Some days are harder than others.

To be truthful, I try not to think about Jacob.

He left such a void in so many people's lives. I still don't understand why God had to take Jacob. Of all people. Jacob.

He was going to be the one to marry Kirk and me. I know I've stated that on this blog before... but I can't get past it. He was going to be an awesome uncle to my kids. An awesome brother in law. I'm sure he would have had the funniest children on the planet.

Ugh.

I miss him a whole lot. And I feel almost wrong when I say that because there are so many other people that knew him better than I did. But he was one of my first youth leaders. He's the one that brought Kirk to the church I was going to. He lead Kirk to Christ.... Jacob played a huge part in mine and Kirk's future.

It just hurts because I never got to thank him. I never got to tell him no matter how many times he pissed me off to no end, I still loved him. He was like the perfect older brother I had always wanted and never gotten until my freshman year.

My step siblings suck as siblings. Drew is the only one who acts like he really cares and he lives in freaking Louisiana. A lot of good he's doing for me there.

Ugh. Ugh.

I wonder when and if I'll ever stop missing the biggest goof I've ever met. Words can't describe what I feel when I'm reminded that he's gone. Most of the time we were being total jerks to each other. A lot of the time he was posting stupid stuff on my statuses that infuriated me. When me and Kirk first got back together Jacob was the one to say the meanest things to Kirk about our age difference. Why in the world I miss that, I have no clue.

But I do. Especially as it gets closer to a year without him. I still want him to embarrass the mess out of me at my wedding and it'll never happen.

What's so weird is despite how mean we were to each other, he would still waste his gas to come all the way to Thomson to take me to church with him and Kirk. He told Kirk it's because he cared. He hated where I lived and he wanted me to be in church. He wanted me to be ok. All I've ever wanted was a big brother like that. And he was taken away from be before I ever got to tell him all of that.

I don't know how to cope on days like this.

The letter I've been wanting to write for years.

I wanted to let you know what you've done to make me who I am today.

You and mom lied to me for seven years, it was only when I kept asking I was presented the truth that I was an illegitimate child.
I don't know if you realize what that does to a seven year old's world, but yeah it shattered it.

The two years living with you were pure HELL. The things you said to me and to the people I once loved play through my mind each and every day. Sometimes I wish you would have actually killed me like you said you were going to.

I was a suicidal, cutting teenager because of you. Would you like to see the scars? Too bad, you don't deserve to.

I want you to know that I hated you and Pat for a very long time. I don't hate Pat now, just you.

I want you to know that when I moved back to Georgia the two years living with you damaged me so much that the skin on my hands peeled for months. Now I have severe abandonment issues, and really really really bad nerves. Way to go.

I want you to know that because of you I trust no man. The only reason I trust Kirk is because in the four years that I've known him, he's been the only person to fully accept me for the screwed up person I am.

I want you to know that I came close to starving this summer because of you.

I want you to know that every time I look in the mirror I want to rip every single hair out of my head because it's just like yours.

I want you to know that I hate myself most of the time because I see so much of you in me.

I want you to know I almost killed myself three times this year, just because of you.

I want you to know that in my mind, my mother shouldn't be the one dying in front of my face. It should be you.

I want you to know the only reason I've kept in touch with you and put up with you all these years is because God keeps on telling me to. I want to give up on you, but the truth is I'll never be able to. I hate you for that too.

I want you to know that you aren't my hero. I'm not proud of you in the least bit. I don't care if you gave up drinking. You're a worse person now than you were back then. You just got rid of the excuse, the problem is within your soul.

I want you to know that every. single. person. that cares about me hates your guts.

I want you to know that every boyfriend I've ever had wanted to punch you in the face. And I had an abusive meth addict that wanted to kill me for a boyfriend, even HE wanted to punch you.

I want you to know that you'll never get the chance to walk me down the isle. Uncle Steve is going to.

I want you to know that you will never have a chance to see your grandchildren. I don't want them exposed to such an awful person.

I want you to know that your own brother and sister in law got angry with you when they were told you were going to the beach instead of your own daughter's graduation party.

I want you to know that you have been a cancer in my life for eighteen years, and this is me cutting you out.

I want you to know that you're going to die alone.

Frustrated.

I'm so frustrated with the way my life has been going.
I'm so tired of the whole not talk to me for three weeks and then want to hang out and then if I have plans, it's another three weeks without talking to me.

I'm so over people in general.

I'm so over people that refuse to provide for their children. I'm so over people who don't know me and that have never TRIED to get to know me giving me "advice" about college. There's a reason I'm not the social butterfly I was in high school. There's a reason I only trust four human beings. It's because of the idiots that surround me and try to interject in my life when I never wanted them around me in the first place.

I'm so over not being able to get to the people that do care about what's going on inside of my life and how I'm doing or whether I'm actually starving or if I'm sure I'm going to have a house in the next month or not.

I just want to go to sleep. I want to go to sleep for a few months and wake up to being sure I'm not going to end up homeless because some JERK won't give my mother money. I want to wake up to food that's not the cheapest thing in the store because that's all we can afford.

Life has just seriously gone down hill this year. I'm so ready for 2011 to end because this year has royally SUCKED.

So today,

This morning was rough.

I learned that I'm going to have to use the rest of my refund money for GAS so I can actually go to school, and I got screamed at because I "lack the driving initiative"

Woohoo.

All of the stress that has built up in the last few months came crashing down on me this morning. The money issues. The face that my mom is still fighting to keep our house. The fact that I have had to play catch up with my personal money since April because momma never fought for child support. The fact that I have no car. I can't get a job, and I don't live in a place that I can just walk to work. The face that I'm constantly being stuck between my parents' loathing for each other and constantly being screwed over because of it. I can honestly say I wanted to shoot myself in the face this morning. And that was pretty scary, considering I've only been at that point once before. Then I came to the conclusion that I would never shoot myself in the face because Kirk would hate me for the rest of his life.

So right before Algebra started I got out my Bible and did my devotional. Low and behold, my devotional for today was titled "From Despair to Hope." I thought 'oh how ironic' and I read Psalm 42: 1-11. What really caught my eye was verse eleven;

"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God."

David was talking to his soul. He was going 'why are you bringing me down man?!' So I got out a piece of paper and wrote down everything that had been putting me down, everything that I was mad at, every bad thing that I wanted to do, and I ripped it up and threw it in the trash can.

In fifty minutes Algebra was finished and I walked all ten steps to my English class and stared at the floor. I still didn't feel all the way better and I was letting my soul bring me down once more. In English we had a debate about women and men stereotypes that got me laughing and my negativity soon flew away.

The car ride on the way home was different. My mother's infectiously negative attitude soon had my soul down to the floor and a scowl on my face. I made the comment about being screwed over yet again, and feeling stuck and my mom did an amazing thing, instead of cussing at me- she comforted me.

"You aren't stuck." She said. "Once you start driving you can take the care and drive ME to work. I'm going to get another job and then figure out how to move us to Augusta so it won't cost so much to get out there. I should have been thinking of how to do that instead of having my head up my a** after losing my job."

I couldn't help but laugh. For once she was cussing at herself. And then it hit me, I wasn't stuck. At the same time that thought hit me God said "There's always a way out." DUH. I had been the one with my head up my butt. I was too busy drowning in negativity and self pity to realize that I wasn't going to be stuck forever. I knew God had been working on momma while I was in school because she isn't the comforting type. And I was thankful.

The peace of the Lord is a lovely thing to experience. I experienced it today for the first time in a painfully long time, and I have to say I can breathe easier now.

The story of us.

So, once upon a time ago, my freshman year to be exact.... I had just gotten out of an awful relationship. Everyone knows how girls are about their first boyfriend, they're just happy to have them so they will literally blind themselves to any faults their first prince charming may have. It just so happens my first boyfriend did every drug in the book and was quite abusive, mentally and physically. So after a death and rape threat I broke up with the dude. (Yayyyyy *applause*)

Now, I was walking down the sidewalk of Thomson High School and a message from one of the youth rally's I had been to popped in my head. The dude that was speaking talked about how he had prayed that God put only the woman that he was going to marry in his path and one day at a baseball game God told the dude "Your wife is sitting right behind you." Long story short the dude and the chick got married and had kids and blah blah blah. So I said a simple but sincere prayer. "Lord, I never want to get hurt like I have been again. When the one You want for me comes around, please let me know. I don't care if it takes five days, five months, or five years I will be patient and wait on You."

Now, I'm not quite sure how much time passed before that prayer and one certain Tuesday night where I had a very strange but vivid dream about meeting this extremely hot guy. I woke up that next Wednesday morning and went to school like normal and then that night I went to church. Low and behold, the extremely hot guy I dreamed about the night before walked in with this dude named Jacob that had been coming for a few weeks to work with my youth pastor. I was stumped and skeptical at why in the world he was there so I let it slide. A few days later me and that hot dude named Kirk added each other on myspace (we have two different points of view on who found who and who sent the friend request to who but either way we became friends on myspace.) We started messaging each other and we found each other quite funny so numbers were exchanged and we began this texting each other every second we were awake phase. During that time we traded stories about our lives and stuff and he asked me if he could confide in me something. Of course I told him he could and he proceeded to tell me about this dream he had the night before we saw each other for the first time at my church. I will never forget his words. "Erin, I dreamed about you." So I summoned the courage and told him that I had dreamed about him that same night. Shortly after that conversation we prayed about dating and then he asked me out.

It wasn't much of a relationship. My drug addict ex boyfriend happened to go to that same church and I was not allowed to go there if he was there. Needless to say, I only saw Kirk the whole entire time we dated. Then everything blew sky high. Someone that my mother worked with lied to my mother about Kirk because he wasn't interested in dating her daughter so my mother did was she does best and had a fit. The relationship ended shortly after that because me and Kirk were both deeply discouraged.

So I started dating this other guy, because for some dumb reason I decided to forget my simple prayer and that dream I had. So for a good long time I was miserable because the dude was a butt to be perfectly honest.

At the end of my sophomore year (Which was the worst school year of my life) I decided I needed a friend that was a guy since my boyfriend was so full of crap. I was laying in bed one night, crying because I had gotten my feelings hurt, and I began to look through my phone for someone to talk to. I stumbled across Kirk's number and I remembered how much of a compassionate guy he had been so I texted him. Even though he didn't have my number saved in his phone he immediately guessed that it was me.

And so we were friends again. He was dating another person at the time just like I was and we became each others relationship advisers. The girl lied to him and broke his heart and I became his go to person. Over the summer and on into my Junior year we became best friends. I was actually the first person to admit that old feelings had resurfaced to his relief, because apparently he had been feeling the same way. I was dating someone else and he totally respected that but his feelings for me kept growing, he could only see another heart brake in the future so he backed off quite a bit. We went almost four months without speaking to each other, and then my grandmother slipped into a coma. I don't remember exactly how long she was in a coma for, but it was from a few days after Christmas until sometime in January. My mother and my aunt were at the hospital with her almost 24/7 and I was at home alone, a lot. I decided to try to get back in touch with Kirk because I had a hunch that he would bring some kind of comfort, and he did.

And then Nana died. I remember that day so ridiculously well. It was a Wednesday and my mom was picking me up from school as usual, I got in the car and she said in a voice that was sad but relieved "Nana died this morning." I called the dude I was dating at the time as soon as I got home. I was a crying mess and I needed some kind of outside comfort because everyone else was stuck in their own grief. The only words he had for me was "oh, you'll get over it." I was furious and I was hurting. I texted Kirk and told him and he immediately sent me a cover of him singing a silly song. I laughed in spite of my tears.

The days after Nana's death are painfully vivid. Everyone came into town for the funeral. I remember one night when there were too many people at Nana's house and me and my two cousins, Brittney and Lindsey walked to my house (which is right behind Nana's) and we all got comfortable on my tiny bed and got some peaceful sleep. During that whole ordeal Kirk constantly checked on me and cheered me up.

I was staying at my best friend's house a few weeks later and I asked her to pray about my relationship situation. "I think I'm supposed to be with Kirk! I just can't shake that feeling." She agreed with me and we prayed. After a few more weeks of prayer I dumped the guy I was dating and I got back together with the person that had loved me and waited for me the whole time.

Now here we are. One year, six months, and eleven days later. I look back and I can see exactly what God was doing, He was growing us up before we got together for good. There's no way we would have lasted as long as we have through everything that has happened if we hadn't had that time apart to mature and deal with our own stuff first. Every detail, down to Jacob going to the same church I did and Kirk moving in with him has lead straight up to now.

I know one thing for sure, this is where I am supposed to be and Kirk is who I am supposed to be with and I thank God every day that I finally woke up and saw that. Now I can't wait to see how the rest of my life plays out with Kirkie by my side.

So yesterday was Jacob's birthday. It was a hard day for everyone, especially Kirk who didn't mention the fact that it was Jacob's birthday at all.

My boyfriend. Trying to be the tough one. It's kind of sad sometimes. I remember when Jacob had just died and I had to be the tough one because Kirk was a walking water hose for a while.

I hated it! I had always been the one that needed to depend on someone. No one had ever depended on me like that. Finally I just lost it, through being the tough one I hadn't had the time to grieve at all. I mean I lost the one human being on this earth that could piss me off and then make me laugh so hard I almost pissed myself within twenty seconds of each other. Jacob was going to be the one to marry us, or be Kirk's best man. Knowing Jacob he probably would have been both and would've put the spotlight on himself and I probably would've gotten angry because it was my day. None of that can happen now.

I woke up yesterday thinking "Man, I wish Jacob was alive so we could have another my dad is a bigger douche bag than your dad argument." He always won but at least I felt better about myself afterwards.

Jacob's mom just recently got a gravestone for him. According to Kirk it is frikin massive. I think that is pretty fitting. First of all, Jacob was a huge dude. Second of all, after almost eight months of him being gone everyone still has a huge hole in their heart where he used to be. The most obnoxious human being on the planet left an obnoxiously empty space in a lot of people's lives.

Yesterday Jacob would have been twenty five.

Yep

I have a youtube and this is the stuff I talk about. Lol