AND this year unlike many years my mom actually remembered my birthday! i was waiting all day for her to call and she did. She even got me a card of Ellen Page from Juno whom I totally love and my real brother Bob even texted me. Granted i reminded everyone a zillion times but still. The talking card says "you're, like, the coolest person I've ever met, and you don't even have to try" which I'm totally treasuring forever, I can't remember if my mom ever got me a birthday card before, but I do remember having a birthday party when I was little cause I have the tape on a A-Track video tape. heh. But every since I stopped living with my parents and went in foster care I remember horrible birthdays. It's like I had a curse where every year I would either get beat up or forgotten on my birthday. I remember when the Dumires got me a bible for my 16 birthday (which I did not appreciate) and I desperately wanted to go ice skating for some reason, but I spent the day waiting for one of my parents to call but they were going through a lot at the time and forgot. At the time i felt sooo sorry for myself like I had no one and Julie called them and told them off which made me embarrassed.

 But now I feel bad for feeling sorry for myself, cause in reality I was sooooo unbelievably lucky to have people that loved me and took care of me in my life. In some ways I think later living in the shelter and @ Julies and waiting to move into Missy's after I decided to leave Julie's, made me realize this. Even though at the time it was hard, I think I had pity for myself until all that happened and was able to see the tragic lives of so many kids. I saw children dealing with horrible lives, who had nothing, and noone in the world to care for them. I was so lucky to have people choose me to love, and all the people that took me in even if only for a night like Michelle, and in the end those people saved my life. When your a kid you try to rebel and push things as far as you can, I was such a nasty kid saying stuff like "you can't tell me what to do you're not my parents" and that eventually made me have to leave the Dumires.

Now I feel so horrible for that, since I know now what sacrifices they made for me. I've seen kids in foster homes and I think I am the only person I've met who was the only foster kid in a home. I was taken into a family and taught what a normal family does, treated like I was their child, AND only in recent years did I find out that they did not receive any money for me since they lived in a different county, and only recently did I investigate my own files and find out how much they went through to get custody of me. It's a long process to become foster parents and they did so just to get me and I knew that they saved all the money my parents sent me for me, but I had no idea that they didn't get anything from children and youth. That is remarkable that a family would take me in, give me a room, food and clothes, and pay for everything for me. I know I would have felt guilty at the time since I used to be so embarrassed of being in foster care, but I almost wish I had known because I would have realized how amazing what they did for me really was and maybe I wouldn't have rebelled so much. 

I guess I'm noticing all the people I should appreciate.  Lauren was only person I ever hooked up with totally sober. I haven't been totally clean since before I ever dated anyone! Granted i wasn't bad until the year before I stopped, which needed to happen for me to hit rock bottom, but I never really told anyone serious things about myself without making it seem like a joke. With Lauren I told her everything up front, almost as if I was trying to get it all out at once thinking that there was no way she could care about me. It's so hard for me to be serious with people I like.
NEways, Lauren I blurted everything out to, all the horrible things I ever experienced and details I never told anyone before as if I couldn't believe she would ever care about me if she knew the things that had been done to me as well as the things I had done. Now though, I totally trust her. I finally realize that she only cares about what I'm doing now when it comes to judging me. That's an incredible thing. Lauren isn't my girlfriend, i screwed that up cause I blow everything out of proportion and reach conclusions that have no realistic bearing or factual basis, but I realized after she left on Monday that I am closer to her than I've ever been to anyone in my whole life. I've never met anyone that I opened up to like I did her.

 know I was living such a wild life for so long that no one was able to get through to me, but when you first get clean it's like you are just a dry junkie. I still don't know how to live, I don't know how to deal with my emotions and I don't know how to take care of myself and my life like I should yet. It's a tough process. They say when you start escaping with drugs that you stop growing emotionally. I think that's kinda bullshit but I do know that I am nowhere near my age with responsibility or emotionally. Lauren is the first person that I've actually ever been able to focus my emotions on. And that's even been hard. Anyway I guess I'm realizing a lot about myself and how incredibly lucky I am to have such a great friend like her, as well as all the wonderful people in my life. 
I know that no matter where she ends up (she is looking for a new job) or whatever she does with her life that I always want to be in her life in at least some way. she has had the most impact on me than anyone I've ever known. 

My great epiphany came after seeing a movie lol. "Smart People"-which I had never heard of and bought on a whim Friday simply cause it had Ellen Page in it and I had just gotten in a fight with Lochlyn when she came to Temple. We did talk now though and she says that everything will work out with the court case from the assault. I just want it to be over with and I want so much to not be harboring any bad feelings for anyone. I hate fighting with her, I hate that she knows just what to say to me to really hurt me and I hate that I'm in this situation let alone with a woman I lived with and loved. I hope it is over soon. Oh and Ellen Page should marry me, and the best quote from the movie is when her father calls her self absorbed and she says "I think self-absorption's underrated" hahah. Awesome. Ellen Page and Sarah Jessica Parker calling one another bitches makes for a good movie.