It didn’t take long for my sister to get word that I did ketamine and decided she didn’t want us living there anymore. Even though I was distraught at the time, she was in every way justified for being that way.

TJ was able to stay behind and help my sister renovate the rest of the trailer. Chris and I decided to head back to Maryland for an opportunity to stay with his half sister’s mother, Donna’s house and his teenaged sister Delana. Donna owned a drywall company called T&D Drywall and offered him a full time position and I worked a couple times with him, too.

Looking back on it I wish we never went back to Maryland. When it comes to heroin, Chris was never able to stay sober long while there. He was so weak that being in Salisbury was the equivalent to being a kid in a candy store. Heroin was way too readily available and he had endless contacts from his fast to get them from.

It wasn’t maybe a week before we had a steady drug dealer or three that we could buy from depending on who was available and who could drive it out to us. Not before long we were shooting up four or five times a day, staying consistently high the entire day.

This was still really early in my addiction. Getting high with Chris was fun. It turned into some of the most intimate, affectionate and loving times for us. Heroin made me never want to take my hands off of him and he the same to me. He made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world – the only woman he had eyes for.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

It wasn’t before long that Donna started noticing a change in our behavior and we started to burn some bridges and spoiling opportunities. She didn’t fire him but she didn’t want us to live under the same roof of her kids either, as any protective mom would do.

We crossed a line, bringing drugs into her home, around her children. She even found a syringe under the mattress after we left. We’re honestly so lucky that things ended the way they did.

We moved into a house owned by an adorable gay couple. There was Mike, a man in his 40’s that used to be an erotic dancer in his past life and Phil, a man in his 50’s that resembled a Hobbit and collected antiques and worked at Macy’s. They love blaring Adele and Taylor Swift at the crack ass of dawn while getting ready for work.

They lived in a beautiful Victorian home right on Park Ave near downtown. We rented out two of their upstairs rooms. One room, for lounging had vintage gay porn hanging in the walls and the other room for sleeping was entirely decorated with pink flamingos.

We were in too deep with the heroin at that point and if we stopped using we’d get incredibly sick, so we didn’t stop.

I became best friends with our drug dealer, Liz and while Chris was at work I’d ride around with her all day so I could shoot up when Chris wasn’t around, I’d bring shots so him while he was at work but I wasn’t honest about the amount of heroin I was actually using.

Liz came over one day while Mike and Phil were at work and she had a much stronger batch than we were used to. Chris let me do my shot first, which was probably the last time he ever did that, because within moments I fell out. I have my very first overdose.

Next thing I know I’m lying half naked in a bath tub. Chris hovering over me with a look of absolute panic on his face and Liz in the doorway with a useless, shocked expression on hers. Those were the looks of two people who thought i was going to die.

Not five minutes later Chris and Liz do their shots and Chris falls down the stairs, busting his face and Liz is slumped over in a chair with the needle still sticking out of her bicep.

After bringing in the new year it was becoming evident to everyone except us that we were on our last leg and it wasn’t before long that Chris finally lost his job at T&D Drywall. We were stealing antique nutcracker dolls from Mike and Phil and selling them to a man who buys antiques and costume jewelry.

We were a set of untrustworthy, thieving junkies.

So, I called up my dad who was living in Colorado and he agreed to take us in, not knowing of my new found addiction to heroin and Donna paid for our bus tickets to get there.

We experienced some record breaking, almost impossible to get through, excruciating withdrawals. It shouldn’t be humanly possible to be that uncomfortable experiencing so much physical pain from simply not taking a substance anymore but on a 56 hour long bus ride from Salisbury MD to Pueblo CO we withdrew from heroin

It’s not like I shot up heroin that one time and immediately it took over my life. No, I shot up heroin in the garage that day and then a few days later we snorted some and had a fun day shopping at the Salisbury Mall, and then that was it for a while.

Not too long after I hopped on a Greyhound bus after reaching out to my sister and finding out that she took over the mortgage for the Moon Lake house where we grew up. She needed some help after the last tenants left it in shambles. I was leaving early and in a month or so Chris and TJ promised they’d follow close behind.

Spending a month apart from Chris felt like I was going to snap. I didn’t realize how truly codependent I had become towards him. I didn’t want a moment to go by that he wasn’t replying to a text or answering a phone call.

While in Florida, away from Chris I’d drive from Moon Lake to Elfers whenever time permitted it and I spent hours busting out drywall with my bare hands, black mold everywhere. I tore down the window and frame in my old bedroom because the wood was rotting out. I wanted to accomplish as much as I could as quickly as I could. And I didn’t care how much additional damage I’d cause in the process. I definitely should have waited til it was last to bust out that back window.

That month apart seemed like an eternity. Spending my nights at Eddie’s (Evelyn’s), getting my picture taken by her and sending saucy photos to Chris. Video chatting every chance I could and most of all worrying that something bad was going to happen to Chris while I was away, not being able to do anything about it. That was literally always my concern revolving around Chris.

But, before I knew it he and TJ found someone on Craigslist’s ride share that was willing to drive them from Hebron all the way to New Port Richey.

They spent one night at Evelyn’s and the next day my sister dropped us all off in Moon Lake where we were to stay the duration of our visit.

We got a ton of stuff done while we were in Florida. They replaced parts of the roof when the new plywood and shingles. We replaced so much drywall, it seemed the more we replaced the more pieces still needed to be hung. We had spare drywall all over the house and we were constantly finding more little projects to start.

My sister even scored some super awesome bamboo slat flooring that we started laying down in the dining room and living room. Everything was going well until one night we were all bored so we reached out to an old friend of mine from high school and scored some ketamine. Little did I know, this person was also pretty good friends with my sister Camille.

The three of us had a fun time slipping in and out of a K hole

Winter quarters for the carnival consisted of a huge lot filled with broken and running carnival rides and food trucks as well as bunkhouses for the big and small show. I was given the grand tour then we hopped in the back of a heavy duty pickup truck, the kind big enough to tow one of the rides. We were going to Woodbridge, VA which was home of one of my favorite models Zui Suicide

I soon got acquainted with my new game supervisor, Terry Harris. Terry had lived on the road for many many years. She raised her family on the road. Her two sons Mikey and Keifer and her husband Bill. Her daughter and law and other son got in an accident the year before or I’d have met them, too.

My game was called the fishy fish. A game meant for children under the age of 5, you take a magnetic fishing pole and catch little magnetic fish in a small kiddie pool. Always a winner, pick any prize. Chris was assigned to multiple rides but I specifically remember him working Zero Gravity.

I set up mine and Terry’s game and immediately started working that day. Woodbridge went by really quickly and before I knew it we were already tearing it down and heading to Camden, NJ.

“I can play the game all night, right”, is what a heavy set old black lady asked as she slipped a decent amount of pills down the front of my apron. I didn’t know how to respond, so I did as little responding as I could. I just let her play my game all night. I let her wild little grand babies fish their little hearts out and they were able to collect every prize I had to offer. And that lady came back to play my game every night that week, bringing more pills with her every time.

Chris was absolutely ecstatic to have me come back to the bunkhouse at the end of the night to unload a bunch of Percocet and Xanax. I always tell people the first time I used drugs, I shot up. I always forget about my little time I had at the carnival snorting free pills from my apron. I had a line of carnies looking to find me to try and buy some after the word got out.

This was the first time I realized Chris may have had a drug problem before I met him.

And the problem didn’t end in Camden. The combination of Percocet and Xanax put me into a seizure which scared the shit out of Chris and I. And on top of all that, the big old black lady from Camden followed the carnival for three more towns before we were finally too far to follow. I was helping her sell to the carnies and Chris was spending his whole check on some more. That lady had to have at least 2 or 3 of every inflatable we had to offer but for some reason her grandbabies sure loved fishing, they were overjoyed with the simplicity of catching a fish with a magnet in a small kiddie pool.

When we ran out of drugs, I saw a side of Chris that I’ve never seen anyone have before. He just became like a small child being told no. He just walked off his ride, crying literal tears because he was no longer able to continue getting high. I was lucky enough to find a lonely Xanax in my pocket and convince him to get back to work. He regained his composure but upon returning to his ride he twisted his ankle.

It’s not the first time I could see what drugs can do to a person.

We spent the rest of the time out on the road  back to our normal and sober selves. We traveled all up and down New Jersey. I specifically remember going to a gorgeous little town called Ramsey, covered in flowers and floral trees. Not only that but it’s the town that Chris picked me a little dandelion off the side of the road and just as he helped me make a wish and blew off all the seeds a truck filled with his coworkers drives by poking fun.

Or the town we worked at outside of the Paramus mall where we bought some cool new Nike shoes at

Everyday that I spent with Chris I fell in love with him just a little bit more. That new relationship bliss you have, that mixed in with the exhilaration of being in a new town every week. It was indescribable. The more I learned about him, the more I fell in love.

The week of my birthday Chris was caught by one of my coworkers sneaking off to be with another girl, a townie. I was going to leave him right then and there, I even packed up everything I owned and got myself shit faced drunk with April and Red and a few of the other girls from the show. They all woke him up in the middle of the night pretending like they were going to fuck him up for me. They cheered me up and I spent the night in Eddie, the Janitor’s, Jeep.

The next day after he literally begged me on his knees to stay, I did l. We stayed working for the carnival until right before the 4th of July at Asbury Park and took the Lewes Ferry from Cape May to Lewes DE. Chris’ heterosexual life partner, Kevin Althouse, picked us up from the ferry and drove us to their hometown, Hebron which was right outside of Salisbury in Maryland.

They just drop me off at Chris’ step dad, Mike’s house. An hour or so later Chris comes back, stumbling out of the car and proceeds to vomit profusely under the tree in the front yard with all his brothers having a clear shot of the shit show he brought home.  They were so disappointed. I didn’t know what was going on.

He seemed delirious, almost drunk. I may not have known what was going on but his brothers did. He was high on heroin. All his brothers witnessing him on the verge of an overdose with his strange girlfriend looking lost and confused at the doorstep. I can’t imagine what was going through their minds. I didn’t know what a person on heroin looked like.

I brought him inside to the bathroom and he puked until he couldn’t anymore. I helped him into the tub and I bathed him while he kissed me and touched me all over telling me repeatedly how beautiful I was an how much he loved me. Eventually, he got to the part where he shot up heroin with his friend Kevin.

Heroin?!? Heroin is almost like a bad word, like it leaves this strange feeling in your gut just thinking about it. The idea of heroin genuinely scared the shit out of me. The name alone is enough for anyone to be like, “wow, no! I’d never touch that”

But, the next day Kevin and his wife Kristen come by with their kids for a pool party and even though I was scared and even though just the thought of doing a drug as powerful and addicting as heroin, it’s like I just needed to know.

I needed to know why my dad always chose drugs over his kids. Why Chris was choosing drugs now. Why this specific drug was taking the lives of so many and what could it possibly feel like to cause so much harm. How something could make you throw everything away in life just so you can feel instant euphoria.

So, I shot up some heroin.

Heroin was the best feeling I ever felt in my entire life. It felt so good everywhere. The euphoria was indescribable. I had to spend the entire day in the pool because if I got out I’d immediately start puking. The time we spent in that pool is a feeling I’d never truly experience ever again.. but, one of those memories that will always stick by me.

It’s like Chris was the only thing in the entire world. I loved him more on that day then any previous day. It felt like we were connected at a whole different level and I wanted to feel this way forever.

There was something about being in the open water on a boat. We spent the next few nights in each other’s company, watching the ever so beautiful sunsets and rises being with the perfect person. I told him I wanted to pack my bags and run away with him and he said yes!

I drove straight to Port Richey to the house I was living at with Tiffany. I found an old traveling backpack in my dad’s old camping gear and I filled it up, taking only a few of my sentimental items. Though Tiffany was very clearly upset with me leaving, she didn’t seem particularly surprised by my decision.

By the time I was ready to drive back to Chris his brother and I had taken a bus to Homestead because their mother had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend and she was arrested for domestic violence.

Things not going according to plan seemed like a normal occurrence for these two. They decided we would be spending the winter in the Ocala National forests which would make for the perfect timing to attend the annual Ocala Rainbow Gathering. We made our way to Astor, FL and drove my car deep into the woods until we found a good camp site and pitched our tents.

Those were some pretty magical nights of playing Uno, making love under the stars and learning one another in every capacity. I used to write in my journal every day so I could remember the beauty in getting to know each other.

Once the Gathering was starting to get set up, we moved out camp closer to what they referred to as Welcome Home. Welcome Home was a long entryway lined with old head hippies who welcomed all attendees to the subcamps which were Good Morning, Vietnam! that served pancakes and make black drop coffee in the morning. There was another camp that had beautiful topless women serving shroom tea and another one filled with schwilly kids (dirty kids who drank and used drugs) and my absolute favorite Mama and the Babies which was a more laid back and less troublesome atmosphere.

We set up our camp between Welcome Home and Mama and the Babies and we referred to it as Hydration Station. Every day or so I’d drive into town and fill up massive water jugs or mini water buffalos so we could help hydrate passerbys water to and from camps.

Chris and I didn’t really venture out much. We entertained guests, played a ton of Uno, watched programs with TJ on our little phones. The air was crisp, the nights excruciatingly cold. It wasn’t uncommon for Chris and I to decide, “fuck this” and warm up in the car.

It took me until Valentine’s Day because I was too shy and unsure of myself. But, I finally got the courage enough to ask Chris if I was his girlfriend. I wrote the question to him in a notebook like I was in high school and he replied, “well, duh!”

We got our tax returns not too long after that. I claimed Michael on my taxes and got a nice little chunk of change back. We were getting pretty burnt out from being in Ocala and decided to head to Denver, CO to stay at a commune in the city.

Chris’ brother TJ, spent years previous to me meeting him as a train hopping, dirty crust punk. Hitchhiking across America and hopping on and off trains as they passed by.  He had this plan where we’d be spending the bare minimum on gas on our way out west by doing something called gas jugging. Gas jugging is when you park your car outside of a busy gas station like a Pilot or Love’s with an empty gas can and collect donations. I’m not going to lie I was rather pessimistic about it myself, but sure enough I barely came out of pocket for gas our entire trip.

Marti Gras 2015 was on February 17 and we just happened to drive by as it was popping off so we decided to make a pit stop. We walked throughout downtown and made our way to Bourbon Street where Chris ordered him and I the famous Grenade drink. We peed down alleys and after finalizing my investigation of the city I let TJ drive us out of there because I was feeling the buzz.

We slept in Walmart parking lots because they’re the safest places to sleep overnight with all their security cameras and heavily lit parking lots. TJ would always take his sleeping bag and sleep outside since they were below 0 sleeping bags, even in the snow all the way to Albuquerque, NM.

Right at the New Mexico/Colorado border my car decided it was time to take a shit on us. On the highway, stranded I came up with the brilliant idea to call AAA and have them tow us to Denver — 300 miles. I was allowed to get towed 100 miles a day and 300 miles total. So day one we spent in Pueblo, day two in Colorado Springs and then our final destination to Denver. It worked out perfect!

In Denver, we stayed in a duplex type of home with a large basement the size of the whole house. I was able to junk my car for $250, without the title. In the house we had CJ and Terrance upstairs with Scrawberry and Laura Love who was pregnant and her little toddler, Tranquil running around. Down in the basement was a makeshift bedroom for Chris and I, TJ, two other hippy guys, the young lesbian couple and the young southern runaway couple that had a baby on the way. In the duplex over we had the other Laura with her two little girls and the owner. We definitely had a full house. It was snowing outside with small blizzards every few days.

This is where I learned how to panhandle. We used the money from my taxes and from scrapping my car to pay for our room and board and marijuana habit. I’d hold signs that read, “betcha can’t hit me with a cheese burger” and “hungry, broke traveling folk” and I had the time of my life

One morning there was a bunch of commotion upstairs in the bathroom. There was apparently someone, unresponsive in the bathroom, locked inside. Both of the pregnant ladies had already been waiting a long time before deciding to grab some help. From outside the porch Skrawberry cracked open the bathroom window and weaseled himself inside.

One of the cute lesbian dirty kids from down in the basement had shot up heroin and laid motionless and her body the shade of blue I will never be able to forget.

Chris and I jumped into action, he hurried and called 911 and I ran over to attempt CPR. As I squeezed her nose and blew a forceful breath into her lungs, I felt the air escaping her once compressions started. She was dead, and probably had been for a while now. I couldn’t save her, no one could. Her blue, lifeless body and the sound of the air escaping her as the air I pushed into her immediately billowed out of her, as fast as I pushed it in. That memory will never leave me.

I believe this was the first real traumatic event in my adult life. I spent days afterwards experiencing intense panic attacks and crying spells. Laura, the mother of the two girls nextdoor performing crystal therapy and white magic to cure my anxiety.

Chris and I decided it was time for us to move on and we started planning our way back East to join the carnival that he worked for before he met me

In April of 2015 we took a Greyhound bus to Florence SC where Amusements of America held their winter quarters.

“It’s a frightening thought, that in one fraction of a moment, you can fall in the kind of love that takes a lifetime to get over.”

I was pushing 240lb and just started to find a femininity within myself and Chris knew exactly how to make me feel gorgeous. He made lustful comments about my voluptuous lips and always reminded me about the curve revealing panda dress I wore on the night we met.

November 19, 2014 was the day I met my soulmate. We spent a good hour or so just walking aimlessly around the Tarpon Springs sponge docks. We just talked and got to know one another. He came off so mysterious, charming and sophisticated by this mystical mystery man from Maryland.

He just left Salisbury, Maryland the year before and traveled with the carnival with his older brother. I, instantly, wanted to know everything about him. He bought a strawberry cheesecake from Hellas Cafe for his brother Terry (TJ) and I smoked a blunt with him in the Publix parking lot before sharing a long, passionate simple kiss.

At that moment I fell completely and utterly in love with him.

He didn’t make it easy for a girl falling head over heels to keep up with. He and his brother rented a room out in the ghetto of St Petersburg, FL and I was able to move out of Michael’s mom’s house and into a room at Tiffany’s new house off of Ridge and Congress. I started working for Circle K and every moment I wasn’t stuck working I’d make the 45 minute drive out to see him

We met up at Starbucks and I had my first ever coffee from there and he’d always remind me of how jittery and geeked out I got on it. We’d go back to his tiny room and cuddle on the make shift bed on the floor made out of old couch cushions.

It didn’t take long before the house they rented the room from got raided by the police. TJ got arrested for possession of marijuana and they weren’t able to find the wax I sold them. After I picked TJ up from the police station they decided it would be best if they left the state.

I eagerly volunteered to drive them up there, determined to spend as much time as possible with Chris. After dropping them off I assumed I’d never see him again.

And I tried desperately to move on from my heartbreak. But, it wasn’t long before I was hearing from him again. He called to see if I could pick him up from Georgia and drop him off in the Ocala National forests. Something told me I wouldn’t be saying goodbye to him for a while now.

When I got there I got the surprise of meeting Chris and TJ’s mother, Malinda. She had a falling out with a guy she was seeing and she was just a few miles down the road. The adventurous lifestyle certainly ran in the family.

I spent most every day that I didn’t have to work driving up to the Ocala National forests — sleeping under the stars and falling absolutely in love with him. Memorizing, staring, listening and being completely in awe of him. There wasn’t a single thing about him I didn’t adore, he was perfection in my eyes

Before I knew it they had come up with a new plan to get to Islamorada in the Florida Keys, so I brought them.

My father got released from prison just as I was entering Middle School at Gulf Middle. I immediately moved in with him to beacon woods on Ogalala Street. My brother and sister stayed behind with my mother. Not long after I moved in with him, my father met his next wife- Audrey. My codependent behavior really wasn’t having their relationship. I was monstrous in my attempts to break them apart leading to their eventual marriage on February 14, 2004.

During my teen years I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome. Irregular periods, uneven weight gain, facial hair, gender confusion and an almost inability to be able to conceive a child. It’s a hormonal issue that affects testosterone levels making them higher than my estrogen levels. After going through many phases growing up I was always suffering from a lot of uncertainty about who I was. There was my Eminem phase, my goth Hot Topic phase, my super punk rock phase then my hippy phase. I never knew who or what I wanted to be. I drilled myself into the church, I joined the Christian club in school, I attended Bible study and went on summer camps dedicated to God.

Right around my senior year in high school I think is when I started showing signs of bipolar disorder. I was so incredibly impulsive, and very easily peer pressured because more than anything I wanted people to like me. Anthony Marra, a friend I went to middle school made his way back into my life during my senior year, along with Scott Show, Anthony Scott and Jorge Alverado. I was listening to feminist punk rock, sporting a multicolored mohawk and stinky patch covered black skinny jeans. I stopped showing up for church events and I was learning new things in a life full of drinking beer, smoking pot and saying, “Fuck the System – Equality for All!”

I graduated high school May 23, 2009 and I was enrolled and starting classes before my 18th birthday. My mom worked as an admissions representative for ITT Technical Institute in Tampa where she managed to convince all three of us kids to sign up for an Associates degree program for Visual Communications aka graphic design.

I’d go back and forth from Brandon, where my mom’s boyfriend Tom was letting us all live while we were in school back to Moon Lake where all I wanted to do was drink Natural Ice and Sailer Jerry smoking a fat Game blunt with my friends. Scott was renting a room from my dad and all my friends lived in my house or were there pretty much every day.

I lost my virginity when I was 18 to one of my best friends in a very raunchy vomit covered disgusting session in the back of a closet in my sister’s old bedroom. I remember Biggie Smalls – Juicy playing in the background. Just a few short weeks later I got my first refund check from funds not spent by the Pell grant. It was over $2,000 and I used that money to drop out of school and to move into a shed in Tiffany’s parents front yard while I went to Marchman Tech for Screen Printing.

I remember being so scared. I came home from school one day and no one was home and the house was all locked up. My stomach was in excruciating knots and I started bleeding from my snatch. I passed out, I’m not sure if it was the blood or the pain or if I just had such a bad panic attack I didn’t know how to handle it. When Tiffany’s parents came home her mom knew I had a miscarriage. I was made to call my mom, pack my shit and leave. So I did.

I got back into ITT Tech to finish my degree and I only went home weekends when I wasn’t in class. I’d get black out drunk and pass out in weird places, I’d numb myself from the feelings I felt my whole life of just being completely out of place and to fit in nowhere. I had friends, I finally had a group of people who made me feel loved and wanted. And it was a great feeling.

I was able to get a car and moved to Shady Hills with Anthony and Jorge while I worked and continued going to school. It wasn’t shortly after that when I met Michael Joseph Russell. He was weird and I was weird so naturally everyone thought we’d be a good couple. It was no time before he convinced me to move in with him at his mother’s house in Spring Hill.

Michael was locally famous in Spring Hill and still is to this day for his sign holding, head banging, show that he does on the street corners of Mariner and Spring Hill Drive. He liked to lick people’s faces and be so off the wall that he managed to get the attention from everyone. Good or bad. I had been so fat and awkward that he was the very first person I ever really dated. I was surprised and thrilled to not feel like I’d be staying alone forever. Michael and Kati Brand became the only two people I hung around with. I stopped drinking and just smoked my weed and I stayed out of trouble. I drove to school and I came home or went to Kati’s to tend to the horses or the garden. My life felt great. Nice and simple.

I graduated from ITT Tech around May of 2012. Not long after I graduated my father got me and Michael a traveling circus job for Piccadilly Circus based out of Sarasota Florida. We’d travel all over America just a week or so ahead of the show and plaster posters and hand out free kid’s tickets. Wed even get a few adult tickets to barter for food, tattoos, movie tickets or whatever else we could get our hands on. We drove all the way to New Hampshire and Maine then all the way to Colorado and South Dakota. It was the adventure of a lifetime! On September 24, 2012 I married Michael in Denver, CO. I don’t think I married him out of love, maybe it was to piss my parents off or maybe it was just another nonsense impulse decision I make so often in life but we got hitched. Shortly after we married we were let go and we headed back home to his mom’s in Spring Hill.

Our relationship was pretty much like hanging out with a good friend. We didn’t like the same music, but we definitely enjoyed watching programs and movies. Most days were spent just sitting outside under the garage with our laptop watching something while I rolled a few fatties to smoke. I got a job working seasonally for Spirit Halloween and I enrolled myself into school at a local Medical Career school for the associates in Medical Assisting. I still went and saw Kati at the farm with her son Sebastian and I was feeling so content in life.

My grandmother, Dana died from double lung cancer on December 17, 2013 right after my sister and I went to visit her. Grandma was a huge part of my childhood. She was the reason we had a birthday and Christmas to look forward to presents and she’d cook an incredible Thanksgiving meal. She bought the house in Moon Lake for my dad to raise us in and always made sure her grandbabies were taken care of. The first loss I ever experienced in life.

In or around October 2014 Michael and I decided it was time to split up. I had lost all interest in being in a relationship with him and became downright mean to him on a regular basis and every other day I was picking a fight with him. I didn’t like the person I was when I was with him. But, I hadn’t anywhere to go so I continued to live at his mother’s house til the end of November. When we split up I helped Michael set up a dating profile and not long after I ended up making myself on on OkCupid.

One of the very first people to message me was a gorgeous man named Chris Willey who spoke of traveling and carnivals and adventures I could only dream of.

November 19, 2014. This is the most influential date of my lifetime, or maybe that’s June 10, 2023. It was the day my life changed for better or for worse, or whatever they say. No, that’s not the day I got married, but it may as well have been.

November 19, 2014 is the day I fell in love at first sight with Christopher Ryan Willey (WILL-Lee). He would have wanted me to put emphasis on the pronunciation of his last name.

I’ll give a little background on me. I was born on a Friday, June 14, 1991, as Alexandria Christine Taylor. I was raised by my mom, Sheila, a true badass hippy lady who didn’t take shit and my dad, Leroy,  a marijuana advocate musician that struggled with addiction and has a strong faith in Jesus.

The youngest of three with my sister, Camille, the artistic, quirky, intellectual middle child and my brother Daniel, the quiet, nerdy, intelligent oldest child. As far as families go, I believe we are all pretty close and have a rather unconventional, yet deep love for one another.

In my childhood years, the motto was ‘Never go a day without a hug’ and ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ We all vibe really well and bonding over a fat joint isn’t beyond us.

I met the best of friends any girl could dream of having as soon as I moved to Florida when I was 4. Her name was Tiffany Crystal Worman and I met her after my families very spontaneous, unplanned move from Dillwyn, VA because an undercover FBI agent was apparently investigating my dad for getting mailed hundreds of hits of acid from New York.

I met Tiffany in Van Doren Avenue in New Port Richey. Tiffany and I lived on the same street and her mom waitressed at the Denny’s my dad cooked at.

I did not want to be friends with her when I first met her. Pink bow, pink sparkly dress and matching sparkly Mary Jane’s against my disheveled long hair, oversized Pocahontas T-shirt and purple pants and I was either barefoot or my laces weren’t tied.

But, after our parents forced our friendship we immediately clicked.

She had everything I ever wanted from a family. A nice house, family portraits, lots and lots of toys! Tiffany and our families spent every holiday and birthday together. Her mom even got us season passes to Busch Gardens every year. We went through our phases of worshipping Eminem and The Used and I’d spend weeks at a time at her house like a second home, going to Youth Group and summer camps. We were inseparable.

I spent my younger years wondering about the swamps, feeding gators little frogs I’d find and coming home with a missing shoe.

Around age 6 I saw firsthand the fight that resulted in their eventual divorce. Looking back on it, I remember the pain in my mother’s eyes and her screams from all the years of being mistreated and cheated on. I saw it break her down until she couldn’t take it anymore.

I saw her lunge at my father with a boot horn and him back up and fell into the ironing board. But, I also remember my mom making me walk with her to the pay phone outside of the Big lots in the Southgate shopping center to call 911, she made me say I saw daddy hit mommy and he spent the night in jail.

I remember being so very little and having the police pull me Camille and Daniel to the side and ask us if we ever saw daddy hit mommy and us all say no and then ask if we ever saw them smoke something that smelled funny or wasn’t a cigarette and being trained at a really young age we all knew to say no.

When I was 8, as a means to fix their broken marriage, my parents decided to sell everything we owned and put the rest in storage. They bought an RV and we drove to New Jersey to spend some time with our cousin Megan, then hopped on a plane in New York City to London, England. I thought I was saying my very last goodbye to the most important person in my world, Tiffany.

We backpacked from London to Wales and took a ferry to Dublin where we spent Christmas Eve and Day. Then, we took a bus to Sligo and spent time up there with my Great Uncle Christi and got to see the town my maternal grandmother lived in. Ireland was absolutely incredible with the greenest grass a shade you weren’t even aware you could see, castles built in the sides of every mountain and sheep as large as buffalo.

We almost moved there for good but by the Grace of God something changed my parents mind, and we unpacked the shipping container and stayed in New Port Richey, Florida.

To no surprise, the efforts to save my parents marriage failed and as a result my father decided to take off, pursuing the life of a rock star and headed to Amsterdam to find his dream band. I remember the heart breaking feeling I had watching him leave on that greyhound bus. I thought I’d never see him again.

He was gone for a few months before flying into Miami and getting arrested for cocaine possession.

Driving 3 hours there and back just to have to see him through a glass window in the wall talking through a corded phone. Saying goodbye and holding our hands up to the window, pressing them up to one another through two-inch thick glass. I was a codependent daddy’s girl, and I was so hurt, seeing him in his blue jumpsuit every couple of months or so for almost a year.

My mom drank a lot back then. But, she had it rough raising 3 kids all about to go through puberty, fighting all the time, her working full time and paying all the bills herself while her party animal, drug using husband partied and traveled the world and ended up in jail. There’s no way I could have possibly done any better, but a kid remembers.

There were bad days like the time my brother sucker punched my sister and made her cry, so she grabbed him by the rat tail and slammed his face into the coffee table. Or the time I got in a bike accident and instead of taking me to the hospital my mom told me, and I will never forget “Suck it up and don’t bitch!” Meanwhile I’m staying at Tiffany’s and eating mashed potatoes and applesauce for months after. But, I still remind myself that mothering never came naturally for my mom.