Chapter One

I always thought there was some sort of significance behind me being born on a Friday.

Friday born people are said to be natural peacemakers that love spending time with friends and family and they have an eye for beauty and a talent for creating it.

I was born on Friday, June 14, 1991. The events that transpired on the day I was born have gotten so jumbled up throughout the years that I won’t even bother trying to recite them.

I do know that my parents were told I was going to be a boy and that I would be named Zachary and because of that they didn’t have a name picked out for me and I had left the hospital without a name. With the help of my grandmother days after my birth they settled on naming me Alexandria Christine Taylor and in honor of my grandmother and great Uncle, I would be called Christi.

My very first memory was of a house we lived in when I was a baby. I remember being held in my mother’s arms as she opened our front door onto a screened in porch, she took the next exit and made her way into the front yard. On one side of the yard was a gravel driveway and  on the other far side was a large shaded tree with an old hound dog, Ralph lying fast asleep underneath it. Beyond the tree and the driveway seemed to drop off like we were on the top of a very steep hill.

After reciting this memory to my mother she thought it impossible I could possibly remember that place because we had only lived there when I was a small baby.

We moved around a lot and when I was 2 or 3 we were moving into our new place and while my parents were unpacking the house I thought it best to wander off. Down the road I found an adorable little old lady with a large sunhat and a basket collecting Lima beans in her garden. Probably preparing to make some of her famous Lima bean soup. I walked right up to her, not shy in the slightest and started a conversation with her and helped her pick the beans.

It wasn’t before long that my parents were running up and down the road screaming my name. Grandma Milly, which is what I ended up calling the sweet old lady, took my hand and guided me to the road towards my mother’s voice. “Is this the little girl you’re looking for?”

While living at that house I spent every moment I could with Grandma Milly while my brother and sister were in school.

Around this same time my father was quite a big pot dealer and acid and cocaine supplier.

He went into work at the local restaurant one night and spent the night training a new hire to cook and at the end of the shift he was approached by one of the waitresses asking him what he did because that man was an undercover police officer. They were trying to bust my dad for trafficking drugs.

That’s when our family of 5 packed up all our stuff the very next day and drove down to what I call my hometown of New Port Richey, Florida.