Just the
Beginning
So, you
wanna know my story, right? People have been saying that I have a unique story,
but I don’t really think I do, but here it goes…
I can remember as far back as when I was
around 3 or 4 years old… I lived in Wellington, Florida at this time and I have
to say, the place that we lived in was not my favorite. It was a small 3-bedroom
house with a pool in the backyard. The floors were mainly concrete and tile
except for in the living room. The living room was my favorite place in the
house. It was like it was its own separate room. It was where I spent most of
my time. I remember playing with my dolls and I also recall my times playing store
with my fake cart and cash register.
I had a Dad named Al, a mom named Angel
and a brother named Ryan who was only a year older than me. My brother was a
nerd just like my Dad… He was always reading books and they were always
non-fiction too! The only books that brother read were animal fact books. All
my Dad read was the Bible and commentaries about the
Bible. My Mom was the artsy type. She was always decorating bookmarks and
painting. I remember her being a great artist. I liked art too but of a different
kind. She liked abstract art unlike me. I LOVED fashion! But we’ll get back to
that later.
It was about this time when I lived in
Wellington that I realized that there were no baby pictures of me anywhere
around my house, so I asked my Mom why that was, and you know what she told me?
She said that they were in a box somewhere. Now me, being only 3 or 4 I didn’t
think much of it. I just went about my life not really caring about it.
Another thing I remember from my past is
that my parents had this one lady friend, we’ll just call her nanny for I do
not remember her actual name. Me and my brother would go to her house often. I
remember my first scrapes from a green wiggle car. I was riding up the driveway
and I lifted my feet from the asphalt… Bad idea! I went rolling backwards and
landed hard on my ass. My face, knees and elbows were scraped with lots of tiny
bits of gravel stuck underneath my skin. Yeah… It was painful, but Nanny called
my mom immediately after the incident and she took me under her wing and took
care of me until my parents came to pick me and my brother up.
Another accident that I had was when I
tried climbing a tree for the first time. When I got to the top I ended up
slipping and falling to the ground. Fortunately, it wasn’t a tall tree.
So, as you may recall I mentioned I had
a pool in my backyard at this time. Well, one beautiful day in Wellington,
Florida my mom found a small snake in the water, and of course she freaked out
and called my Dad to go get it. So we all went running out to the pool to watch
as Dad used a pool net leaf skimmer and he caught the snake. We put it in a
box, cause of course my animal loving brother couldn’t stand to see the little
guy killed. Therefore, my brother got to name the snake Bikie and we went for a
drive and let Bikie go free in a brush a little ways from our house cause of
course mom would not let us keep such a creature in her house.
Soon after this my parents decided to get a
real pet. First, we tried Sun Conures. We got two of them and according to my
parents they were my brothers’. They weren’t even the family pets even though
my parents took care of them and my brother just admired them. I only remember
one of the Sun Conures’ names. Its name was Zoboomafoo. It was named after a
show that me and my brother loved watching together.
Anyways, after having the Sun Conures after
only about a few weeks my parents decided to get rid of them because of how
noisy and messy they were, but our next pet wasn’t any better than the first.
It was a Chihuahua puppy that was not trained. We all named her Alex, but just
like the Sun Conures she was messy, she pissed everywhere in a cage my mom made
for her on the tile floor. Mom put newspaper down so then she would hopefully
have less of a mess to clean, but Alex’s little ass always found a gap in the
newspaper and either took a shit or piss in that area. Well we didn’t have Alex
for very long… My parents ended up giving her away to another family but what
was funny was that Alex cooperated for the new family that she lived with.
After Alex there were no pets in our house
for the longest time. Not until I was around 10 or 11 did we get another pet,
but I’ll tell u about that later…
So, before I continue with my life story, let
me tell you a bit more about my dad that is very important and some of this
information I didn’t know till later. Before I was born my dad was a cop and a
lawyer. While I was in the picture, he was a pastor, chef and a principle of
his own school. He didn’t become pastor till later when we lived in Hobe Sound,
Florida though. The school that my Dad worked at was called Imagine School.
There were a few parts to this school. One part was Genesis Learning Academy and
it was named after my dead sister who had died in my mother’s womb in whom I
never got to meet. The other section of the school was called Ryan’s Learning
Academy. I remember asking my parents why I didn’t have a section named after
me and they never said… They never answered my question.
Ever since I was young, I remember everyone
outside my family loved me. I was always on someone’s lap or holding someone’s
hand in whom I may not have known but my parents did. I remember one lady in
particular who adored me and Hello Kitty. Me and my brother called her Auntie
Sandra. All the time she was spoiling me with Hello Kitty backpacks, Hello
Kitty stuffed animals and room scenters that were in the shape of… guess who…
Yup! Hello Kitty.
I tended to get in trouble a lot. The first
time I remember getting in trouble for was when my mom bought some McDonalds
and my brother, and we got two Hi-C drinks. One for my brother and one for me.
I was only allowed to drink a certain amount. At this time, I only had half of
a small cup. The reason why I was never allowed to drink only a small amount
was because I tended to use the bathroom a lot. But anyway, I had drunk all my
Hi-C and I wanted more. I was at the Imagine school in one of the offices and I
wanted more to drink so when my mom and brother left the office in which I was
in, I drank my brothers then when my mom and brother came back in, my mom
noticed how much was left in the cup and she asked me about it. Of course, stupid me decided to lie and say that Ryan drank it. Let’s just say that my
mom was not happy about me lying and told my dad. I got a spanking as soon as I
got home…
The first school that I first went to was a
school right by the church that I had been going to for most of the time that I
lived in Florida. The church was called Grace Fellowship. I remember my
kindergarten teacher very well. Her name was Ms. Tammy. She was a sweet little
lady in whom I liked very much even though she was the one who told my parents
when I got in trouble. She and my parents were close. Of course they were
considering that they went to the same church. But anyway, I got in trouble a
lot, but it seemed like I got a spanking every day from dad. It was crazy and
all my life I had considered myself a bad kid.
My parents have always been very strict with
me. I really was not sure why. I could only drink a sip of water every now and
again when I went out to eat with my parents. When I was at home though I could
have only half a small cup. It was ridiculous, but oh well.
Anyway, also when I was about 4 years old I
was in ballet. I played in the Nutcracker. I played a snowflake and Chinese
Doll. Being that I was in ballet, it was required that I wear makeup when I performed
but my parents were having that. I can’t tell you the pain that I felt when I saw
all the girls my age putting on hairspray and having their makeup done by their
moms and I was there feeling left out because I was the only one not wearing
any. I couldn’t even dress up for something that was really special to me… I
was only in ballet for like a year though. I tried playing violin for a while
but let’s just say that it didn’t last very long. Another thing that my parents
tried getting me was into soccer. I started playing in first grade and I
stopped playing in first grade. Yeah, that didn’t last long either. When I was
in first grade I had a teacher named Ms. Casey. Her husband happened to be the
principle of the school. I had been to his office a lot being the mischievous
little girl I was. The school I went to at this time was called First Baptist
Christian School.
I remember having a best friend there named
Emily. The most I remember about her was her straight, flowing brown hair and I
also recall her wearing earrings because one day during P.E. an earring was
yanked out of one of her ears, I have no idea how that happened though.
The benefit of living in Florida was that my
family and I lived near Orlando which meant that we went to Disney World,
Animal Kingdom and Seaworld a lot. We had actually gone to Sea Word for my big
brothers’ birthday, My mom gave me a disposable Strawberry Shortcake camera.
The film in that camera was never developed if I remember correctly. I remember
one specific show at Sea World that was my absolute favorite. I had always
called it the Pirate show. I was obsessed with going to that show whenever me and
my family went to Sea World.
So, there are pros to living in Florida but
there are also cons to living by the ocean… Hurricanes! Yup, I was actually in
a hurricane. I don’t remember the name of this particular hurricane, but all I
knew was that our house that we were living in at this time, in Stewart, was
hardly damaged. The only thing that came apart was a pole that was holding up
the screen around our pool.
You know what’s crazy? All the while that I
lived in Florida, I never learned how to swim! I know! Crazy right!? Oh well,
it wasn’t a big deal for me.
When I was about six years old my mom,
brother and I took a plane flight to Utah! We were there visiting my moms’ side
of the family. By this time, I had already met my dad’s side of the family, but
the only people I remember on my dads’ side was Aunt Sharron and my older
cousins Sarah and Peter. Now you are probably asking yourself, well what happened to your dad? Why didn’t
he go? Well the reason number 1 is that he was scared of heights and hated
flying and also, he still had work in Florida to do.
Going to Utah was the first time I remember
being homeschooled. It’s also when I remember starting to write a journal. I
wrote in it once a week because it was part of my English class. I had fun in
math the most though. It was probably because we always used fake money and I was
always obsessed with playing store and so mom made an easier way of learning by
playing store to learn how to count money.
While we were in Utah, I had met my cousins
and my aunt from my moms’ side. I had 3 cousins living there and a second
cousin. My first cousins were Nicole, who was legally deaf, Josh who was more
like the partying type guy and then there was Jonathan, but I don’t really know
much about him because I hardly ever saw him. My second cousins name was Michaela.
She was Nicole’s daughter. I never met Michaela's dad so I really don’t know
anything about him.
My mom, brother and I had so much fun visiting family in Utah! We went to a place called Fiesta Fun and played in the arcade
as well as going to the park just to relax and play around with other kids me
and my brothers age. We also went to a musical theater and watched Peter Pan.
I don’t remember too much from that trip to Utah,
but I do know this, going on that trip was the ONLY time me, my mom and Ryan
went somewhere out of state without Dad. I did get in trouble on my trip to
Utah and mom would call dad and tell him I was misbehaving and I would talk to
him and he would ask me if he needed to come down there and straighten me out
and I would tell him no, but I knew how much my dad hated flying, so I knew
that he would never come down just to spank me. The worse that could happen
would be that mom would cut the trip short and we would go back and of course I
didn’t want that.
Anyway, there are only a few more things that
I remember from living in Florida and it’s that me and my brother had been to a
few private schools. I didn’t care what schools I went to at this time. All I knew
was that I had kids my age to play with. My two favorite things I enjoyed
playing on was a seesaw and the swings. I loved feeling the wind through my
hair whether I was going up and down or back and forth. Also, I loved
collecting insects! I loved to hold worms, play with the black ants, make homes
for centipedes and let the lovebugs just fly on my body and tickle the little
peach fuzz on my arms. Ahhh, good times those were…
Another thing that I remember about when I was
younger was that I was a wild sleeper. I kinda sill am. I kicked and there were
also a few incidents where I fell off my bed. So, when I saw my brother
sleeping with my parents one night I asked my parents if I could sleep with
them as well. After a bit of hesitation, they finally said yes, but they
regretted it later. Apparently, I had kicked a lot! After that night I was
never again allowed to sleep in their bed.
One last thing I remember about Florida was my
dentist appointments. I had to get 4 crowns on my back teeth. Let me tell you,
that was very painful, but every time I left the office the dentists always said
that I did so well. One time when my parents were told that I did well in the
office I heard a boy, probably my age screaming in the room. Every time before I
left I was rewarded a toy and as I waited for my parents, I played video games.
I have to say that I enjoyed going to the dentist, but all this fun was soon to
end…
