New Beginnings

Six Years

Monday, October 16

Six years ago today, I gained full custody of Ava. I was still in college, but I was financially stable for the first time in my life, and I wanted Ava to have a parent who loved her. Because I had known that I was going to deploy, I had done extra work to graduate on time(that is also with student teaching)by spring of 2012. I had been taking care of Ava a lot, and I actually ended up providing daycare for her when she was just a year old. Stacey, my sister(Ava's mom), took care of her more when she was a baby though, but a lot of times, she just relied on me or other people to watch her kid. Somehow we always made it work. Don't ask how though because I don't know. God somehow helped us pull through it.

I'm not going to pretend like it was easy either because I still had a lot going on. I mean, I was at that point in my life where I thought I knew everything. I don't talk about this a whole lot, but during my freshman year of college, I struggled a lot because it seemed like everyone around me in college had the ideal life: two parents, a nice home, a little bit of extra money, and everything that I didn't have. I didn't know how to react to everything, so I just kind of hung out by myself and worked really hard in college. Also, my mom had passed away only months before, and I was so young. I didn't know how to deal with it. Had my mom not been an alcoholic, I'm sure I would've turned to alcohol or drugs, but I wanted nothing to do with either one. I couldn't be like her.

And I had overcome so much that my mom and sister had not. I wouldn't stop short because I knew that my hard work in middle and high school wasn't a waste of time. I had to keep on moving forward, so I could stand here today, and I'm so glad I didn't stop moving forward.

I can't believe it's been six years since I gained full custody. Time is a funny thing because you don't really process events by thinking, "In x amount of years, I'll be here because of this event." In fact, when you're in the moment, you barely process the fact that there is an aftermath to everything, even years down the road. Like, this blog started on April 30th, and I have 15 entries after today. I didn't really think that I would still be writing this thing for six months. Sorry, I just had to throw that in here.

If it's been six years since I've had custody of Ava, that also means that it's been over six years since I've spoken to my sister. In September, my half brother, Kellen, made me promise him that I would reach out to my sister. I'm not ready, but I know I need to.

Tomorrow I am going to tell Ava that I am calling her mom. It may be a horrible idea to tell her, but I don't want to lie to her. I know they can't see each other. I think this could backfire, but I don't want Ava to wait until she's 27 to meet her mom because I don't want her to go through what I did with my dad. I want her to eventually form some relationship with her mom. With that said, I also need to talk to Ava tomorrow about seeing my dad this weekend, and I need to teach her the importance of forgiveness. I hope to God that this won't backfire. But this has to happen. If we don't work on our relationships in life, it's just going to eat at us. I'm willing to risk it all if that means we can all grow.