My life so far Part 4.

This is the part of my life where things start to go horribly wrong. Not that it's been all sunshine and rainbows so far, but this time period in my life affected me the most.

I was 8 years old when my mom met her current husband. We were still living in the trailer, and I was still making the best of school. I had more friends and even had "boyfriends". As everyone knows, you don't really "date" anyone when you are that age, we just sat together occasionally and called each other boy/girlfriend. My mom got her first real job since splitting with my ex stepfather, as a preschool teacher. She was still struggling though.

I am still not sure how she met him (her current husband). I think she must have ran into him somewhere, like a store or something. They went to high school together, although I don't think they talked then. My mom told me he was a druggie and had quit school before graduating. He was also an ex-convict. He was in prison for selling drugs, he jumped bail and ran to Florida, they caught him and brought him back. He was sentenced to something like 10-15 years, and served 4, he was released for good behavior. You wouldn't really think that talking to him though. I guess he looked the part; he was built, had tattoos and long hair. He was such a nerd though and goofy acting all the time. Of course he became a permanent fixture at my house. It was different right away though. Since he was like a big kid himself, my brother and sister took to him right away. I was a little more wary of it, being older. I saw my mom act like she always does and ignore us when he was around. But when he would actually bring up taking us to do things, we visited the national park near our house a lot, mostly because it was free, then she was all about being involved with us. They annoyed me quite a bit though, they acted like they were teenagers, and not in the oh so cute way. To me, even then, it was inappropriate. They would make out anywhere, and grope each other. Our first Christmas with him was a tough one. My mom was short on money for extra things, so it was always depressing. Our tree consisted of red ball ornaments, a star and a single strand of blue lights with a handful of presents. Even though it was sparse, I thought it was okay. I know my mom was hopeful he would pop the big question soon, especially since he was so tolerable of us. But he didn't.

My dad had also gotten serious with a couple of women around this time. One he even moved in with and I stayed with them occasionally. They were engaged, but I think she had some emotional problems, wanted too much too fast and he ended it. He had that problem with every girlfriend he had. He would always drag his feet when it came to committing to a woman. He used me as an excuse by saying he didn't want me to be uncomfortable with it, but I think he just didn't want to settle down. I don't blame him, he was still young. It always struck me as funny though; my mom couldn't wait to settle down and it took my dad forever. He would go as far as get engaged to about all of them, but that was as far as it went. After that he immediately lost interest. I didn't mind though, I was happy to have him to myself for a while longer.

During the summers or on a school holiday throughout the year, instead of staying home, my mom took us to work with her. They had a school age program at the preschool. It was pretty fun, we were grouped with every age of kids in school, so that was kind of annoying, but I met a lot of friends in there my age and older. The only thing I hated about it was having to get up early on summer vacation to go into school; I was grouchy the first half of the day! But anyhow, I met my first crush there. He was 2 years older then me. His mom worked there too and our moms became friends outside of work, so I could to see him quite a bit. He liked me too; but we were both super shy and nothing ever came of it, which disappoints me to this day; sometimes I wish I could go back and tell my younger self to get it together already! But I loved/hated the feeling at the same time. I was always so nervous when he was around. He wasn't handsome in an obvious kind of way. He had dark brown hair, hazel eyes, tan skin, glasses, and he was tall and skinny. Looking back, he may have been kind of nerdy, but so was I! But to me, he was dreamy. Between the two of us, a couple of other boys and girls, we had a fun group. It was nice to feel like I was in the inner circle of a group; I didn't really have that at school.

We ended up moving in with my mom's boyfriend. He lived with his dad and brother. He lived in the downstairs part of the house. We would either sleep down there in one room again, or if his brother was gone me and my sister would sleep in his double bed. I formed a fast friendship with his brother, he was only 2 years younger then my mom's boyfriend, but I thought he was funny and nice. I don't think his dad liked us being there. He didn't seem to like small kids in general. He would always yell at us for messing up his rugs, tracking dirt in the house, things like that. But it was a nice place. There was a nice driveway to play basketball, a cornfield to run around in, and at that point we were still doing stuff as a family.

Around 4th grade I fell into the popular group. I don't know how, I guess they just became interested in me. Like I said, I had started getting noticed for my looks by the boys, I did well in school, and I tried as hard as I could to dress right. One of them started talking to me and the rest followed. Soon they were all my best friends. I was thrilled. I still stayed friends with my friend from the trailer park, the hispanic girl. We managed to get a couple of classes together. But she was friends with a lot of the hispanic kids that went to our school that all kinda hung out together, so we had our own sets of friends in school hours. I made a lot of guy friends too, they stayed that way throughout high school as well. I think it was around this time that I realized being popular is not all it is cracked up to be, and that those people were not really my friends, they were alliances. They were always starting trouble within their group, talking about each other behind their backs, stealing boyfriends, it never ended. If anyone made one wrong remark or move, you could be kicked out and replaced with someone new. I came home many times in tears because one day some of the girls decided they didn't want to be my friend anymore. They didn't think I was cool, because, for an example, I didn't wear the right kind of clothes and I didn't have the Keds shoes in every color. That was the whole reason. I never badmouthed. Then maybe the next day everything was fine. My first slumber party was with the ringleader. I had a good time, of course this was all before things started to change. By the time I left elementary school, I was okay with not being in a popular group anymore.