Bulletproof (17 page)
Authors: Maci Bookout
It had been a long time since I was just a scared sixteen-year-old with no idea what to do and no partner to help me. Now I was a confident mom with an education, a career, and a partner who wanted to build a life with me — and understood what that meant. In fact, when I looked around at all the things that were different this time, it hit me that I’d made it to the other side of the mountain. Everything was different. It was warm and bright and full of hope, and the people I found there were strong, happy, and excited to be by my side.
I could barely believe I’d gotten to this place. I didn’t have to be bulletproof anymore. Finally, I could just be Maci.
CHAPTER 24:
CALM SUMMER SKIES
At first, Bentley didn’t believe I was pregnant. At all. Since I wasn’t showing, he was very skeptical of the whole thing. But once he realized we weren’t trying to trick him, he got excited and started sharing all his thoughts on being a big brother. Some days he wanted a brother, some days he wanted a sister, and some days he didn’t care either way. We made a fun surprise out of telling him the baby’s sex by having him cut into a cake full of pink frosting. Unfortunately, he happened to be in the mood for a brother that day. “Oh, man,” he groaned when he saw the color. “A sister?” But once he got over the disappointment, he got on board and got excited.
I was excited for my pregnancy, especially for the ways it felt pleasantly different from the first time around. All the fear of what lay ahead was replaced by excitement. All the embarrassment was replaced by pride. All the concern from the people around me was replaced by celebration. I wasn’t a “teen mom” this time. I was a grown woman and a confident parent. In a way, it felt like I was allowed to enjoy the experience in a way that hadn’t been encouraged before.
And I was excited to have a family to share that enjoyment with me. It was nice to know that Bentley was old enough to do lots of things for himself and that he’d be a real part of my parenting experience, along with Taylor. I wasn’t going back to those long, lonely nights when I’d sat in front of the TV feeling cut off from the rest of the world. It was difficult to believe that had ever been the case. When I looked back on it, I just had to shake my head at how far removed that reality was from what I’d achieved since then.
Taylor and I went on the hunt for a new house that would be big enough for me, him, Bentley, and Baby Number Two. It didn’t take us long to find a place we liked, which was a relief, because we wanted to be settled by the time the baby came. We spent a weekend running around with realtors, and by the end we settled on a place that had everything we wanted and didn’t need much work.
We made the move in April, with a couple of months of my third trimester to spare. The baby was due on June 12, so it was perfect timing. I was in the stage of pregnancy when my brain was going into nesting mode and all I wanted to do was clean and organize. This time around, I knew better than to stress myself out trying to get it all furnished and polished in two days, so I took it easy and just had fun preparing for my daughter.
Taylor and I wanted to be married, but we weren’t about to rush it just because of the pregnancy. We wanted to focus on the pregnancy without the distraction of an engagement announcement and a wedding on the horizon. All that excitement could wait its turn. For now, we didn’t want to cloud the experience and enjoyment of our first child together with any unnecessary extras. We figured we could tackle the wedding once we’d gotten the hang of parenting a newborn. In the meantime, the baby would have Taylor’s last name.
We tossed a few names around before we settled on the right one. At first nothing was really sticking in our minds, but we kept going back to Jayde as a middle name. Eventually we realized, “If we like Jayde so much, why not make that the first name and look for a different middle name?”
We had also loved the name June, but since she was due in June, it seemed a little corny. But whenever I thought of it, I started thinking of June Carter Cash. So once I started trying to find something to go with Jayde, it popped back into my head. And there we had it: Jayde Carter.
Jayde Carter McKinney.
***
It was Bentley’s first day of kindergarten. The whole school gathered in the cafeteria along with the teachers and parents, and then we all headed for the classrooms. I stayed with Bentley as the teacher explained a few basics, showed everyone where to hang up their things, and helped them find their seats. The parents were in there for about ten minutes as the kids settled in, and it was all fun and exciting until the teacher said, “Okay, time to tell your parents goodbye.”
The look on Bentley’s face was like a punch in the chest. The message in his eyes was loud and clear: Mom, what are you doing to me? You cannot leave me here with this strange woman and these weird kids. This is not okay.
Everyone warned me that this would be an emotional event, but I hadn’t taken it too seriously. It was a big day, but I figured I’d survive in the usual fashion and be able to keep it together. I felt like I’d already been through it with preschool and daycare, and I was used to him being away for awhile every day. But they were right. This was bigger, and it was different, and I knew it the moment I saw that face. All of a sudden, I felt a huge wave of emotion rising up inside of me. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt. And right away, I knew I was going to lose it.
I managed to keep it together for as long as I was in the classroom, knowing it would only make him more upset to see me losing my cool. But as soon as I stepped out those doors, I fell apart. I made it outside, got in my car, and lost my damn mind.
I didn’t even know why, exactly, I was crying. It just felt like I was drowning in emotion. Maybe it was the fact that he was in a real school where he’d be walking around right alongside the fifth graders, complete with a backpack full of books and an actual teacher. It wasn’t like preschool or daycare. He wasn’t just being babysat anymore, and you can’t just skip kindergarten whenever you want. From now on, if I got a day off of work or we wanted to go on vacation, I couldn’t just keep him to myself on a whim.
Bentley had just taken his first big step toward becoming an independent person. It was a whole new chapter for him. I couldn’t have imagined how overwhelming it would be to witness that moment. The emotional reality was so intense it just swallowed me up. I sobbed all the way home. I hadn’t cried so hard since the day I moved out of my parents house to live with Ryan. This was different. It wasn’t fear or uncertainty that had me crying. This was a purer, more bittersweet mix of pride, joy, loss, worry, and excitement.
It was a new beginning for Bentley. And it was a new era for me, too. New beginnings were on the way for all of us. It felt like a tidal wave of change sweeping over me, leaving me with a new sense of past, present and future. I couldn’t define each detail, but I felt the impact in my bones.
Once I got myself under control, I spent the day worrying about how he was liking kindergarten, if he was having fun, if he was bored, what he was doing. When I finally picked him up and asked how his day was, he said, “Kindergarten was even better than you told me it was gonna be.”
Bentley took to school right away, except for the part where he has to wake up in the morning. His favorite subject turned out to be math, which blew my mind, because I’ve always been terrible with math and hated it with every bone in my body. But he’s a smart kid. He takes his interests seriously and likes to excel at what he does. I don’t remember being half as competitive as he is with baseball. But he’s an easygoing kind of dude, too. He’s not the type to run around talking to everyone in his class, but he opens up quickly when he senses someone shares his interests.
Sometimes I can see that he’s got a bit of my loner streak. I’ll ask him how his day is and he’ll say, “It was good, but some of these kids get on my nerves.” He gets frustrated when he wants to be alone and can’t escape the company. But he fits in well, and he’s popular with his teachers, which was a major concern of mine. I told him he could be a brat at home when he needs to as long as he keeps being an angel at school. It was an ego boost and a relief one day when I was dropping him off in the morning and a teacher stopped to tell me she thought the world of Bentley. She told me, “You’re doing such a good job.”
Thank God!
***
MTV was back on the scene for one last series following me and my original
Teen Mom
cast mates. Having the cameras around during my second pregnancy was a funny reminder of how much things had changed in the seven years since I’d first appeared on
16 & Pregnant
. That wasn’t just true for me. When I looked around at the other girls and where their journeys had brought them, I got goosebumps. I knew each one of them had been down to the deepest, darkest depths of fear and uncertainty. I knew there had been a time for every one of them when they doubted they’d ever be okay. And I knew they’d pushed, dragged, crawled, and fought their way through those tunnels even when they couldn’t see the lights at the other end.
It was awe-inspiring to look around at my fellow Teen Moms and see a group of real life adults with beautiful, healthy kids and big hopes for the future. Between the four of us, we’d weathered millions of doubts and judgments. Some of us definitely got rained on harder than others. But there we were, seven years later, blowing even our own expectations out of the water. When I looked around at what we’d survived and the strong, capable people we’d become, my heart just swelled with pride and respect. The Teen Moms had made it.
What I learned through my experiences with MTV, and what I taught myself along the way, helped me get a job as a social media marketing specialist. I absolutely loved it. It was something I could see myself doing just about anywhere. The world of social media is changing all the time, and it’s a challenge to keep up with what’s relevant. You’re constantly studying and analyzing how people spend time online and where brands stand the best chance of making money. There’s a ton of tracking and analytics that you have to do to be able to prove to your boss that the brands are getting something out of social media. I never pictured myself as an eight to five, sit at your desk all day type of person, and if anyone had asked me two years before if I saw myself in a job like that, I’d tell them they were insane. But it turned out to be really engaging work for me, different and dynamic every day.
With just a few months left before Jayde Carter’s arrival, I finally graduated from Chattanooga State Community College with my media technology degree, along with a minor in creative writing. Five years of going back and forth, juggling those classes and reminding myself that “Mom did it” had finally paid off, and not a moment too soon.
When I found out I was pregnant at sixteen, the list of challenges I needed to overcome was almost too overwhelming to think about. Any time I had tried to take a mental survey of the things I needed to change and accomplish if I wanted a happy, fulfilling life for myself and my child, my brain just fizzled out and shut down. The scale of everything I had to do was just incomprehensible. So instead of trying to comprehend it, I just looked straight ahead and kept putting one foot in front of the other. It wasn’t until I checked off the last item on my Teen Mom To Do List that I was able to turn around and look back over what I had accomplished.
Nothing good comes easy. There may be days when fortune seems to fall in your lap, and you look around and can’t figure out how you got so lucky. There may be times when you try your best and can’t come up with anything but frustration and failure. But at the end of the day, what you get out of your life depends on what you put into it. The more you take care of the good things in your life, the longer they stick around and the better they become. The more you persevere in the face of doubt and discouragement, the stronger you become. The harder you work for the things you want, the more they mean to you when you find them.
Whenever I look back over the peaks, valleys, and battlefields I crossed to get where I wanted to be, I feel calm, confident, and grateful for the gifts I found along the way. I’ll never know where exactly my life would have gone if I’d taken any other path. But I do know that the journey pushed me to become the Maci I want to be. The struggles fade into the past. But the strength and sense of self I earned by overcoming them will help me for the rest of my life.
The sun is shining on the road ahead. That could change in the blink of an eye. If it does, I’ll handle it. But as long as the skies are calm, I’ll be making the most of it with my family, my friends, and my children.
I proved to myself that I can be bulletproof. Now, it’s time to be happy.
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