Growing up I had the best life, or what I had thought was the best life.

I had a best friend who lived next door to me, (Lets call him Sam). Sam and I were inseparable, we spent every day together since we were in diapers. He would drive to my house in his little motorized car, bang on the front door and wait for my mom to get me dressed and do my hair. We drove up and down our block not leaving the sidewalk unless it was to pick flowers or say hello to our neighbors. Everyone knew everyone on our street, it was a blessing and a curse. Sam and I would grow together. He was right by my side when my parents taught me how to ride a bike, how to roller skate, and then Sam taught me how to skateboard. We had a pool out back of my house. My family loved to party and we would gather my whole family and spend the days and nights together. We listened to music, danced, played horse shoes, Jegna, basketball, baseball, etc. There was never a dull moment in our house.

I grew up with 3 sisters. Two older sisters who had a different mother, and then my little sister and I who shared the same parents. Despite having different moms, we were all so close. Of course there was an age gap between us. My oldest sister “Jessi” is 9 years older than me, “Kat” who is 6 years older than me, and my little sister “Marci” who is 6 years younger than me. My older sisters had two brothers and a sister of their own. While marci and I lived with dad and our mom, Jessi and Kat only visited on weekends. They were into barbies, make up, fashion, boys, etc. Me being younger and being best friends with Sam, I was into riding my bike, playing in the dirt, riding my skateboard, and seeing who could flip into the pool. This put some distance between my sisters and I, and even my mother and I.

If you couldn’t find me, all you had to do was look for my father. I was attached to him. We built things like the deck for our pool, stairs for the camper, benches, he even taught me how to work on cars, how to fish, and to not be afraid to get down and dirty. My father was a bigger guy. He started exercising and all of us girls rode our bikes around our section. I remember my father being bullied by the neighborhood kids and he slowly stopped working out. He was chain smoking more often and mom started working more. I just remember her being so tired from her waitressing job and she started to not enjoy family as much. She would just work and sleep. Sometimes she would garden and cook but dad started taking that over. Then she spent more nights out and I really think thats the reason all of us girls clung to my father. Our mothers had their own things to worry about and Dad was always there for us.

I remember one evening my little sister and I were playing with our dog, we had taught him how to roll a bouncy ball across the floor and we thought it was the funniest thing. In the background I kept hearing my dad yelling over the phone. He kept saying mean words and then I heard my mother on the other end. We had no idea what was coming within the next couple of weeks.. I just remember trying to shelter Marci from all the fighting. I didn’t want her to remember that growing up.

During summer break after I had finished 4th grade, Me, Sam, and Marci were swimming. Dad was outback, we had music on, splashing around the pool, getting in trouble for walking along the sides of the pool and jumping in. My dad was always so nervous that one of us was going to fall off. Marci had her little float and we started to make a whirlpool. Our Mom comes busting out the back door and calls me to come talk to her. I grabbed food and sat down with her. She looked at me and said something along the lines of “were getting a new house, just you me and marci, your dad is going to stay here.”. I didn’t understand and kept asking her why daddy wasn’t coming with us. She told me that I would be starting a new school and I would have new friends. Sam didn’t look too happy about that and dad had told him to go home. Marci was throwing a fit. We had packed up our stuff and watched daddy out of the car window as we drove off. Now, we were only together on the weekends and I was a complete wreck because I just wanted my father.