My farthest memory back from when i was younger is my step father's and mother's wedding....
I was about 5 years old. I was so happy at that age, maybe it was because i didn't understand exactly what was going on, or maybe it was the pretty dress i was wearing. Maybes its good that i didnt, it might have made me not love this new man coming into my life...
So the years pass, I watch blindly as my real father slips farther and farther away.. Then comes my 14th birthday, he was invited, didnt think he show up, but there he was smiling as if nothing was ever wrong. And i followed his lead and jumped into his arms thinking everything was falling back into place. I watch my older sister,Amy, glare from the corner of our yard I guess she didnt want to play the game he and I were.
I saw my father once after that, at a 2 hr visit when i was down in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. Amy came with me but i could tell the anger and pain she felt twoards him. .. a year slipped by, few holliday cards, even fewer calls. I saw myself sliding down hill a lot. Drinking every weekend, i had begun smokin cigarettes when I was 11 and saw that picking up. School was a joke and that's how I treated it. I was only in Jr High but i knew every way imaginable to get out of that school, even if it was jus in the side woods to hang out all day with friends. Like one day me and 2 friends decided to stay out of school all day in the woods area.. little did we kno it was nature walk day, so after the first two visits we timed out the walks and were able to figure out when we could sneak out for air.
Anyways.. im procrastinating a lot here.. prolly really boring anyone (if your still reading).. lets jump to the winter of 99/00. A friend of mine was going out with sum dood and wanted me to go meet him. I did and he seemed like an OK guy, not knowing at all what the bond me and him shared or how it would come to be broken. Cam was 18 and i found myself talking more and more with him following his and my friends brake up. I knew I shouldnt be talking to him, but i couldnt help myself. he saw right into me and truely cared for me. After a couple rejections of his asking me out I finally said yes. The few weeks that followed scared and thrilled me all at the same time. Cams devotion to me began to grow so strong I felt i needed to end what we had right then, after all my mind was so small and i guess i couldnt handle the pressure. He understood, kinda, and backed off a bit but we continued to keep seeing eachother as much as possible. We drifted then came back together many times.
Spring approached and Cam told me a studio in Florida told him that they wanted him to come work for them and said a record deal could be not far in his future. He asked me, i tried to think of what to say, i mean this was his dream finally coming through and he deserved it so bad how could i be selfish enuff to hold him back at all? So i let him go, it was a painful time of confusion in my life. I had a new boyfriend then and knowing Cam still had feelings twoards me I thought it might be a good idea to maybe give eachother a lil space. So he left around June to head down to Florida. We spoke almost everyday and he told me all about his new life down there he was beginning, and told me that as soon as I was done with school he would maybe have a real good life for me to walk into if i decided thats where I wanted to be. I knew thats exactly what I wanted, but i kept my mouth closed, we were far away and i didnt want to get in the way of him settling down there.
I remember the last time i heard Cams voice, i was having a upsetting nite at home and was talking to him on the computer, the server crashed and i was so upset. About 5 minutes later i get a call (mind you it was almost 1:30am) i picked it up knowing it had to be him.. it was funny when i think about it, that any other time I had gotten a call at that time I would have never been able to speak. but my parents slept through the ringing and I was able to talk to Cam til about 7am. It was a great conversation, getting back to the closeness we once had. We made plans to goto his cousins wedding together in August and celebrate his birthday together which was about a week or two before the wedding. I couldnt wait, i picked out exactly what dress i would wear to the ocasion, the shoes, everything..
we spoke after that a bunch of times on the computer, he told me his phone bill from that nite we talked, lemme tell u it costs a lot to talk for 6 hours when your callin the cape from fl! But i knew that they could never put a real price on the intensity of that call. He was working a lot more so we couldnt talk as much for a week or two.
Then in the beginning days of August I got a call from Cams mother Mary, she was upset i could tell. then she spoke the words that still ring in my head today.. Cam was dead. The following week i didnt hear from her and wished so bad that maybe it wasnt her on the phone maybe it was some sick joke someone was saying.. But i picked up the paper that following tuesday, the day of Cams 19th birthday and saw it. Cams Obituary.. The wake was at the end of the week, this would be the first time in almost 3 months i would see his face. But as I gazed into that coffin it was hard to realize it was really him. So cold.. so stiff.. so.... dead.
I attended the mass at the church for him the next day. The coffin was slowly carried down the aisle by his family. I saw his cousin. the one who was getting married in a few weeks, the one i was suposed to meet on his big day, but instead i saw him now with tears in his eyes, not of joy for his soon to be wife, but of pain of losing a loved one. The coffin sat right next to me. I sat glaring at it wishing so loudly in my head that he would jus jump out. But he didnt. the preist continued the service and I heard my name spoken and a story about a time Cam came to my house on Valentines day with flowers and a poem.
Those months that followed were horrible. I ran away from myself so I couldnt realize the pain i was in. It was one let down after another. My boyfriend who i thought i could mold into another Cam, left me. After one of my many nites I ran away from my house I found myself in a car heading to connecticut. When we got there i heard my mom on the phone with my father.. someone i hadnt talked to in nearly a year.. i picked up the phone and heard him say.."no i wont meet with you and Sarah.. I havent been in her life for a year now, and i dont see the reason to begin now"... Anger and more disapointment flaired up in me, another let down from a man would should have been there to love me unconditionally...
I came back home a few days later, maybe that could have set me straight.. but it didnt.. i had only attended 4 or 5 classes that year at school by the end of first quarter, instead i was out with "friends" trying to get away from any real emotion i was feeling, smothering it with the first available drug. I thought at times I was truely happy, so i continued.. I would do anything to get the next hit. I can remember talking a young boy into buying some pills off of me.. it is really heartbraking wheni think about it now. He was so innocent, but what if i was the one, right at the moment that sent this kid onto the road i was on?... I didnt think about it then. i couldnt let emotion get in the way of my "life"... I slept anywhere i could find.. on floors, outside, in cars.. damn, it was so cold in that car... i wanted to scream or cry my feet ached with coldness, but i didnt want to wake up cece.. i didnt want anyone else to feel this pain I did....
I cant remember exactly what it was that made me decide to get out of this hole i was in. Maybe it was the trespassing arestment.. or that freezing car.. I think it might have been that it was the only thing left.. I was standing in the commons, hungover, snorting my last bag,, it was a freezing day in october and all i had was my beat up hoodie and a pair of ripped jeans.. No one was there.. everyone had left me.. I realized than. that none of these people really care about me. I was starving and no one was there to offer even a stick of gum. Out of desperation i called my mother. And out of almost amazement she said she would be there in 10 minutes. I sat in the stairwell to the pay phone i was at. and cried.. i cried until i saw the car pull up a lil ways down from where i was sitting. i wiped my face and climbed into the car, shaking from the cold. I couldnt make eye contact with my any for a long time. I was so ashamed of myself.. how could i have come to this? how am i suposed to get ahead now?.. my best friend is locked up in some hospitol,, the people i once thought cared about me were slowing heading into jail, lock up, and hospitals.. no one was there except myself..
I spent a long time figuring out what to do. but the one thing I knew was right that i did was staying home... My mother and family and doctors and pyschologists and adult friends and court people and school administration were who i eventually handed my "life" over to.. they set up a system to put me back into the right track. I started tutoring. i went to NA meetings. I was doing work and keeping grades and gaining health and beauty back.
So now here i am.. i doubt anyone is still reading, but if you are.. thank you.. thank you for listening to my story so far and maybe you've learned something about yourself, about me, about that kid that lives down the street. There is hope for anyone who thinks theres nothing left to hang to. I am still far from completely OK but everyday I see my speed rising and catching up to others. Im jus a young girl, even tho its hard to place myself with peers because of the confusion and maturity i have been forced to take on.. And i dont want anyone to think that my ENTIRE life was horrible.. i did have many happy memories as a young kid, it jus went sour.. and im hoping that in the year or maybe more that follows i can improve everything... Thankyou for listing to my story...
~Sarah
