I live a pretty simple life. Not saying nothing happens in it or that I do not do anything to have fun, I am saying I live the cliché life that I am lucky for, and I will start my story from the beginning; starting with my parents. My parents met in high school, my mom moved when she was fifteen to Venice, FL, where my Dad grew up. My mom was a cheerleader while my dad played football, and though they did not tell me how they met I assume that is how. From what they tell me, my Dad had a big crush on my mom in high school, and even though my mom did not like my Dad in that way she dated him for two weeks than broke up with him.
They continued being very good friends all throughout high school, hanging out with each other and their group of friends, they used to party a lot and do hooligan things with each other. After high school my Dad went off in the army, while my mom’s grades got her into the University of Florida. They did not have cell phones yet, so they wrote letters back and forth to each other while my Dad was away. I am not exactly sure when it happened but my Dad confessed his love for my mom, and said she needed to decide if she wanted him too or if they should go down separate paths.
My mom chose my Dad, and they have been dating ever since. They got married in 1994 and had me in 1996. So basically I can make a love story out of my mom and my dad’s lives. Now for my life, I was born on March 17, 1996. When I came out a redhead it was quite a shock to everybody considering nobody else in my family does. The constant question “where’d you get your beautiful red hair?! ” is always asked, and I never know what to say because I have no idea. My mom and my dad are both brunettes, but even though my hair color is different, I look exactly like my mom.
I have my dad’s features, his eyes, his nose, his lips, but when it comes to a general look if I stand right next to my mom a lot of people say we pull off being sisters. I lived for two years a lonely child, and though I do not remember it, my mom said I was a really good child, barely cried, barely whined, I was a very content baby. On August 14, 1998, I was no longer an only child; my not so little now brother, Kyle, was born. I adored my baby brother. The pictures show it, when he was growing up I was always with him, holding his hand, giving him my blanket, and sharing everything with him.
At one point, though, that changed. When I was in middle school, my personality changed completely, like everybody that is going through the “awkward stage” at that point, I did not really know how to act or anything. I went to the same school from kindergarten through eighth-grade. It was a small charter school called Island Village Montessori School, and I think that may have something to do with it. I became friends with the people I grew up with, it was a small group where only we hung out with each other. Kind of like the cliché snobby cliques in the movies. In seventh grade I got my first boyfriend.
Erick Gasca, the cutest boy in the school. Everyone loved him, and I am not saying that just to make me look better, everyone had a problem with us dating because I was the awkward red head with braces and he was the tall muscular kid with tan skin and he had such a great personality, he was so funny. I loved being around him, whether we were dating or not. Kyle did not like that, he was always mad at me for bringing Erick home. He would always get mad at me, and whenever Erick and I would do as little as hold hands he was always there to yell at me. So I kind of started hating my brother.
One night, Kyle and I got in our worst fight ever. He started telling my parents things to try and get me in trouble, like I was sneaking out at night to see Erick. So I got sick of it and started telling him off, calling him names, so he came up to me and tried to slap me in the face, and I punched him back. We got in this huge fist fight, I was the bigger sibling at the time, so I beat him pretty bad, and my Dad had to pry me off of him for me to stop. After that, I did not talk to him for a long time; I do not really remember Kyle in my life in the rest of my middle school life.
I continued dating Erick, and hanging out with my friends, I was in Drama, and played softball. So I had the best life in middle school, I was basically the cliché popular high school girl you see in the movies, just in middle school. It wasn’t until two weeks after middle school was over I felt as if my life was falling apart, I had been dating Erick for almost two years when he cheated on me. He made out with another girl, and even though it does not sound as bad as it should, I was heartbroken.
He was my first and only long-term boyfriend I had. I went in kind of a depression state, where I did not want to get out of bed, I did not want to eat, I stopped hanging out with my friends, and as silly as it is now, I really did love him, even though I was so young. Finally a girl who I played softball with, Megan, came over one day and told me I need to do something, and we started hanging out all the time, and then another girl I played softball with, Rachel, started hanging out with us. We were the ultimate trio.
We did everything together, and eventually our brothers became best friends with each other, and then our parents became friends. We had hangouts every weekend, and we would always go to Rachel’s grandmas to swim in her pool while our parents drank and had fun. When high school started I was so grateful that I had Rachel and Megan, Rachel was a grade older than us so she helped us around high school. We all played softball together in high school and would hang out after practice every day, and every weekend. So basically I would be with them every day of my life and never get tired of them.
They were like my sisters, we told each other everything, never had any drama, we would just have fun whenever we were together. A couple years passed and everything started changing, Rachel slowly stopped hanging out with us, and then Megan got a boyfriend. So I was left by myself, not knowing what to do for most of the time because I was always so used to hanging out with them, but then I started hanging out with this kid named Dallas, who I have known for a long time, but we never really talked or hung out before. Though, Rachel would invite him to hang out with us sometimes.
One day after my game I was texting Dallas, telling him I was not doing anything and he told me to come over to his friend Cory’s house, and that all of his friends were there. So I go figuring why not, I have nothing else better to do. When I went everybody was so welcoming and nice, and it blossomed a new friendship. I started hanging out with them every Friday night, doing stuff like cooking random things or playing video games, or having movie nights. It was so much fun and they became my group of friends the rest of high school.
We hung out every day over summer for the past two years, and they were like my family. Senior year was the best year with them, we all were so close at that point. We did everything that summer, including going to Adventure Islands, and Busch Gardens, we went to the beach almost every time all of us were free, or just hang out at Cory’s. It was awesome because I never became close to a big group of friends, so when it came to for us all to move on with our lives, some of us going to different colleges, and Cory going into the Navy, it was very hard.
We spent every last day we could with each other. When I first moved to New Port Richey from Venice, it was quite a shock. I did not know what to do with myself, and I did not really know how to make new friends, partly because I did not want to. I wanted to keep the ones I had forever, but then I came into realization that nothing can or will ever be the same as it was before. I kind of went into a some sort of depression, I did not want to eat, I did not want to go out, I went home almost every weekend to be with my family I was very homesick.
I regretted moving away from my friends and family. When softball started that changed though, I was always busy, with practice and then homework, then we had games on the weekend, so it sort of helped keep my mind off of things. Though when Christmas break came around, I had a month at home, and I was very grateful because everyone was home for Christmas break; even Cory from basic training. It was great, we hung out almost every night, we had sleepovers, we did not want to leave each other’s sides.
When that month passed, and it was time for me to go back to New Port Richey, I was sad, but I thought to myself that it just shows that true friends will not leave. I decided to go make new friends to hang out with while I am in New Port Richey, and I made a few. I started hanging out at one of the girls on our team’s house, and hung out with her friends from high school almost every weekend. Though it was not the same I still had fun while I was in school. I was not homesick, and I was happy with where I was.
When spring season officially started for softball, it kind of took over our lives. We had practice every day until about four or five in the afternoon then we had homework, and if we did not have homework we were too tired to do anything, and every weekend we had games, which my dad came to every single one so we would always go out to dinner and by the time I got to my apartment and showered it would be nine at night. So we kind of stopped hanging out with each other too, but even though I liked hanging out with them, I was not sad or mad that I did not really talk to them anymore.
There is one friend I have not mentioned yet, but I wanted to save her for last. Her name is Clare, and we became friends at the beginning of senior year. We have been through everything together, and even though we are kind of complete opposites and believe in different things, she is my best friend. She hung out with my group of friends with me, even though she never got close with them like I did, she just wanted to be friends with everybody and that is what I love about her. She taught me to love everybody, even if they do not love you.
To be nice to everybody even if they are not nice to you. She is my inspiration as a person. She always tells me that she loves me because I did not judge her like her other friends did, like care what she wears, or what music she listens too. So we suit each other well, we learn off of each other. She goes to University of Florida, so I go and visit her often, and she comes to visit here often. She is my one best friend that I will always have, throughout everything. So the point to all of this, and why all of this that I have said makes me who I am?
I believe that friendship is important. I am a very independent person that likes to do things on my own, but if I did not have friends to support me through everything that I do, or to pick me up when I am feeling down, I do not know where I would be in life right now. Everybody in my life is doing something different, whether if it is staying at home and being in a band or going to University of South Florida St. Pete to be an artist, we are all there to support each other and catch each other when one person falls.
I love that about my life, I am so thankful that I have so many supporters, including my family. I am also not saying you need friends to succeed in life, I just believe that they will help you a lot mentally. To give you advice when you cannot really figure it out for yourself. Also I believe that if you lose friends, you will make new and possibly better ones. Ones that are worth everything in the long run. I am lucky to have a supportive family too, my dad came to every single softball game this season, and a lot of the girls said they have never met a parent like that.
My mom is more supportive about my grades, she always calls me to see if I need help with anything academically, probably because she was always the smart one and my dad was always the sporty one; but they make a great combination. My parents teach me a lot, I am more like my dad personality wise, my mom is a talker, and she will sit there and talk for hours. I do not really like talking, I would rather keep things to myself then to just sit there and talk about nonsense, like my dad. My mom also does not approve of tattoos, but my dad has two.
I love tattoos, I love the fact that it expresses art in a different way that will last forever, and my dad backs me up on that. I am also more open with my dad then my mom because my mom has a big mouth, and if I tell her not to tell anybody, she does not count her family, which is her sister and mom, and they tell everybody else. And since my dad does not really like to people all that much in the first place I tell him everything, and he does not judge, he just tells me his opinion and moves on.
Also that is another trait I picked up from my dad, I respect people’s privacy and will just tell them how I feel and move on. I picked up my music taste from my dad also, he listens to classic rock so I listen to classic rock, which I also started listening to modern rock, and pop punk, and post hardcore. A lot of people do not expect that from me, but it is kind of like my dirty little secret that I listen to post hardcore (which is screamo with singing in it) because I do not look like I do I guess?
Though I wear a lot of black shirts I do not wear the dark eyeliner and dye my hair every color on the color wheel. Apparently that is the, “hardcore,” look. Speaking of that kind of music, my dad also accepts the fact that I like going to concerts, my mom does not like me spending money on them, but I do not think she understands that it is fun to get lost in the music when the band is right in front of you. Along with my friends, music is important to me too. Which they kind of mix because every best friend I have had listened to the same music I did Except for Megan but she dealt with it.
Music I think lets you just get away from reality in a sense that nobody else understands. When you can listen to the lyrics and they relate to your life so much that you just listen to them over and over to help you get through any rough time you are going through I think that is what music is about. The rap they play now on the radio, talking about drugs and having sex over and over; I think it is gross. I am not saying that every rap song is like that, but almost every song you hear is, but anyways, the music I listen to does not have anything to do with that.
This song called, “In Between,” is probably the best song I know lyrically, and it got me through a lot of rough times while I was homesick. Some of the lyrics are, “Up on the mountain, I see down below, It’s easy to lose yourself I know Everybody gets high, everybody gets low, life can be such over dose. ” And then it says, “don’t run away. ” So it is saying that even though life gets rough, do not run away from it, turn around a face it and get through it.
I love it so much, because I think there is a point in everybody’s life, that they just want to run away from the tough time they are facing. So to sum up who I am, I am a girl that has gone through a lot of friends, but every time I lost friends I gained new and better ones. I learned a lot from my family, and value friendship. My friends and family are huge supporters and do not know what I would do without them, and music is a huge part of my life. I would not trade my life for anything in the world, and I have a lot of life to live still, so I am excited to see what the future holds.
