Sunday, May 4, 2014

From Then to Now. My Story.

Loose talk makes everyone famous in a small town. I was born in a small town, claim an even small one as home and have transferred my home to an even smaller and gossiper town. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I love it, love knowing your neighbors and everyone you meet. 

Problem is when everyone thinks they know the truth, thinks they know your story, and they think they have some kind of right to draw their own conclusion. That’s not the always the case, especially when your life has been broadcasted and exposed.

You would think I was in magazines the way I talk, but that’s not the case. Tragedy has always been a great interest in human nature and my life was scared by such at a young age. Soon after the dust settled down everyone seemed to think they had a better way to direct my life, and most importantly they seemed to think they have a right to.

But enough time has passed that it is now time to tell my side. Not to cause pain or anger to anyone but to simply tell my story.

November 15th 2012. Very few people I know will ever forget this date. I won’t forget the sound of my own screams, the nightmares, even now do not allow that memory to fade. Like the memory of my heart breaking the memory of the man who so unintentionally caused it to do so will also never be forgotten, no matter what others may say. Jason Timothy Sagez. I met him at a fish fry at Cole Sibley’s house in August of 2011, it was a Sunday and I was not pleased havening been drug to Calhoun but would forever be grateful for that displeasing day.

Although we had ignored each other during the few hours in each other’s presence it would not take long in the coming weeks for me to fall completely for him. Although it still bewilders me why one of the most beloved people I knew chose me as well.

Months passed and shortly after my nineteenth birthday and seven months of being together we started making serious plans for our future together. But job market placed that on hold that summer and forced us to be kids for just a little longer.

As things fell back into place the early fall of 2012 we had picked a little starter home, an ancient trailer down along the banks of the Illinois, I figured something would go terribly wrong. But never in my worst dreams could I imagine the reality.

The nightmare of such reality was unimaginable. The screams. The pleading with God. Convinced that they were wrong, they had told the wrong family, that he was coming home….

But it was real. I spent the next several days surrounded by family, friends, and new friends and associates whom I had never met or heard of in the 15 months Jason and I had been together. I was spoiled by the fact I did not have to be alone. These people loved Jason, didn’t they? They flocked together like a family and I felt way safer around them than I had being alone in my miserly. I never was forced to face myself in the beginning.

I was sheltered at first by the cruel things people would say. Although I originally had thought it to be months before the comments started to float about in reality the funeral hadn’t even taken place. But others who felt more loyal to me, or perhaps were just more decent of people, kept me from it.

Friends and associates always seen to it I had something to fill my weekends especially so that I was not to be home with my pain. Yet if I was at bars someone thought it was insensitive of me. But if I was home I was too weak and lost in my pity party.

Course then started to rumors. Whom I was sleeping with although it was not true. Jason hadn’t been gone three months. But it is always something in a small town.

Over the months I have been told I have no right to mourn. After all I wasn’t with him near as long as his high school girlfriend. Accusing of holding on to long, moving on to fast, told even to have my tattoo removed that is my memorial to him. Some of these people say it to my face, others pretend they love me, are good friends to me, yet I hear it from people I trust more than them.

Hearing such from two separate groups, Calhoun and non-Calhoun, AKA Jerseyville, made things worse. Especially since Jerseyville had no freaking clue what the hell was going on. They had long not associated with me and had not known Jason more than to pass by if that.

I could not please everyone as it is impossible to do so, even if I had wanted to. I would wonder if any of these people knew Jason really, especially the one I knew. If they had surely I would know them, and know them a lot better if that was the case. But if in 15 months I knew you that little and heard of you that little, your opinion of course will mean not a damn to me.

I wanted to scream at people. Ask why they had such a right to tell me how to act, how to mourn. They claimed they knew him better than me as they had been in his life more than I had been. But they hadn’t been there in the time we were together. And it made me angry and jealous that they did have more memories with him than I did.

But I wouldn’t sink to their level. I wouldn’t pretend to know who could and couldn’t mourn.

I became so bitter in life. I know that. Dropping out of school twice, desperately trying to find a safe and happy place again.

I know I lashed out, I know I hurt people I shouldn’t have. No matter the hell the put me through, two wrongs do make a right no matter how much hell raged in my own heart, mind, body and soul. I apologize for that but offer no more than those words. I am human, I admit if I could do some things differently, I would have pissed a few more people off in a few more… interestingly of ways. But have fun figuring out which ones I have not totally forgiven and vice versa.

Pain broke me, I know that. I ended up alone and it was my own doing. This I expected but I didn’t care. I was tired of constantly being judged. I felt nothing outside of my numb misery.
I could of moved anywhere when I left home. Instead I came to Hardin. Moved right into the heart my fiery dungeon of hell. I desperate attempt to make claim to it as my home. A desperate attempt to hold on and to prove myself. Of what I still wonder at.

Finally Halloween rolled around. I had stopped caring what others though but would still sink into corners when the ones who had offended me most walked in. But even in this personal battle I made my presence, for the third year in a row to Big Johns and Mainstreet. No one can say God doesn’t interfere the most even in the midst of sin. Through shots and Jack Daniels mixed with Coke I ended with my saving grace, Frankie Witt.

The funny thing about Frankie is, he had been around through everything. I seen him constantly and he was always good to buy me a drink and a chat at the bar whenever I saw him. But most importantly he did his own thing and didn’t give a damn about what people thought. This also meant the only rumors he heard about me came from my once former best friend and his very pissed little sister. (I am pleased to say this has been remedied and I am excited to have one of my earliest friends in the county is now to be my sister and she seems pretty pleased about it too).

But Frankie like I said is his own person and does his own thing and doesn’t listen to what people say. He was the perfect getaway and the new beginning in the same setting.

Everyone has their own opinion on the both of us. Together and obviously separately. But it doesn’t matter, it didn’t matter last fall and it doesn’t matter now. And trust me there were plenty of people trying to say otherwise and come in between of that.

But I felt for the first time since the accident, whole and alive and free. And it was real and not the false security I had searched for that summer. I was alive.

Guilty yes. That guilt still rakes me. My feelings for Jason and Frankie fought inside me. Feeling of betrayal was high for both the men in my life. The ache for Jason alive and well and the knowing that Frankie didn’t deserve a woman in love with someone beyond her control.

Time has subdued those feelings only justly. My life hasn’t turned out as planned and I would like to think of myself as a stronger and better woman for surviving it. I could be drunk every second of the day. Shooting up my veins and snorting drugs but I’m not.

I could of died but I didn’t. I’m still standing here.

I survived because of friends and in spite of others. I offer no apologies for who I am now. For my engagement and the surprise of the baby Frankie and I have created. For this I offer no apologizes for the condition of my heart and soul.

I know a little more each day who I am. Pain will never cease and I will never entirely be whole.

Nothing I could ever do would of pleased the lot. But that is the way of small towns.

I am who I am. I have been lucky enough to have been loved by two great men and to have loved and love them both as much as I do. I offer no heartache for that.

Every mile is a memory for me. Ever tear falls for a reason and ever person has molded me and shaped my life in some way.

Love has no boundaries, weather or not we would like it to. Love is the greatest medicine and enemy of pain and heartache. Love is self-mending and soothing if strong enough.

The screams and ache inside of me have faded but my memory holds strong. Legends never die and love won’t let them. That’s how I know Jason will always live on.

Even with each miserable tear that falls as I type this I know I am finally happy. As sick as that sounds. I know I have caused much pain and discomfort in being happy to many people. People that I love. But had it not come across Frankie that night at Big Johns, I don’t dare wonder what would have happened to me. I know the route I was on and know that I would not be breathing today had it not been for a friend turned fiancĂ©e telling me I was going to learn to drink like a big girl.

That is my story.

Kendra.








































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