The Decade in Review - Part 2

Back to my story…

By the time I got into the Entertainment Dept., some friendships had changed. Michelle had 1) had her second child, 2) been left alone after her husband was put in jail, and eventually 3) got herself involved with a group of drug addicts who led her into a Meth addiction. She herself landed in jail and at that point I had had enough. I didn’t answer her calls anymore and walked out of her life, and painfully, her children's lives (I'm still working on forgiving her for this). Ramon, my other so-called Best Friend, had begun dating a very young and immature girl, who had never met me, but hated me, and who thought it smart to send me text messages “warning” me to stay away from him. Needless to say, I went off and “warned” him that I better never run into her. Thanks to her, I hardly heard from him and our relationship was never the same after that.

As I was saying in my previous post, at the Entertainment Dept. I began to build a group of friends. Being the secretary, I was in the middle of all the different cliques (yes, there were cliques. I know its very “High School,” but this wasn’t exactly a corporate environment full of mature adults—it’s a theme park. Lol). I would bounce around to the different groups, but then became interested in a certain Float Driver (for the Looney Tunes Parade) named Jon. Through my attempts at getting close to him, I became incorporated into the awesome group of people known as the Float Crew: Mandy, Sean, Vicente, Jon, and others. These became my main group of friends. They were the chill, neutral group that just wants to have fun, which is sort of what I was as the secretary.

Through my friendship with Mandy, I was introduced and eventually brought into her family. I became instantly attached to her 3-year-old daughter Julia (a.k.a, "Baby"), who is now my unofficial goddaughter. Mandy and I had our ups and down, but through my love for her child, we began to develop a very close friendship… even through her very short relationship with Jon. Yes, Jon, the guy I was interested in and sort of dated for a while. Looooong story, and this one is already long enough as it is.

Around this time also, Kim and Mike started to get very hot and heavy and Kim eventually moves in with him. I still wasn’t liking the guy all that much and the more people encouraged me to like him the more I didn’t want to (yes, that would be stubborn pride, folks!), but he eventually proved himself (sort of) and grew on me. Sandy was also dating and living with Joe, one of my least favorite people on the planet. This guy is an extremely intelligent guy, who unfortunately is too smart for his own good. That coupled with extreme self-hate, lead him to enjoy playing mind games with people, including Sandy. He ended up being very emotionally abusive with her and cheated on her. Thank God, he left her, especially before she could get pregnant, or worse, marry the guy. It was a blessing from above.

In 2004, I decided enough was enough and vowed that I would leave Six Flags for good right after Fright Fest (their yearly Halloween event). Everyone laughed and said that they had heard that one before (so many had left only to come right back), but I was serious. I went online and saw that the County of Los Angeles was hiring clerks. I applied and very soon thereafter received a letter to go take the test. I took the test and was offered a job right around Halloween and was to start in December. Like I promised, I was out of there... but not for good. I stayed on for weekends for about another year before I finally quit for good.

From about 2004 to 2006, aside from working and going to school off-and-on, I was hanging and partying with my group of friends, who had also expanded to include Mike and the Palmdale boys. What came with them was a lot of parties and alcohol. I also became VERY close to Misty who was one of the girls I started with in my first County District Office. We became Best Friends in almost an instant. We learned a lot from each other.

I can say that I had a lot of "fun" at this time of my life, but again, I know that kind of fun wasn’t very pleasing and honoring to the Lord. It got so bad that on my 25th birthday I got so drunk I ended in up in the Emergency Room. No bueno.

I look back at those times and wince at how stupid I was. I grew up in the Church and I knew better. BUT I also look back and am grateful. The Lord was about to start to turn things around…