A Step in the Right Direction

I was tired of dead end jobs. I knew I would never better myself if I didn't gain some experience and education. I needed to do something that offered both a shot at an education and a steady income. So I decided to join the Army. I knew that I could gain new experiences, get an education and support my family all at the same time. Joining the Army was an easy decision at that time. I was struggling bad. I was starting to see what no teenage boy can see until it smacks him in the face. What did I see? Exactly how expensive and how much of a responsibility it was to raise a family. The Army provided a good life for us. We had a steady income, we had a decent place to live, and we could afford to live and do a few extra things too. The Army was no picnic. During my thirteen weeks in basic training, my new bride decides that she wasn't ready to be a mother. That isn't just me describing what she did, those were her exact words. What a time to make that decision, 9 months after the baby is born! She left and left our daughter with my parents. That's right, she just took off! Yeah, women do it too, it's not just the men these days. My parents, bless their hearts, were trying to keep me from having to deal with this drama from afar and were trying to prevent me from piling more on myself. My dad was in the Army at one time, so he knew I was already in a stressful situation. I really had no clue. I was trusting and I had faith that my new wife was back home being "motherly" and I had no worries. Like anything that big and dramatic, my parents could only keep it a secret for so long......

It was May, I had been in basic training since April 20. It was Mother's day and I was making a call home to wish the two most important women in my life, at that time, a happy Mother's day. I called the house and did not get an answer. I thought that they must have been at my grandmother's house, so I called there. Sure enough, everyone had gathered at Nana's for a family celebration. Being the son and man that I am, I asked to speak to my mom. I was going to wish her a happy Mother's day first. Keep in mind that at this time I was not saved and did not accept that the wife is first. I talked to my mom for a little bit, asked how she was and how dad was, then I asked to speak to my wife. Shocking to me, my mom told me that she was not there, she was at my parents house. I asked if something was wrong with my daughter and my mom said no that she was with them. I knew something didn't sound quite right but I never went to the thought that anything was going on. I hung up with my mom and called my parents house back. I did not get an answer. By this time, I had used my time up on the phone and the guy waiting behind me was anxiously waiting to make his call home to speak to his mother. I decided to give it one more try, still, no answer! I was becoming furious and upset at in one emotion. I kept calling, and calling, and calling, and calling....no answer! The guy waiting was starting to get upset himself. He had been patiently waiting his turn and here I was using up all the time. He tapped me on my shoulder and said to me, "come on man, I want to make my call". That made me furious. I went off into a fit of rage and took all my aggression out on that guy. I gave him a slap on the cheek. Remember, I was not saved! I felt bad and still feel bad to this day that I did that to him. He was doing nothing wrong. I had a serious problem on my hands. Something was going on and I did not know what it was. All kinds of thoughts and speculation were running through my mind, my heart raced, the anger grew and burned inside me, I was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

It was long, maybe three or four days after the Mother's day disappointment that I received a letter in the mail. I was a little shocked that someone wrote me a letter. At that time, I had never really communicated with anyone through the mail so it seemed odd to me that I had a letter. I was happy though to know that someone took the time to write. I thought it was probably my mom or maybe my dad or even perhaps my Nanny had decided to send me a letter and let me know she was praying for me. That was what Nanny always did. She prayed for everyone. She never had a lot of money so she couldn't afford to buy gifts for people on special occasions but you could always count on her unfailing prayers for you. Anyhow, I took the letter and sat back down to read it. The letter wasn't marked with a return address so I still had not figured out who it was from. I opened it up rather swiftly, full of excitement and anticipation. When I unfolded the letter, I immediately recognized the hand writing. It was my wife! She decided to write me! I felt so good, I was so happy. I thought that maybe she felt bad about missing my call on Mother's day! I started to read. As I read, my expression and my excitement flew from me! My stomach dropped and my heart sank! She had written me a Dear John letter. That's right, she was letting me go! She was breaking it off with me in a letter while I was in basic training! I crumbled, tears flowed from my eyes like an unstoppable flood. I could not believe what I was reading. I had changed my entire life, made a huge commitment in order to take care of her and my daughter and she was leaving our child with my parents and leaving me to a four year contract with Uncle Sam alone! It was over!

The Beginning of Life

I met a girl in the summer of 1998. I was 18 and she was 17. We dated for a while and things were pretty good. It was the first girl I dated continuously for any length of time. At that age, I didn't want to get too serious with anyone. We had fun together at first and things seemed good. About six months into the relationship, things started to change. I guess the "real" person was starting to come through. We had what started out to be a little fuss and it quickly turned into a major argument. At that time in life, I didn't like to argue and fuss and fight. She did most of the arguing. She yelled to the top of her voice and got really angry. I remember feeling shocked because I had not witnessed that type of behavior before. I just sat there and listened in amazement thinking how crazy the whole escapade was. It finally settled down and things went back to what was normal at the time. It didn't take long to realize that this wasn't what I signed up for. I started thinking to myself that I needed to go ahead and end this relationship because it was going nowhere. The fits of rage became more frequent and the violence slowly increased. I have never been the type to be violent toward women so I just sat there and took it. I was finally at the point where I had enough and I decided to end it. I told her that I thought we should take a break for a little while and let things cool off. We could see where it went from there. As you can imagine, that didn't go over well. I spent time away from her. I decided to go on a date with another girl, really just to see where my heart was at. After a little over a week of not talking much or seeing each other at all, I got the call that would change my life forever. Yep, she was pregnant. We talked about the pregnancy and about how everything had gone over the past couple of months. She made me believe that the behavior she had been displaying wasn't her normal behavior. She claimed that she just didn't know how to deal with her feelings that she had developed for me and she was scared. To this day, I don't really know if that was true or just a line. At any rate, we were going to give it another shot. Since I had been raised in a Christian home, with Christian values, abortion was not option. We sorted out our differences and carried on with the relationship. Over the next 7 months or so, there was quite a bit of happiness shared between us. We were excited about the baby coming and we were discussing all of our future plans for our baby. There were some stressful time as well with the anticipation of becoming a parent, especially at that age, but for the most part, we covered those feelings with feelings of joy and excitement.

Then the time came. My little baby girl was born. She was so precious and so sweet. I held her non stop. I didn't want to put her down. I was so proud to be a daddy. She was the sweetest thing I had ever laid eyes on at that time in my life. I was so happy. We were happy. New parents, struggling, but making the best of it. For the first nine months of my baby girl being in this world, I was so happy and felt so good about where my life was going. There was only one problem, I had a minimum wage job and with the new baby, I had to find a way to increase my income. At that time, all I had was a GED. It was hard to find a job that paid enough to pay the bills and take care of my little girl. I didn't want my daughter to have to settle for just the things she needed, I wanted to put myself in a position that would afford me the opportunity to give her what she wanted as well. I wanted the "good life". I decided to take a big step. What I did next would change my life forever..................

Stay tuned to the next chapter in my life. I will talk about how making a career change would change my path in life forever.