Mistakes are okay

Mistakes are Okay
by

Dedee Riddle



Mistakes really are okay. I can say Mistakes are okay because I have made many of them and live to tell about it. O Magazine has a section where Oprah or others tell what they know for sure. There is an expert who says what not to wear. I can tell you the things I know for sure what not to do to live a positive productive life. I think when you tell people you are a Christian they watch and wait for you to mess up. For a long time God reached out to me, but I thought you had to be good and perfect to run around with Christians. I never knew a strong relationship with Christ, even though I believed.

I am writing to say that we are all sinners but God loves us unconditionally , and he loves me and never gave up on me regardless of my sins which were many. I used to think I am nice the things I do are not hurting anyone, but they were hurting me. All choices have consequences. Here is my funny take on the crazy things I have done and I am still loved by God. Here is what not to and you will be better off. My goal is to reach out like the Girls of Grace when they sing: You don’t have to hide anymore, You don’t have to feel unworthy of love.” Here are my mistakes and sins in black and white to help you see that where ever you in your walk , God wants to walk with you. I can prove it.

I feel our world is hurting , and I am ready to accept my gift, and share my calling and share my experiences , to reach out to with my words to others who feel beat up , alone, and searching for love in all the wrong places. My life will seem like a series of short stories with different character who are all me . I look back and think who was that Girl ? Some of the personality traits remain but I have literally lived many different lifestyles.



Martyr

The first thing that I would tell you is not to be a Martyr. I grew up in an alcoholic home and thought that I had the worst life. I was a sad and pathetic teenager. My brothers and sister were gone out of the house. My mother really was too into herself to be a mother, and my dad was an alcoholic. I had no guidance, no family life, and few friends. Gwen
Stefani sings it best in her no doubt song Sunday morning. Sappy pathetic little me was my song for everything, and I was pissed off , bitter , just plain did not care about anything.
I put my pain into dance and thought that I might go somewhere with it, but then I developed a eating disorder called bulima. I would rage at something but only would hurt myself by isolating eating ice cream and cookies and whatever else I could stuff down my throught only to gag and throw it up later. It was a horrible dibilitating disease. I hated school even though academics came naturally, it was just too exhausting around all those other kids.

I was an emotional wreck and a lonely miserable kid. I also turned to drugs and alcohol. I thought I was fat but I was not. I thought I was ugly which I wasn’t. I would fantacize about boys that I barely knew and then beat myself up for them not liking me back. Hell I did that in my marriage at 39 . I just continued with self defeating behavior that lead to poor me, which lead to more negative thinking , actions the partying the not eating to binging and purging. I was consistently sad and no one wants to hang out with a negative whiner, which only isolated me further poor me no friends. no one likes me whaa, whaa, whaa !

I continued the self destruction well into college, drinking, smoking pot, doing poorly in school .I actually went to a Statistic professor and was whining I dont get it I am failing. She said “ well Denise I never see you in class you can not get statistics if you are not present. “ I was actually pissed at here, but you see the class was at 8:00 a.m. and I was out at bars until all hours. I finally dropped out to go to Rehabilitation and boy did I meet more Martyrs there. You see addicts have a lot of reasons to be mad, sad , and they have a lot of people to blame for why they are mad, sad. The lesson is I could see in others their own role in the troubles in their life and I realized that I had been a martyr that my life really was not that bad. In rehab, I met women who were high for weeks and woke up not knowing where they were or where they were at. I met woman who sold their bodies for some crack. I watched a woman stay in a half way house dying from a failing liver with no loved ones , no family. I met a woman tortured by the thought of never seeing her kids again, but she had abadoned them to do drugs and ride a Harley across country.The Lesson is DONT BE A MARTYR SOMEONE ALWAYS HAS IT WORSE OFF THAN YOU. If you want just take away the ability to learn to be grateful. You can no be happy with what you want if you are not happy with what you have.

Round 2

Robert Palmer sings it best ,
You are going have to face it you are a addicted to love. Yes my friends I went from being an addict, alcholic to loving them. DONT BE CODEPENTENT. I am fighting this lesson to this day. I need to take care of people. Another reason I dropped out of college because I knew Psychology profession was dangerous because I would have a house full of crazy people to save. Little did I know that I did anyways. I can not stress enough DONT BE CODEPENDENT.

Even though I went to rehab and learned a great deal. I am now a functioning alcoholic, and addict because now I am taking care of lover after lover which is the new main addiction.
Melissa Etheridge sings it to me so grand, “ Then I fell in love , love gave me a shot of pure desire, which deep in my soul and ingnited a fire, I thought it would burn eternally.” Yes from that first relationship , I was hooked and when it no longer fed my needs I would move on and love the next one and become someone completely different.

If you do not believe me on this lesson believe this:

The Redneck-Lover number one I became the young hot trophy of an older red necked man and I was crazy for him. He made that flame burn like it never burned before, but he was bossy which if you ever meet me that doesnt work well with me. Second he was an awful drunk which reminded me of my father witch really creaped me out. I didnt want to marry an alcholic. Third, he told me I was a dyke because I ran around a little gay boy in beauty school . The crazy thing was I thought you are dick maybe Id rather have a girlfriend. So I got one.

The Mexican Mama- I now am the caretaker of an older mexican girl who loved me and worshiped the ground I walked on. She does to this day. She taught me about life, how to cook, to be part of a family, to love , and how to drink like a rock star. She was probably the great love of my life , but she was an alchoholic , and she could accept the ambitions I had to go out in the world and succeed. She smothered me ,and it is a horrible feeling to be someone elses everything. I thought she would drink herself to death everytime I went on a business trip. I hated that pressure, I had to grow up.

The Pothead-I moved on to lover number three. Now I am a free thinking hippy pot smoking lesbian. I fell in love with this girl because she was beautiful, but she had such a hard exterior image. She needed my love, I was going to pay it forward. My mexican momisita healed my broken wings, now I want to teach the hippy what I had learned plus she had killer weed. The pot head was lazy , negative , and obsessive compulsive and controlling. She was not very nice to me with verbal and mental abuse.She developed agoraphobia and panic attacks which became hard for this free spirit to stay put. It is funny the lazy unambitious want to be taken care of but resent the ambitious . I hated the pressure and she was sucking the life out of me, so being the caretakeer I made sure she had an apartment and all the things she needed so I could move on guilt free.

The Poet- she was romantic and made me like myself through her eyes. She loved my ambition , she loved my dreams. She was so encouraging and healing after all the jealousy and down talking. We ran away and moved to California, but she was irresponsible and once again I am footing the bill while she buys fancy tennis shoes . She was so loving even when I broke up with her and start dating men. I got pregnant and she wanted to accept my child and help me raise it , but I found God and got involved in church. I just didn’t feel the same about the being with a women. It was difficult time I did not want the poet but i loved her and was lonely when she was out and about. I felt like God was telling me something. I spent seven years as a lesbian, I had endometreosis and was never suppossed to conceive a child. I had sex with two men within two weeks of each other and boom I end up pregnant. The week before I begged Jesus to tell me what to do I wanted him to take over. I was miserable , and suddenly I felt the most amazing peace I have experienced. I knew God sent me a gift , and he would show me the way. As much as I did love the poet , she was a wild drinking bar fly and irresponsible not the person to raise a child with. I owed it to her and God to let her go. If you read this book know that I think you are amazing and I will never forget you and you are in my thoughts and prayers. I have a baby on the way time to let go of taking care of everyone else but my child.


Baby daddy- I lived alone a long time. I ran into a man from high school, and it seemed like a gift from heaven. He accepted my shortcomings, my past, my child. I accepted that he was a former cocaine addict, he had three kids which I loved. I loved his family, and I thought I found my soul mate. We took all the kids on vacation, we had so much fun. I adored him. I set myself up again he was trapped in a very bad situation with his ex wife and support. He just never had a chance to help me financially and what I did know is it was a reoccuring pattern . Using again , working , no job. I did not mind being the money maker, but he just continued to give up. I bet he had six jobs in less than two years. We had a child together and got married, but he just quit working and put me through hell.I had a baby in the middle of all this craziness and had to work like a crazy woman, and only go three weeks off maternity leave and really could not afford that. I gave up my cute house I could afford for a big house for all of our kids. He just quit working and refused to help me. He started neglecting me. He was different and distant. I was becoming such angry bitter person and in debt. I had really made a mess of my life. He did not do one thing to even try to work things out. I feel as if he set me up. He thought I would always take care of him. I keep going back and forth with him because I loved his kids, his family and I just could not let go . I really became obssessed with him and he just plain did not care about me. He doesnt care one way or another. I am still trying to scrap myself up off the ground and pick up the pieces, but I honestly do not know how. I know I need to move on and so I just keep working on myself , but I think I will always have a hole. I have a gift to see the best in people , but I always get burned and used up. I have no one to blame but myself.

Co dependency is a serious problem, and most people do not even realize that they are. I have to focus on myself, clear boundaries, and focus on being healthy so I can find someone who is healthy. You can not fix anyone with your love. You have to be on the same page from the beggining. I have no idea why I find unambitious people , and broken unavailable addicts, but it has been a constant heart break in my life and each one gets harder to get over. My lesson is to put God first, I think I was expecting more from these poor souls were capable of. They can not answer my prayers, or heal my empty baggage only God can do that. They can not make me love me or have peace only God can do that.