I thought I would let you guys know some of my story to start with. Thought it went along with the depression theme.

Home Run Finally

The story of the danger of the kids that fell into our arms, but how glad we were that they did.

Yes or No?

“Either one of you has the power to change the decision for the entire family.”

My parents had said to my biological brother Jaden and I. They had come into the living room of our house just ten minutes ago and told us a story about two boys in the most painful of situations. The story was followed with a question; our answers would change our lives forever.

Our parents had been trying to make us a  foster family for a long time, taking classes, and doing loads of paperwork. We had watched my mom cry for a baby, wanting to change the child’s future forever. Wanting to have a little one again. She wanted to hold the child and keep it safe, she wanted a baby so bad, but the call we got was different than we ever could have expected. The agency wanted a home for not one, but two boys, and not the baby we had asked for. These boys were ages four and five. There was an unspoken expectancy in our family, if we got a call for anything but a baby, it would be turned down because we, as a family, had decided on an infant. 

I had been an only child for the first five years of my life and understood what it was like to give up time with my parents because of new children. My love language was and still is quality time, giving more of that up was scary for me. I was eleven, about to be initiated into my dad’s youth group, and I had a pretty normal life. Hearing the story of these boys being abused and neglected was heartbreaking for me. Heartbreaking doesn’t even explain the pain I felt at that moment. It was more like my heart was being thrown in a blender and put the setting on high. I was sobbing. I wanted to say yes to them coming into my home, coming into my life, but I was scared. 

We had done a program called Safe Families before coming into foster care, and it had torn me apart. We would have little kids come into our home and become part of the family. Then they would be ripped out of our care and thrown right back into the terrible situations they started at. We had one infant named Anthony that we loved to death.  My mom attached to him the most. When we went to return him to his mother, she handed off the baby to someone as soon as my mom handed him to her, and she began to smoke a cigarette. But, above all others a little girl named Tia was the most devastating. 

She came to our house an angry little girl. I guess that isn’t true, she came to our house a happy girl that didn’t like me. I didn't know why, and I still don’t, But I loved her. I loved her from the instant I saw her. I tried to love her, but she hated me. Mom said it was just a little dislike, and she would get over it, but I knew she hated me. I don’t know why she did, but it was plain to me. I did all I could to love her and eventually she stopped hating me. It was really hard for me to keep on trying, but my hard work paid off. She didn’t love me as I did her, but she didn’t hate me. And just as soon as I could earn a hug occasionally, she was ripped from our home and sent to her dad. It took me so very long to recover and just as I was getting there, she came back. Her dad couldn’t keep her. So we kept her and she learned to love me. Everyone thought we were going to adopt her and I felt so close to  God. Then her dad made a call to DCFS (the agency we were foster parents through) and somehow got her back. We never saw it coming. I cried so hard the night she left. She was the sister I never had and doubt now that I ever will have. My heart went with her to her dad’s house and it took me a very long time to take it back. I have and probably always will live with the hope to see her again, to hug her again. I hope she remembers me as vividly as I do her. I have never fully recovered, and I definitely hadn’t when we got the call about the boys.

As my parents were explaining and I was crying, the only thing I could think about was that they were gonna leave just like Tia did. But I couldn’t let them live in a world as cruel as theirs was. So I said yes, always thinking in the back of my mind, I am not gonna let them into my heart. I built walls around my heart that even all the kings horses and all the kings men could never break through, but God could, and did through my life with Josiah and James.

The Early Days

James and Knowledge were their names, and they were the cutest things ever. With all that had happened, however, they were very angry and walled up kids, just like I was actually. They had visible scars on their arms and legs and even faces. Knowledge (Josiah now) had a white scar between his eyes. When they came here they looked like stolen objects. They looked like they had been in one place one day, and in a new family the next. Which was very, unfortunately, true.

From day 1 they wanted to leave. They thought we had stolen them from their last foster home, and wanted to go back. Their previous foster home had been a foster to adopt. That family waited the six months, (that is required before adoption in D.C.F.S.) and got ready to adopt. But they did not want James. They wanted just to adopt Knowledge and separate them. James has some brain disorders, and it was difficult for people to deal with him, but that is no reason to separate brothers. D.C.F.S. pulled them from that family immediately and sent them to us. They wanted to go back and they didn’t want anything to do with us. 

I knew from the beginning that it was going to be hard, but I never expected anything like this. James would hurt me physically, which I probably could have dealt with, but he hurt me emotionally too. He would say things like “you’re ugly” and “I hate you,” but most of all “I don’t love you.”  or  “I will never love you.” It  hurt me so bad to think of adopting him, but him never loving me. It tore me apart slowly and piece by piece. I was broken. I didn’t want to try to love him like I 

should. I dislocated myself from family life.  

For those of you who are good friends to me, you’ll know I’m an extrovert. I love people. In that time, I slowly disconnected with people, and almost nobody noticed. But two people did. My best friend Ruthanne Hunt, and my sister/mentor, Brianna Russel. They saw me slip away from friends and try to slip from them, but they had too firm of a grip on me. They didn’t let me go. I would have fallen into depression, and  probably ended up suicidal, but they didn’t let me go. Ruthie helped me with the things that came back. The things I dealt with. As a three-year-old, I went through something hard no one should go through at that age, or ever... I didn’t remember it because God kept me from remembering. But that didn’t last forever. I had a dream. It was a bad one with every detail I didn’t know three-year-old minds could register. I came into my mom’s room crying, having a nightmare. But it wasn’t a nightmare. It was the reality. Mom had to tell me that and I broke down. Apparently one in four girls in America went through this as a toddler. Ruthie helped me get over that and in the next year I was over it and had dealt with it.

Ruthie has always stood by me in every situation, even when it sucked. That saying “through thick and thin,” was majorly thick in our lives…. or thin depending on which is bad. It was just bad, but she always stuck by me. My life pretty much  sucked for a year, but she was there always. Loving on me, especially when I didn't accept it, caring for me when I pushed her away. She is awesome and has been there for me with everything. 

Brie. What can I say about Brie? She made me her little sister and challenged me where no one could. She is a wonderful person I will always look up to. She brought me out from torture and showed me the lights in all things. She showed me there can be happiness without good circumstances. She showed me that life is hard, but can be the best thing that ever happens to you, but that you have to make it the best thing that ever happens to you.

So life at home wasn’t easy, but we got through it. I won’t go through all the hardships and details of everything bad because I am too anxious to get to the good. Our family’s story shows a lot of trust, victory, failure, and hardship. But we won the battle. We have to finish the war, but we have won the battle, and the enemy had no chance of defeating us.

Can I finally hit that home run?

So I am going to fast forward a year or two, through normal family life, and difficulties, so we can get to the fun part. Here goes.

Mom and Dad had been arguing a lot lately, because of all the paperwork. You would not believe how many trees have to die for all the adoption paperwork for one kid. Imagine two! So things were tight between mom and dad, and we were thinking about changing the boy’s names and it was all too crazy! Someone decided a two-week road trip family vacation was a good idea. Yeah right. Nice try! In the first three days, I was grounded for a week. In the next week, it changed to two weeks. I was seriously considering jumping off the grand canyon after the fifth hour at looking in the hole in the ground! It may be big, but it is still a hole in the ground. So by the time we got home, my mom and I were ready to snap each other's necks, and dad was ready to snap anyone's neck that spoke. Fun family vacation right? NO! It was horrible. Even if I wasn’t grounded I would have stayed in my room for at least two weeks after. It was bad. Somehow we pulled it together and worked it out. Our family does that, every time, but for a while it was hell on earth. Not the caption amazing perfect family picture you would want on your wall, right? Everyone seems to think it is easy being a foster family. It isn’t, but it is worth it. Let’s just say it isn’t for the faint of heart. 

A couple months later it was time. Time to make my brothers mine. No more leaving, no more separating. I could finally open my hearts up to the boys. I was finally, no going back, was going to put my arm into it and hit a home run with these newfound children, that despite my hiding, had found a way into my heart.

Epilogue

In the next couple weeks, everything was finalized, and they were ours. James and Josiah, Knowledge but a memory. They were MINE. I was able to open up and love them.

Please don’t misunderstand me when I say this because although we are closer than ever now, my brothers are still brothers and can be annoying and frustrating as any other sibling out there. When the adoption gets finalized, nothing magically changes. Life doesn’t become heaven, unfortunately, but it changes little things. As in Josiah’s smile was a bit wider, his eyes grew brighter, and James’ hugs were firmer.

Adoption is a process as anything is. Life is too. We have to follow the recipe and make our own little tweaks as we go. This was hard, but we did it. Nothing worth doing is easy. Whatever you are going through right now as you read this, you’ll get through it unless you give up. Promise yourself you won’t.It makes everything worse. You got this. I got this. This life is short so…

Carpe Diem

(seize the moment)

Welcome Jessica!

I'd like to give a very warm welcome to our new author, Jessica! She's great at writing. I hope you guys will enjoy her.

Choosing Happiness

I have a lot of friends who struggle to make the right choices in their lives. While there are many wrong decisions to make (the world is full of them), I wanted to talk about one specific wrong decision that people make every day, one that I have made before.

This next part is for people who have friends who are struggling to choose happiness.

I have a friend who recently chose to start hurting herself again. She's done it before. She feels like when she hurts herself, she's releasing that negative energy on herself instead of others. Since she's doing this, no one else will get hurt. Right?

No. What she doesn't realize is the effect that she is having on the people who care about her. As her friend, I care about her. I know that the decisions she has made are going to have a negative impact on me and her friends & family. She doesn't realize it. But in hurting herself, she's hurting anyone and everyone who cares about her.

It hurts, to sit by people and watch them destroy themselves, knowing that you can't stop them. Knowing that they have to choose to want to live, and that you can't force them to make that decision. You can protect them. You can temporarily stop them from hurting themselves, you can stop them from attempting suicide, but you can't always be there.

You can't always be there. It's a horrible realization, but it's one that everyone who has a friend struggling like that has to come to. If they are really trying to kill themselves, then one day they will succeed.

That's something I've had to accept.

I'm not saying that there is no hope. I'm not saying there's nothing you can do. I'm saying that ultimately, it's up to them to choose to want life.

Sadness is inevitable, but at the same time, it's a choice. Here's my list of things you can do to choose happiness.
1: Don't spend your time with people who make you feel like there's no option other than sadness.
Don't give them any attention. They don't deserve it. You'll just be feeding them more and more. It's what they want.

2: Don't let negative thoughts go through your head. Sometimes you can't help but think something negative. I get that. But you can choose to think about something else rather than thinking about it over and over and over again. Like I said before, that'll only lead to self condemnation. To avoid thinking about those things, you can do something else that requires your full attention. Read a book. Talk to a friend (Actually TALK to them. Texting is not going to help you, because in the time that you are waiting for a response, you can turn your attention back to the negative thoughts).

3: If you are dealing with personal problems such as a broken home, bullies, cyber bullies, or anything else like that, you need to talk to someone right away. These things can be the source of your sadness. If someone or something is spouting out sadness, you won't be able to choose happiness. These problems can all be fixed. You can talk to a parent, trusted adult, teacher, etc. and they will get you support. I wouldn't recommend just talking about these things to your friends. While they can help support you, they won't be able to get you any help and they can sometimes give you bad advice.

Don't ever, ever choose sadness if it can be avoided. Choose happiness! We live in a big, beautiful, lovely world full of so many great opportunities! No one wants to be sad. No one should want to be sad. Anyone telling you that sadness is the answer is lying to you. Don't believe their lies.

Be happy. Choose happiness.

Note: I'm not really talking about clinical depression in this post. I intend to write a post that goes more in-depth as far as my opinion on that goes.