Growing up pt 2

Although I was close to my family, I was always closest to my mom & sister. It was the 3 of us all of the time so we were like best friends.

Growing up without a dad in the picture wasn’t really weird for me, it was just my life. I had the occasional every other weekend with him but never anything more than that. I always wondered what it would‘ve been like if we were closer. I bet he wondered that too. But there was just always this awkward gap that we didn’t know how to fill. He tried to fill it with candy and toys, and the gesture was very kind, but it never lasted too long. I think dad tried, he really did, and I tried too. I forgave him time and time again, but things didn’t seem to change.

I never stopped forgiving.

School

I grew up in a trailer right next to my grandparents in a very small town in Missouri. It consisted of one restaurant which also happened to be the only gas station/store. I went to the small school of Gasconade for what seemed like most of my life. It was pre-k through 8th grade and there were 64 kids, so when I say small, I mean really reeaalllyyy small.

Mom married Josh whenever I was in the 5th grade and we moved to Lebanon. Lebanon wasn’t a big town, but it always seemed that way to us. It was only about 30 minutes from Falcon so that was the closest place to go for everything. We went once a week for groceries, and then back again any time we needed to do literally anything at all. Moving to Lebanon was a big change. I attended Boswell, and there were nearly 300 kids my age rather that 10. the hardest part was going from knowing everyone to no one. Kaitlyn and I had to leave behind the best friends we’d ever had. The only friends we’d ever really had, Ady & Sadie.

Lebanon school was like a whole different world. I didn’t know everyone there, and I probably never would. I felt like an outcast. I tried to make friends but I was kind of shy. I never knew I was shy before..

But eventually I realized that I loved meeting new people, so I tried to branch out and do more things once I got in junior high. I joined both cheer and track, and I wasn’t too bad. Which surprised me because I’d never been involved in anything in my life. In highschool I quit both though. Not because I was bad at them, I just didn’t enjoy it anymore. Instead I enjoyed art and muisic.

I found my hobbies and I found great friends, so school became a bit more bearable. Don’t get me wrong though. I ALWAYS HATED SCHOOL! I hated being pressured to figure out my future. I hated studying for tests, taking the tests, and then forgetting everything. I hated that I never seemed to learn anything remotely important. I hated the popularity contests, and I hated comparison. Everything about school I just seemed to hate. (Except for the people of course) but at the end of the day, I’d get home from school and be back with my family, and all that dumb school stuff didn’t even matter anymore.

I never was the kind of girl who was interested in dating, that was until 7th grade. In 7th grade I got my first ever real boyfriend, and I fell hard. We were on and off again for nearly 4 years. But here I am now, talking about him in past tense so I’m sure you know we aren’t together anymore.

I didn’t have many friends before this year, it was mostly just him and I, but I liked it that way. It would be rude of my to pretend he didn’t exist, because he played possibly the biggest role in my life for a long time. But people grow apart, people move away, things happen, and that’s okay.

That’s life.

-tori💛