Everything was fine in the first few years of my life. Our family was small, and we weren’t very rich. But I was so happy with what we had. I learned to appreciate the cheap, dollar store-bought dolls that my mother got for me for Christmas. I knew that it was the best that she could do, and my older brother knew that Mom and Dad were trying their very best.

We lived in a trailer park just outside of town. Our trailer was blue and at the bottom of the large, steep hill, and the yard was so small. It was only big enough to hold my swing set and my dad’s homemade shed that he kept all of his tools in. My mom and my brother hated our little home, but my father and I could see the potential in it. We lived in that house until my little brother was born, and my parents decided that we needed more room.

We moved to another trailer house in a town that was about an hour away from the old house. I didn’t like leaving the old house, but since my dad was okay with moving, I learned to be okay with it. My dad was my hero. I wanted to be just like him, and he liked the new house. It was old and had the comforting feeling of history about it. I had my own room, and I filled it with all of my cheap toys that I loved. There was an old barn near the house. Mom didn’t like my brother and I go into the barn, but Dad always took us in.

Dad worked a lot. Money was very tight, and Mom didn’t want to get a job. My mom came from a rich, spoiled family where the women didn’t have to work, and thought that it wasn’t her duty to get a job. The difference, though, was that my grandfather owned his own company, and my dad didn’t. Money issues got worse, and we had to move again.

We moved into a house on my grandfather’s property. My grandparents had a house of their own on that land, but it was much bigger than the little one that we were going to live in. Our house only had two rooms, and that wasn’t even close to enough room. My mom was pregnant again, so we needed to find more space. My father turned the over-sized back porch into a huge room for my older brother and I. My brother was only six, and I was only four.

My parents fought constantly about the money problems, and I remembered waking up almost every night, walking out of my room, and asking them if they were fighting. Their answers were always: “No, Mommy and Daddy love each other. Go back to bed.” I knew that they were lying, though.

One day, Dad took me out onto the trampoline that my grandfather had bought us. He made me sit while he talked to me. I remember exactly what he said: “Tay-Tay,” He started. “Mommy and Daddy are going to get a divorce.” He waited for me to say something, but I was confused.

“What’s a divorce?” I asked.

He took a moment to answer. “It means that Mommy and I won’t be married anymore.” He said. I could tell that he was trying his best to be comforting, but the idea of my parents splitting up was an unreal thought.

“Why?” I asked.

He didn’t know what to say to me then, so he got out of it. I could see that he was making a large attempt to tell me without making me cry. I was his baby, and he spoiled me more than my brothers. “Nothing, never mind! I was just kidding.” He retreated. I was still left confused.

My sister was born four months later, four days after my fifth birthday. My little brother was only a year old, and I knew that it would have been impossible for my mom to get a job.

I remembered going to a big building in town. It was tall and grey, and it scared me. My mom told me that it was the town’s courthouse, but I thought that that meant a house with a lot of basketball courts inside of it. About a month later, my dad bought a new house. I thought that we were moving again, but mom didn’t move with us. She stayed at the old house by herself. It all confused me at the time. Dad had told her to come and see her four kids, but she never did.

My dad was still working all of the time and trying his best to raise his kids, but I knew that he was over-working himself. There were bags under his eyes, and he was always so tired. One day, he accidentally fell asleep on the couch. I watched my little brother and sister while he slept, and when he woke up, he was amazed that I had watched them by myself (since my older brother would never help) for three hours straight. He trusted me a lot more then.

My dad’s mom and sister came over all of the time to try and help, but my dad was stubborn and didn’t want their help. They came over a watched us sometimes, though. My aunt kept telling me to not grow up so fast. She said that I was the five year old going on fifty. My grandmother agreed, and they tried their best to keep me from growing up too fast, but it didn’t work. With my mom gone, I had to do the best I could to help my poor father.

I cried every night in my room. I was wondering where my mom was and if she was safe. I prayed so much, hoping that she would come back to us, but for a long time it didn’t happen.

One day, there was a knock at our door, and I went to answer it. I opened the door and saw a women. She looked like my mom, but so many things were different. Her hair was straight instead of curly, her eyes looked too big and bloodshot, and her whole body was bigger than the 105-pound women that I knew. My dad and I could both see all of the things she had done in her bloodshot eyes. We knew that she would drink, and we knew that she was off sleeping with someone. She told my dad that she wanted to have us two days of the week. My dad agreed, and I was surprised. I knew that my dad wanted her back in our lives, but I didn’t know this women. I knew someone else. This women was not my mother.

I was expecting to go to the old house when she came to pick us up, but we went in the exact opposite direction. She told me that she didn’t live in the old house anymore, and that she lived with a man named Dennis. We got to his house, and my mother kissed him. That confused me more than anything. I knew that my mom was only 25-years-old, but this man looked at least forty.

Through the years that followed, She lived with different men, and different men lived with her. My dad didn’t like the fact that all of those men were around us, but he thought that we needed our mom. I hated going with my mom. She was always dramatic, and whenever she saw me taking care of my little brother and sister by myself, she would cry.

She finally got married when I was eight. He father had just died, and she inherited a little bit of money to buy a house. Her new husband was a big man, and he was very strict. He was a security guard for a juvenile delinquent home. He wouldn’t allow me to take care of my siblings, and that was when he had overstepped the line. We never got along after that.

To this day, my mother still asks me when I grew up so much. I have been very mature for my age. I never answer her question, though. It was hard raising her children when I was only five-years-old.
It’s been almost ten years, and I still can’t forgive her.