White Horse

Before I go on with the story of how I came to be a strange Mexican-Irish girl in a strange Houston, Texas town, I need to divulge something. And I'm certain that many of you, dear readers, have been expecting it. And it would be an insult to all of you, loving friends, who had to deal with me during my healing process. This is it. Here we go. And please, I beg of you: remember that I am human, and not perfect, as much as I joke around about being perfect. I am broken and fragile. And very stupid. Some of you may jump to harsh judgments, but I contest that everyone has done something stupid in their life at some point. Maybe it was unhealthy relationship, maybe it was getting a horrible Madonna-like perm in the 80's, or naming your children after snack foods. We all make mistakes. Read on.

At one foolish time, in my very foolish life, I considered myself to be in love. Wait. Scratch that. I was in love. And that is something that I need to learn not to be ashamed of. It doesn't matter with whom I was in love with. But what does matter is that he said he loved me too. I imagined and longed for a life with this guy, and sacrificed a lot of myself for him. I pretended to love things that he loved, speak the way that would make him take notice of me. Like that 1960's song suggested, “You've got to show him that you care just for him, do the things he likes to do, wear your hair just for him...” Well, I did. And in the process I lost myself and who I really am. I became obsessed with hearing his voice, and being near him. I craved his approval, and yearned for the satisfaction that he loved me, and only me. We spent Christmases, birthdays, family outings together; his mother even told me she considered me her daughter-in-law already. And I was so.... happy.

But it was a lie. It wasn't that he did all the lying (although for someone who supposedly “can't lie” he did a LOT of it). I lied too. To myself mostly. But also to him. I lied when I compromised myself and my morals to make him happy, or when I would try to be someone whom I wasn't, just so he could admire me a bit more. I believed that if I could convince him that I was exactly who he was looking for, that would be it. And it'd be completely worth it. Its funny how things don't work out. And sometimes its wonderful.

I convinced myself of his steady and constant affection and love for years. Yet he was not steady. He was anything but constant. He ran hot and cold on me more than the plumbing in my cheap apartment. And I started catching him in lies. And hearing about how he was paying a lot of attention to someone else. I ignored it (again, please, I know... stupid, stupid girl). The idea of him being with another girl was so terrifying to me that I swallowed my fear, acted like an ostrich (which tastes delicious, btw), and stuck my head in the sand. I confronted him a few times. Every time I did, somehow, inexplicably, I would end up thinking I was crazy. Or he would remind me that we weren't married. Whatever the case may be, I was stressed, depressed, repressed, regressed, and obsessed (which are all red flags and marks of spiritual warfare). I stopped caring about myself; mistreated my body, went on binges, and became an all-around unpleasant person to be around. I did this to myself. I take full responsibility for that. When I get to heaven someday and Jesus looks into the eyes of my soul, I'm going to have to look at Him and say, “Yes, that was me.” And my biggest fear is that He'll cry. Not just for me, but for the loved ones I mistreated and took advantage of while coping with being taken advantage of.

The pinnacle and “no-turning-back-now”moment came one evening at the beach. Have you ever had moments when your heart is aching so much you'd swear it was being squeezed by a vice-grip? Or that being swallowed by a whale or eaten by a shark would be bliss in comparison to the bleak and utter melancholy and black abyss that engulfed you? I have.

We were at the beach at a youth event, and he was in the water. I was playing my guitar, avoiding the company of the other stupid girl he'd been allegedly spending time with. I heard his phone ring, and being the A-type-proned-personality person that I am, I picked it up. The number was unfamiliar so I let it go to voicemail. And then I got a nagging feeling in the back of my skull. He'd been so protective of his phone for the past six-months. And I'd (again, ostrich) ignored it, owing it to the fact that he was a pretty private person. But I couldn't help it. He had a password protected phone, but he's about as creative with coming up with passwords as I am with drawing people (I do stick-figures). I cracked the code in ten seconds. And there, on his phone, were hundreds of pictures of her. Smiling, laughing, sleeping... SLEEPING?! Yup. And there they were in Time Square, cozied up together. The phrase “made me nauseous” would be so applicable if it weren't so cliched. But those pictures literally made me nauseous. And me, being the non-confrontational person that I am, cornered the jerk and threw his phone at him. Not really. I wish I had. But I pulled him aside, told him what I'd found, and tearfully asked, “Why?”

One thing I'll never forgive myself for is how weak I became and how much power I let him exert over me. Where did sparky and spunky Katie go? Who the hell was this person in her flip-flops? Get this girl a backbone!

Long story short, I ended it that night. That horrible, toxic.... thing. The mockery and joke of a relationship. It ended. I ended it with the help of two of my dear friends, who sat on the beach with me that night and let me cry until there was nothing left. At their urging and my mom's approval, I started counseling the next day (my pride would like to conceal that factoid about me, but I am convinced that everyone needs counseling at some point or other. It helped me a lot).

Its been a long haul, and God has done some amazing work in me. He took me, all banged up, bruised, and broken, and put me back together. I've got scarred tissue. Battle wounds. And I'm wiser for it. My honest-to-goodness (ride-or-die) friends were revealed in this process, as they never failed to be there for me. To everyone who helped me through this time, or prayed me through it, thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

One year and one month after that horrible beach day, I slammed the trunk shut and drove up and out of the driveway of my mom and dad's house. We stopped for gas on 6^th Street, and then pulled onto the 15 freeway. I sang along to Taylor Swift's “White Horse” as I bid farewell to the place I'd known almost since birth. And my mom clapped and cheered for me as the song ended and we merged onto the 10 freeway, the freeway that would take me all the way to Houston.

I don't want any confusion about my ultimate reason for moving; God called me here. I have a job to do. It's my vocation. So let it be known by anyone doubting, or mistrusting my motive: I was not running away... I was moving on.

Looking back, I don't completely regret the series of unfortunate events that took place: they've shown me the grace of our Heavenly Father, and revealed to me just how deep His mercy is and how wonderful it is to be truly healed. I learned that people who I love can and will disappoint; but I have to love anyway. And that God can and will work a miracle in whatever crap-pile of a situation I find myself in. Thanks for reading... and thanks for being charitable with your thoughts. Whew.... that was.... well, I'm glad that's done.

White Horse – Taylor Swift

Say you're sorry, that face of an angel
comes out just when you need it to.
As I paced back and forth all this time,
because I honestly believed in you.
Holding on the days drag on, stupid girl,
I should've known, I should've known...

I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairy tale
I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet,
lead her up the stairwell,
this ain't Hollywood, this is a small town.
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down.
Now its too late for you and your white horse
to come around.

Baby I was naïve, got lost in your eyes
and never really had a chance.
My mistake, I didn't know how to be in love.
You had to fight to have the upper hand.
I had so many dreams about you and me;
happy endings. Now I know...

I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairy tale
I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet,
lead her up the stairwell, this ain't Hollywood,
this is a small town.
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down.
Now its too late for you and your white horse
to come around.

And there you are on your knees, begging for forgiveness,
begging for me. Just like I always wanted. But I'm so sorry...

Because I'm not your princess, this ain't a fairytale,
I'm gonna find someone someday
who might actually treat me well.
This is a big world, that was a small town
there in my rear-view mirror disappearing now.
And it's too late for you and your white horse,
yeah it's too late for you and your white horse.
To stop me now. Try and stop me now.
It's too late to stop me now.

Packing and The Car-tastrophe

Thanks to everyone who's reading! Cody & John.... I appreciate your following me (in the non-stalker way).

So I get the job. And I was SO thrilled. And terrified. At the same time. Getting the job in Houston was a much different feeling than being invited to team NET. With NET, at least I knew that I'd be going home eventually. Moving was more like getting a tattoo. Its permanent. And the process sucks. Because it hurts.

When I was a little girl, the idea of moving always seemed like such a fun idea. Because it was going somewhere new and exciting!

I was misinformed.

The first thing that I did was tell my boss that I had received the job offer. And I'd taken it. And Don asked me when my last day would need to be. I told him Monday. That way, I'd have four days left to pack up my life. I finished my shift on Saturday, managing to snag a few boxes from the dock, and shoved them into my car. It still hadn't dawned on me that these boxes were going to contain a few precious items that I'd be able to transport cross-country. Mostly shoes. Actually, almost all shoes. And books. I have a lot of books. About religion. And Twilight. But we'll pretend I didn't just type that.

Sunday was an interesting day. Fr. Declan had asked me to speak a bit on Cursillo, and try to encourage our congregation to go. I had told him the news, and asked him if it would be appropriate to announce my leaving. He said it would be. So when I got up to speak about the joy of Cursillo with the rest of my fellow Cursillistas, I felt confident. After all, God had called me on my Cursillo weekend, and it was a great story, right? Well, I felt that way until I got up to speak. And then.... and then. I scanned over the congregation; my family. I'd known them almost my entire life. They were more familiar to me than most of my extended relatives.

I don't remember everything I said, but I do recall one moment when I was speaking about how God calls us to do great things, sometimes scary things. And those things are hard. But, as Tom Hanks says in "A League of Their Own," the "hard is what makes it great." And I started tearing up. And my announcement poured out of me in a shaky voice. "I've been offered, and I've accepted the position as a youth minister at St. Paul the Apostle in Houston, Texas. And even though my heart us breaking right now, I know that Christ is with me. Because you are all in me, and I'm carrying you with me in my heart."

I never understood what St. Paul meant until then. I was being poured out as a libation. And the clarity that that scripture afforded me was shockingly hilarious. I almost began laughing in between my words. And that clarity gave me strength. I looked again at the faces I knew so well, at the Pearson family, at the Smiths, at Adam, Lucia, and Ricky. And Larry and Eric. And Emily. I knew my days with them were numbered. But God's presence was soothing and calming. I was becoming stronger.

Monday, I had my last day of work. And coincidentally, it was a staff meeting day. My fellow managers had gotten together and bought a locket for me. Its a heart with a cross in the middle and absolutely gorgeous. On the back is inscribed, "Burlington, 2010." The kind words written on the card and the tears that I cried will be forever written on my heart. Its amazing how much a group of people you've only known seven months can influence you.

I took my car to my cousin Jim's house. For those of you not familiar with cousin Jim (which is almost all), he's a master mechanic, and probably the BEST mechanic in all of Southern California. No lie. He's awesome. I was all prepared to drive out to Texas in my beat-up Suzuki, but Dad was adamant that Jim look the car over. And its a good thing he did. As a girl with almost no interest in auto-mechanics, I like to imagine that car fairies make my car run. Yes, I know about fuel, and the importance of oil-changes (wow, did I learn that the hard way with my first car), but I really have an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality with my car. So when I pop the hood and there's a (gasp) engine underneath (instead of small rodents or woodland creatures that make the car go), my mind glazes over, and I start thinking about other things, like how awesome vending machines are, or if I have change for when the ice cream man comes around because darn it, I really want one of those Ninja Turtle Popsicles with the blue gumballs in its eyes (and did you know the first vending machine was created by Hero in the first century? It dispensed Holy Water. GO CATHOLICS!).

Instead of boring you with all of the details of getting my car suped-up to make the 1386-mile drive, I'll just summarize for you. Suzuki's only take Suzuki parts. And I needed a new air-intake system, resonator, timing belt, and brakes. So, basically it was really expensive. But because of my awesome cousin, it was about 70% cheaper than taking it to a shop. 90% cheaper than taking it to the dealer.

My Uncle Pete came down for a visit whilst I was packing. He lives about 10 hours north of my family in Northern California. Now, here's my thing for all non-Californian's. If you are going to visit Cali, DO NOT go to Southern California. Its gross. And brown. As my sister and I were discussing about a week ago, Southern California has beautiful places but it is NOT beautiful. Northern California, however. B-E-A-UTIFUL. Especially Sequoia National Park. Promise me.... go and visit. Just google "Redwoods". Its AMAZING! Trees big enough to drive cars through. I digress.

Uncle Pete is my Godfather. And he's awesome. Just like his son, Jim. And he gave me something amazing. And I mean that in its truest sense. When I found out I needed new wheels, everywhere I called, people were telling me the wheels were $120. Each. Finally, I called one place, America's Tires (PLUG!), and they had these cool wheels for a slightly better deal. I spoke to a salesguy and told him my plight. Blah, blah, blah, I'm moving to Texas and I'm poor.... and he knocked the price down to an even better deal. And when Uncle Pete and I went to pick them up, he wouldn't let me pay for them. I know he wouldn't want anyone to know it because he's an amazingly humble man. But I owe him a lot. He's my father in faith, and he helped me get to where I am. He literally got me to Texas. And it was the Spirit within him that made him as generous as he is.

So I had new wheels. And tires. And everything was going great. I was packing up, folding a lot of clothes, giving away a lot of stuff. Lucia even helped me clean out some stuff that I hadn't gone through since high school. It was a daunting task. Now I know why people like to stay in one place. Because the process of uprooting requires too much energy. And shredding old bills is shockingly boring. And loud, so you can't even enjoy watching movies whilst doing it. And Chasey could only be bribed so much to shred stuff for me. Oreo's only go so far.

The days passed. Mom had decided that she would drive out to Texas with me, and then fly back. I was so relieved someone was going with me. And I was happy it was Mom. She and I needed some time together. Especially since I was out of my "I'm a teenager and know everything" and "I'm a young adult and I can do everything" phases. On that note, being friends with my parents is one of the joys of my adult life. I'm so glad I like them. Although Dad, if you read this... seriously... if you're mean to my Mom, you're going to the home.

Thursday arrived. And people came over. I was still packing my life into boxes and vacuum bags. Those things are amazing. I got my car back in all of its fixed-ness. Mom and I were scheduled to leave Friday evening. My friends had planned a good-bye party at Rodrigo's, and people came from their jobs with presents to send me off. I cried again.

My sisters Erica and Jess were driving back to the house with me, and we stopped at Circle K. I don't know why. But it was there in that parking lot that my engine, on my newly fixed car, died. It just... died. And I panicked. And called my dad, who came to our rescue, and took me to an auto-part store. They hook it up to their machine and we find that it is not the battery. Its the alternator. It was 5:00 when they told us this. And I was supposed to leave at 6:00. The auto parts stores were closing. And Jim races over to our house, and we start calling every place known to man that might carry this exclusive Suzuki part. And everyone tells us the same thing. "We can get the part in two-weeks." After the sixth phone call and a fruitless haphazard race to a closing store, I started crying again. All I wanted to do was get out of California. Why wouldn't it let me leave?

There was no possible way Jim would get the part that evening. Our best bet was calling the manufacturer and seeing if they knew where we could get one fast, but they were already closed. So instead of leaving that night, I went to bed in my now packed room, asking God for peace, and for a working alternator.

The next morning, bright and early at 7:00, I go to a parts store that might have had one in stock. No luck. I called the manufacturer as soon as they opened. And they put me on hold for fifteen minutes. And when they took me off hold, they told me they had one (1) alternator for my car. And it was thirty minutes away. Naturally, I took off like a shot. Within an hour I had an alternator and my cousin was installing it. As soon as he slammed the hood shut, I was FINALLY throwing my stuff in the backseat and trunk while he tightened the lug nuts on my new wheels. And then he stopped:

"Uh, Katie?"

"Yeah?"

"We might have a problem."

"What?"

"There's a screw in your tire."

"WHAT?!"

That's right. There was a screw in my tire. Having cried far too much that week, I did the only thing I could think of: I started laughing. Hysterically laughing. Nature was just tweaking my nose! And using my car against me! So I had to unpack my car and take it back to the tire sales place.

Luckily, the dude who'd sold me my tires was really nice about it. He patched it up within ten minutes. And I was back home by 1pm. By 1:30 my car was repacked, and my room was the cleanest it had been in years. In a moment of calm, I sat on my bed and stared at the place that I was giving up. It was safe, and familiar. And (except for the spiders), had been my haven for 27-years. The adrenaline from all of my running around left me in an instant, and before I could realize what it was that had happened, I was lying facedown on my bed having an acute anxiety attack. My sister was talking with her boyfriend in the living room, and I called her into my bedroom. As she sat there on my bed with me, rubbing my back, smoothing my hair, and "shh-ing" my irrational sobbing conjectures like, "What if they don't like me?" I realized that moments like preparing to swan-dive off a diving board, or huge leaps of faith were rare. And exquisite.

For the umpteenth time that week, I dried my tears, and my mom announced that she had finished packing, and it was time to go. I hugged my sister, her boyfriend, and one of my favorite people in the world, Ricky Valenzuela (I call him my favorite Mexican), shoved my mom's suitcase into my almost overflowing car, got into the driver's seat, turned the key in the ignition (half-expecting the engine to fall out), drove up the driveway and away from my home. It was finally happening. I was growing up, and leaving California.