Love, CharenLeigh

Of all the lessons life has thrown at me, a tragedy changed it the most.

As a child I loved to say, “That’s not fair” when things just did not go my way and I did not receive the things I wanted. My parents responded very quickly with, “Charen, life is not fair.” At twenty-seven years old, I feel as if I finally understand what that lesson they were trying to teach me truly meant.

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“God carry me in your bubble through this situation.”

Do you know how many times I repeated this over and over before I was free? A million times if you ask me.

I will be describing every little detail of the incident. I will also be separating it into several separate segments.

Part 1 —

So January 13, 2014 @ 7:47 in the morning changed my life forever. It was normal morning in the life of Charen Leigh, I was running so late for the first day of classes. I wanted to be cute and I wanted to have all my ducks in a row before I left that morning. If you know me, you know my car only had a fourth of a tank of gas and all my books and notebooks were all thrown in a bag I grabbed at the last-minute. I had not ate breakfast, because you know I was already running late.

I ran out the door and down the stairs of my upstairs two bedroom apartment. As I was rushing down the stairs I noticed a man walking slowly up the stairs. We crossed paths and my gut feeling “kicked me”, if you know what I mean. This was a college apartment and this man had to have been in his late 50s, so I just knew something wasn’t right. But I was running late and did not have time to play inspector Charen. I ran down the steps to my car. I unlocked my passenger door and tossed my belongings in the seat. I walk around the back of the car and to the driver’ side door where I had to then unlock that door. (Yes, I did not have electric locks, so I had to use the key to unlock each door.) As I was sticking the key into the door the guy jumps up from the front of my car and pushes a 9mm to my forehead.

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Stop and think for a moment what would you do? If you were put in the same situation as I ended up in, what would be your reaction? Would you fight, would you freeze, would you try to run, would you harm yourself to get away?

As the days, months, and even years go by since that day, I rethink these same questions on a regular. People are very quick to ask me these same questions when I describe my story to them.

The what if’s will mentally eat you alive. As it did for a long time before I was aware of what was happening to me. Before I understood how different my brain was reacting to such a simple thought.

Honestly, shitty things happen to wonderful people, and wonderful things happen to shitty people. This is something I repeat to myself when I’ve fallen into the world of self-pity and “why me”.

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I truly believe God guides our steps, and also I believe without God I would not be here. He is the only thing that got me through when I had no one else. I am so thankful he decides to still carry me through his bubble today.