So lets start with a little history about me and my family.
I was born on July 21, 1975 to Debbie(18) and William Penrod(21). Neither of which had any business having children at that point in time. My dad later told me that as far as he new mom was on the pill. Apparently, she decided she was ready to have kids and didn't inform dad.
My mother abandoned the family when I was five and my brother was three. Dad raised us as a single parent until I was ten, when he lost his job and we went to live with my mother. Despite the fact that he was an alcoholic, he was a wonderful and loving father. I miss him dearly, he passed away when I was 22 from a variety of different ailments such as, cirrosis of the liver, Hepatitis C and lung cancer that wasn't diagnosed until two weeks before his death.
I had always been an independent child. I grew up quickly living with an alcoholic father and a behaviorally challenged and slow brother. I very much took my mothers place as the caregiver in our broken family. So when I went to go live with her and her new family, (new husband and their two boys) it was a change I did not adjust to well. I never felt much of a bond with my mother and my stepfather was a very conservative, controlling, "you'll do things my way because it's the right way" kind of guy. For the most part, he was a good guy but I wasn't used to the rigid family dynamic and we clashed in opinions and power struggles till I was eighteen when he kicked me out after an argument.
I was not a bad kid by any means, just stubborn and passionate about what I believed. He sees that now that he has dealt with far worse from my siblings.
So I have been on my own since I was eighteen and have made many mistakes and been through the ringer in relationships. I won't go into details here. I will leave that for the book I have just begun writing an outline for. I will explain how a little girl from Texas over came some unthinkable situations in her life and became the well adjusted and happily married mother of two. We too have our family drama and that's what this blog will capture. Our daily challenges and how we overcome as a family.
"Family always comes first" - William Penrod (my dad)
