Chapter 1 - Just the Beginning

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…