.. life told by Lizzie.

I wanna say I’ve grown alot this past year. I wanna say as I reach 20, I can maturely take on being an adult. I guess I technically could. I guess I could also say though that getting to this point was the roughest 20 years i’ll ever live in my life time. That this life i’m living was definitely not the life I thought I would have. That, as a baby girl, I was told this current reality was not the life I was supposed to or believe I would acheive. I was supposed to be living the complete opposite. In a different house. In different shoes. With different friends than the ones I have. Scary. But what I do know is you come to a point, everbody comes to a point in their lives, where you realize a certain checkpoint. I hit my checkpoint these past two weeks.

I can sit here and continue to be told how to live my life. Be told the right from wrong. Or I can simply go find it for myself. I’ve realized that for twenty years, I just accept what people tell me. I just do what people say. I don’t figure my own situations out and I don’t embrace challenges as my own. In a sad little box I’m squaring the fact that yes, I’m a very responsible person, but I responsibly take the easy way out. always. So, to myself, I’m making a promise not to be such a lazy self centered person anymore. To listen more than I speak. To not just accept, but to understand. Properly.

I guess I’ve come to my senses on being a mature individual. To stop fucking around. Not stop having fun, but to quit being such a careless prick. Cause I was, for the longest time. Caring of nothing but myself. This past year, I’ve spent time putting love and effort into others, and I’ve realized the reward it gives, much higher than caring of just myself. I’ve gained support, love, hell, even a best friend. Becci. Granted I’ve had her 3 years but by spending time and effort on OUR friendship, has made it one to keep a life time. Not just “another friend.” I’ve learned alot more about responsibility. Selling Buckle. Going back to school. Not just accepting and continue to ignore an education, but actually going an getting one. Working out the practical things in life, the priorities. The important details that a more careless, reckless Lizzie wouldn’t have done before. I’m learning these things.. slowly. But they’re coming. I swear.

I don’t wanna leave Arizona on bad terms with my parents. At all. It’s not fair. So in the next 5 days, I’ll take every second possible to UNDERSTAND, not accept, why my family’s care & welfare went down the shitter. Because we owe it to each other. Not sit and seethe and fester for years being ignorant to the fact that even if my parents do suck at being parents, they gave life to me, fed me, and put a roof over my head. Some babies don’t get lucky enough to recieve that. I did.

I guess I maturely entered this battle with my family because they apologized. Both of them. And they both made amends to their daughter in fear of losing her. I can’t be spiteful and push them away further. I have heart. I’m not evil. Despite what people may think, i’m not. I’m full of love, not hate. But my parents are beginning to slowly realize that their once bright, loving little daughter has grown; to become a tainted, battered, bruised spot on the floor by a money fed ego that gripped a very tight hold on this squashed and torn family. My parents can’t change the past. Nor can I. But we can make the future. And change the present, to outline the future. I don’t wanna die regretting what I could have had with them. I see pictures of the three of us, when I was a little baby girl, and I’m happy. We’re all happy. Smiling. Kissing each other, over and over. Sometimes, I realize, this is my problem. The lack of love, true love in my life. Is what causes my unhappiness. Because it is so dormant, so hidden. I had it- a very long time ago. Then it vanished. And I crave it, everyday of my life. And very seldom do I recieve it. And i’m sick of blaming and hating because It was lost. I wanna repair what’s been damaged. Because even if it isn’t as beautiful as It once was, it will be there. And that is what is important. The love I had when I was a baby girl. The love that made me smile the biggest smiles, telling all the teachers and school friends “about my wonderful family.” The one I grew up to believe WASN’T a lie. Even if everyone now accepts it was. I don’t have to. Not now. Not ever.

When I was little my mom’s friends used to always stop her to take pictures. Our neighbor, my babysitter Elsie, Bobby Robson’s wife, used to tell my father, “She looks just like a gypsy porcelin doll Derek!” I told my dad she was crazy. heh. My grandparents flew home yesterday, but all of the previous night, my father whipped out 22 different albums, FULL of pictures. Proving to me. Pictures of me being born in Eindhoven. Of him. Of my mother. Of Aberdeen and the years they had spent there in his kit car. And of my sister in America after she was born. Pictures of me in Ireland with my grandparents while they were here in America. Pictures of his “little gypsy porcelin doll.” I was stunned. 22 albums. And if that isn’t enough, that was just what was in his closet.. in ONE BOX.

He has 25 boxes in storage.. over 40,000 photos. I had no clue.

I guess what I’m trying to say is alot has happened to this family. Things that no one knows, that I don’t expect anyone to understand, and no one has to. But what I do want them, my parents, to understand is that I will always love them. And it’s THAT I crave. Everyday. Their love and support. Their care. NOT their money. NEVER their money. I just want them in my life, like it used to be. They mean everything to me. And they really should know it, till the day the die. x