her:

“Hey, mom? Can I take some of the guns to my senior photo shoot?”

me:

“Umm, I guess so. But why?”

her:

“Because I want the pics to represent a little of everything I do and love. The ball gown, the tiara, the monster, my guns, my dog, and my horses.”

me:

“Good Lord, daughter. Your dad would be so fucking proud of you right now.”

her:

“Correction. My dad IS so fucking proud of me. I know he’s watching ALL of this from the other side.”

me:

“Good enough then. By the way, some day when I grow up, I hope I can be more like you.”

her:

“Momma, don’t grow up, it’s a trap! Now, let’s get to the barn!”

🖤

… and for those of you who’ve just now stumbled into this Diary, “The monster” is her 5.0 with a standard clutch that she’s hell bent on learning to drift one day. She changes her own oil, wants to learn how to “flip” engines from the pick and pull with her brother, the “engine Jedi“, and to the best of our knowledge is THE only person on her campus on a stick. It befuddles every boy there and some of the teachers. Actually? They’re kinda scared of her.

Meanwhile, she’s maintained an almost perfect 4.0 throughout high school, murdered her SAT without even studying, is a National Merit Scholar, a National HISPANIC Scholar, and so far has earned three major awards, not the least of which is the Presidential Merit from Texas Tech where she’s heading to this fall for her doctorate in veterinary medicine and minor in ranch management so she can “buy us all a dream farm anywhere green and pretty where we can just be happy and free” as she once said. Lol, as if that’s even necessary, since she knows damn well that she’ll never have to work a day in her life because of what Zack left behind for us and will have that dream farm once she graduates. But you see, she doesn’t want anything just handed to her. She wants to earn it for herself.

She’s also a self-taught chef, never has to be asked to help around the house, has never partaken in the typical teenage bullshit such as drugs, alcohol, or skeezing her way through the football team to be popular like some of the girls whose parents are the pillars of righteousness in our diocese. Yes, she’s attending Catholic school, but no longer practices. She respectfully declines the weekly masses, opting instead to foster her relationship with Jesus directly. I’m a fan.

Let’s see, what else? She would and has given “her last dollar” to a homeless person or anyone she perceives as hungry, and once started a holy SHIT STORM in her middle school cafeteria because a group of boys at a gender segregated table got up all at once and sat at another table when the autistic boy they loved to torture sat down with them. So? She picked up her tray, got up from her table and sat with him. When the teachers on duty tried to make her go back to the girls’ table, thus leaving him there alone, she refused:

With all due respect, I won’t just leave Alex here by himself. So, please call my parents if there’s a problem and I’m willing to be sanctioned for this.

Yah, she’s THAT girl, and no one in her halo gets left behind! Meanwhile, of course I’m proud of her, but my obnoxious bragging here isn’t for the reasons you may think. You see, my daughter was also bullied at that very same school from the second grade on by a disease-ridden band of girls in our very small private school, the leader of which was the daughter of her bio father’s girlfriend.

Nobody likes you, Gia. You’re too fat and ugly. Why don’t you just go play with that retard!

That “retard”, by the way, is the autistic kid mentioned above, one of her dearest friends to this day, and “under her protection” at the high school they both where the kids have only gotten crueler and more brazen courtesy of their parents’ “piety payments” to the school to get their names on the benefactor wall of fame and keep their darlings sanctified.

“The Squad” of girls that bullied her (yah, they even gave themselves a name, lol) did so to the point of her suicidality, which in a way was the catalyst (not the reason) for Zack’s suicide. The night he shot himself, she, too, was suicidal, and ended up having to go in patient for some time then withdrawn from that school altogether for the long term outpatient process that followed in an attempt to put her back together before high school in the aftermath of everything that happened to her during what were supposed to be the most carefree and precious years of her life. Did you catch that? I could have lost my husband and daughter to suicide on the same night.

These days, the ever growing shadow she casts in the corridors of that illustrious high school just fades all those assholes who tried to break her out like the ending to a really bad movie. They can’t even look her in the eyes because they KNOW she has something they’ll NEVER have and that SHE owns her power now, THEY DON’T! Lol. Not a single one of those bitches know who or what they are unless someone else tells them, much less what to think, do, or say. It’s laughable!

My point in this dissertation is THIS:

If you’re an adult who’s ever once doubted the power you wield within your soul that is there for the taking if you’ll simply DECIDE to reach in and STEAL it back from those who try to take it from you, know this:

She was just a little girl when the entire world, including us, her fucked parents started dropping bombs of generational family dysfunction on her head. Yet, here she stands today, an AUDACIOUS rising queen, who much like her her mother literally just woke up one day and said, “FUCK THAT! This will NOT be how my story goes down and NO ONE will own my power but ME!”, then she picked up her sword and started slaying her story HER way! She faced herself in the mirror and said,

Now and again we try to just stay alive. Maybe we’ll turn it all around, ’cause it’s not too late . It’s never too late! ( … cue her favorite Three Days Grace song.)

Find a way to rise to the savage royalty that reigns inside that hurt little kid YOU see staring back in the mirror and start running head first into your storms! If SHE can do it, YOU can do it! In the meantime, she’ll be walking with honor cords on May 26th when she grabs that diploma before the simps who tried to extinguish her light, but instead ignited the fire of a truly magnificent beast!  

I thank GOD on my literal hands and knees every day for breaking ME into the pieces that are now being infused into not just my masterpiece, but hers and her brother’s. In the end, though, it was her! It was HER all along! SHE’S “the one” who came to flip over all the tables in every room she enters and start sprouting healthier branches on our once sick and dying family tree. At the rate she’s going, it’s possible that her babies, my grand babies, will be the first in a long line of sick and broken people to NOT end up in a psyche ward like their mother, her mother, and countless others. I’m so beyond lucky I was called to be her mom, and some day if I decide to grow up, I can only hope to be as AUDACIOUS as her!