Life As I Knew It

So, if life is so hard, then why should I live it? Why not pop ten or eleven pills and let them work their magic? Why should I suffer?

Because, if I weren't here, what else would go wrong? I'm not stupid, I know there are people out there that care about me. But why is it just so tempting? Will I ever give in?

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We were living in a small town called Barton. All of the streets were named the same things as all the others, except for one little difference: Mayflower street, Mayflower road, Mayflower way, Mayflower court, Mayflower north street, Mayflower west street, and so on. I remember that being the most common one. We lived there for four years (I think that was a record...), I lived there from ages two to six. My memories are all broken up and out of order about that time, and I'm sure that I've blocked some out.

One of those memories is of my fourth birthday. I was sleeping on one of the couches when my mother came and woke me up with a cake illuminated with candles, and my brother and sisters were there, but no dad. She told me that he couldn't make it because he had more important things to do.

I think the importance of that memory is that it's one of the times that she - as my dad puts it - tried to make me 'turn against' my father. Yea, that's what she did - made us hate our dad and love her. I'm not quite sure why she did this, but with Jamey and Juliet being eleven and ten, she had already corrupted them. In fact, a year later, she would be the one to introduce them to pot. She would give them their first hit, and supply them with it whenever they wanted it. My poor father never had a chance.

Barton is one town that I'm sure I will never visit again, for the sake of all of the memories that would be dredged up. I would surely go insane like my mother, and her brother and sisters.

The neighbor across the street was one of my father's friends, and consequently, had a pair of binoculars to spy on my mother. He knew all about her cheating ways, but didn't tell my dad about it until it was too late. I'm still not exactly sure how my dad found out about everything, but I'm sure when he did, he went ballistic. You see, he has anger problems (and he's probably bi-polar) and doesn't really control his anger very well.

At one point during the fall-out, my mother tried to keep Nina and I away from our dad, but we didn't want to stay away - as opposed to Jamey and Juliet, who went willingly. She kept us in a hotel for a while until either someone found us, or she just gave us up. Both she and my father ended up in jail at least once during that time. My dad even had gotten a restraining order against my mother. In the end though, the divorce was finalized on April first. Ironic, isn't it?

My father got full custody and my mother had to pay child support and wasn't allowed to see her children. This was how it went. If only my father had realized sooner that she was no good, before we all got messed up.

My father quit his job because it required frequent business trips, and he couldn't find a twenty-four hour babysitter for four children. He found a new job though, in another small little town a couple of hours away from Barton. A new town, a new start - a better start.

Yeah, right.
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I was enrolled in Cramer Elementary school as a first grader, and Nina as a pre-k student. Jamey and Juliet were enrolled in Green Middle school, both in the sixth grade (Jamey had failed third grade). We stayed in that town for almost two years and had bought a small house in a bad neighborhood. We couldn't find anyone else who was willing to rent us a house because of the single parent, four kid thing.

My father got laid off of his job, but soon found another one in a place called Madison. This town was in Alabama. He rented a house and we lived there for six months. I went to the local elementary school with Nina, which was where I made my first best friend. Her name was Rebbecca, and I would never forget her, even though we had only spent six months their, because my dad got fired.Again.

Immediately after, we moved to North Carolina (on my birthday) and lived there for a year. We lived in a huge two story house in a nice neighborhood, you know, the ones that have the white picket fences, the soccer moms, and the nice ladies that bring you cookies and brownies when you're new to the neighborhood. We were pretty spoiled there.

When we lived there my father, not totally convinced of my mother's wickedness, let her call us and talk to us. He thought it would be good to have a mother's influence in our lives - especially since three of us were girls, and he most definitely wasn't. That move, however, turned out to be the worst one ever.

Juliet used to be a happy, popular, cheerleader type before my mother started calling. That all changed though. Her first real act of disobedience against my father was to get her belly-button pierced.

Of course my dad flipped.

After that, it was never the same. Random scenes pop in my head from North Carolina. One of my brother's serious girlfriends that none of us liked, Jamey crying over my mother in his room and my father yelling at him. The wallpaper in the room Nina and I shared - when we were younger, we always had to share a room - ,the friends we had. I think that that was another turning point.

There was a very long time in my life that whenever my father brought up my mother and talked about her, I had the strongest urge to cry, the strongest urge to get up and scream about how unfair life is, and how much it sucks. That's it - life sucks, and then you die.