I’m the perfect example of how poor choices, based on zero self-confidence and self-love, impacted my entire world.  I was too emotionally immature to experience life events so expeditiously, beginning with skipping kindergarten and thus becoming a five-year-old first grader.  Then, a race, an ineffective race, through the rest of my education led to my getting married at 23 and having a child at 23.  Please note that I wouldn’t change a thing about Marissa coming into the world when I was so young.  Being her mom, along with Rebecca and Zachary’s mom, was the only  success I’ve ever known.  And, though they haven’t spoken to me in nearly a decade, they remain, as  I used to call them, “my heart, my soul, and my lungs.”

My story is agonizing, but I am here to tell it.  Please read it with grace and with love.

MJ