by C Tanner

Created on: October 11, 2009

It was April 1988 and I was barely 20 years old with a lifetime of regrets, fears and emotional pain. I can still vividly remember thinking to myself that I had no idea what would become of my life and wondering how I came to be in this dark place.

My family moved to a remote place in the Arkansas Ozark Mountains when I was in Jr. High School. The town was small, the people were small minded and anyone with a dream at all desired nothing but a way out of this isolated world and I was no exception. It was like taking a trip back in time where the girls in High School dated to marry instead of having college dreams. Boys focused on sports instead of academics in hopes of making it someday, somewhere other than here.

I wanted out but not for the same reasons as most, I wanted away from my home life. My parents made poor and emotional decisions that left our family in a bit of poverty. My dad was an alcoholic and my mother was very much the enabler. My oldest sister and brother (10 and 9 years my senior) were fortunate enough to have escaped the insanity before we landed in this God forsaken place. My sister closest to me (only 13 months my senior) was caught up in a relationship forbidden by my parents so she managed to draw the majority of the negative attention. Considering negative attention was about the only attention you received in my family, I was simply left alone...very much alone.

July 1985, just 2 months after I graduated High School I found myself sitting in the registrar's office of a college that was more that 100 miles from my home. My parents had no idea where I had gone until I had already moved into my dorm and started classes with the help of Pell Grants, work study and public assistance. I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going, all I knew is that the reason I was there was simply because I didn't want to be where I had come from.

By the end of my first semester I was failing all of my courses and in jeopardy of losing my financial aid. I spent most nights at fraternity parties and most days sleeping off the hangovers. The few friends I had seemed to be on a similar mission as those I had in High School: "find a man with a future and get me the hell out of here!" In my small circle there were many sought after guys, ironically none of which actually had a future or a plan. Despite this fact, when I was introduced to Pete (one of those sought after guys) it became my mission to capture his affection. I know now that it wasn't

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