My life so far Part 5.

I "graduated" from elementary school. It was a very exciting time, I loved our ceremony we had. Everyone's parents came, and our whole class had to sit up in the front of the gym together, all dressed up and sing and get awards. I had received one, but I can't remember what it was now, maybe a good citizenship award, I was always getting those! But I was proud of accomplishing something, even if it was minor. I spent the summer with my crush and my friends from mom's preschool. I was very excited because he was already in the same middle school I would be attending, so I was hopeful to see him even more.

We also moved into a new house with my mom and her boyfriend. It was an actual house, not a trailer or apartment. I was psyched about that too! They were renting it, but it was a cute house. It had 3 bedrooms, a nice front yard that had a tree we attached a swing to, and a fenced in backyard that we eventually got a trampoline to put in. I still had to share a room with my sister, but it was the biggest room we had ever had, so I was grateful for that. We spent the evenings and weekends of the summer putting our room together and sprucing it up. We were allowed to pick out paint, being girls we wanted pink of course and my brother chose blue for his room. I had a tv and a boom box in mine and a whole bunch of shelves to put all my Sweet Valley Twin books in. I began to be quite an avid reader then and it had followed me ever since.

I was very excited and very nervous to start a new school. We had taken a tour the previous year, but I didn't remember any of it, just that it was all very confusing. We had to change classes in this school and I was terrified of getting lost. My schedule came in the mail and my mom signed me up for band. I played the flute. My parents both thought I needed an activity and I wasn't interested in playing sports. My mom had played the flute in high school and suggested I try it out. That first day I was so nervous; I thought I was going to throw up. I was shaking all the way there. My mom cried, she was upset her little girl was growing up. My crush saw me immediately, everyone had to wait in the gym before classes started and he spotted me sitting in the bleachers alone. He talked to me and told me not to be nervous and offered to show me to my first class and then where I should go from there. I took him up on it; I was thrilled he had taken the time to do that and was being so sweet, not to mention I was already friendly with an 8th grader. I had a lot of my friends from elementary school in my classes, so I felt less alone. But I also met a lot of new people, and I was still shy around them. I liked my classes for the most part. I did well in school, never exceptional or anything, but I got by. I think I was always afraid of doing too well. Doing that meant you got noticed more, and that was the last thing I wanted from anyone. I just wanted to blend in and be average. I didn't want the added pressure from my parents either. My mom always believed as long as I tried my best, that was good enough for her. My dad always had higher expectations of me. When I brought home a "B", he always suggested next time I try for an "A". If I got an "A", he suggested next time I try for an "At" or just made a comment I needed to continue to get them. He could never be happy and proud of me for that moment in time. I always let it get to me, like I said before, I was always trying to please him. But I figured if I stayed average, no one would complain, I would just fade into the background. That was a big reason I didn't want to play sports. I was great at them; but only when I was alone or playing outside of school. I was always so afraid of messing up and getting made fun of, I hated gym when we had to play team sports and I wouldn't try out for any teams. It disappointed my dad of course, he wanted me to be a star athlete. Sometimes when I look back now, I think maybe he was trying to make me into a boy growing up. The man would always push sports on me more than anything, he always tried to style my hair like his, all slicked back like, and tons of other little things like that. It was annoying! I don't think he meant to do it, I just think he didn't know what to do with a girl.

I lost one friend during that first year and gained another. My hispanic girlfriend mysteriously moved away. One day she was at school, then she was gone. My dad sat down with my mom and told me that she and her sisters had been taken away from their dad. He had been molesting them for years. They finally told someone and he went to jail and they went to live with their mom who had cleaned up her act a bit. They changed schools because they were in another district. I was so upset; how could that have happened and I had not known??? I lived through that! She knew what had happened to me and she never told me what was happening to her and her sisters. My parents were distraught as well; I had stayed over there several times with them. They wanted to know if anything had happened to me there and if I ever knew. I said no to both; I was as shocked as they were. But I also felt so sorry for her and her sisters. I knew what she was going through, but to have her own dad do that to her added an extra level of shame. I wanted to talk to her, but I didn't know how. My parents thought I should give her some time to heal and they would find out how to call her. I did gain a friend who quickly became my best friend. She was in my homeroom. We always thought it was amusing because we went to elementary school together but had not liked each other, not for any particular reason though. But we struck up a friendship from that 20 minutes of homeroom and soon we were inseparable. She was super funny and could always make me laugh. We would talk about cute boys, girls we didn't like, favorite movie stars, really everything teenage girls talk about. I really liked going to her house to stay; her parents were still together and just seemed so normal, compared to my messed up life. We would sit in her room and listen to CDs, eat junk food and talk for hours. I felt comfortable around her because I never had to be anything but myself, and as much as I envied her, she envied me too! She was a funny and sweet girl, but she was a tiny bit overweight and wore glasses and had acne. None of it was really severe I thought, but she had self image issues and it affected her confidence. She would also get the "you're a great friend" speech from guys. They didn't find her dateable, she was just one of the guys to them. She loved sports and guys would confide in her, but usually about other girls. I could see how she would be depressed and I always tried to help her feel better about herself. She envied my looks, my weight, and clothes. I don't want to say this was all our friendship was based on, because we had some great times, but a big part of it was that she wanted to be popular and a tag a long to make herself feel important, and I wanted to feel important to someone to the point that they would want to be just like me. So the friendship worked for a while.

At home, things were all over the place. One week my mom and her boyfriend were happy, then they were fighting. Some of their worst fights were in that year. Those were the times I was afraid for myself and my siblings. They would always argue when we were supposed to be sleeping, although I don't know how they thought we could sleep through the yelling, screaming, slamming doors and throwing things. I spent many sleepless nights waiting for them to stop, I would put my head under my pillow or hands over my ears, but nothing would block out the sound. They would stop around 4 in the morning, then have make up sex for an hour, and I would have to listen to that! I went to school grouchy a lot. I did enjoy that we had more things to do at home. I guess with two incomes, they did have it somewhat better, so they were able to get us more, not anything extravagant, but we had a trampoline, bikes, and were able to go an amusement park in the spring. I had always been close to my brother and sister, but throughout the year I suppose my mom thought I was old enough to start being a babysitter on days we were out of school for bad weather or she had to run an errand. I didn't like it; they never listened to me and would always fight or pester me to play when all I wanted to do was read or just be alone. As much fun as I had jumping on the trampoline with my brother until it got dark, or playing Barbies with my sister, a lot of evenings, I would go down to the basement with a radio, CDs, and a ball. I would spend the whole evening down there sometimes, just smacking the ball against the wall and thinking. I almost think it was maybe like a meditation experience for me, a lot of times I would look up and not remember how much time had passed or what I was even thinking about. But I always felt more collected and relaxed when I came back upstairs.

My dad had moved in with my aunt, (his sister) and her husband in a nice house, so I would stay there occasionally. It was always fun; my aunt was so funny. She was always so full of life, going at 90 miles an hour all the time. She always had interesting things to do and she and my dad were funny together. I mostly like going over there when her kids came to visit though. They lived with their dad a couple of hours away, so they only came every once in a while. My boy cousin was my age, he was all right, but a little high strung and annoying at times, so I didn't hang out with him much. My girl cousin was a couple of years older then me, but she was and is, one of my best friends. It was from her that I began to learn more about being an actual girl. She had the most influence on me when she came to stay for a summer when I was 9, and my interest grew every time I saw her. She was my first idol. I wanted to be just like her. I loved to borrow her clothes, I would let her fix my hair, do my nails and act like her and talk like her. I guess she liked it because she always let me. We always had a good time together and I was always sad when she had to go back home. It was around this time my dad started dating my future stepmom as well. I didn't understand the attraction and didn't really care for her, but I wasn't too worried about it, he always broke up with his girlfriends eventually. At least that's what I thought.