After my mom & stepdad got together we moved to a little town called Yukon, Oklahoma. I started sixth grade there. Our school was literally around the corner from our house, which meant we could walk to & from. This was very exciting for Dale & me, neither of us really feared anything about starting over again; this wasn’t our first rodeo. I went on to make a ton of new friends, the very first one was before school even started. Me & my brother had walked over to the school playground one afternoon & there were a girl & boy already there playing together. Turned out they were brother & sister as well, she was my age & he was Dale’s age & they lived right around the corner from us directly across the street from the school, PERFECT!!! Looking back, I think that’s what started to make this new place start to feel like home. We had had plenty of houses that we’d lived in, but never one place that felt like we would always belong there. After that, we moved around some, but always stayed in that school district (except one time I decided I’d move in with my dad, not the best idea, since by then he was a full-time nursing student & still bartending at night. That got lonely!)
My sophomore year, my Papa’s job was moving him & Granny to Dallas. This was devastating for us all, my family is as close-knit as they come & this would really put a damper on the way we were accustomed to doing life. We had lived with them off & on throughout our younger years & they were the ones who we all relied on for anything we ever needed. Stability, security, and support in everything we did, they had always been there. At the time of Papa’s transfer, we were living in a two-bedroom apartment in Yukon, five of us full-time & six of us when my stepsister was there. My grandparents, true to their form, decided that they couldn’t leave knowing we were all crammed in that apartment, so they decided to buy a house & let us live there to allow my parents to save up some money for their own house after my Papa retired & they moved back home. While our living situation wasn’t ideal in that apartment, I did meet some great friends who lived there as well. One of them has been one of my lifelong very best friends, like a sister to me. Michelle. We got into all sorts of shenanigans together, learned all about life together, went through hell & back together, met new friends together, had our babies together (I actually filmed the birth of her oldest), and are still together to this day! She’s actually with my husband’s best friend, who but God Himself could’ve planned it any better?! He’s blessed me with some of the most wonderful people to call framily!!!
After our move into the new house, things changed a little for me. Even though the house was literally like 7 minutes from our apartment, it was a different school district, Mustang, which is the town just South of Yukon. This time the move felt traumatizing for me, leaving all my friends behind felt like my world was caving in. Oh, the drama of a teenage girl’s life! Michelle & I had met a girl named Dawn in the apartments, who actually lived in the same building as me, right downstairs. She was just like us & we quickly became the three amigos. She taught Michelle & me a lot about boys, she had had a serious boyfriend with whom she’d had “experience” & told us all about it. We were thoroughly impressed by her worldly ways! Then we met our fourth at school, Ann. She too was like us & completed our little group. The four of us became super close & now my parents were dragging me away from them!!! When I left (7 minutes down the road), it seemed that the three of them had forgotten me. I was devastated, it became a dark period in my life. So much so, that my mom found a way to transfer me back to Yukon so that I could be back with my friends & happy again. Michelle & I picked right back up where we left off, Dawn & Ann were of course still there, but both had serious boyfriends that they spent the majority of their time with. Michelle & I started hanging out at this little arcade called Cactus Jack’s. At that age, it was the equivalent of a nightclub for us. We’d spend most weekend nights there, & during the summer as many nights as we could! It was where all the cute boys hung out, so it was where we wanted to be!
When I moved to Mustang, of course, I met new people, I just didn’t want to give it a chance because I’d left my heart in Yukon with all my friends. One of the new friends I’d met was a funny boy who lived up the street from us. He was always super friendly and outgoing & I always enjoyed being around him. I had no idea that he was going to be the link to some of the most favorite people I’d ever meet in my life. Trey was his name.
One night at “Cactus”, we ran into Trey. He was with some friends of his that I didn’t know. We hung out with them until it was time to go home. Trey & I became pretty tight after that, sometimes we’d sneak out to each other’s houses, just to goof off out of boredom. I remember one night, sneaking over to his place & he had a friend staying the night. A guy named Matt. Matt was on the phone with his girlfriend, while Trey & I were having a ball, dying laughing, playing with the “clapper” he had his lights & fan connected to. Remember those? Clap once for On, twice for Off. We thought we were hilarious; Matt wasn’t near as amused as we were & neither was his girlfriend. She wasn’t thrilled with the fact that there was a girl there with her boyfriend at all, so he finally begged me to talk to her so that I could reassure her that there was nothing romantic going on there. We talked & she turned out to be pretty cool. Turned out, she and her best friend at the time, Cee Cee, hung out at Cactus too & we decided to meet up. They went to Yukon too, just ran in a different circle than us. They were a hoot & the four of us girls, Michelle, Lynne (Matt’s girlfriend), Cee Cee & I all became inseparable.
We spent as many nights as our parents would let us get away with together, mostly at my house because my bedroom was huge & I had two full-size beds in there to accommodate all of us. Plus, it was a major bonus that my parent’s bedroom was at the back of the house, while mine was in the front with a big window, through which we snuck any & everyone we decided to invite over after curfew came & we had to come home. That is until we got more brazen & started using the front door to sneak people in & ourselves out of. We’d “party” all night & lounge by the pool at Lynne’s on the days it was warm enough, still frequenting Cactus at night, & then do it all over again the next chance we got. Some of my fondest, happiest, funniest, craziest & saddest memories occurred during those days, and I will cherish them until the day I die. And now Cee Cee is still in my life too, my closest, bestest ride-or-die friend I’ve ever had in my life. She’s the one I can pick up the phone & call to ask anything because most likely, she was there too & we can laugh, cry, pray, and reminisce about it. We call each other the two halves to make one Helen Keller now, she’s blind & I’m deaf (only half kidding here, we’re getting older…), so now we just call each other Helen.
This was all right after I met that cute friend of my brother’s, who was younger than me, Lee. And also when Susie came into my life. I had made all of these connections to these amazing people & it didn’t occur to me until later that, had Granny & Papa not moved us to Mustang; my life would’ve turned out much differently. And I can’t help but think, not nearly so blessed.
I’ve learned that the turns life can take may feel devastating at the time, even hopeless. But through experience & my faith, I now know that when God brings us to something, it’s for a purpose. It may be to bring others into your life, you may have never met otherwise. It may be to bring us closer to Him through the trials we experience. Whatever the reason may be, you can count on Him to lead you through it in joy or sorrow, trials, and triumphs, HE is always there, laughing with us, weeping for us, holding us up if we’ll just let Him. Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) says “For I know the plans the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you & not to harm you, plans to give you hope & a future.” Let that sink in, He knows the plans He has for you. They’re predetermined & will come to fruition, the easy way, or the hard way…. I’ve personally found His way much more preferable. When we “buck the system”, through our own stubborn will or sin, it takes us places less desirable. It brings turmoil & heartache in ways that may have been avoided, had we chosen differently, in accordance to His ways instead of our own. He is our Father, our Daddy. If you’re a parent you can probably relate to that as you look at your own children. Of all the love I have ever known on this earth, the love I have for my kids is the greatest. It’s indescribable. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them. And that is how He feels for us. He knows what’s best for us, even when we can’t see it ourselves & He will find a way to make it happen for us. Some of the hardest lessons I’ve ever learned were just like that. Someone or something would be just out of reach, never quite right, and there was a reason for that. He had someone or something different planned for me, something I could’ve never guessed or wrapped my mind around, but still, here I am, living the dream & it ain’t over yet!
