From birth my life was destined to be anything but usual. I was born into the broken lower-class home of a sixteen year old girl and her parents, who resented the girl for having pre-marital sex. I know this because of a letter this girl wrote to me and sent with me when I was adopted. Soon after escaping this home, and the home of a foster care family, I entered into my new family, the family that would raise and call me their own. I was adopted just before my first birthday by the loving Christian couple so desperately wanting to have kids, but was unable. When I was a baby my mom had just quit her bookkeeping job to stay at home and raise me, while my dad owned his own lawn service and worked at 84 Lumber. My family was small and happy. These were much more simple times, but were doomed from the start.
[...] In order to live the new life my parents were now determined to live my dad built an even bigger version of the one he had built in West Virginia, now in Winchester. While waiting for the new house to be built my family had to live in a duplex for six months, it was during these six months that everything changed. Living in the duplex meant living around the members of the middle and even lower middle class of society. [...]
[...] Losing all of my innocence this early in life is something that I will always regret, and has haunted me through everything. My peer group and social status had changed significantly, but at the time I loved every minute of it. At the end of my freshman year everything came crashing down. I finally realized that my mother had been right about my boyfriend all along and after I found him cheating on me, I ended the relationship. Two weeks after breaking things off, my ex still hadn't given up. [...]
[...] Upon entering college I never thought that my life could be blessed with any better friends than John, but I was proved wrong and through these three people I learned that even people with the most opposite opinions from very different backgrounds could be amazing friends. While my new friends have allowed for the transition into college to be much smoother, I have missed my little sister a tremendous amount. Chelsea and I were always there for each other when things got crazy at home, and for the past three years have been virtually inseparable. [...]
[...] My dad had stopped heavily drinking, my mom had cut back to only on pill each day, and my little sister was becoming actively involved in sports, all while I became anorexic and depressed. Having a dream stripped away is likely to cause some emotional problems, and I was not above this effect. While dealing with these two issues I found my mom to be much more helpful than in the past and I began to realize that everything would soon be changing. [...]
[...] I hated my family and my life so I quickly turned to dance. Much of my late middle school years revolved around dancing. At the age of thirteen I was on the middle school dance team and was practicing two hours each night at a dance studio in Lexington. I was becoming quite good at dance, and won many competitions, but not without a price. My winning made our family look very good, at least from my mother's perspective. By me being talented and my parents sacrificing whatever time was needed to drive me to and from practice, my mom's goal of having a seemingly perfect family was on the horizon. [...]
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