The days of my youth

I cannot believe all the nastiness in my life that God has forgiven. I am amazed at how God continues to change me. The violent streak in me is almost gone. Alcohol is a social thing for me and is not my life blood anymore. I don't ever try to get drunk anymore. I am starting to understand my parents and the harshness they displayed toward me as a kid. I was wild as a gibbon and I don't know if anyone could handle me. Maybe someone who was a little meaner would have shot me. I was given a life anarchy until I was seven. I was rarely spanked for anything. Me and this kid named Chucky decided one day that we would play with some matches. It was right after Christmas and we had plenty of paper to light on fire. We did not know what fire could do. Fortunately, we got the cheapest lesson you can get about the danger it. The grass in his yard had not been mowed for a month or two and it was really high. Chucky lit a piece of ribbon and the flame burnt his finger. The pain made him throw it to the ground. The grass was dried out from lack of watering and erupted in to flame chucky and I were kicking and stomping at the flames. Chucky was shreiking in fear. "My mom is going to cook my ass for this one!!. Oh shit!!" I was eaten by horror. Then I heard a window open. " CHUCKEEEEE????!!!" I hauled ass to the house faster than diarhea. I through on my pajamas and got into bed. The air was consumed with sirens. My mom ,who was in her bedroom, didn't hear me come in. She ran out of the house to see what was going on. Fifteen minutes later she came back in the house and called me out into the living room. "Were you over at Chucky's house playing with matches?" I said,"Chucky did everything, which he did, but I didn't tell her that it was my idea." That kid is bad news!! You need to stay the hell away from him!! Do you understand me?" "Yes mom..." I was so glad his house did not catch fire. One side of the yard was blacker than asphalt.I did lots of really naughty stuff. I was very smart for my age and covered things up better than gravy. I thought I could get away with anything. I commited a burglary in someone's backyard when I was five. I thought the lady next door was awful nice. A very nice christian woman. So, I tore up her newspaper one day, just to see if I could make her mad. Honestly, I didn't think she would be. I got to see her wrath later. It isn't pretty when an angel gets mad. I got in a fair amount of trouble for that one. For the most part my parents were invisible. It almost seemed like they didn't care even notice that I was alive most of the time. I was quite a pirate. My parents were separated a lot of the time. one day thing got nastier and nastier between my mom and dad. He starting hitting her with a belt. I had never seen my mom cry before. It killed me inside. I felt so bad for her. When I was six my parents divorced. My mother and my sister and I left California and my dad behind. The night before we left, my dad said. "Your mother doesn't love you, but I do." We flew to D.C and stayed at my grandmother's house. She really did not like me. All of a sudden there were rules. I did not know that they existed. When she got mad at me she would dig into my arms like a cat. There were always deep purple gouges in my arms from her doing that. I was afraid of her. She was as close to a monster as you could get. I was inside of a nightmare. We moved away from there into an apartment. I went back to live with her for a month when my mom had gall bladder surgery. I cried all the way to her house. To my amazement she did not touch me even once while my mother was gone. She was very sweet to me , like a grandmother. But Iwas still terrified of her. After what seemed like forever I went back to live with my mother. She(my mother) was at work all the time and we rarely saw her. In the summer it was back to good old anarchy again. I would share all the food in the fridge with the neighborhood. There was nothing when my mom came home. Amazingly, she would just laugh her head off at me. She would just die at my boldness. I got away with everything again. It was great. Then she found this boyfriend named Dennis. He didn't put up with any crap. He would spank me a lot for the things I did. Sometimes, he was really cool and that was the greatest. He would watch these really cool violent movies on t.v. I wanted to be all the bad guys. One day I decided that it would be cool to pull a knife on a lttle girl. I got in some ass scalding water for that one. Then the last straw came. A little boy named Kipper hit me with a wooden baseball bat on the leg. It really hurt I picked up a plastic one and hit him as hard in the face as I could with it. He ran of screaming like an injured cat. I was frozen with fear. It was martial law from then on. I was grounded like a prisoner for a month or two . The state threatened to take me away. My mom threw me to my dad as fast as she could. I was excited to go live with him. I did not know that it would not be so horrific. I was spanked all the time for things and was always in trouble, no matter how hard I tried not to be. I spent years being scared of my stepmother. Things got so bad that I didn't care how bad I pissed them off. The punishments got more and more severe until I was almost always locked in my bedroom. I wished that i had never been born on many days. I felt like I was in hell. I really began to believe that they would kill me if they could get off on it. I was a terror. I don't know if it was all my fault . I thank God for his mercy every day. I am no longer that horrible kid. I am loved by this great God. I am so greatful for his grace. By his love I never ended up in prison.