Time part 1

Have you ever noticed when something truly great is happening in your life suddenly, without thought we spin into realizations of expectation and belief?Like love, something occurs that makes you think about your mortality. How many time's we feel this paradigm shift is countless- if we are lucky enough to experience life in all of its greatness whispering in our ear " oh yeah, don't forget this won't  last forever."You can fall into the abyss of sadness or in the spacious profundity of all your mind tries to articulate, whatever happens, there is of no fault in how it will touch you.I remember distinctly the first time it really hit me.( I share a little more with you now,)  knowing my friends inside my computer really are seeing a side of me I rarely share, yet you have been so supportive and genuine it does not hurt anymore to tell secrets in my heart, no longer secrets when read by you.So, to go back a little my heart has been screaming and also made silent for most my life that I can remember.To get to the part of feeling my mortality through love I must begin by telling you the opposing feeling, hating life- confused, unloved and alone. What I can remember is like a sort of slide show with some lines occasionally placed here and there, for most of it is a feeling my body and soul have been branded by.I was usually left alone, my brother and sisters where several years older so I never had the joy of playing with my siblings, I would collect pussy willows, creating these little happy worlds in which they where the players and I the designer so to speak. A tin lid would magically become a swimming pool for them, a cork would be a stool for them to sit a top and so on.While at the same time I could remember my 2nd oldest sister in the back ground saying "how do I look?" I thought she was so beautiful and I distinctly remember telling her she looked like a hippy in her denim beanie and bell bottomed jeans to which she replied "great, I am going to the J-5 concert tonight and I have to look just right" rushing out she left to see Micheal, Tito and Jermaine as I was left to my own devices. Soon after I turned 9 and my whole life would take another huge shift. The best most special memories of my life took place in Monterey California, living close to Denis the Menace park and Fisherman's Wharf. I may have been left alone a lot but my two best girlfriends Jerrie Lynne and Donna were always their for me. The downside to playing I can now recall was sitting on the stoop waiting for a gun fight to break out. My mom was a cop you see and married to a Sargent Major in the army, her husband my step dad was a huge muscle bound guy who spoke delicately with a lisp and was one of the few men who did not try to interfere with my sisters or I. At this time of mom's marriage she also had 2 other boyfriends one a nature nut and one a trained sniper. Yes, life was this colorful and true, you can't make this stuff up. Alas everyone except the nature guy of course had a gun, guns where quite prevalent in my life- sitting on the coffee table or on my moms dresser. So, back to the stoop, or five red painted cold cement stairs in front of our place on park Ave Monterey, I would sit on those stairs rocking myself back and fourth, listening for each car, keeping guard, a job I was not asked to do but felt forced to if I did not want my mom to get shot. For inside our lovely house would be my mother and say boyfriend 2 who had just told me to go outside as they went about there business. I was more than happy to go out and get away from those two only I had to keep my post. Head looking left than right and left again- where was my step dad? he had a 38, would he show up? Tell my mom " I bought you this house and you are in here with this guy?" next I imagined shots would ring out and at the core of it would be my mothers demise, I couldn't let that happen, so I would sit out front rocking, looking both directions, listening for every car  and spending my day securing the perimeter. Looking back Don would not have used his gun I am sure of that, my mother I am not so sure about. Alas at this point in my life I began to realize how impermanent we all can be. Next we would move from small town Monterey to Las Vegas in a heartbeat, the beach no longer a short happy walk a way nor a bed room view of lemon and plum trees a lawn and quaint houses. That will always be the first thing I remember upon arriving in Las Vegas, opening my bedroom window to look out and see the next apt building less than 6 feet a way.My mom she tried to make the journey fun, she would NOT tell me where we where moving to, she would only say you will love it, it has a surprise there something you love and never see in Monterey. I could not imagine what that was but I had to try since we had just driven out of sight of my best friend and my dog left behind and my heart was aching so hard. The whole 20 hour drive she would say how happy this surprise thing would make me, oh how I wanted to believe that. Okay, okay, so the big surprise when I arrived? We drove by it on our way to our new home it was a 711, yes so sadly a 711, a bit of a disappointment I must say, she thought I would be happy about the chance at having a slurpy instead of having to go to Seaside or Salinas to find one, since they have building designations in Monterey which forbade 711's or anything that did not fit with the towns waterfront beauty.So, that earlier part I mentioned about the opposing feelings of hate confusion and being alone, they would all come into view in my frontier, but do not get me wrong, I would not take back any of it, another huge lesson- as all of this would be my development which was necessary to my growth and what formulated.Raising a child in sin city is already a difficult thing let alone having a mother who would find herself on the fast track to becoming a hardcore gambler. I say hardcore not because she was rich, but because she would gamble every last cent, she divorced the Sergeant Major and decided to go with the sniper guy and soon we were getting evicted every month, no power, no phone, no school lunch. Soon a welcome person would enter this would be my beloved sister Evon. She stayed in Montery my other sister would be abandoned at 15 in Montery and my brother was put in a foster home and my mom never took him back. I do not know where he is of now. So, Evon came back and she brought someone new into our lives my nephew, 1st nephew ever and my first child as well. Since Evon walked into a debt ridden household she had to work immediately, my mom had several jobs and her boyfriend was now a casino security guard. Justin and I would spend a lot of time together and this would teach me how to try to be  a mother at 15.I still have yet to explain my original focus of this story, our realization of mortality- however I must now re-coop, as this has drained me more than I thought it would.With this in mind I will have to entitle this time part 1.Its kinda raw, its very personal for me, like a public diary- so get to know me if you don't like it or can't handle it delete me cause this is who I am what I am and what I have been and I hope you still like me, and always remember this:" The dead take with them only that which they have given away."