I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and I feel like it explains our relationship and gives people an idea of what's going on.. At this point I'm worried about everything when it comes to her.. I don't know how to get her to behave good.

She didn't want me.... I didn't want her.... But now we have each other.

I was the sexiest, wildest, most untamable girl in the bar... Then I met HIM! Not a man I would go for, because I didn't go for any of them. He kept coming around no matter how hard I tried to push him away.. We fell in love and I found out I was pregnant before I knew how much of a little devil his sweet faced eight year old daughter really was.

Things moved fast no matter how hard I tried to slow them down. I learned more and more about the mess my now husband brought into the marriage with him. Not only was I a new mom to my one year old sweet baby girl I also had a eight year old I was trying to "fix." They did this to her and then dropped her on my doorstep for repairs. When I say they I mean her mother and maternal grandmother.. Two of the most important people in this young child's messed up little world. These people didn't even know me and it was like I had married them too all because I had their precious jewel of a child. They spoke without a filter in front of my stepdaughter. They told her things like, don't sit on the toilet after her, your new sister isn't really your sister, and one of my all time favorites, if her house is that clean she must not be spending enough time with her kids.

I handled it all with love, and patients. I tried to be the one to set an example, it was clear they never had. I forced a meeting with her mom for the first time a good year after I had come into the picture. I bit my tongue when I was called a whore and dope head.. I took it all. The little girl I chose to call my daughter deserved some kind of normalcy no matter what kind of hell she designed for torture unique to my fears and insecurities. I spoke softly, even after she shook her sisters bed during nap time to make her cry. I went to the bathroom and cried my tears in front of God alone as I begged for patience because I knew I didn't have much left. As long as I had to answer for every rule, and every punishment I couldn't be any kind of authority in this child's life.

Through many attempts at being the "MOM" this young girls birth mother gave up the battle that was so evidently going on inside of her... I got the call while my husband was eight hours away and I was standing in the church halfway still annoyed that my fragile daughter who kept herself guarded like royalty wouldn't mind.. Never did she mind! The voice on the other end was one that made my pulse race every time I heard it... "She finally did it.!" She's gone... I told the little girl in time out she could go play with the other kids, I told her fast before even one tear fell. She was excited, she ran, she laughed.... She didn't know! Her mom was gone, gone forever..

My husband rushed home and picked his almost too big to carry daughter up and layer her in between us in the bed. His eyes were swollen and still wet from the sobbing he had done over the woman I knew he still loved. And that was ok.. I looked at that sleeping face, and I knew, this was the last night she would have without a hole in her heart. I wished I could freeze her like this.. Freeze her sleeping in this kind of peace that she would never feel again, but I couldn't. No matter how hard I wished it was still all too real!

She felt for the last time the next morning when she finally found out why she didn't have to go to school. She cried for maybe two minutes. I think in that two minute she made the choice not to ever let anyone in again. And in that two minutes I also made a choice... I would love her anyway! I chose to be her mom. I knew that meant all the problems that came with it, but that was ok because it also meant someone would be there to teach her how to apply makeup, to dress her for her first dance, to hold her when her tears wouldn't stop, and I knew that was something she never had consistently.

In all honesty, sometimes, in brief moments I regret that I chose to be her mom when her birth mom left. But almost before these moments have time to be a reality I look over at her holding tight to her baby brother, knowing that she can put him to sleep better than I can... That must mean he feels safe in her arms. I see the amount of patients she has when helping with a two year old little girl who doesn't want anyone but mommy. I see that the love is still in there, and I know that she's just scared to love someone who may cause that kind of pain again. More than that I see her. I see that under there is a now twelve year old little girl having to come to terms with the fact that a twenty six year old new mom that knows nothing about parenting will have to be good enough because that's all that's left.

Four years we have known each other. Four very long hard years, and we are still here, and we are ok. We are ok because we decided to do this together. We didn't pick each other and we didn't fall in love like a reunited mother and daughter who had been separated by some disastrous event. She was given to me and I was given to her... We know we need each other good or bad this will work because we chose to make it work.

God gave me you..

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