I Love You Twelve

This is going to be much longer than two parts. I guess that’s what I get for putting off writing it for so long. It’s really hard to type up my testimony. So if it seems like it’s incoherent, I’m sorry. It’s really hard to sum up the past elevenish years of my life. But I am excited to share it. And scared. I changed the title because it seems much more fitting to the whole thing. It’s not completely about Billy. He played a huge role in it, but there’s so much to the story. My story.

I wasn’t expecting to make it to the poetry competition. I really wasn’t. When I got the acceptance letter, I spazzed out. I remember talking to my parents about it, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to go. It was going to be held in Orlando on Disney property. I didn’t expect them to take me, or even want to. We had just gone to Disney World for the first time a few months beforehand.  Why would we go back? My sister and I had waited our entire lives to go just once. Two times within a year? Why would that happen? Why would I even dare to think that was a possibilty.

Yet, my parents said yes. I was so excited. And as the months went by and plans were being set to go to Orlando, our house was also put up for sale. It was scary to me. I had lived in that house for most of my life. I grew up in that house. I was just starting to fit into a group at my church. I was still really shy, but I was starting to feel like maybe I belonged somewhere. I was such an awkward child. I was always the misfit. I had also started to really get to spend time with my little cousins…and they meant the world to me. So I had really mixed emotions about our house going up for sale. It was no secret that I had been wanting to move to Florida. When I was younger, I constantly said that I wanted to live in Florida and I wanted to work in Disney World. But now that our house was up for sale, I wasn’t quite sure that’s what I wanted. I knew beforehand that my parents were seriously thinking about moving to Florida, but I didn’t let it sink in. I was content with the way things were going in Ohio.

We drove down to Florida in our motor home. We stayed at the resort where the convention was. Honestly, I chickened out and didn’t go to a lot of things at the convention. I got up to read once. I was just so shy and scared. I’ve always had this thing about writing and sharing it with the world. I’m shy about it. It’s really hard for me because I want people to like my writing. Obviously I have gotten over that quite a bit since I was fifteen, but it’s always been a struggle.

The night before my final day at the convention was the night before Labor Day. My parents had the Sunday Parade and I took some downtime to look through it. I always liked the first page with the Q & A about the different celebrities. This particular Sunday was all about The Muscular Dystrophy Associate. I still didn’t know a lot about it, but I started reading through. There was a picture of Billy Gilman and Mattie Stepanek in it. I remember being so excited to read their article. I asked a couple questions and it stayed on my mind the rest of my trip. Music Through Heartsongs was one of my favorite CD’s. I loved the idea of heartsongs. Singing the song that was placed in your heart. Learning that song. Living that song. I didn’t quite understand the importance of it yet, though. I just liked the idea of it. I didn’t live it.

I didn’t win anything at the convention/competition. It was a really cool experience though. Not to mention, after it was over, we stayed at Fort Wilderness and went park hopping. We also went to look at new houses. I got to help pick out the house I live in now. It didn’t seem real though. It felt like a dream that I would wake up from. We went to Naples for a few days after that and then headed back to Ohio.

Everything felt different. Everything was weird. I remember when my mom told us it was okay to tell the people at church we were moving to Florida. I remember how terrifying it suddenly felt to be going somewhere completely different than Salem. And I didn’t like that feeling. I remember crying my eyes out many nights after church, because I was going to miss my little group of friends. I was going to miss my youth group and I was going to miss the worship team. I was going to miss Church in the Park. I was going to miss playing the piano.

I was going to miss my cousins more than I could ever imagine. For about two years, my relationship with my cousins had changed drastically. We had all gotten really close – from my older first cousins all the way to my sweet baby cousin, Julia. I think it was the hardest to say goodbye to Julia, because I had known her since she was born. She was also so little and I was scared she would forget all about me. I never wanted that to happen.

I didn’t mind packing up my room. I didn’t mind putting my life into boxes. I didn’t mind giving my cat to someone who would have a lot of land for him to run around. I wasn’t going to miss the place. I was going to miss people. I was going to miss feeling like I was starting to fit in.

I also didn’t like the feeling of saying goodbye and not knowing when I would see everyone again. Not a fan. Still not a fan of that. Most likely will never be a fan of goodbyes. I don’t really even like see-you-laters.

When we moved to Florida…when my prayer to move here finally happened…I was not happy. I didn’t want it anymore. I think I prayed multiple times for God to change His mind and to tell my parents not to move…not to keep us here. It was a really rough time in my life. And as the months went by and we couldn’t find a church (which, we still haven’t found a church…almost eight years later), I fell into a depression that I just couldn’t shake. I don’t think I have ever felt so alone in my entire life. It was a really rough start for me here.

On top of that, I had a lot of health issues going on. I was sick constantly. I was overly emotional. My only friend in Florida was my one year old neighbor, Colin. (Who was also an answer to prayer…“Dear God, please let there be a sweet little boy next to my house that I can babysit.”) I was completely miserable and I didn’t know what to do. Even though God was obviously answering my prayers, I was miserable. I wouldn’t talk to people. I wouldn’t try and make friends. People weren’t staying in touch with me like they promised. I guess I hadn’t realized what moving really meant. I cried myself to sleep literally every night.

We finally got things situated and we set up our new computer to the internet. I immediately set up an account on Jesse McCartney’s message board. That was something I had always wanted to do. I was ridiculed for the music I listened to (mostly by church people…sad…) and I was really excited to be able to talk to people that had the same taste in music as I did. It was the fun time to be  Jesse McCartney fan, too. It was right after Dream Street ended and right before Summerland aired and he became the huge celebrity he is now. Also, the idea of talking to people without them knowing what I looked liked and anything about my life was intriguing to me. No judgment. It was impossible to not fit in. I ended up making friends and I became pretty well known on there. I celebrated my 16th birthday on that message board, with girls around the same age of me who had never met me. It was all I would do though. I just didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone. Or Florida. The only time I would get excited to do anything was if we were having visitors – like my cousins or the Benders. Or if I was at Disney World. Disney World could make everything better in an instant. Until I stepped out of it. I just wanted to sit and type and write. And be alone.

During this time, I learned how to use Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, and Animation Shop. I spent hours learning how to use those programs. I don’t know why I even cared about learning them, but I did. I didn’t have any reason to. It was just something to teach myself. Something to do. I would have the girls on Jesse’s forum critique the signatures, wallpapers, and layouts that I made. They helped me learn. I also taught myself HTML and how to make website layouts. I started writing on Xanga. No one read my Xanga, but I liked to pretend people did like to keep up with me. It was also my first time blogging.

My mom made sure that my sister and I did get out of the house though. She practically had to drag me out. It definitely wasn’t easy for her. I made it really hard on my parents. We took a lot of beach trips when we first moved here. And I would try and have fun. I am blessed that my sister is so silly, because she would always try and make me laugh. Even when I was being a brat, she would find some way to make me laugh and forget about everything.

In the middle of my extreme antisocial dilemma, my parents took me to the doctor. I had to have a lot of blood work done. Originally, my mom thought that I had PCOS (polycistic ovarian syndrome), but I had been checked for it in Ohio and they had told me that I didn’t. The way my emotions were constantly up and down wasn’t normal. I was sick all of the time. I was also gaining weight for no apparent reason. I ended up seeing an Endocrinologist. She thought I might have Diabetes. She was pretty sure I had Diabetes. I think at that moment, I felt like I had hit rock bottom. I was an emotional wreck, I didn’t have my cousins, I didn’t have a church, and I didn’t have my friends. Somewhere around this time, my parents bought me an elliptical. I spent at least an hour on it every day. I would blast my music. It was a huge stress reliever. (Even now, I always want to go on an elliptical when I am stressed out.) Anyways, I pulled out Music Through Heartsongs and started listening to it again. It also calmed me down.

After all of the tests were finally finished, the results did come back as PCOS. I had to change a lot. It wasn’t Diabetes, but it still took a toll on me. It was a relief to finally know what was wrong with me. It helped knowing that the depression I was feeling wasn’t completely because I had moved to Florida. It was partially that, but the fact that my hormones and my body were so messed up made it ten times worse than it would have been otherwise.

It wasn’t long after that, my mom walked into the room while I was on the elliptical and told me that Mattie Stepanek passed away. I wish I could have seen my face when she told me. She messed up his name and it took me a minute to figure out who she was talking about. I remember gasping once I realized what she was telling me and asking her if she was sure. It was all over the news. It was true. The little boy that I had followed for the past year had lost his fight with Muscular Dystrophy. It hit my heart very hard.

I cried.

And the nice little lonely bubble I had created for myself to live in those seven months popped.

Part three coming soon.