The Great Escape.

As my mother continued to abuse me my life swished down the toilet. Everyone else in my family was wrapped up in their own lives and had no idea what my mom had been doing, or at least to the extent it was. My brother would go to work with my dad after school most days and then my sister would be with her boyfriends. So I would go home alone with my mom and we would get into arguments over nothing. She would hit me and then send me to my room to “wait until my father got home” to take care of me. My father just assumed I was acting out as a teenager and had no idea my mother was drinking and had recently developed a drug habit. Being the respectful husband he was, dad would come home and “deal with me” however my mother told him to for whatever I had done that day.

The abuse became an everyday thing for me. Over time, I learned to turn Colorguard into my great escape. Force to express my feelings through my work, and it worked. I developed a new talent and a passion for life. It was the only good thing I had going. Also, I had met the love of my life my first year at band camp. Though my family had their priorities mixed up, this guy I barely knew was always there for me. He supported me and we fell for each other over my first marching season. He was all I had.

Child abuse.

Almost one million underage kids are abused each year in the United States. I didn’t feel alone in the world, and I was still an average kid at school until one day. It was in sixth grade and My mother and I had gotten into a fight because I had “disrespected her”. To get straight to the point, she blacked my eye and I went to school the next day. My teachers asked my about it but  I had no response to any of their questions. When I got home my mom took one look at me and dragged me into the bathroom and told me to start wearing makeup. My dad had no idea any of this was going on. Little violent scenes like this went on like this for years, I slowly began to shut down. When we moved to our new house things were even worse. The stress levels of both my parents increased as they were trying to finish a house while living in it.

I finally graduated into high school where I tried our for the Junior Varsity cheer leading squad, I failed to make it because my grades began to slip towards the end of my eighth grade year. I was devastated, but my older sister, who was a senior this year, encouraged me to try something new and join Colorguard.

Nobody Knows, The Trouble I’ve Seen..

So mom started working. And the stress began. Dad started a new job working construction and as you already know, he’s worked construction since he was born. As soon as he got to the country they had a completely different way of doing everything and “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. So dad started his own business. It was rather successful. Mom on the other hand could not keep a job if her life depended on it. Dad became overwhelmed with his work and his family life was pushed to the side. Meanwhile, my mother started drinking because of the stress of her first real job, she also became very abusive towards me. 

City Life Coming to an End.

Living in the city, my parents were fully dedicated to sheltering my brother, sister and I. Up until the fourth grade I was home-schooled by my mom. She was a completely steadfast and content lady being a stay at home mom. But one day she wanted to further her career and go to nursing school full time. She went, and I was off to public elementary school.

She passed with flying colors and succeeded till she earned a degree as an LPN. She felt it was too difficult to nurse in Miami seeing how she only spoke one language, so she encouraged my father to move to NC. This time, it worked and we moved. This is when the problems started happening. 

The view my Mom always wanted, and got

So close, yet so far away.

Contrary to popular belief, Rome wasn’t built in a day. When we first moved to the country, we bought plenty of property but no house. We rented an old farm house about five miles from the property. The house was the first house in the entire county to have electricity in it. It was on one hundred acres, had a creek, five bedrooms, and one and a half bathrooms. (Complete with tire swing in the back yard). The house was full of character but unfortunately, had no insulation whatsoever. My sisters’ and my bedrooms were upstairs (a converted attic) and in the summer it would get to 120 degrees and in the winter below zero.  It would cost hundreds to heat and cool this house,  but we had no where else to go. So bought a nice house and had it MOVED to our property, up our mountain and everything. It still needed work but dad worked on it as much as he could, dad’s quite the handy man.

When my dad was younger his parents got a divorce and it was hard times back in the day. His mother would make him and his sisters get naked on their beds and take beatings for hours at a time. They were seriously abused and I hope no one in my family ever reads this. My dad was a pretty messed up kid and got into selling drugs in school. Eventually he dropped out of school and just started selling hard core, until he turned seventeen and went to prison. About two years later he became a construction worker and a roofer and did that for several years. He worked to the top of that business and then worked for Miami elevator and, Turkey Point nuclear generating station. Dad has been all over and now has many skills to thank for it.

My mother had hard times herself growing up. Her biological father would hit her mother until they got divorced. After that, her mom got married seven different times. All the men in and out of her life scarred her. So when she got older, my mom got tired of living with her mother, and moved in with her adopted father. Even though he loved her very much, he had two children of his own and my mom became Cinderella. My mom dropped out of college and started getting into trouble her self. Eventually her and my dad met at a little church and fell in love. My mom worked at a grocery store native to Florida, Georgia and South Carolina known as Publix. She worked there through the pregnancy of my older sister, but when my older brother came nine months later she knew it was time to become a full time mommy.

It all started like this.

About five years ago my family and I moved from Miami Fl, to a small town in the boondocks of North Carolina. We were an average five person, middle class, public school going, American family. But it seemed when we moved from the city to bum —- Egypt, our lives took a sudden turn down “Dreary Lane”.

Like most Floridians, we moved to NC to get away from the high taxes, crime, and traffic that come hand in hand with living in a big city. My parents wanted a better life for their kids, and as soon as there were shootings in the middle school near our house, they knew it was time to leave. Twenty one years ago my parents eloped and shocked both their families, neither of the in-laws were pleased. Despite everything, they were happy and went on their very marry honeymoon to a wonderful place called North Carolina. My mother had been coming here since she was little with her aunt and the minute she found out my dad had never been, she knew it was where they would go. Ever since then,( twenty one years later) my mom had been begging my dad to buy her a log cabin with a wrap around porch that she could walk out on, sit, drink her coffee and enjoy a panoramic view of the mountains. It was her dream house, and my dad being the good husband that he was, drug himself from his family and the only way of life he knew to move to a completely new place. My mom got her dream house.