direction I could barely recognize what life was just a few months prior. But I was safe, I wasn’t struggling to keep a roof over our head and food on the table, I wasn’t waking up at every rustle of leaves outside. I felt like I could be me and still be loved.

At the time I didn’t notice but when I look back I can see how God was leading us to each other, even at times when we were resisting he made sure we ended up together.