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I was born in Roseville, CA in September of 2002 and not long after that my parents split up and got a divorce.  It was a rough divorce (from what I've heard) and I lived with my dad, but I would visit my mom for some holidays and on certain days of the week.  Both my mom and dad eventually got remarried when I was about 5 years old.  Everything was fun and good!

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When I was about 6 years old my older step sister, Zaryn, who was the daughter of my stepmom, Katherine, decided to leave our home to live with her dad. Whenever this happened all of us took it really personally since she just cut the whole family off, but it was really hard for Katherine because she felt it was her fault for Zaryn leaving. Overtime she started to act really mean and would fight with my dad a lot, it turns out that she became addicted to alcohol in order to cope with her pain. For many, many years my dad tried to help her but nothing ever seemed to work.

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Once things started to get really bad at home I started to focus more on things that involved me not being home.  I had played softball my whole life but I really started to gain a passion for the sport whenever I was in elementary school.  I would practice pitching with my dad every single day outside no matter what the weather was like and I soon became the best pitcher in my entire age group for my softball association. I dreamed to become an Olympic softball player when I grew up and then once I retired from that job I would go to school to become a Veterinarian and that was my life plan, if anyone were to ever ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up.

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When I was in the 6th grade my whole life drastically changed whenever I found out that my dad's job was going to be moving to Houston, TX. I was so nervous and scared because I didn't want to leave behind any of my friends that I had been close with my entire life and I didn't want to leave my family behind either. There was nothing that I could do that could keep us from moving so I just kept praying that it would at least be easy to make new friends and that I wouldn't get made fun of. During this time my stepmom also started to get worse with her addiction and she was just making it really hard for everyone around her to try and enjoy things.

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The first day of 7th grade I met Ashlyn and at first we both hated each other then over constantly walking home from school together and sitting next to each other in class we soon became really close and were inseparable.  Any moment that we had to spare was always spent by us hanging out in the lounge area of our apartments or having sleepovers and watching Netflix all night.  One day we both found interest in a show called Greys Anatomy and we soon fell in love with the medical field and swore to each other that we would go to school together to be nurses, be roommates as soon as we could afford it, go to medical school together, work as nurses together, and then once we had children we were going to force them to be best friends even if they hated it.  She was and always will be like a sister to me and has been there for me through thick and thin.  Again, during this time my stepmoms addiction had become the worst it had ever been, but my best friend was there to help me get through it and have fun doing stupid things that all teenagers do.

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By the time I was a freshman in highschool my stepmom had finally gotten the rehab that we knew she needed and everyone was so proud that she was in recovery. But even though she was recovering, I was still in a lot of hurt from all the things that she had done to me and our family over the many years. I took blame for a lot of it and would constantly beat myself up for it. Then one day my English teacher asked the class to write a poem about anything that has happened from the past that really took a big impact on your life and I decided to write about my stepmoms addiction and how it affected me. A few days after I had turned in my poem, she had just given the class an assignment and we all started to work on it and she called me to come talk to her in the hallway. At first I was scared because I thought I did something wrong or got in trouble but she gave me a big hug and told me that everything was going to be okay and that if she ever needed anything or anyone to talk to that she would always be there and to just go to her classroom to find her. This has stuck with me ever since then and even though I still struggle with feeling like it's my fault, I know that people are good and help others, not everyone is evil and does bad things like I have seen in the past.

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During my freshman year I started dating my first serious and official boyfriend, we dated for almost an entire year but broke up in early sophomore year for certain reasons.  After being in a relationship for so long I didn't know how to handle being alone so I rebounded quickly and that was one of my biggest mistakes in life so far.  I started dating a guy who was in the grade above me and we had some history so I knew how he was but I never realized the kind of person he truly was deep down inside.  It became toxic extremely quick and thankfully my parents stepped in and put an end to it.  For months after that I was severely depressed and felt alone and worthless because of how he treated me.  I took a little social media vacation and wasn't on any social media for about 5-6 months which was probably the best thing I could've ever done for myself at that time.  I started hanging out with my friends more and eventually I realized that I was so much better than this foolish boy and I could do so much better and as time went on I eventually stopped thinking about what could've been different and decided to grow and learn from what had happened even if it was very painful to go through in the moment.
P.S.- (The above picture is one of my best friends that I grew close to during this time)

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By the time I reached my junior year I was kind of done with softball. I still loved the sport so much and had a passion for it but I got accepted into the clinicals program at my school which is what I felt like I really needed to focus on at that time. Softball taught me so much in life and most importantly it taught me how to work as a team.

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Quarantine was such a struggle for everyone and it's was really hard for me and my mental health.  I have ADHD and anxiety so it really sucked being locked in the house all day long but I found a lot of new hobbies which made the experience somewhat more enjoyable.  It also showed me how much I don't like being cooped up in a room, I used to love being in my room all day, and now anytime I have a chance to get out and do something I run out the door.

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My senior year was a COMPLETE mess and was not what I expected at all.  A lot of stuff happened with my stepmom which resulted in a lot of complications and problems within the family, then I got a sucky job that paid really bad, Coronavirus hit, then quarantine followed that, and then my graduation happened but I didn't even get to go to it because I was stuck in California.  So much has happened and it's crazy to think about how much has changed too.  Feeling the reality of being an adult in the real world didn't actually hit me until about a month after I graduated high school when all of a sudden out of the blue reality just slapped me in the face. So ever since then, I've been trying to do all this grown-up stuff and now I understand why my parents are always stressed about thinks that I thought they shouldn't be stressing about.

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I think that a lot of the events that were recurring was having issues with my family and with my stepmom. That's always been a big issue for me and people around me that have been affected by it.

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Some really strong strengths that I have realized about my personality is that I seem to make a joke about anything even if it is really hurtful or sad to me.

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I think that all of these events are relevant and play a big role in my future because I mean they have basically been my life summed up in to little paragraphs.