I’ve considered the possibility that in the event of my elder years, I will soon disintegrate, like the dandelions in the spring. I will not only disintegrate my ability to climb, or dance, but also will rid myself of my experiences that have allowed me to reach my old age in such prosperity, as I’d like to imagine I will. But like dandelions, I will fly off of my stem, and the seeds that plant in another yard will be these experiences, and I think of them as living on from this infinitely.

Following the years of the first house I inhabited, with my soft spoken mother, and spontaneous father, I thrived under a roof of self expression, independence, and kindness. My parents cooked breakfast in the green kitchen with floral wallpaper on the mornings of the weekends, and I spent mornings missing it during the week. On these mornings, I would be woken up by my mother’s soft symphony of lullabies, “it’s a great day, a beautiful day.” I’ve been given the opportunity to appreciate little things such as this, then, and into now. I look at them as the completion of the variations of the emotions I endured in this time period as well.

With this said, it’s quite possible that what has happened in my youth has become mere decorations in my upbringing as an adult. It has also become made up of the qualities I obtained from my parents. Qualities such as being a lover instead of a fighter, and dipping my opinions in a mental jar of glass. However, I’ve also acquired qualities such as a short temper, and a sense of self doubt and crippling composure. I’ve come to find that despite these qualities aiming so far across the spectrum, they seem to outline my contour in bold. My mother was and still remains a civil woman. She made her best attempts at counteracting the behavior of my father who was an aggressive man, and remains a mystery to me.  As this is so, I’ve taken it upon myself to continue to measure my behavior in minorities, to avoid confronting the poison I’ve learned to distinguish precisely. In this life in which I was so generously given, I’d like to think that I have been granted additions that are so rarely experienced, especially in the event of my childhood. This being 50 houses in a grassy circle, each obtaining a small person like myself, of my age. Of course, in the apparency of the situation, this resulted in infinite nights of hide and seek, truth or dare, and bulletproof ambition. Along with most childhoods, this was crucial to the effects of my current self, and in regards to the endless satisfaction that paired with this, it still stands as a definite highlight of what I know as memories, and my parents don’t know of at all. Not only was I shaped, but I was tamed, because although the opposite ends of the spectrum melted into a happy, (but angsty) teenager, it did not settle down into a solid reason for my parents to remain as one. The garden in which I spread my roots had been uprooted from the grassy circle I called home.

I was simply transparent and oblivious to the reality of my household. A mirror that reflected only the positive light of the circumstance. While the positive light realistically being something of dark shades of purple and blue on freckled skin that I failed to recognize. However, my domestic disregards failed to change the heart of my violent and drug-abused father, or the concept of our financial inability to remain afloat. To this day, standing five years from the point, it is clear to me that this concept was impossible to accomplish, and that the trenches of my families problems were nothing of money and power, but prevalent anger and disproportioned compatibility. Furthermore, I was extracted from my home, and the children that I spent my nights with. Never to return to my painted front porch. This experience in which I left the only home I’ve ever known, and the only Father I will ever have, was not as dramatically upsetting as one would expect, it was instead relieving, as I no longer had to dread summers, or find walls to talk to when I’m alone. I have now realized that this relieving feeling, although not being very consistent, has stayed with me in my teenage years. It has allowed me to make a sanctuary out of loneliness, and it has comforted my knowledge of friendship, along with corrupting the chances of being a victim of the horrors of my experience.

My mom and I established a new home, at first, on the basement floor of our longest extended friends. On this floor, we departed each day to our priorities and responsibilities of a 6th grade student, and a well-rounded Insurance Technician. We did our chores and said goodnight like it’s the last. I distinctly remember this time period being dominant in the establishment of my mother and I’s relationship, as well as being permitted to remind us that we are not as clean as we thought we were. Fortunately, her and I only had to make a home underground for five months, until we settled in a small condo right outside of O’fallon, MO. On our first Christmas, we watched Charlie Brown, and shed tears over hot chocolate and tree lights. In a way this is my favorite Christmas, for it is so genuine to the bond my mother and I have started to create, and the only Christmas to this day that there has not been a third party present, with intentions of taking the place of my father. Following the next school year, I was removed from my original place of educational value, and re-stocked in a middle school crawling with kids of my age I did not know, and the future memories that have mended and suited me for the roller coaster of a future I have in store. Not being experienced in change of scenery, it was a frightening concept that I was doomed to for the next two years. But, even so, I have since conquered said concept, reigning the heartbreak and self discovery I endured so efficiently. I recollect this reign as a beginning, a beginning to a more unique and complex reign of much more than that, in the years following into high school; where my mom and I then moved to a different town, and I am reunited with the friends of my circle, and the wrenching optimism I will  harbour eternally. My youth remains as an infinite grassy circle, obtaining details of my influence to be the person I was raised to be.