A Picture is Worth "A Thousand" Words: Part One

First and foremost, I would like to say welcome back to those who have read my first two posts and hello to new readers. It has truly been a while since I have written anything (That's if you call 3 whole years a while lol). It doesn't seem that long ago that I started this blog. I created this blog as a place to share my story. My triumphs and downfalls. My times of happiness and sadness. However, life started "lifing" and I fell off from posting ever again. I plan to get back in the swing of things now that I am free from the shackles of undergrad and grad school.

Life Update

So before, I get into my story here is a quick life update. I graduated from my undergrad teaching program in December 2021 and I now hold a Masters of Education. Shortly after undergrad, I got a teaching job at the school where I was student teaching. I am loving it and I am about to wrap up my 2nd year of teaching there. I also met someone who I love very much.

My Story

The story that I am going to tell will be told in several parts. This will be a story full of pain and unhappiness that I suffered for two years. After seeing the things that have recently come out on social media, I was put back into that place of being scared and helpless. I was taken back to a place where I was hurt and could have died. This story is not to take away from anyone, but to spread awareness and give hope to those that need it. This story is to help save a life or more. So please take your time as you read my blog over the next few weeks. You will be taken on a roller coaster of emotions that I have experienced. I will say many parts of this story I feel embarrassed about and every time I admit that I was stupid. However, you can't judge someone who is looking for love in all the wrong places. I already have to live with this experience in the back of my head. Some people have already heard a limited version of this story, but it is time that all of it be told.

Part One: Away From Home I Go

They say a picture is often worth a thousand words, but if you look at the ones I have shared above, those have about a million words bottled up behind those eyes. As I look back on these pictures I notice that my unhappiness is obvious and my smile is different from what I typically give now. In some, I may look happy, but there is so much pain behind most.

In August of 2016, I was finally getting the chance to be away from home. Before the end of my senior year of high school, I decided that I would attend Mississippi State University. I was absolutely ecstatic. Mind you, I was a very sheltered child growing up and had never been away from home no more than 4 days. My mom was always very fearful of everything and I was surprised that she was letting me go so far away from her. Everyone kept telling me it was good that I was getting away from home and that I would finally have a chance to be who I "really" was. Little did they know I was already who I needed to be, but I did not know that myself. Even though I was excited, I was afraid. I was already living a life where I only had one friend and never had a boyfriend. I was so afraid that I would be so lonely that I would chicken out my first semester and come home. Now that I look back, I should have just stayed home.

As a freshman at Mississippi State, you typically get a whole week before classes to acclimate to the campus. This is the time you use to have fun, meet new people, and just take in college life. From the moment my family left me on move-in day, reality settled in and I had so much freedom to do whatever I wanted. I was on my own. Again, I wish that I wasn't on my own. I needed my mom. The day after moving in and after a hard first night of emotions, I decided I needed to leave my dorm. Over the summer, I hit it off with another freshman girl in a Facebook group. For confidentiality, I will call her Eve. Eve was also from Birmingham, AL, and was excited to make friends. I messaged her and she invited me over to her dorm across the street from mine. She introduced me to her roommate and two other girls she met on her hall. Everything was cool and I started to feel good about being away from home. I thought that I was about to make real friends. I was indeed wrong, but this will be unfolded as I get through this entire story. We were having a good time on campus and even rode around Starkville in who I will call Kayy's car. During our self-tour around campus and the city, Eve decided to call a guy that she met on Facebook to meet up with us. I will call him Tony. I few minutes later Tony pulls up on us in his SUV. He gets out and introduces himself and his friend who was with him. During this encounter, I could tell that he was eyeing me. He spoke to me differently than he did the rest. After Eve talked to him for a while, Tony and his friend left.

That evening Eve decides that she wants to ring in her freshman year of college by going to her first party. Everyone was in, but I felt a little reluctant to say I was down, but I joined in anyway. I regret this so much. Later that night we went to a party hosted at a club. When I tell you that it was hot as Hades, IT WAS HOT. I was so uncomfortable. I was never really the person to dance and I have never been to a club a day in my life. We left after being there for 30 minutes and moved on to an apartment party. When we got in, I did not realize that you could fit so many people in one apartment. People were packed like sardines. Again, I was uncomfortable. Everyone I was there with could tell and we all also became very bored. We tried to end the night by going to McDonald's, but then the crazy idea of going to a strip club was brought up and carried out. That is neither here nor there and I will not discuss the things I have seen in that club. Little did I know Eve met some guys at McDonald's and invited them to come to her dorm. That was stupid. Time goes by, we all end back up at Eve's dorm, and in comes 3 guys who were obviously not students of MSU. One of them was more than likely near his late 20s. He looked older than the years I was on this Earth. A few minutes later Tony walks in all tired and worn out. He lost his shirt at the club party and the rest was just a blur. So there are quite a few of us in this room. I was even more uncomfortable because now we had strangers and amid these strangers, Eve and another girl whom I will call Autumn played music and started twerking for these dudes. Two of them were mentally not there. The was just too high to care. Eve was wondering why I was looking the way I was and invited me to come dance. I declined. Then the dude who looked old enough to be my uncle said to me, "Why are you just sitting there? Stand up and let me see you?" I could have folded myself up and disappeared. Luckily Tony took the attention off me and let him know that I was not with it and to leave me alone. I was thankful. It was getting way too late for me and I decided that I was going to go to my dorm and call it a night. I was too afraid to walk by myself, so I asked Tony if he could walk me back across the street. He agreed and we were on our way. We sparked up some conversation as he walked me and when we got to the door I thanked him. He began flirting with me and we exchanged Facebook contacts. I did not think anything of it and just thought he was being nice. However, I now wish that I never asked him to walk me back to my dorm. I wish that I had never hung out with Eve. I wish that I never made the decisions I made the next day.

Come back next Tuesday @ 8 p.m. for Part Two: Young and Naive.