Ok, so I have given you a taste of my epiphany if you will. Now for some background...
*****DISCLAIMER*****
I know we are all entitled to our story. I know that we all got here somehow and most of us have a lot to say about it. I don't think my story is anymore important than the next one. I just hope that it may just shed some light into someones life that can relate to me.
(I also have terrible punctuation issues so don't judge me)
With that being said...
Let's give you the start. I was hoping to create this blog and give you chapters to my life. We'll call this blog, "chapter 1"
Basic background, I was born in Torrance, CA. I didn't live there long enough to say I was from there. I'm a Suns fan so, call me a native to Arizona! My parents moved two of my sisters and myself here when I was 4. They stayed busy by popping out two more children, a boy and a girl. So, that's five kids in 7 years. Pretty impressive right? My mom was a personal fitness trainer at home so she didn't have to pay for child care and my father worked at the local grocery store. Mind you, I was a child when this was going on so it could be mostly imagination at this point. The biggest thing I can remember about my early childhood was that we were poor, but happy. I used to sell my toys out of my bedroom window. I would do anything for a dime. Literally, at times I was selling things for a dime. I would do car washes for my mothers clients, sell my toys, I even caught a pigeon once and tried selling it. That venture was shut down rather quickly when neighbor threatened to call the police on me for trying to sell wild animals. I was seven. I remember there were days we were pretty hungry. I remember my dad moving out. I remember the fights. I also remember my mom had a thing for wallpaper. Strange but still pretty vivid in my mind.
As kids, my parents had us in church. They had us in A.W.A.NA.S. which was probably my favorite memories of God as a child. That and conning my father into fifty cents for a doughnut on Sundays. I will never forget the first scripture that I ever memorized. John 3:16.
It came time that my parents couldn't sort out their differences and like most marriages, it ended. We split up, dad had us on the weekends. Mom had us during the week. It never felt that traumatizing for some reason. The divorce was so normal for our lives. I guess because of everything else that was going on, which I'll get to, that we never realized it wasn't normal.
My mother, God love her, is an eccentric woman. She wasn't always so wild, but boy did she make a turn around. She was adopted by a couple that was very loving but excruciatingly strict. She was raised baptist and was the epitome of a square. When my parents divorced, she took on stripping. It was well known by everyone in our new apartment complex, but we were completely oblivious to it. At first. We would ask her where she goes at night, and her back story was that she was a vacuum saleswoman. I was ten and it made perfect sense. Then the rumors started around and a neighbor girl, who claimed to be in a gang and that was terrifying to me, told me mom was a stripper. I wasn't even sure what that was at the time.
One day when my mother was taking a bath I went and asked her. I used to sit with my mom and talk when she would bathe, do her hair, do her make up. Most mothers would agree that they have no personal time when they have kids. I was not about to be the exception. I intruded in her personal space so much it was "our space". Anyways, back to the story. I asked her about it and she was completely honest about the fact that yes, she was a stripper. That was the point in my life where my mother and I became very close. Our relationship as mother and daughter had just taken a drastic change to sister and sister. I was now her confidant. I kept all the secrets. Which I loved.
With this new persona of secret keeping sister, I also took on a new role. I had just been deemed the care taker of the children. My younger sister right below me and I were a team. We cooked, cleaned, disciplined, and comforted our new three children. Our lives became about them. My mom started delving into peppermint schnapps and she was in the lifestyle of a stripper. Don't get me wrong, and please don't think I'm taking anything away from my mother. Her heart and intentions are better than anyone I know. She just has a crazy way of doing things.
The neighbors started noticing us five kids were alone, a lot. CPS started showing up at our doors, even a police officer once. The CPS worker never even had a chance. We never opened our doors because we knew they were coming to take us away. The police officer on the other hand had the law on his side so naturally we open the door. I mean, he's a cop and that's safe. He started asking me all sorts of questions. "Where is your mother?" "She just went to the grocery store, she'll be back any minute." Lie. "Where is your father?" "At work, but if there was an emergency I would call 9-1-1 and then page him". Lie. I told that police officer whatever he wanted to hear. The truth was, I hadn't seen my mother for almost two days at that time. My father never had any idea what was going on because we never told him.
My father is probably one of my favorite people on Earth. Our relationship has been a roller coaster, and trust me I will get to that too, but these days we're good. When the nonsense with my mother was going on, my dad was hard at work. He is a 100% Japanese, motown lovin', Detroit raised brotha, cookin fool. My dad kept us cultured. When he had us on the weekends he had us in church. Not just any church either. I was raised in an all black church. There was always a lot of speaking in the tongues and dancing and PRAISE! I loved it. It was so much fun. It was weird. My dad was never the Christian one, my mom was. They swapped places I guess, but either way we were raised to love God.
So, right about now, I'm 9 or 10. We are living in an apartment complex. My dad on one side of it my mother on the other. (She followed him a lot to keep us close). I picked up smoking at 9. The neighbor boy and I would take them from his mom and smoke them in the alley. So stupid. My mom is stripping, my dad is still working. We are in church and I think that's it for this chapter. Stick around though. The next chapter is where things start to get interesting...
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