FORD, Whitney Meganne

[WHITNEY MEGANNE FORD]

* Whitney Meganne Ford !


"Do you ever feel already buried deep six feet under?
Scream but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there's still a chance for you
'Cause there's a spark in you?"

26 | Jennifer Lawrence | Roseau, Minnesota | Local |

i remember it all too well

It was a sunny day out the day Whitney was born. A perfect day. She was Kristi and Robert Ford's second child and their first planned child. Whitney had one older sibling, three year old Gianna who was quite smitten with the idea of having a baby sister to play with. Life was good in the house of Ford. For a time at least. Life got rocky pretty quickly as she grew and it became harder and harder for her parents to be around each other.

But being young and oblivious, Whitney had no idea the problems her parents were having. Growing up, she was an active little thing, learning to walk and crawl early in life, she was always on the move. Her parents put her in tumbling and dance, Whitney being that type of girl who dreamed of being a ballerina one day. Well a ballerina princess to be exact.

Whitney enjoyed her own activities and didn't much care to play with her older sister. She would rather play with her own toys in her own corner. Then again she really didn't like to share. But their family was slowly growing further and further apart the older Whitney got.

She started school and didn't stop dancing and doing gymnastics. As she grew up she got more and more into it. She was a little awkward in school, not really knowing how to express herself to others. It was something she never really knew how to do. She was always found alone and playing by herself but she was never lonely. She didn't mind being by herself. She didn't make many friends this way but strangely it didn't bother her. But it worried her teachers and parents. They thought she wouldn't grow up right, that something was wrong with her.

But she didn't seem unhappy and she functioned normally so the school kept an eye on her and tried to help her grow out of it. Slowly but surely it worked, but not for awhile.

Her parents, on the brink of a divorce decided to try and have a baby again because when they were raising Whitney (at least in the beginning) they were getting along pretty well. And so at eight years old, Whitney became a big sister. It was neat to have a baby brother but that was about as far as her feelings went. She really didn't care one way or another. It was just how she was. Her parents took care of the new baby and left the older siblings to fend for their selves. After all, Whitney was 8 at that point and Gianna was now 11.

Fast forward four years. Whitney had friends, real live friends. She was very good at gymnastics and dance and had even started doing cheer-leading. She was happy and excited and full of energy. Her parents were getting divorced but it wasn't very surprising, she had expected it for years. Gianna was in high school and was more concerned with getting a car and Jackson was only four and didn't really understand much about their parent's issues.

All she wanted to do when she grew up was become a gold medalist at the Olympics. She self trained and practiced everyday. Her life revolved around it and her mother was glad she had a hobby and friends and had grown out of her awkward childhood. That is until high school.

Whitney fell in with a bad crowd in high school. She didn't mean to.. she just fell for the wrong boy and fell hard. He took advantage of her fragile personality and broke her, body, mind and soul. He had only just gotten out of juvie and was a couple years older than her. He was the type of kid who just wanted to destroy the world.

And so he strung her along until he destroyed her whole world. It was the night of prom and she was only a freshmen but because he was a junior, he invited her as his date. She came home crying, late and tattered where she confessed all the sins that had taken place that night to her mother. Her older sister came in from college to try and help. It was the first time in her life that Whitney had felt so close to her family and still so detached from them.

She withdrew into herself. She lost all focus and stopped dancing, stop cheering and couldn't even bring herself to do yoga. Luckily she was able to transfer schools, to avoid humiliation even after the kid was locked up again.

She struggled through school, through life and went to therapy every week. It was nice to have a routine, it kept her feeling less crappy, less crazy... she did have to go away a couple times so not to hurt herself or others but the medicine and doctors always seemed to help her relax and straighten out a little... at least for awhile. Then it was back to the loony bin for a couple weeks. Needless to say, she wasn't very close to her siblings since she wasn't around much.

It got better once she was out of high school. She found herself getting angrier more often and more easily. She found herself feeling awkward and insecure around others and especially out in public. She said more inappropriate things than appropriate most days. But when she turned 20, the family found out some depressing news.

Her little brother had cancer. She struggled with the feelings that welled up in her with the news. They hadn't been close but he was so young... it was like with what had happened to her. Sometime terrible. She left college immediately to see him, to be supportive. Their oldest sister did as well. She struggled a little bit with trying to spend as much time as she could with Jackson and her mom while trying to get a degree at college. (She had decided on being a baker, baking helped keep her calm, it was an activity that had precise measurements and such but still allowed creativity.)

When she was old enough to drink, she managed to make a few good friends in college who decided to take her out for her birthday. She really needed it, being worried for her brother and school and everything. She needed some fun.

That's when she met him. He was broken like her and she immediately felt a connection from just a brush of his arm. It was like electricity pulsed between them. It was magical and she knew it was love or it would be.

It was slow going at first. They had their on and off days. It was hard for them to get on the same page, mentally. Finally something just seemed to click and dating came naturally. She knew it was pretty serious when he had agreed to follow her and her family up to Maine where they settled in, living together as her brother slowly became better and stronger.

Five rocky, odd years later, he finally proposed to her and she said yes, excited to have someone who didn't care about how odd she was, how awkward and broken but loved her anyways. At 26 years old, Whitney now lives with her fiance. She visits her family often and tries to do dinner with them at least once a week. She owns her own bakery where she specializes in wedding cakes. Her fiance has even managed to get her excited about dance and gymnastics again. So she has been going to the gym, doing yoga and working slowly to get back her flexibility. She still goes to therapy every so often, trying to wean off it but still feels like she needs it or she'll go crazy.

bubbles

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