Bubblegum Cigars For Everyone.

I have walked a very fine line with this blog in what I want to write about my life for entertainment value, and what I need to write about my life as a way of learning and growing from the experiences I have had.  My reservations with talking about some particular topics are mainly because of my audience here.  I have some friends, family, and mentors that check into this blog and I feel like if I share certain things that they will see me in a different light.  That they won't see this badass Katie MF Keller persona that fills these pages with quippy stories of love, lust, and sex. 
 

I have always had a desire to use the negative things I have experienced for good.  That maybe some where, some day, the right person would hear my stories and know that it is going to be okay.  And not that I am necessarily the picture of that reassurance yet, I know that some day where I came from and what I have gone through will mean something to someone.  So what better time to start throwing it all out there than the present.  Especially when one of these experiences came bursting through the forefront of my mind in recent days.

"The plot thickens..." was the text I got from Kurt last night.  And before I even asked for him to continue on, I knew exactly what he was going to say.  I knew that he was going to tell me that recently engaged ex-Andy's fiance was preggers.  Which is fine.  Good for them.  Having babies. (I wonder if they will home school?). 

The thing is, that last week when I first found out about them getting married the only thing I could wrap my head around was that him and I would have a 5 year old child today if I had made different choices in my youth.  I stand behind the choice that I made was I was 19, but it's crazy to imagine how different things would be if I chose yes over no.  He would still be in my life, though I doubt we would've maintained a romantic relationship over all these years.  He wanted me to keep it when we found out I was pregnant.  He would have made every effort to be a good dad.  I truly believe that.

Of all the things in my life I have struggled through, I am the most public about my abortion because I feel like there needs to be a voice for those of us who made the decision to live the best life for ourselves, rather than bringing a child into the world that we couldn't provide for the way we hope to when we have children in the future, as adults.  Nothing breaks my heart more than seeing protesters outside of clinics, because I was there.  I made the toughest decision of my entire life, and when I had to walk through the clinic doors on the darkest day of my 24 years on earth, I had a group of people screaming at me the whole way.  "You are going to hell!  If you go in there you will DIE!"  Well, thanks guys, but that isn't helping.

I guess at the end of the day pro-lifers will never be able to understand the heartache that goes into making the decision to terminate a life.  And I am not going to pretend that that isn't what I did.  I just truly believe the life I want to give to my future children was not one that I could provide at the age of 19.  And you can make your arguments about adoption all day long, but I know myself better than to think I could bring a child to term and then hand them off to someone else.  If I am having a baby, I will love the shit out of that baby myself.

I know this is a hot button issue for a lot of people, and believe me when I say it's something that runs through my mind every day that I am breathing, and will until the day I die.  But I don't regret it.  I'm proud that I was strong enough to determine what was right for me without being swayed by society's perception of right and wrong.  And if it was a huge sin that god will punish me for forever, than that's on me.  I think the big guy will be more peeved I spent years telling people he's not real.

Someday I will write a blog about the 8 weeks I was pregnant, because it was a roller coaster worth reliving for the sake of the story.  In the meantime, I wish nothing but the best to my ex (again) and hope that he has the chance to be a father on better terms than he would've been 2 months after we had started dating and I made the decision that I did.  And even more, I wish that someday I will make up for that decision with all the beautiful babies I will love and parent using everything I have learned along the way.