First, The Background.

At the age of 18, I had my first boyfriend.  I was over the moon.  Finally I was someone's special and I couldn't believe this cute guy chose me!  They say hindsight is 20/20, so at that time I didn't realize it was a tumultuous relationship.  Hey, I was young, naive and I didn't exactly know how to tell if there was anything wrong in a relationship or that we were perfectly incompatible with each other.  All that matter was,  I was in love and I could take on the world.  Or so I thought.

At 19, I was pregnant.  My father insisted that I marry my boyfriend.  He was afraid that no one was ever going to want me anymore because I would be a single mom.  I refused to get married no matter how much my dad pressured me to.  I wasn't ready to be a mother yet and now he wants me to become someone's wife?  I didn't think so.  My dad disowned me and eventually, his granddaughter.  He did not attend my college graduation.  He stopped supporting me financially.  He cut us off.  If this was my punishment for disobeying him and being pregnant at 19, then so be it.

In hindsight, refusing to get married and standing my ground were the best decisions my 19-year old self had ever made.

After giving birth at 20 and armed with a college degree, I went on and made a life for me and my daughter.  It was extremely hard trying to raise a child when at times I felt like I was still a child myself.  Financially, emotionally and physically depleting...but this was my choice so I either had to sink or swim.  At this point, my boyfriend and I slowly grew apart.  Our goals and aspirations had slowly veered off in separate directions until we became almost strangers to each other.

He had a new girlfriend who would later on become his wife, and I met my then boyfriend who later on became my husband.  Both our marriages relocated us to California, where fortunately for him, allowed him to still see his daughter.  Things fell into place, and I was finally happy.

End of story, right?  Not quite.  The impetus for resurrecting this blog was actually my daughter's father's marriage.  Him, who I will refer to as "BD" (my daughter's Biological Dad) at this point, and his wife who I will refer to as the "2FB".

My goal - after releasing it to the WWW - is to finally move on, not just temporarily, not just for an extended amount of time, but for good.  Granting forgiveness may be a lofty goal, but a goal nonetheless.  On the other hand, forgetting is an impossibility.  You'll know when you read my story.