An essay–err..testimonial..thingie…not sure what it is….
Transformation: A work in Progress By Bonnie Hoffecker
Back in 1988, something devastating happened to me. Now, it is a normal part of life, to lose a loved one. People die all the time, there is nothing out of the ordinary about such things; to me however, the passing of my adoptive grandmother was devastating. She and I were very simpatico from the get go. The minute I met her, I loved her and she, me. She told me over and over growing up, that I was the light of her world, and in my child-like world, she was the light of mine. She was Grandma, she was important. Grandma passed when I was 14. Just before I was to enter into high school. At the time, I was a ‘good’ little girl and attending a Pentecostal church. After she passed, I threw myself into worship, to mask the pain of losing my Grandmother. My mother did not find my new found ‘faith’ conducive to her own schedule, and therefore, forbade me to return. High school began and I met a new crowd of kids. Kids that did drugs, drank, partied, etc. At 14 years old, I was introduced to this thing, called Wicca. Soon after a friend from junior high, introduced me to this, I read everything my hands landed on about the subject. There were books that stated it was the ‘oldest religion’ in the world, and that Christians ‘alienated’ the Pagans to convert. My young mind, full of ideals, and beliefs, couldn’t believe that anyone could be so cruel as to MAKE someone be something they didn’t want to be. It was true, the enemy had me: hook, line & sinker.
In the middle of my freshman year, I started to hang out with the local high school drug dealer; he was the supplier of all the ‘herbal refreshments’ to both students and teachers alike. To me, he was God, he was powerful, and he got his way with everything. He had a car, he was awesome. He was a Satanist. This fact didn’t scare me in the slightest. All the things that a young 14 year old girl should be doing were childish to me, and unimportant. I went through a slew of boyfriends at that age, and got involved in sex. I had lost my virginity a month after I turned 14, but had until that point tried to be ‘good’ and stay away from it. I fell into the peer pressure of, ‘boys won’t like you unless you do’ even though at the time, there were tons of musicians with songs of a theme of ‘love waits’. I ignored them, I saw my good little girl self, slipping away faster than an out of control California forest fire. My grades fell, my self-esteem fell, I was lost, alone, sad, and out of control. I cried at night, and smiled in the morning, I slowly developed a persona, I referenced as ‘Starr’
Anything I wouldn’t do, Starr would. Anything I couldn’t say, Starr could. Starr took over Bonnie. Starr was Bonnie. Starr was scary.
At the second semester mark of my freshman year, I found out I may not pass to my sophomore year. My mother asked me why I was flunking, and my only response to her was ‘because it is my prerogative to do so’. My mother watched in horror as what was left of her good child, vanished before her eyes. I hung out with friends, spent my lunch money on cigarettes, smoked weed, listened to metal music, swore like a sailor and didn’t eat. I weighted a whopping 88 lbs. I was 5ft tall, wore black clothing, wore high heeled boots, and kept an extra set of clothes in my locker to change into so my mother was never the wiser. All my life I had been a daddy’s girl. My father and I went out every Thursday, to have dinner, see a movie and catch up. I started declining those outings, saying he wasn’t cool enough. My father chalked it up to teenaged rebellion.
During the summer, my friends went on vacation, I stayed at home, or went out with my mom to her work, or rode with my father who was an industrial food salesman for Sysco Southwest Foods. In the evenings, I went to hangout with one of my friends from junior high, who later would be the father of my youngest son. We hung out, laughed, goofed around, All the KID things teenagers did. I didn’t drink, smoke or do anything bad during the summer. I didn’t do anything good either.
When I returned to school in the fall, I had my own wardrobe; I bought with money I had made during the summer working for my dad. I started out with good ideals, wanting to be part of the preppy crowd, be good, stay away from the people I hung out with before. That went great, until I ran into my friends from the previous year again, and met a boy who would be the father of my oldest son, in just a few short months. We hung out, we smoked cigarettes, we cut school, and we listened to a lot of music. We became pregnant. Or I did rather; he disappeared shortly after I made the announcement to him. I didn’t really see him again until I told his mother when I was 8 months. She made him be a father to his child, which he did, for 5 months, and then he vanished. Due to certain laws that were in effect in Texas at the time, my mother got custody of my oldest son. I took that as an open invitation to party again. After all, I had ruined my life; no God was going to want me, right?
So, I returned to my friends, they loved me, they needed me, or so I thought, and I did okay at first, we hung out, the only bad thing I really did, was have sex and smoke cigarettes, I stayed away from the drugs.
A school counselor, gave me a book, called ‘Go Ask Alice’ it was a diary of a teenage girl who was a drug addict. It was written by ‘Anonymous’ it was suppose to scare me into going straight. Yeah, no, didn’t work. It made me want to play with harder drugs, and same-sex relationships. From the frying pan into the fire.
I was now 16, and didn’t have a plan in the world for my life. When I was growing up, I had wanted to be a lawyer. Those plans were long since ghost files in my memory. My grades were poor, I had no ambition, and I had a minimum wage job as a waitress, which I was awful at, and I eventually got fired from that, and went into fast food. I went back to school, but barely paid attention to my classes.
I went back to the alternative school, in Carrollton,(which I had attended previously while I was pregnant with my oldest)and my grades began to show some improvement, I had a new set of friends and was doing well, until one day the ‘drug dealer’ friend of mine, showed up at my school. He would become the father of my only daughter. I was truly in love with him, and he was in love with me. I have no doubt about it. We talked, and talked, and talked some more.
Eventually, I went back with the father of my oldest son. He and I stayed together until the summer of my 17th year when I ran away from home for the final time. I ran to a friend’s house in the middle of nowhere, and the police tracked me there and asked if I was there of my own free will, and I said yes. I was. They nodded and told me to have a good night, and left. My parents were heartbroken. My father was furious, but there was nothing he could do. I stayed with my friend and my oldest son’s father until we got kicked out of the place. He and I went our separate way.
I got a ride into town, and then was dropped at a gas station. The drug dealer was working nights there, and was out cleaning the parking lot when I was dropped off. He watched me sit down on the curb and burst into tears. He sauntered over and put his arm around me and asked me what was going on, so I tearfully explained, I had nowhere to go. He said, ‘you can always stay with me’ to which I gratefully accepted. Two months later, to the day almost, I was pregnant with our daughter. We contacted my parents, they came to see me, and gave me money to buy clothes, as I had lost so much weight again, and nothing that I owned fit me. They met the father of my child, and instantly didn’t like him. This was the Satanist remember, but my mother and father didn’t know these things as far as I had known, but then, God makes things known, especially to mothers.
Time went by and we got our own apartment, and he transferred to a different city in Texas, and we were a happy little family for a while. He taught me to cook, clean and do laundry, things I neglected to learn from my mother. He taught me how to be a good wife and mother. Then the baby came, and came too early. She was born in the middle of winter, 2 months early. She had to stay in the hospital for a month after she was born, she was born with several birth defects, but we didn’t care we loved her. He was still doing drugs, but he had stopped selling them, in an effort to clean up his life, he even went to church with me once or twice. I wanted better for my daughter, than I was currently experiencing. I wanted her to have a ‘from birth’ knowledge of who Christ was.
I was too afraid to try to ‘fix’ myself, believing now I was 18, had TWO children out of wedlock and there was NO way God would take me back now, but at least my CHILDREN would be able to know God.
Things happen as they do with young people, and my mother came and told me, that she was taking my daughter, and that she was getting custody of her, because I wasn’t mentally stable enough to have her. I didn’t know where this came from, nor did I completely understand. CPS came, and told me, I had a choice, to give her to my parents, or to lose her to the state. I chose my parents because I didn’t want her living with strangers.
My daughter was gone, my son was gone, I had no reason to stay where I was, I had no reason to try to change, So I went back to the town I went to school in and started the same life all over again, drinking, drugs, sex, partying. I couch surfed for the longest time, and didn’t care. I went completely broke, and called my mother begging to let me come home one night. I went for my annual exam, and found out—yes you guessed it, baby number three. While I was pregnant with him, I lived at home, and attended church with my mother, but none of it reached me, it was just words. I was still a Wiccan, and was reading my spell books, and reading my Pagan History. After my youngest son was born, I barely interacted with him, because I felt so low about myself that I didn’t want to ‘tarnish’ him.
A week after I had my son, I met a man I would be with for the next year, and he almost brought me back out of my pit. We were together until one day he announced he was going back to California, like he was announcing the weather. So I too moved, after all, I had no real reason to stay now did I?
Move to Illinois, was what I did, I met up with some friends of mine from 7th grade, from before we moved to Texas. I hung out with them for a few months, until I joined the carnival and began traveling with them. In the interim, my parents and children had moved back to Illinois as well, and came to visit me several times over the years I ran the circuit. My children knew me, they knew I was their mother, but they didn’t know me well. I left the circuit, to settle down, I had given up drugs years before. My daughter was now 2 and half years old, my oldest son was 4, and my youngest was a little over 1. My mother decided to give me a trial period of taking care of my daughter. First it was for a week here, and a week there, and then it was for the summers. I met my first husband during one of these trials, and married him; we were married from 1997 till 2002. We split in 1999, during a family vacation. He was a workaholic, but he cared for my daughter and me wonderfully.
During the times my daughter was with us, she attended church every Sunday and attended VBS every summer. I never went with her into the church; I’d walk her to the church, drop her off and pick her back up when it was all over. I was afraid if I went in, the church would burst into flames, or someone would spot that I was a witch and burn me alive. After all, I had THREE children out of wedlock, and I was a witch, what reason did God have to want me?
In 1999, I decided to further my Pagan studies and moved to Salem MA. I met my now best friend of 11 years there, as well as got into an abusive relationship a month after my husband and I split, which almost caused my death in 2000. In-between all of these incidents, in the year 2000, I went to Virginia Beach to live with one of my cousins, and met my now husband. He was in the Navy, and a Pagan as well, but we didn’t chat much, to find out his background. I just knew he was Navy; I was too wrapped up in trying to live my own life, to get involved with his.
In, 2002, after many failed relationships, and much traveling, I went to my parents house to see if I could make amends, I arrived there with my friends, and my mother, shamed me in front of my entire family and all my friends, thinking it would straighten me out..Again, didn’t happen. We traveled again, and our car broke down, in South Dakota, where we spent the night in a church sleeping. I felt very uneasy, being a witch having the audacity, to sleep under God’s roof. I slept very little that night, for fear the roof would cave in around me if I slept.
For after all, I had three kids out of wedlock, and had now committed ADULTERY numerous times. I was not winning any brownie points for nomination into God’s family.
We arrived in Jackson Hole, WY. We were taken in by a shelter, which’s only requirement for staying there, was you had to attend a nightly church service. I avoided this at all costs, and while I was avoiding it, I met a man, who was a biker. He was a member of an organization called ‘Bikers for Christ’. Now in my raising I had always been told that Bikers—did drugs, smoked, had random sex with dirty women…how could they..Be for Christ? When I asked him, he just smiled and invited me to church with him. I took him up on his offer, because after all, I had nothing to lose, right, the church we slept in, hadn’t crushed me..Maybe?
My friends went with me merely for the free food. I went, out of morbid curiosity. I sat through the service, and when they did an altar call at the end of it all, I found myself in tears, and up at the front. I didn’t know why, I was there, or how I had GOTTEN there, my friends looked at me in shock and horror. I was confused.
Starr was NOT happy with this choice.
We moved on from Jackson Hole, left one of our parties behind, and one had gone back to Salem, so the only girl left, and I made our way to Vegas. We stayed in Vegas for a short time, then went to Santa Fe, to see friends we had made in Jackson Hole, then we went back to Vegas, and I left her and went on to San Francisco. Having been there multiple times before, I knew my way pretty well, and found Hippie Hill, and my friends. I having quit doing drugs completely at that point, felt out of sorts, out of place, and like I was betraying my new life.
I called my cousin to see if I could come stay with her, she said sure, so I hopped a Greyhound and went to Norfolk, VA. On the way back, I ran into my now husband again, on the bus. He didn’t really recognize me, but I knew him. He smiled at me, I smiled at him, he went back to talking to the girl who was sitting in front of him, and that was that.
I arrived home, the day before Thanksgiving, and ate with my ‘family’. I was still reeling from the shock in Jackson Hole. I put it out of my mind and began my new career which would take me through the next year and the next husband. I married a man I dated for two weeks. Met, fell in some semblance of love and married him. He hated life, hated himself, and was an alcoholic, a musician, and male. I married him, and was miserable. He was Pagan, too. We fought incessantly once the newness wore off.
I finally near the end of 2004, went to New Orleans to stay with my best friend, and he told me in no uncertain terms while I was there, to never come back. So, I didn’t. I began my life as a tarot reader on Jackson Square. At some point during that year I laid eyes on the two wonderful people who would become my in laws, 6 years later. I met a man, and started dating him, and during one of our conversations, we discussed another friend of mine and the fact that she had just recently gotten married, to the man who I am now married to. I was shocked by the smallness of the world, and that she knew him.
I lived in New Orleans until March of 2005. I woke one morning in March and heard a loud booming voice in my head, which said “GET OUT OF NEW ORLEANS!” So, I did.
I traveled to California again, and went to Santa Barbara, then decided to go to San Francisco for Hemp Fest, sitting on Hippie Hill, there he was…beautiful, blonde, thin, gorgeous, and sadly, married. The man I fell in love with AGAIN, who radiated a strange light, yes, my now husband had just walked up. He spotted me, and it only took a few moments for him to realize he knew me, and where from. We talked for HOURS (which became a custom for us over the next 5 years), which annoyed his then wife. We talked every day almost until they moved to Florida with one of our friends. I went to Montana with another friend, and within 3 months, I followed them to Florida, we again became fast friends. We were both still Pagan, but we were both starting to be greatly disillusioned by all the plasticness of it. Paganism had become mainstream, and we were losing interest rapidly.
I became involved in a relationship that would carry me straight through to 2007 when he split with his wife, and we spoke even more than before, he called me daily or spoke to me on Yahoo. I started referencing him as my Life Coach. A strange term to be sure.
I went to meet my biological mother in March of 2008. My life coach, who had slipped into the best friend station in my life, called me every day to check on me, and see how I was. During one of our 3am conversations, after many years of saying “Never in a million years’ as far as a relationship with each other went, he confessed to me, that he loved me, and without a thought to it, I replied, that I too loved him. We began dating in April of 2008.
After a night of tears, he asked me what was wrong, and I told him, I wanted to learn more about God and Jesus. He said that it was fine, but we would use the Bible to do it. I was kind of confused, because as far as I knew, he didn’t even OWN a Bible. He excitedly told me that he wanted to take me somewhere. So I, in much confusion, went with him one Thursday night to the Debary-Orange City Seventh-day Adventist Church in Orange City, Florida, where his father, was Lay Pastor of. I do not to this day remember the program, but it made a massive dent in my NEED to learn about God. I discovered Adventists were some strange people. They were happy almost 24/7 and they honestly CARED about you.
We were together for a while, and we decided as a collective unit, that we were to go back to Oregon, so I could get my stuff. That was not a good trip, he and I ended up splitting apart for a year and three months, in which time, we stopped talking frequently. He (even though there are those who do not believe it) never left my mind for a moment, whether it was to despise him, hate him for being in my life then leaving, or to miss him so badly I thought my heart would break. I made my way back to him, after finally deciding I could no longer bear, my life without God, nor him. I stood on my porch in Oregon, and looked to the sky and screamed,”Alright, I am ready to obey you, just make something in my life change’ and within 24 hours, I was standing in Orlando Florida, WITH my now husband. Now THAT is what I call action.
Over the next 11 months, there were many tears, because I had changed many things, I had given up smoking, given up meat, and most of all, given up the Goddess I prayed to for over 20 years. Everything was new to me, everything was scary and for the first time in my life, I had no vice to cling to, to make everything better, I had to deal with me, and I found out, I did not like me very much.
Thankfully, however, I found out, God did like me, and he DID want me to be part of his life. My husband, also loved me very much and was very patient with me, and showed me the correct roads to walk down, even though there were times I was utterly the most defiant person on the planet, and swore at him on multiple occasions, and refused to be Adventist, because of this and that.
I sat in misery, which I had created myself one night…and recalled a night back in 2007, when my best friend, went off to South Carolina, and left me alone, crying in my room. I recall, turning onto my side, in a pitiful crying mess, and landing on the television remote, and hearing Joyce Meyer—the quote was ‘Are you gonna just lay there being pitiful and miserable…or are you going to start enjoying every day life?” I started to smile…I started to cry all over again, and I went to my husband, and asked if he would begin my training for baptism. He smiled and said “YES!” and we began that night, and over the course of several months to come, multiple people helped out.
In June 2011, I was baptized. Yes, I am still learning, yes I am still transforming, yes, I still have my slip ups, but I ask for forgiveness, and move on. After all, I am God’s daughter, I am wanted, and I am loved. Why Wouldn’t I Want to scream it from the mountain tops?
Happiness! Annnnd….I have been cigarette free for a year and 4 months almost! YAY! I still need someone to make my dress. But now I want different fabric, I want a nice workable brown, so I can make it a work dress. I still need an apron as well.
