Growing up in Canada, a
lot of things were much different living up there rather than down in
Washington with my grandparents. I remember almost everyday I would wake up and
immediately be outside playing in the townhome complex with all my friends that
were a couple years older than I was. I would walk to kindergarten with my mom,
listening to our favorite songs that a little kindergartner probably shouldn’t
have known. Most days were repetitive, spending most of the hours of the day
playing with friends and ending it by racing my dad to the bed to go to sleep
for the night.
One day I was spending
time at one of my friend’s house, all of the parents of the kids were super
close and most days us kids were free to roam between the houses as we pleased,
but I didn’t know it would be one of the last times I ́d be able to do that.
The phone rang through their house and their mom picked up the phone happily to
talk to my mom, but her joyful face quickly fell as my mom delivered some harsh
news for me. To this day I still don’t know what exactly happened in that
specific situation, but my mom began packing up all of our things and announced
that we were moving back down to the United States, away from my dad.
There isn’t a lot that I
remember about the transition between Canada and having a dad, to Washington
with just my mom, brother, and grandparents. There was a lot of time I spent
crying because I didn’t understand that he was a bad dude, I just knew him as
my dad who took care of me. For my siblings and mom, they knew him as something
completely different. We moved in with my grandparents in Kirkland, and we all
had to make the transition from being used to how things were in another
country, to now.
Not too many years went
by and my grandpa died, leaving the whole family in a shit storm. My mom and
aunt stumbled in a
dark hole with
alcoholism, one uncle became homeless and desperate, my other uncle lived off
away from the family problems. Family problems include alcoholism, my grandma
getting sicker and older, my cousins stealing tens of thousands of dollars from
my deceased grandpa, the usual.
From then a lot more problems
arose, my mom lost her job because she was drinking so frequently and was
making that her priority. When my grandma passed away, the house got sold and
one of my aunt’s took all the money for herself. My mom and I became homeless,
living with my drunk aunt on her two couches. I got blessed with the
opportunity to live with my best friend and her mom in Monroe, to finish out my
last year of middle school. I continued to live with them for the next couple
of years leading me to go to Crossroads.
Coming to Crossroads overall has made way more positive impact in my life rather than negative. Not to say it’s brought only positivity, but it’s made my school life and getting my education a lot easier without daily panic attacks walking through the halls. I continued to become closer with my best friend and her family, as well as met my boyfriend of two years who I’ve been living with now for at least a year.
