I was one semester into my Bachelors Degree program and there was one thing that was going to make me quit, Math and that was the class I had to take the first semester of school. My heart pounding and the fear of flunking in the horizon, I kept my head down and worked harder than I had ever worked before. Much to my Surprise, I kept an A in math that first semester and even found it easier to raise my hand and ask questions in Math. A luxury I didn't have at North Newton School corporation as most of the math teachers were there to coach football and only had to teach to do what they loved. So raising your hand for help meant getting starred down by jocks for taking their coach away from their discussion.
As the weeks went by in my first semester, I became more confident. This was a new feeling as I had hated so much of myself, I also found weight dropping off of me as the stress of divorce and the state my stomach was in was getting the better of me. Of course since I was so over weight the lost weight also assisted in my confidence boost. I felt more empowered and found myself liking math more than I hated it, it had become a challenge. Call it shape shifting or a new start, but I decided being out of my comfort zone seem to fit me better than being where I felt comfortable. Comfortable seemed to make me feel like a loser that hated everything about myself. As the semester came to an end, I passed all classes with A's and was on the deans list. The deans list? how did this happen to a girl that was a C student at best in highschool? Why was being challenged such a drive for me suddenly? At this point, I just assumed the school was way too easy, but hey, I passed and I was going to keep going no matter what and that was enough to lift me into the next chapter.
I started to hang out with a girl named Jessie, she had an 8 year old son. She was a life long server that drank heavily and spent weekends at the bar, either hoping to run into her "boyfriend" who was married and gave no damns about the woman he was married to, or hoping to catch the eye of another man. She often tried to teach me that using men was better than falling for a man. "If he wants this, he needs to pay up" meaning he had to take her out and show her a good time. Drinks and dinner or just drinks. As we hung out at bars, I found myself surrounded by men. This was a huge change for me as well, as I was always the "Fat Girl with huge teeth." A fact that most people never let me forget. Even some of the closest people always let me know "You have a funny looking body" or "Your teeth are too big for your head." The damage of the past causing confusion in the person of the present.
Why suddenly was I attractive to men? Why were guys happily offering to buy me beer or hang out with me? I decided it had to be the beer goggles or maybe I just happened to be the better looking ugliest woman in the bar. Whatever the reason, I soaked up the attention. I became out spoken, I joked and I enjoyed everything. I found myself drinking more and more, but only on weekends I didn't have my girls. On weekends I had my girls I stayed home and was the mom they needed. I never asked for sitters, I never accepted the help from my parents to watch them so I could go out. To me being a mother was more important than having a good time, if I could be with my girls why would I waste money on a baby sitter.
With my eyes on a prize, I stayed focused. It didn't matter, who I ended up dating and what they wanted, all that mattered was I wanted to graduate college and get everything I wanted without the help of any man. Every other weekend I found myself with Jessie getting drunk and sewing my wild oats attracting guys and the other weekend at home being a good mom, while doing my homework.
I also ran up to visit my cousin and Aunt on the at home weekends to run from my very mentally abusive manipulating ex husband. He often didn't care about the girls and would use them mostly to try and control me, Grabbing them only when he knew I had plans and telling women, I prevented him from seeing them. This in turn got the woman's affection and then made them start multiple fights with me about how horrible I was to him. Gaining sympathy often helped him gain a girlfriend. Whatever he needed to do to survive, he would do and I was more often than not the person that was railroaded in the process.
It started to feel like for every two steps I took forward he'd knock me back three. I tried to remain positive and I tried my best to support his relationship with the girls. At the end of the day, if I could look my girls in the eye and say "I did everything in my power to support your relationship with your father", then I was happy. I often helped in buying him groceries so he could have the girls. I would take them out for dinner when he didn't have power in the middle of the winter so he could at the very least see the girls. I over looked the mound of trash in the kitchen cause he didn't have trash service. I would bring him to and form work as needed when he didn't have a ride and I worked on whatever schedule he needed to have the girls, as apparently having kids and working is to difficult and impossible.
I did my best through out the first few months of school, work and girls. I had landed a job as a server for a truckstop and worked just under full time, working nights through out the weekends and doing paperwork in place of the manager. It was during this time that I probably went through the roughest time of my new life. Mentally, although I felt more confident, I was also in a dangerous state trying my hardest to weave through the pain of divorce, the hurtful rumors created by other servers of me being a "lot lizard" and being treated like a piece of meat by most men I came into contact with. Although I was trying to be on the rise of doing better, I felt like nothing but trash being used only as needed when needed and no one seriously caring about me as a person.