CrazyBeautiful Life
Courtney Gillenwater

Life… Does anyone truly understand all the facts about life? There are very few things that are easily understood about life, and so many things that are mysteries about life that we all urn to figure out. We all fight most of our lives trying to figure out the crazy and wonderful mysteries about life, but we never realize that their mysteries for a reason. Life is so complicated. I don’t really think that there is anything about life that is easy. Something’s that are so easy for one person can be more than difficult for others. There are two words that can completely describe life; crazy and beautiful. Those two words cover every fact about life even the mysteries. My mom always told me that everything happens for a reason, but growing up I thought that it was all a huge lie just to make feel alright about all the terrible things in my world and the real world. Now, after all of my mistakes and all the tragedies that have accrued in my life I believe that saying to the fullest. I know that she was right, because everything that has happened in my life was fixed some of my issues, has made me who I am, and has taught me so much.

My life has only lasted 18 years and I have already learned so many lessons. It took one too many mistakes to learn those lessons, but now I believe that every mistake was worth all of the information that I have learned and even somewhat taught others. I have been through a lot in the past 18 years more than I wish. Part of me is happy that I have been through all the many tragedies, discoveries, and the moments filled with sunshine, but the other half of me wishes that I wouldn’t have had to go through most of the tragedies. One perk about all of the things that I have been through is the fact that since I have already been there and done that hopefully I won’t have to go through the same type of tragedies in the future. For 18 years old I have already gone through most things that others who are 25 haven’t even had to go through yet, and probably never will. But all of those terrible things that I have done and that have happened to me have made me. From the time that I was 5 I had to be strong because of the way that my life was already made out to be before I even had a chance to make one mistake, but even after that everything has made me so much stronger. Now, if I could go back and change anything in my past I wouldn’t just because of all the valuable lessons that I have learned and the strength that I have been given.

Now that I have made just about every mistake that anyone is able to make and had just about every man known tragedy happen I think that I am ready to share my story. I am not sure where to start, but I know that its not the beginning that matters but it’s the end that means the most. In the beginning of this everyone will not know who I am and probably care less to know who I am, but at the end of it they will know who I have been, where I have been, what I have done, and who I am now.



Born Into Tragedy &Bad Luck
I was born into a family filled with tragedy and bad luck. It seemed like from the start that I had no chance at an amazing average life. My family had more negative than it did positive. I debate on whether or not the way that my family started was all wrong and perfectly right. It’s hard to figure out if my mom ran away to be with my dad because of a teenagers urge to rebel or because of the romance and love. I pray that it was because of the romance and love, but deep down I truly believe that it was just because she was a typical teenager rebelling against her family’s wishes. It’s hard for me to believe that my family started because of some rebelling teenager instead of love. Every family should start from love and nothing else. I believe that’s what made everything else go wrong for my family. They didn’t have the right starting steps, and that’s probably where all the negative and tragedies came from.

My family started somewhere between 1989 and 1990 with one 17 year old girl who loved to rebel from her parents and one carnie crack head from the south. One hot august day my mother went to the fair to go meet a certain guy, but the guy that she went there to meet was off with some other girl, and that’s when she saw my father. She has told me many times that it wasn’t love at first sight, but that he was so gorgeous and that there was something that just pulled her to him. Then a couple days after they first met my grandfather chased my mom and dad all around flint as they were on their way out of town and out of Michigan.
They both left Michigan and headed to West Virginia with each of them holding onto their own secrets. They began their life with both of them not knowing when it would be the right time to share their secrets. One secret was only a little white lie, and the other secret would change everything for their present and their future. When they had met my mother told my father that she was the legal age of an adult, and that was her secret that she had hid for nearly a year. She was only 17 years old when they decided to start a life together. The day that she turned 18 she decided to share her secret and so did my father, but his was a terrible tragedy in its self. Once my mother’s secret was out in the open my father shared his secret about being addicted to crack. That tragic secret didn’t seem to change the way that she felt about him. She didn’t run away, or turn her back on him. If I had been in her shoes I would have went all hulk on him and ran away screaming, but she stayed. She stayed by his side, and she stayed in love with him. That fact made their love real instead of a rebelling moment. It seemed like it was unconditional love that they shared, but neither of them realized that their unconditional love would soon end and tragically.

A few months after they both had shared their secrets their real family started. I was on my way to be a part of their messed up life. They were about to welcome a beautiful baby girl into a tragic confusing life, and they didn’t realize how it was a mistake to bring someone into the life that they were living. I don’t blame them for that though. Neither of them knew what kinds of tragedy that the future held for them and me. They were just in love and wanted so badly to have a regular American life with a somewhat perfect family with their own type of white picket fence, but what they wanted was far from what they were going to end up with in the end.

Once I entered their life they thought that everything was perfect, or it least their own type of perfect if that was even possible. But perfect was far from the life that they lived and brought me into. I was born with a mother who wanted more than anything to be loved by a man and have the type of love that we watch in the movies and read in the books. I believe that the only reason why she was and still is like is because she never truly had a man in her life that loved her the way that everyone wants to be loved, and because of that that’s what she searched and worked so hard for in her life. I was born with a father who wanted the simple things in life that made everyone so happy in life, but his love being high over powered everything else that truly mattered. It wasn’t so much of a choice as it was a need for him mentally and physically. For him it was more like a disease than it was an addiction. He loved his high more than he did his family. The simple things really never seemed to make him as happy as getting high did, and that was started to tare our family apart slowly.

Our family only lasted for four years. Within those four years so many things happened, good and bad. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between good and bad. Sometimes the bad ended up to be good for all of us. During those four years my mother and fathers relationship went through many ups and downs, but unfortunately there were more downs than were ups. My fathers addiction grew from bad to terrible, and he began to do a lot worse things that my mother struggled to deal with. He began to steal out of my piggy banks to help his addiction. My mother had to sleep with her purse or else my father would take all that she had to feed his addiction. He began to jump in and out of jail and prison and while he was locked up me and my mother jumped from house to house in Michigan. Every time that my father would mess up with our family and the law my mother would leave him and take me with her, but it never failed once he was out from behind bars she would jump right back down to West Virginia to be in his arms. It seemed like he could do so much wrong, but no matter how terrible he was it never changed the way that she felt about him. Their love was still as strong as it was when it first began, but even though their love stayed the same so many other things had chaned between them. Trust was a huge one that changed for them. My mother couldn’t trust my father with anything. She couldn’t even trust him with my piggy banks or even my baby book. He even took it far enough to steal my 1st dollar that was in my baby book.

I was so oblivous to all of the terrible things that my father had done to me and my mother. I still thought that he was the worlds best dad. Even though his addiction took up most of his time and even his love when he was a dad he was the best dad. I thought that he was the amazing, and sometimes I blamed my mom for all of the terrible things that he had done to us. Sometimes I thought that the only reason why he messed up was because all that she wanted to do was fight and yell with him. I was always around for their fights, and most of the time I blamed her. I blamed her for taking away my father. I blamed her for all the tears that his actions had made me cry. It seemed that no matter how much wrong I witnessed him doing I still thought that he was the best dad ever. It was like he had me and my mother hypnatized.