#4 "...SINGIN' DRUNKEN LULLABIES"

::Identities have been concealed with different names::

   It was the beginning of May of my senior year.  I was asked to a "P-A-R-T-Y??? Cause I had to!" ("The Mask" movie line)
    I was nervous to say the least. I had never been to a party that had alcohol for what seemed was for all ages! I didn't eat anything all day because I was excited for the party and meeting a 21 year old on his birthday.  He was 3 years older than me,  that intrigued me.  I had the complete thought that this party was not going to have any rules or prayer sessions and that fascinated me.  I had no idea what to wear to this party.  I ended up wearing a t-shirt and jeans.
    I went to the party.  My friend Megan text messaged me tell me she would pick me up when she needed to go home from a friend's gathering so I had a designated driver to take me home. When I got to the front of the apartment complex I called Trent and he gave me walking directions to get to the apartment.  When I got to the stairs of the apartment, there was a group of people smoking cigarettes at the bottom.  I saw Trent at the top of the stairs. He beckoned me to come up.
   When I walked into the party, I thought I had entered into the party scene in Sixteen Candles. It was packed with so many people. I was immediately scared to talk to anyone there. The girls were glaring at me and sending me messages with their eyes that made me feel like they were screaming at me, "Who are YOU? why are you here?" As I followed Trent to the "bar" in the kitchen, I went right into my observant mode. As I scanned the room there was not one place to park myself.  everybody was asking each other to help them stand up because they thought that standing up was a hilarious thing. I looked all over the room and what caught my eye was that his wall-unit was completely filled with empty liquor and beer bottles.  It looked like he was collecting alcohol for the alcohol god.  It was awesome to me. It showed me that he had a collection hobby. He probably drank before his birthday. I knew I had to look like I never drank before.
   So, I get to the "bar" and Trent asked me if I wanted to join a drinking contest with him, Brandon, and a few other guys. They asked a lot of girls to join, but not one said yes.  I was totally up for it.  Brandon handed me my glass filled with dark beer as he introduced himself to me, "Hey I'm Brandon, you ready?" I said, " Happy Birthday. I'm Adessa, and yes I am. What is this?"  He said, "It's going to be an Irish Car Bomb. All of us chug together."  I took a deep breath. He handed me a little shot glass that looked like milk in it.  I asked, "You guys drink milk with your beer?"  Everybody laughed and Brandon said, "No. Its Bailey's. You drop it in and you chug, but watch out for your teeth."  So, Trent counted down, "3.....2.....1....GO!" I dropped the shot glass and chugged.  I remember the taste was horrible and the whole time I'm thinking, "get it down, get it down, don't puke, don't puke...done!" I cleaned the cup. The last gulp was the worst because I gagged at the very end.  Brandon looked at me and smiled as if he was saying, "What a champ!"  After that I went to go sit down in the only chair that was open.
   The chair was in a perfect place because I could see Brandon and Trent mingle with everyone.  I couldn't keep my eyes off of Brandon.  He was so attractive.
   I started to feel a feeling in my stomach, like I was really excited to be there.  The feeling grew stronger within me.  And as I saw everyone walk passed me I thought it was totally fine to say hello to them.  So I did. They all responded with a hello back.  I didn't know why, but I couldn't stop smiling. Trent saw me relaxing in the chair and he asked me, "why are you smiling so much?" I signed him with my finger to come close to me. I pulled his shirt towards me and said in his ear, "I think I am drunk." He laughed and responded, "Yes, you are. You didn't even whisper that!" Brandon over heard what I had said.  He came over and sat next to me in a broken chair and said, "so, you're drunk off of one Irish Car Bomb?" I nodded and I immediately said, "You are so attractive!" Trent yelled at Brandon and told him to kiss me.  The next thing I saw was Brandon making a fake punch to Trent.
   I felt like this was going to be a fun night! I drank a mixed drink that Trent had made me. I was having my own little party in the chair. I thought it was awesome that everyone was starting conversations with me, I quickly found out that they all just wanted to get another drink. Everything I saw, said, or did was extremely hilarious to me.  I was having full conversations with people across the room and I remember thinking to myself, "They like me!  They really like me!" Once I felt a little bit of soberness happen, I felt like I could not talk to anyone. So, I kept drinking.
   It was getting late, so I called Megan and I tried to tell her to come pick me up, but thinking never felt so hard to me.  I remember her telling me to give the phone to Brandon to give her directions to the apartment.  So, I found him outside at the bottom of the stairs with the smokers. I found the strength in what felt like a half an hour trying to get the phone to him.  I forgot who was on the phone and handed it to him and said, "it wants to talk to you."  I walked back up the stairs and stayed with Trent because I didn't know anyone else there.
   Brandon comes in and hands me my phone.  I said, "Oh yeah!  I gave you my phone!"  He said, "You're leaving so soon? That's a bummer. If I am not able to say goodbye, thank you for coming to my party." I said goodbye and he walked away.
   Megan calls me and says she is at the bottom of the stairs and tells me to come out.  I go straight for the door, not saying goodbye to anyone and when I went outside, I looked at the stairs and looked Megan straight in the eye and said, "You are helping me do this."  She walks up the stairs and helps me down the stairs.  We are walking to her car and I immediately fall down and start laughing hysterically.  It was so funny to me to not be able to stand up because I knew that it was so easy to walk....just not right then.
  I get home. I tried to sleep, but I had to get rid of the whole party, so I ran to the bathroom and I saw every single color of drink I had that night come in reverse. I snuggled with the porcelain throne for a few hours, then woke up and went to bed.
   Woke up hungover the bed!

#3 FIRST ONE IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST

::Identities have been concealed with different names::


   My first relationship was with Dean. Never got intimate. I gave him my first kiss....had to take some pushing on my part, cause he was too nervous to kiss me, I ended up saying, "kiss me, damn it!"
 he did!  That was fun!  Kissing to me felt like sliding into home every time and I was safe!
   Dean had a personality that meshed very well with mine. He decided to join my youth group that was held at my church on Tuesday nights. I loved his presences there, everybody loved him and he made everyone laugh. (Since he made everyone have a good time I was already picking out our baby names.) We saw each other all the time whenever we could after school, spent breaks together, and before school if it was possible. He even ditched a couple of classes and sneaked into my classes.  He was a huge romantic person to me. Dean and i were very well known in our theater classes, and he shared with the whole class that we were together and that he was very happy! It was super sweet!  He surprised me on our 6 month anniversary and took me on the train to Disneyland.
   All of a sudden I thought he was bitten by something because he started to act different towards me.  He started to feel comfortable enough to call me names such as lazy and boring. He started to compare me to his friends because they liked to do things differently than me. So when I received the verbal assaults I decided to change whatever I could that made me match up to his friends. There was one mutual friend that he compared me to, her name was Brenda.
   He went off to college and I was spending my senior year of high school in limbo with this relationship that meant everything to me. I wasn't being called to say good night and I wasn't being communicated to, sometimes in weeks.  I was devastated.  So, since I was an 18 year old girl who was curious about what's happening, I decided to become a detective.  I found out through a friend that Brenda was hanging out with him and telling him I was flirting with other guys and trying to "get into their pants."  I was furious with her. I called him a thousand times one night and he finally picked up.  He believed everything she told him.  I was so hurt.  I told him it wasn't true and he still believed her. I felt so betrayed and alone.  We stayed together for a little while longer. He ended up breaking up with me by making a scene at a concert that we ran into each other at, and Brenda was there with him.
  Later I found out that Brenda and Dean were fooling around together while I was in limbo and worrying about the relationship. Her true colors weren't very pretty by the end of the school year.
   I had never felt a break up before and it royally sucked. There was nothing to bring me up, make me smile, nothing was funny to me. It was so hard to get over him because he started off being my best friend and we created so many good and wonderful memories being friends.  I would walk home after school and cry while looking through a box full of our stuff that accumulated over the season of our relationship. I called this box "My X-Box" written along the top of it. 

These are a few poems that I wrote during our break up.


Silent Wanting

It just happened

You seemed like you didn't care

Now I am alone

You hurt me

I hurt you

It's just never meant to be

I miss you already

I want to feel you again

but I can't

You NEVER chose me

I was NEVER a priority

You made me feel

unhappy

unworthy

unwanted

...but I still miss you

Goodbye
Why does all of this have to happen?
All of this needs to leave me!
He is choosing you
He put you up
I was dropped form an invisible string
I am numb from the separation
I can see your apathetic smile
I don't care anymore
You can have what you want
You were never meant to be for me
Day one is the day I shall forever regret!

I wrote this next poem when I started to see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel by being with my friends again and seeing who I was through them.

Untitled
I'm so happy without you
I have everything I need
I thought I would never recover
from all the pain you caused me
My friends love me dearly
They give me hope and joy
You make me worried and sick
Go, and cry to all your friends
with a backwards story
Because you can't stand on your own two feet
I'm proud to say I don't need you
You were a waste of time and energy for me
Yeah, I have dreams about you and I do cry sometimes
But I still have my feet to stand on
My friends are the causes of my smiles now
I really hope you say,
someday
"karma is a bitch."

   I was barely with my friends throughout the relationship.  I started hanging out with my friends after we broke up and it was different hanging out with them.  You could say I was addicted to him and the relationship. I would ditch my friends to hang out with him and when I didn't see him I would go home after school to sleep, because that was the only thing that made the days go faster to when I would see him again.
   It took me a long time to get over him.  The pain that you feel of your first heartbreak is immediately fear. I feared for another girl catching his eye, being alone, my friends wouldn't be there for me, and I feared the next time I would see him. I also felt that he took my heart, stomped on it, and gave it back to me saying, "clean up my mess!"  Then I felt anger towards him and how everything had gone wrong with the break up.  I didn't know how to handle the pain, so I turned to blank lined paper, and music. The music that was attractive to me (now that I was heartbroken) was very sad and dark. Here are some songs that I turned to...

Annie Lennox-"Why"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYFUqxypkbA

Natasha Bedingfield-"I Bruise Easily"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShgqTSxJZDE

Daniel Bedingfield-"If You're Not The One"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K65JVsrxam8

Danity Kane-"Stay With Me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBfECDhFnZI

Snow Patrol-"You Could Be Happy"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ6ZVrLpfxw


  This music made me feel good in a weird way. I had never had my heart broken before.  So the feeling was very new and fresh behind my chest.  I would cry every time I listened to all these songs.  I was hurting and I didn't know exactly how to handle it. I was lost within myself. I found a little bit of pleasure in letting everyone know how he made me feel and what he did to me.  But I still was secretly seeking his approval.  I was no longer really thinking about myself and what I deserved. I believed everything he called me and so I changed myself so I could be someone else, because it was clear to me that I was not good enough to be in a relationship.
  The time was approaching the supposed "one year" that Dean and I would have had.  One of my friends, Trent would party a lot.  I told him, "It would be my ex's and my one year in a couple of weeks, have a party. I wanna get drunk!" I never drank before and I was very curious to see how it felt to be drunk, because I would see pictures of people that went to my school drunk and saying great things about being drunk and forgetting all your problems and loving it!
   Then he told me that his friend Brandon was having a party for his 21st birthday.
  I was invited....

#2 BEFORE IT ALL STARTED

::Identities have been concealed with different names::

 I will get the basic info out of the way; I was conceived by doing the obvious by my parents three months after they tied the knot in 1988. I was born with the name Adessa Danielle Kingsbury on January 8, 1989. Needless to say I was three weeks early, so I guess I was going to be late for my life appointment.

   After I was born, my dad went crazy with his video camera. He recorded so many moments of me being a baby.  I was the only child for the next two years and ten months, then my sister unexpectedly shows up in my mom's arms. I apparently loved being the only child because I had the brilliant idea of not just asking, but telling my parents, "Can you take it back to the hospital?" To this day that will come up and we all laugh about it.  After I got used to having a sister, my brother comes home three years and two months later. I remember not liking the change at first, cause it had different parts than my sister and I. I was not comfortable with an enigma as a sibling. He eventually grew on me and I love him to this day.

   Elementary school was hard in the beginning.  I remember my first day of kindergarten. I was scared of all the other kids because I was leaving my comfort zone.  I got along with a couple of kids in my class.  We stayed late after school and waited for our rides together.  We were only in class for about 5 hours or so, but it felt like 100 hours when you're that young.  I remember gazing out the window at the round painted track where you would race your tricycles in a circle and imagine myself racing to the point where my wheels would fly off the bike.  Daydreaming helped with the day flying by.

   In first grade I had my first couple of bullies.  They thought my last name was so funny that they wanted to make up their own words and add them to my name; they also called me the devastating feature names, fat and ugly.  This was done by kids that had stuttering problems and wore glasses that made them look like they were trying to see a bird break wind in Mexico.  I was the type that did not fight back with fists or words.  Cause I didn't find anything wrong with them.
   Fast forward to fifth grade.  I was ecstatic that I was finally one of the top dogs of the school cause sixth grade meant "new beginnings" as a fifth grader.  The first time I ever got a pink slip, (that is not a pretty piece of paper you want to come home with) I thought it would be fun to clog all the toilets and the sinks with the brown paper towels that clearly were not just to dry your hands with.  So I got my first taste of wild behavior at 10 years old and it felt good!

    I was raised in a Christian home My mom was non-denominational Christian and my dad was raised in Catholicism.  I went to church with my mom every Sunday morning, and I had to end my Sundays with mass at my dad's church.  I was also told that I had to go to Catechism.  I remember when I was 12 years old I got spiritually saved and I remember feeling different the second I asked Christ into my heart.  I noticed that my mom's church was much different than my dad's church.  My dad's mass was very routine, and it seemed you could not interact with anybody.  I didn't feel comfortable at a Catholic chruch.
   When I turned 14 years old I started going to youth group at my mom's church. I was immediately attached to going. I remember I would rush home on Tuesdays after school to do my homework in time to leave. I loved the youth leader, he was so funny and he made everyone comfortable.  We went on two mission trips down to Ensenada, Mexico for ten days. We built two houses for two homeless families.  Both of those trips were life changing.  When I came home I would cry for days because I missed the people I met and I had to hold onto the atmosphere that I left in Mexico.  Everyone there was so loving and nonjudgmental, that made me feel truly accepted.

    In the middle of my seventh grade year our land lord told us that we had thirty days to move because they wanted to remodel the house. We moved form Serra Mesa to La Mesa. We had to go to different schools.  I had no idea there was a city named La Mesa, and I had an active imagination thinking that the kids were going to be completely different than what I was used to.  But no, all junior high kids are the same. They hate their parents for caring, come to school with pancake faces full of make up, and they thought rolling backpacks were so atrocious, they kicked every one in sight.  (I never really grasped the thought of doing that and feeling good after.) There was a clique for everything; popular, athletes, band, no-names etc. I am surprised there wasn't a clique for matching shoes. I was a floater in middle school. I made friends quick, but I never wanted to be friends with the popular people, because all of them weren't trying to be your friend, they just want to make sure they at least knew one more person acknowledged who they were.
   Eighth grade I made really close friends. At the end of eight grade I experienced my first "friend move away"  that hurt very much. My friend Kayla moved up north and her mom was going through some pregnant mood changes and she didn't like it when I would talk to Kayla.  She also made Kayla stop being the friend that she was to me.  She always made me look forward to going to school because she found humor in the simplest things.  I was very sad and lonely when she moved away.
   High school was filled with boys that didn't know they were already claimed by mine or my friends' hearts.  We were positive that they were our soul mates.  We never said hello to any of them, but for some reason we all knew what their schedule was because they would pop up out of nowhere and we would freak out! We made it so obvious that we might as well have screamed it to them that we could see them!

   I graduated high school at 18 years old in 2007.  That was a huge accomplishment for me.  After graduation, the life of a christian was not at all appealing to me.  This world held out its hand to me and asked me for a dance. I accepted.

#1 PREFACE

    Every young woman is different, yes, but they are precious too.  This blog is for girls that do not have self-esteem because it's been caused by boys, relationships, childhood, and/or drugs.  I have been through all of that and I want to share my story with young women letting them know that they are beautiful in their own way.  So they don't look for their identity through guys, relationships, and drugs.

   When you are in pain, it's a real emotion that you are feeling and it all depends on how you deal with it.  You will not find peace from the pain if you look for it in giving yourself to guys, letting them have a power over you, and try to numb the pain by getting into drugs and end up with addictions.  Every girl that I know, will know, and have not met yet, are very beautiful and precious in my eyes.

   It all starts with how you see yourself, and it will show through your actions.  It breaks my heart to see girls not love themselves.  I did not love myself in my past and that is what I will share.  I completely understand why they make those decisions, because I did and I never found ME in any of it.
    I want all of you to know you are BEAUTIFUL no matter what you do. Love and accept the person you are. All of you mean something to somebody.  You are a precious jewel.
  Treat yourself with ~Love And Acceptance~