It’s amazing how just in one moment, one split second; your whole life can change, from happiness to immediate pain.

As I’m sleeping in peace I wake to a phone call of a nightmare wondering, is this real? Do I really have to up and leave my home, my mom, my dog, my life, in as little as an hour? How could they expect me to process this and pack in just this short amount of time?

As my mom walks out the court room after over a year’s long custody battle that we thought that we had finally won. She calls me crying, “Ashley!” She sobs. “He’s got you, your dads got you.” The pain that was in her voice made me just want to go back to sleep and wake up again, as if that would cure the pain, or make the whole situation go away. All I wanted in this very moment was to go back to the life I had yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t perfect. But perfect doesn’t matter when my mom and I were a team, something that my dad and I will never be.

So here I sit trying to engulf this shocking tragedy. Soon enough the tears begin to fall, my dog comes over to me and tries to kiss away my tears, the pain in my heart aches for her. She doesn’t realize she won’t see me again. But I have to be strong. I walk to the mirror, staring at my reflection I say “You can do this, Ashley. You are strong.” I pack my things in tears, wondering how I will make it in that awful household of demons.

As my mom and I get closer and closer to the courthouse the feeling of a million knives stab me; one by one, eventually they fill my heart with so much pain it’s unbearable. My mom hands me off to my dad we hug and cry in each other’s arms until the deputy tells us that she has to leave. My dad walks in and stands next to me. I move away in disgust of why he fought so hard for me. Never before had he answered my phone calls. Never before had he said he missed me. Never before had he helped me in any way shape or form. They lead me to a couch in the hallway to talk to my guardian ad litem. The anger in my body that I have towards her makes me want to punch something, preferably her.

We sit down and she says “I’m sorry you’re not happy with the decision.” How sick, I think to myself, how fake. “I don’t want your sympathy” I say. She then begins to explain to me all the court orders. “…You are to have no contact with your mom, or your grandfather. You are to follow your dads’ rules and regulations…”

I am so disgusted and hurt; do they not realize that he abused me? I begin to hyperventilate, more and more pain and anger builds up in my body with each breath I breathe. My body feels as if I am going into cardiac arrest and honestly I wish that I would, just so I could leave this arduous conversation. My body decides to ignore my demands to calm down and let out a scream that is filled with nothing but pain. “If you don’t calm down I will get the judge to put you in the juvenile detention center.” This hurts me even more to think that me, someone so innocent is being judged as a culprit. At last, she lets me go and I lay in my dad’s truck with music in my ears to try to tranquil my heartache and screams of pain until I arrive at my destination of hell.

I begin getting out of the truck but all at once I felt my body getting dizzy and lightheaded. I fall to the ground without anticipation all but to hear a voice of my fathers “GET UP ASHLEY GET OFF THE GROUND!” “I’m sorry I’m sorry, I’m just really dizzy.” I say as I commence to get up. I run into a table but my dad just walks inside completely ignoring the fact that I’m unstable and ill.

At last, I make it into my childhood bedroom I shut the lights off to maybe pretend as if I am home again but the feeling of the cold, lifeless air on my skin reminds me; I am nowhere but in an empty room full of memories that I don’t want to remember. I would give anything in this world to be home again. I lock myself in this painfully cold room, filled with loneliness, and begin to cry myself to sleep.

Time passes on, though, things get easier and I come to realize again that everything happens for a reason. We all have breakdown points in life, we all have to feel pain in order to feel enchantment. The successor cannot endure success without failure. I tell myself that everything will be okay in the end because I know, it will; I will. The struggle makes you stronger and bigger and better than everyone and everything. I’ve been to the lowest points in life, but I know it’s because one day I will be at the highest peak of the mountain and NO ONE can ever push me down again, ever.