Dear Reader: This story is a small glimpse into my life at four years old.

PREFACE:
You may be currently thinking to yourself, “What can be so sad about the life of a four-year-old that a girl at age 13 still talks about it?”

Well, unfortunately a lot of things. Let's start when my parents were still together. My father was (and still is) an alcoholic and a workaholic. He would come home each night after painting houses and buildings ( his job) in a ball-cap,baggy paint-splattered jeans, and a used-to-be-baggy paint company shirt. He would grab a beer, and flop down on our leather couch to watch some television. 

Thinking back on my opinion of my father, I realise that as a child, we see in only black and white instead  of all the different shades of grey. My father is not a bad person, no, he is simply not yet ready to grow up, and in that, I had to grow up from a young age. My father was thirty-six ( I think) and my mother ( a 5’4”  courageous  strawberry-blonde with a quick witt, and a heart of gold) was only 29 when she realized she couldn't change him.

SALMONBERRY:
 

Middle School. The time in your life when deodorant is non-existent, and everything is awkward. My name is Lucy Blue and I am in Seventh-Grade. I moved here from Olympia, Washington and am currently in my English class. Today we have to write in our “Writer’s Notebook” for ten minutes. It’s currently Tuesday, which I would usually be sour about, but tomorrow is the beginning of Thanksgiving Break! 

But before I go forward, let’s go back to Oly. When I was four years old, my mom left left my dad, her money, her house, and her life behind, and only took me with her. I used to be mad at her about it, until I actually got to know my father. You see, my dad is an alcoholic, manipulative,jerk. It is for these reasons my mom left him. He used to work all day, come home, and get drunk. So, we left! We moved into a little two-room cottage on the water. The cottage was baby-blue with grey trim, had a beautiful front yard filled with luscious green tall grass.The back/side yard was mainly bracken, but had a small patch of Salmonberries. My mother had to work three jobs and go to school, just to pay the bills.  Unfortunately, the house had house mold (which I am allergic to) and mice. Due to the mold, i became asthmatic, and I frequently had to use an inhaler.

When I was four, I was tall for my age, with orangey-red hair, a ton of freckles, and blue-grey-green eyes. I  was a bit “chubby” and  was obsessed with four things aside from my parents and outer-space. Those things were Spider-man, Theodore Roosevelt ( my teddy-bear), the color pink, and sugar.

The last one led to the whole “ chubby “ thing. While my mom was taking a nap, I would grab a bucket of sherbet, Jif peanut-butter, syrup, my Spider-man blanket, and a spoon, sit down in front of the computer ( we didn't have a T.V., even then ) and watch Spider-man, Betty Boop, or some kind of animated something. Because of this habit, I began to feel self-conscious about my weight. The self-consciousness turned into self-loathing. Even at four years old, I would look into the mirror and tell myself I wasn’t good enough. That the reason that my dad would ignore me was because I wasn’t skinny enough, or pretty enough. To this day, I still think those things in the back of my mind. Even though I know it’s not true, I still hear those things whispered to me.  I would look into the mirror and even slap myself

Whenever I was at my dad’s house, he would either be on some dating website, be drinking, or getting high with pot. One time he even forced me to have a sip of his Ice-House Light. He taught me to light a lighter at five years old, and a match at six years old. He would tell me that my mother was trying to keep him away from me, he tried to make it seem as if the people who loved me were against me, or weren’t good people. He even made it seem as if my only best friend (Eve then, Crea now) wasn’t a good person, and that she thought I was annoying, and he said that he didn’t approve of her.

There didn’t seem to be an end to the chaos, until my aunt Wendy died. My mother was devastated and cried for a very long time. I still remember the time I was there, or at least a fragment of cream walls here, and a shard of new york snow globes there.  I tried to comfort my mom as much as a four year old can, I even made her breakfast-in-bed the next day ( my first shot at it). It consisted of eggs and Bisquick pancakes. I had forgotten to add butter to the pan before I had cracked the eggs into it, and the pancakes were a bit burnt, but I tried, and mom ate them anyways.

A few months after that, the swine flu ( a terrible flu that is fatal to children under the age of six ) came to town and JUST OUR LUCK  I happened to get it. I survived ( obviously ) but my mom was very scared, and the flem from it had collected in my ears and wouldn’t leave. This was the lead up to my first surgery. I had to get my tonsils, and adenoids out, as well as have tubes put in my ears, and it wouldn’t be cheap. We were barely  able to pay for food as it was, so my mom took out college loans, and is still paying them off.  Keep in mind, I still had the issues with my dad and my mental-health.  The surgery went smoothly, and I soon had a very small piece of straw keeping a small incision in the wall between my eardrum and the rest of my ear.

My father continued to manipulate me until age 12, when I moved to California, and I no longer talk to him.  In the end, I think it will be a good thing. I may update but this was only one year of my life. Thank you for reading.

-Lucy