Happy 21st Birthday to Me!
Before the birthday greetings start coming, let me go ahead and say this: “IT IS NOT MY BIRTHDAY!” My 21st birthday happened about 11 years ago, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. I had a whole weekend full of festivities planned... but I’m not going to bore you with all the extra details. At that time, I thought it was EPIC: limos, clubs, bottle service, and etc. Pretty much the same as all the 21st Birthday Parties. It was fun, but was I happy with my life? To be honest, MOST LIKELY NOT!
The young Maria….. The 21 year old Maria.
The young Maria….. The 21 year old Maria.
I am a firm believer of God and I don’t think He liked the way my life was turning out. So, He wanted to teach me a lesson. The night after my first party, I decided to drive... highly intoxicated. It was an icy, winter night and I was driving on the highway around 3 or 4 am. My attention span wasn’t that great because I was drunk and I realized that I was going to fly over the bridge. I quickly turned the wheel to the right, which was actually a bad idea since the highway was icy. But by the grace of God, my car turned and did a 360 on the highway, hitting the highway barriers. The highway was pretty much a ghost town at the time. So, no other cars were involved but my car was completely totaled! I also did NOT have my seatbelt on. I truly felt like God had his arms around me the entire time. No bruises, no injuries, NOTHING! Am I proud of what I did? Definitely NOT! I put myself and other people in danger because of my stupidity. God felt like I deserved another chance. But did I change? NOPE!
Now, here’s the second part to my story.... I got pregnant with my first child shortly after I turned 21 years old. Literally a month after my 21st birthday. I had other plans for myself. Plans I thought was great but it wasn’t God’s plan. Did I want kids? (At that time) Most definitely not! I did not have one “mom” bone in my body. I never even babysat as a teen and honestly got slightly annoyed with children. So when I found out I was pregnant, I felt like my world was over! First of all, I was not in a serious relationship and I realized that I was going to be raising a baby as a Single Mother. If I didn’t have the support system that I had, I probably would’ve done something I regretted. My mom and sisters were my rock! They’re pretty much the reason why I knew that my life and my unborn child’s life was going to be okay. Getting pregnant was God’s way of telling me that there was more to life. I convinced myself that I loved the lifestyle I was living, but He knew deep down that I didn’t.
I’m simply sharing this story because I know we’ve all been in situations where we felt like we were unsure of our purpose. I sometimes ask myself, “What if I didn’t survive that accident?” My family would be non-existent. It truly amazes me that in just one month, I had two life changing events! I obviously ignored the first one but the second one was my wake up call! I had to make a change and I had about 9 months to do so. I evaluated my current situation and made a decision to change my environment for the sake of my child. It was time for me to grow up. I didn’t want to be a child raising a child. I wanted to be a mother raising her child, the best that I could! That’s all I could do and I knew God would take care of the rest.
Tristan was a huge part of our wedding day. He was our ring bearer and stood next to Trent at the Altar.
(Photographer: Jason Suarez - www.instagram.com/notafraid2fail)
Are you wondering about my child’s father? Like I mentioned before, we were not in a committed relationship. We didn’t want my pregnancy to be the reason why we would even try to make it work. When it came to dealing with my son’s father, I made sure my emotions didn’t interfere with his relationship with his son. I never used Tristan as a pawn to getting what I wanted. We strictly put Tristan’s needs in front of ours. Because of that, Tristan’s father and I co-parented very well for the first couple of years…. even with us living in two different states. Shortly after Tristan’s 3rd Birthday, I made a decision that changed our lives forever. I didn’t want him to grow up raised by just me. His dad was an awesome dad and Tristan deserved to be raised around him. We left our family in Indy and moved our lives to Texas. I was nervous but my Faith never let me down. God had everything laid out for me as soon as we stepped foot in Texas… a job, a beautiful apartment, and our forever lives. It warmed my heart to see how happy Tristan was around both his mom and his dad. Fast forward to today, almost 7 years later, we are as HAPPY as can be. But before I close out this blog post…. Are you wondering about my son’s father? Well, I married him!
God created each and everyone of us in our unique way. He put us on this earth for a purpose. We all have different stories and I would love to know about a time in your life when you doubted your purpose. What were your struggles? How did you overcome those struggles? What helped you find your purpose?