Jesus Take the Wheel

I am a huge believer in ‘everything happens for a reason’. You can ask anyone that knows me, I try to stay pretty optimistic. There is one pivotal moment that truly engrained that mentality into me. One catalyst that at the time, I couldn’t see, but now know that I had to make it to the other side to see the bigger plan at work.

As part of starting this blog, I intend on sharing a lot about my personal life and how that has made me the girl you see today.

If there is one moment in my life that I can clearly remember and see the pivotal change of what I thought my life would be and where I am today, it would be my senior year, when my mom went to prison.

Now, I am a pretty open book, so those that know me personally, know this isn’t something I hide (not now). It made me who I am today and there is nothing to be ashamed of – I didn’t do anything wrong.

As a senior in high school though, I felt differently. I was (still am) very close to my mom, so when she sat my brother and two sisters down and told us that she had been embezzling from the company she worked for the past several years and that she would be arrested, my life was turned upside down.

You see, I was ALL about high school, I was in a million clubs, the Homecoming Queen, school Hall of Fame, all the things you deem ‘important’ in high school.

So hearing my mom tell us she was going to be arrested and would likely go to prison….uhhh to say my life was swept up in a tornado would be an understatement.

I was confused and angry, sad, panicked – pretty much all the emotions at one time.

For several weeks (or months this was like 10+ years ago, the memories get fuzzy), only my close circle of friends knew what was going on. I didn’t want everyone to know about it. High schoolers can be mean and the last thing I wanted was for everyone to know what was going on at home.

It came time for my mom’s sentencing and we were prepared for her to serve a few years. What she did was wrong, nobody claimed it wasn’t, and we knew she deserved some sort of punishment for her crimes.

I can remember the day of her sentencing, she didn’t want myself and my siblings to go to her court hearings, so we went off to school as normal, as if it was just another day.

What we were not prepared for was for my mom to have the book thrown at her. She was sentenced to the maximum – THIRTY YEARS in prison with additional time on probation when she got out.

Now don’t get me wrong, like I said, my mom deserved a punishment. She broke the law, she broke the trust of her employer and clients she served, but let’s be honest, sex offenders and killers get less time than that.

I always thought my mom’s sentence proved just how corrupt and unjust our justice system is. How money really does run the world.

News that big made the front page of my hometown.

I remember in high school, we would have “bell ringers” during our first period where students would read the local paper and write about one of the stories.

So as normal, the local paper was dropped off in bundles to my high school that morning.

That’s where Mrs.Jewett comes in.

Mrs.Jewett was my journalism teacher (ironic right). I was in her class from 9th-12th grade and was the Editor-in-Chief of our high school paper for 3 of those years. I honestly wanted to go into journalism after high school and had applied to colleges based on their journalism programs.

Mrs.Jewett is one of those teachers who truly changes her students lives. She never just showed up to teach you the curriculum, she invested herself in your life and your well-being. She had always kept me under her wing, guiding me and teaching mean much more than journalism.

Well, that wonderful morning during my senior year, where hundreds of newspaper were dropped off to be sent out to classrooms, Mrs.Jewett collected every paper. She made sure these papers were not used that day and that none of my classmates would see the front page story of my mom being sentenced to thirty years in prison.

My classmates wouldn’t get to read about my mom’s sentencing that day, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

During high school, I had one person, who to this day was probably the best friend I’ve ever had. The thing about high school though, is that we are kids. Sure, we all think we are grown at that point, but we are children who really know very little of what is important in the world.

My friends and I all signed up to play in our senior Powder Puff game. For those that don’t know what this is, its flag football. The girls play flag football, and the boys cheer. It would only be for one game, but we would hold a few practices before the game.

I remember at the time, my best friend and I were feuding about something, just being hormonal teenage girls. Something probably completely ridiculous. I really can’t even remember why we were fighting at the time. What I do remember is Powder Puff practice.

I can vividly remember both of us letting our frustrations out on the field, pushing and shoving each other a bit while we were running plays. It got pretty heated, but eventually practice was over and we went home.

My mom had gone to prison already, so I was living with another friend and her family at the time. I can remember getting home and my friend was, I think, making brownies, when she got a call. I was sitting on the other side of the counter and she just stared at me, almost in fear.

She got off the phone and then began to tell me that my best friend had told all the other girls at practice about my mom. I know now she was angry and letting her frustrations get the most of her and she probably instantly regretted it, but that is what happened.

I was crushed, not many people knew about it, but now the whole school knew. I felt like my life was spinning out of control.

That’s the point things in my life really changed (aside from my mom being gone of course). I became a little more isolated, feeling like my friends and classmates really didn’t know me at all and couldn’t possibly know what I was going through. (Although in hindsight, I am sure many have similar stories and battles they were going through that nobody knew about.) I pushed myself further into my clubs, taking them all very seriously and would get really frustrated when my other classmates would goof around or not get things done. I felt like everyone was against me.

As months went on, we graduated high school, with Mrs.Jewett cheering for me over the banister as I walked across the stage. She had stage four cancer at the time, but still showed up, happy and smiling and cheering in my corner as she had for the last four years.

I had big plans during my senior year, I had applied to Auburn, and was going to be roomies with my good friend (the one I was living with at the time). I didn’t have much in the way of financial support, so that dream quickly went out the window and I settled on our local University.

At that point, it really just felt like everything I had pictured for my life just wasn’t working out. I was rooming with a total stranger in the dorms, had pushed away most the friends I had, and starting to really feel overwhelmed by life.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was sinking lower and lower into depression. I was a top student in high school, but I slowly stopped going to class. I wouldn’t do my homework, broke up with my long-time boyfriend, started failing my classes, and would literally sleep until I had to go to work in the evenings.

To no surprise, I ended my first year in college with a .97…..yes you read that correctly, a .97 GPA.

Having wasted my scholarships, I didn’t have much of a choice than to move out of the dorms and focus on working.

It really wasn’t until years later that I realized how depressed I was at that time in my life.

Some time later, I met my husband.

This is where Jesus truly took the wheel. The plan he had for me all along would finally show itself.

I truly felt like God put me right where I needed to be, my mom going to prison, flunking out of college, all of it. Had those things not happened I wouldn’t have met my husband.

My boss was getting married, and she was a friend of one of my mom’s friends (who I now refer to as my aunt). She was down a bridesmaid and needing someone to fill in, so she asked me. I agreed, and at her wedding, I met PJ.

PJ lived in New Jersey, he was my boss’ cousin and had come down for her wedding. We didn’t talk at all during, but were introduced. He has told me now that he actually thought I was 16 at the time so that’s why he didn’t talk to me.

A couple of months later. (after he new I was actually 19 and an adult) he friend requested me on Facebook and we started talking. It was just friendship at first, we lived so far apart it didn’t really seem realistic to be in a relationship, but as the months went on I knew something about him was different.

Towards the end of that year, we decided we were going to give it a real shot and by November he decided to move down here to sunny Florida.

Now nearly 10 years after we met, here we are, married for 6 beautiful years with two beautiful children.

This is my story of God putting us right where we need to be, even when it feels like everything is falling apart. I couldn’t see it when I was depressed and failing out of college. I couldn’t see it when my mom went to prison. But now, now I see it, that path that seemed so broken and going nowhere, brought me right to this beautiful life I have today.

Our life still isn’t perfect, nobody’s is, but we have each other and this beautiful little life and family that we created together.

Most people that know me now, know I am a very optimistic bubbly personality. The experiences I have had and some of the many wonderful mentors and motivators on my life, have shown me that I am truly blessed, even when I feel like I am wading through the trenches. Over the last few years, I decided I wasn’t going to just let stuff happen to me. I was going to take an active role in creating the life I want, instead of sitting back and waiting for it to come to me. I started challenging the thoughts in my head telling me I had already ruined my shot. I started actually going after my dreams. This story of my mom and how it shaped my life is just one of many difficult obstacles I have faced, but you know what? I know I am not alone now, we’ve all experienced heartache, hard times, and feeling like nothing was going to plan. So I’m going to take this life and make it what I want.

Mrs.Jewett has since passed, but she is and will always be the most incredible teacher I have ever had. I know she is smiling down on me, cheering me on, and I will see her again.