Disclaimer: This is a completely different type of post and is not for the faint of heart.\u00a0 This is also not for children.\u00a0 It is the first post I have not allowed my daughter to read, due to the fact that it contains some fairly graphic details.\u00a0 But this is a story that needs to be told, to help me heal and to help others who may have experienced the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this we know, that God works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.\u201d\u00a0 Romans 8:28<\/p>\n
This is without a doubt the hardest thing I have ever written. \u00a0But something that makes me who I am is my ability to be transparent with my struggles.\u00a0 I am real. I am genuine. \u00a0I am much less than perfect.\u00a0 But I will go the places that others won\u2019t dare and I will say the things that some would keep inside their heads out of fear.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t mean I am fearless about wearing my heart on my sleeve, it just means that I accept myself completely and I make no apologies for who I am.<\/p>\n
Before anyone in the audience reads this edition of RRG, first you must take the following pledge.\u00a0 Please raise your right hand and read the following out loud:<\/p>\n
I, (insert own name here)<\/span>, do solemnly swear that after reading this story, I will not feel sorry for the narrator in any way.\u00a0 And I promise to never, ever, ever treat her like a victim.\u00a0 The End.<\/p>\n Ok, so, I\u2019ve mentioned before that there is a lot to my story that most people don\u2019t know.\u00a0 This part of my story begins when I was 13.\u00a0 I was in 8th<\/sup> grade.\u00a0 My best friend was Kirsten.\u00a0 We liked to wear matching clothes on a regular basis. We thought we were the girls from the Sweet Valley High books.\u00a0 We fought over blue eyeliner pencils, but we made up immediately and we would laugh until our sides hurt.\u00a0 We did things like going up on the roof of her parent\u2019s house with an entire bottle of hairspray to see if we could make Kirsten look like Helen Hunt in the movie Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.\u00a0 We could typically be found singing along to Tiffany and Debby Gibson and Milli Vanilli from a pink boom box.\u00a0 These were the days that I still liked to pretend that my hairbrush was a microphone.\u00a0 (Ok, since we\u2019re being real here, I may on occasion still do that)<\/p>\n Those were the days when to say I had a boyfriend, meant that we were \u201cgoing together\u201d.\u00a0 Where were we going, you might ask.\u00a0 Good question.\u00a0 Probably anywhere our parents would take us.\u00a0 Like to the High School football games on Friday night, an occasional school dance or a trip to the movie theater, that we would follow up with a walk to Pizza Hut after seeing something like Goonies.\u00a0 \u201cGoing together\u201d meant holding hands and sneaking into the corner of the coat room at Leo\u2019s Roller Rink to kiss.\u00a0 If memory serves, my first real kiss happened there.\u00a0 Although I can\u2019t exactly remember who it was with.\u00a0 Clearly it was very memorable.\u00a0 Although, I do remember I was fond of kissing.\u00a0 I still am.\u00a0 I guess some things never change.<\/p>\n I have great memories of that time in my life. My light shined so bright. And then there was an abrupt shift.\u00a0 At the end of my 8th<\/sup> grade year came the news that my family was moving back to Michigan.\u00a0 I was terribly sad at the thought of leaving my closest friends\u2026Kirsten, Carrie, Maria, Jill and Jacquie, along with several others.\u00a0 I was devastated.\u00a0 But, as the middle child, always the peacemaker, I bucked it up and accepted the new adventure that I was headed into.\u00a0\u00a0 I started my first day of High School in East Lansing when my dad dropped me off after staying at my Grandparent\u2019s house the night before. I knew a handful of people from my early childhood days of living there, but no one had gotten the memo that I was \u201cthe new girl\u201d since it was 3 middle schools converging to form the class of 1993.\u00a0 So I pushed my way through the crowded hallways of East Lansing High School, in my blue and white polka dot dress without really talking to very many folks that first day.\u00a0 I was back to being a little fish in very big and scary pond.\u00a0 And when the day was done, I walked home to a brand new house.\u00a0 Kind of a lot for a 13 year old to process, right?\u00a0 Actually, you have no idea.\u00a0 There was so much more to it than that.\u00a0 So much more that no one really knew until about 20-some years later.<\/p>\n Now, don\u2019t get me wrong, High School got better.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t take long for me to find a group of friends. Jill, Beth, Nikki, Troy, Luke and Noah are solidly at the heart of my best HS memories.\u00a0 I got to be on the field of the Pontiac Silver Dome as a cheerleader for the State Championship football team in 1991. And in the spring, I loved catching for Nikki on the softball team, even though our team was terrible.\u00a0 I sang in choir and I had a part in the chorus of the production Hood my sophomore year.\u00a0 \u00a0I volunteered in Mrs. Swanson\u2019s 5th<\/sup> grade class at Glencarin, my old elementary school.\u00a0 A girl after her dad\u2019s own heart, I was a sports medicine trainer for the men\u2019s soccer and wrestling teams.\u00a0 I was all over the place, always involved, always doing something.\u00a0 Always with the infamous Lindsey smile on my face.<\/p>\n But little did anyone know that behind the smile, there was hurt and confusion and frustration and anger and guilt and shame, like no 13 should ever have to endure.\u00a0 Like no person of any age should ever have to endure.<\/p>\n I went off to college.\u00a0 I did my first semester at a small school in southern Michigan, only to find that I really belonged back home in EL with my Spartans.\u00a0 I started at MSU in the spring of 1994.\u00a0 A couple years in I joined the women\u2019s crew club.\u00a0 I even stayed an extra year at State to use up my one year of eligibility as a varsity athlete thanks to Title IX.<\/p>\n I graduated from Michigan State with a Bachelor\u2019s degree in Family Community Services.\u00a0 Basically, I can work for social workers.\u00a0 I did various types of volunteer work throughout college, working with at risk and low income kids.\u00a0 I went on to complete an internship in foster care and adoption.\u00a0 My cases included children of alcoholics and Schizophrenics.\u00a0 I saw the worst of the worst of what can happen to people.\u00a0 And it broke my heart. \u00a0Every. Single. Time.<\/p>\n In one of my Child Ecology classes, I read the book There Are No Children Here<\/span>.\u00a0 It\u2019s about 2 brothers that grew up in Cabrini Green, the projects of Chicago, in the 1970\u2019s.\u00a0 This was about the point I decided I wanted to work with inner city kids in Chicago.\u00a0 So upon graduating, Nikki helped me load the pick-up truck and cruise on over to my new apartment in Chicago to set up shop.\u00a0 In June of 1998, I changed my address and I started a new job as a crisis counselor for a youth outreach program.\u00a0 I looked somewhat out of place, my blond ponytail bobbing, as I walked past a crack house one day to discuss the possible placement of one of my kids with his grandma, whose home, standing next to said crack house, had a front door that was barely attached to the hinges.\u00a0 But my job was just to get through the initial crisis.\u00a0 I mostly got called to the police station when a kid had run away from home and I had to figure out a short term plan of where we would put that kid for the night.\u00a0 And then, I rarely saw them again.<\/p>\n That job didn\u2019t last as long as I had planned.\u00a0 Not out of fear.\u00a0 I needed a change mostly because I needed to work with people who I could have a rapport with, not just one and done.\u00a0 I\u2019m just not wired that way.\u00a0 I am created to be in relationships with people, relationships that can grow and thrive.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s what is so crazy, I was trained to work with folks that had been through the wringer.\u00a0 I was prepared to help people who had been abused in the worst ways.\u00a0 It was painful to see.\u00a0 I have a huge heart for people and it killed me that anyone would have to go through things like that.\u00a0 And yet, it never even occurred to me, that I was one of them.\u00a0 I wanted to fix people, because it was easier than taking a look inside and fixing myself.\u00a0 Abuse isn\u2019t always outwardly violent.\u00a0 Sometimes it is forced harshly by a stranger, sometimes a loved one. \u00a0Sometimes it is subtle and so gradual that it is hardly perceptible.\u00a0 And sometimes the victim almost appears willing on the outside because it is done at the hands of someone they trust, someone they are afraid to say \u201cno\u201d to.<\/p>\n In the few months leading up to my departure from my glorious Jr. High days, a slow transition occurred.\u00a0 I went from being the genuinely spunky, free-spirited girl that everyone knew, to being a broken, shattered soul that hid behind a mask of the spunky girl.\u00a0 I learned how to suppress the horrible thing that had happened to me and pretend that I was still the bubbly, ever smiling Lindsey.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until an afternoon in spring of 2011 that the events that had caused that transition finally came fully back to the surface.\u00a0 I remember sitting on the counter of my old kitchen, Mike and I were talking while he made himself a sandwich or something.\u00a0 We were still in the throes of trying to decide if we could repair our mess of a marriage.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember how we got to this part in the conversation, but I remember saying very casually, \u201cWell, you know, it probably has to do with what happened when I was 13.\u201d\u00a0 He stopped what he was doing and looked straight at me, expressionless.\u00a0 \u201cYou know what happened when I was 13, right?\u201d\u00a0 He very slowly responded, \u201cNo\u201d, with the \u201co\u201d trailing on for what felt like forever and finally disappearing into an abyss.\u00a0 That was the first time it occurred to me that the shameful, awful thing that happened so many years ago, that made me feel ugly and disgusting, wasn\u2019t written all over me like I had come to believe.\u00a0 While I thought people could look at me and see how yucky I was, this was the first time I realized that it wasn\u2019t true.\u00a0 No one could see it.\u00a0 I had hid it that well.\u00a0 Even the few people I thought I had tested the water with, in alluding to what may have hypothetically happened, had no recollection of me ever saying anything.\u00a0 I had watered it down and changed the details enough, that this reality was brand new information.\u00a0 It was at the heart of the onion that\u2019s layers I had just begun to peel back.<\/p>\n I\u2019m pretty sure it was later that same day that I made the drive over to my counselor\u2019s office.\u00a0 And I began to reveal this secret to her.\u00a0 Slowly, this skeleton that had been hiding behind piles of other junk in my closet began to creep out.\u00a0 It was time to really talk about what happened in the summer of 1988.<\/p>\n I was 13.\u00a0 He was 18.\u00a0 We were friends.\u00a0 But we liked each other more.\u00a0 I thought I was pretty special getting so much attention from someone older.\u00a0 He would drive over to my house and hang out with me.\u00a0 He would come with my family out to our cottage at Spring Lake.\u00a0 I was only allowed to ride in his truck sometimes; I had to get special permission.\u00a0 My mom was constantly concerned about his age.\u00a0 \u201cOh, mom\u2026\u201d I would whine, \u201cDon\u2019t worry so much.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t remember exactly how we went from being friends to the point that I was his \u201csecret girlfriend\u201d, but somewhere along the way, it happened.\u00a0 We knew that no one could know because of our age difference.\u00a0 We would write each other notes and pass them secretly.\u00a0 We would hold hands when no one was looking.\u00a0 And then the kissing started.\u00a0 We were very careful to not get caught.\u00a0 We were the epitome of a \u201cbad secret\u201d.<\/p>\n During the summer months, it would get hot in my bedroom.\u00a0 So I would often sleep in the basement on the couch where it was cooler.\u00a0 If there was a breeze, I would leave the sliding glass door open and just close the screen so I could fall asleep to the sound of the crickets.<\/p>\n One night my secret boyfriend came in the back door so we could watch TV together.\u00a0 There was kissing.\u00a0 And I could feel his hands through my oversized Garfield night shirt.<\/p>\n There were other nights he came back and we did the same.\u00a0 And then one night something changed.\u00a0 He told me he wanted to \u201cteach\u201d me some things.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have a clue what he meant, but I had come to trust him, so I didn\u2019t argue.\u00a0 I was sitting next to him on the couch with my knees pulled up tight against my chest. I can still hear his voice, as he placed my little girl fingers around his male anatomy and said, \u201cYou hold it like a baseball bat.\u201d\u00a0 I remember repeating over and over the words \u2018I don\u2019t want to do this, I don\u2019t want to do this, I don\u2019t want to do this\u2019.\u00a0 But sadly, I was only saying them to myself.\u00a0 Those words never came out of my mouth.<\/p>\n I wish I could say that was where it ended.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t.\u00a0 Honestly, the rest of what happened that night, and other nights after that, is pretty much a blur.\u00a0 But there are snapshots permanently etched in my brain and I remember consciously thinking in those moments, \u2018I don\u2019t even understand what\u2019s happening\u2019.\u00a0 \u00a0My 13 year old mind couldn\u2019t grasp it, so it went into shut down mode.\u00a0 Frankly, the rest of the details are somewhat irrelevant to this story.\u00a0 Already the damage had been done.\u00a0 My innocence was gone and this was the beginning of my journey down a path to a state of complete powerlessness.\u00a0 My light had gone dim.<\/p>\n I believed that I had no say in what anyone did to me. \u00a0My body had no beginning and no end, no boundaries. \u00a0I existed for the rest of the world to do with as they saw fit. \u00a0I believed that I was ugly and unlovable.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t good enough and I never would be.\u00a0 And yet, I put on my smile, and went about my life.\u00a0 And then, a few weeks later, I moved away.\u00a0 I was able to start all over so I shoved that part of myself into the deepest, darkest part of my soul.\u00a0 But it permeated my being.\u00a0 Through most of high school, I adamantly spoke out against sex, to the point that I got teased for being a prude.\u00a0 Which was ironic since it was a complete contrast to the dirty whore that I believed myself to be.<\/p>\n I wish I could go back and tell that little girl that it wasn\u2019t her fault.\u00a0 That even though she trusted him and let him in the back door and was too paralyzed with fear to speak up for herself, she didn\u2019t do anything wrong.\u00a0 And while now I know that to be true, that I didn\u2019t do anything wrong, the demons still sometimes rear their ugly heads and I have to remind myself all over again.<\/p>\n There is a reason I have the word \u201cBeloved\u201d tattooed on my left forearm.\u00a0 It is there to remind me that all those things I believed about myself were lies.\u00a0 What happened is not who I am, and it no longer defines me.\u00a0 The truth is I am broken.\u00a0 But I am beautiful.\u00a0 I am loveable and I am loved.\u00a0 And who I am is enough.<\/p>\n So, that\u2019s part of the story behind Rambling Runner Girl.\u00a0 Why do I run?\u00a0 I think at times running has been an escape, a way to run away from everything, and everyone, including myself.\u00a0 Running was a way to prove to people, \u201cI\u2019m so strong.\u00a0 You can\u2019t hurt me.\u201d\u00a0 And maybe that worked outwardly, but inside I still hurt.\u00a0 Over the last few years, as I have started to face myself, my history. \u00a0I stopped running away from the past.\u00a0 I started running to heal.\u00a0 I\u2019m running to reclaim the light that has always been inside of me.\u00a0 And now, that light burns brighter than ever.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a little flame inside us all, some shine bright, some shine small.\u00a0 The rains will come and the water\u2019s rise, but don\u2019t you ever lose your light\u2026\u201d \u2013Addison Road<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Disclaimer: This is a completely different type of post and is not for the faint of heart.\u00a0 This is also not for children.\u00a0 It is the first post I have not allowed my daughter to read, due to the fact that it contains some fairly graphic details.\u00a0 But this is a story that needs to 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