Home | Contest | Write A Book | Write Ebooks For Cash | Be A Travel Writer | Write Children's Books Write For Newspapers | Write An Ezine | Write A Blog | Writing Skills & Tips | Novel Writing Software Please take a moment to bookmark this site and join our free hot tips list. Read & Rate Our Writing Contest Entries! See what other people have written, and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5. This is an opportunity to view a wide variety of short stories and see what kind of original material is being submitted to us on a daily basis. After you rate an entry, you will be randomly redirected to another entry to rate. You may read and rate as many entries as you wish! The user-rating system is simply a fun way for writers to receive a public opinion of their work, and does not affect the judging for the cash prizes. If you wish to enter the contest, you may enter for free here. Rate This Contest Entry: Contest: June 30th, 2005 Author: Shannon Phillips A train wreck, that’s how I would describe my life. Cart after cart slamming into each other representing a terrible time in my life. I am twenty years old and I did not have a normal upbringing. It wasn’t out of the ordinary, but it wasn’t quite like the other kids at school. It’s funny what we remember of our childhood. Certain events, feelings and people stand out more than others. A favorite dress that you wore every chance you had or a present you begged Santa for but never got. To a child these are the most memorable moments. Those are the times you will remember forever. I remember most as a child the times that I felt uncomfortable, scared and insecure. My earliest memory of child is when I was around the age of four. My older sister, seven at the time, and I had gotten into trouble with our mother. My older brother, ten years old at the time, was with a friend. My mother could barely take care of herself so imagine what it was like trying to take care of three young children. My mother told my sister and I to pack our bags because we were going to be sent away. As a four-year-old child you’d expect that I wouldn’t understand. But I understood all too well. I don’t remember packing. I was too scared. We waited by the window watching for the authorities to pick us. I remember thinking how bad I wanted my father to pick us up. My parents divorced when I was three years old. My father was the responsible one. Somehow my mother got custody of us. The word “mother” is so over rated. It’s assumed that just because a woman carries a baby for nine months she automatically knows how to take care of it. It takes a lot to be a good mother. As we watched out the window a big van pulled up. Two men got out wearing bright orange. We ran to the closet. It seemed like we were in there forever when we heard the van pull away. We ran downstairs to see what was going on. My mother was sitting on the couch watching television. We asked her why the men in orange didn’t take us away. She told that they were construction workers and that we weren’t going anywhere. That was the day that I realized the kind of mother I had. The kind of mother that would intentionally let her kids believe that they were being taken to a place that wasn’t home. She made us feel unsafe like we couldn’t go to her. And since then nothing has changed. Maybe a year later I remember being at my paternal grandparents house for dinner. Almost every Sunday that we were with our father we visited our grandparents. There wasn’t much to do there. They had an exercise bike in a room that they kept all of their knick-knacks in. We entertained ourselves by riding the bike pretending that we were going somewhere. While my grandmother was cooking dinner and my father and my brother were watching football I noticed that my grandfather and my sister weren’t around. I checked to see if my sister was riding the bike but the door was closed. When I opened the door I saw my grandfather touching my sister’s private area. I didn’t think it was anything unusual at the time because their clothes were on and I trusted my grandfather. Later we ate dinner and my father took us home to our mother. The next thing I knew there were policemen everywhere. Because I was too young I wasn’t allowed to be apart of any conversation. All of the interviews took place at a neighbor’s house. I felt jealous that my sister was allowed to be apart of it all. When I found out that my grandfather had molested my sister I was confused. What did that mean? Why couldn’t I see my grandfather any more? I was very mad at my sister for taking him away from me. As I got older I remembered the day that I opened the door and saw my grandfather and my sister. It all made sense. I soon learned that it went much farther than touching. I felt guilty that I didn’t tell my father what I had seen. After that we stopped going to my grandparents house for dinner. My grandmother visited my father’s house instead. It seemed like no one was upset with what my grandfather had done. My father still saw him and both he and my grandmother talked about him to us as though nothing had ever happened. It seemed like my mother was finally getting her act together. We moved into a three-bedroom house. My mother often had to walk me to school if I missed the bus. My mother didn’t have a car. It had been repossessed before we had moved. Things seemed like they were going really well in our new house. Until one morning my mother and my brother had gotten into an argument. This wasn’t unusual because my brother had a really bad temper. My mother carried a curtain rod around the house for her protection that morning. When she swung it at my brother he grabbed it and accidentally cut her hand. That day my brother had to move in with my father. After that the house turned into “party central”. No matter what day it was there were usually people over. My sister and I would wake up to find people scattered across the living room, as we got ready for school. One of my mother’s friends even lived with us for a while. We watched my mother’s boyfriend’s come and go. Several mornings we found them sleeping naked with each other on the couch. Life in our new home wasn’t so amazing after all. And like everything else, it ended. My mother couldn’t afford to live there anymore so we had to move in with our maternal grandparents. We packed up the things that were still ours and the three of us and our cat Patches moved out. It wasn’t a far move at all. It was an easy change for me. I finally had stability. I went to sleep at a decent time and I made it to school every day. My grandmother became a very important person in my life. We had to sleep on the couches downstairs. It wasn’t great but I felt safe for once. My mother jumped from job to job. Nothing was consistent in her life. Every morning my grandmother woke me up and got me ready for school. Sometimes on my way out the door I had to wake my mother up because she would still be sleeping. Slowly my mother’s responsibilities became my grandmother’s. My mother lost all respect for herself and for others. The only thing that separated my mother from a child living at home was that she had children of her own. During this time our cat Patches had kittens. It was a child’s dream. We were never able to get rid of them. No one we knew wanted a cat. Very quickly the house became infested with cats. Cat feces were everywhere. If you wanted to keep something clean you couldn’t bring it into the house. We became jokes at school for the way our clothes smelled. Our friends were never able to come over because it was too embarrassing. I would lie and tell my friends that we were remodeling the kitchen so they would understand. As the condition of the house got worse I craved weekends with my father. Every other weekend was like a vacation. We did a lot of fun things with my father. Things that seemed impossible to do at home. I don’t know why my father never tried to get custody of us, but he must have had his reasons. Through mutual friends my father started to see a woman with three children of her own. Weekends with my father became weekends with them too. All of us became very close. Her youngest daughter became my best friend. All of us joked about being like the “Brady Bunch”. We were genuinely happy. Nothing could get in the way of our happiness. My father and brother moved in with them very quickly. Then disaster struck. My brother was accused of molesting the woman’s youngest daughter, my best friend. I thought this would tear the family apart but it hardly did. My brother was placed in a group home after that. The police didn’t get involved that time. My brother visited my maternal grandparents on the weekends that I was there too. I started to see my brother a lot less. When I did see him I felt like I didn’t know him. He lived a completely different life than the rest of us. It was hard to talk to him about certain things. I didn’t like to talk to him about the fun stuff that we did with our father. Every time I saw my brother it seemed like he was becoming more of a man. He was doing very well. He began to live a normal teenage life. My father and his girlfriend bought a much bigger house. I wanted to move in with them so bad. Every time I asked my father would say, “not right now”. After they bought the house they got married. It was small and kids weren’t invited. My father was creating a new life for himself and I didn’t feel I was apart of it. He had three new stepchildren that he saw more than he saw his own children. I felt as if I had to compete with them for him to love me more. When I visited the new house my clothes went directly in the washer because of the cat smell. That was the topic of conversation for the first twenty minutes that I was there. I didn’t know what to say. It was my home and I had nowhere else to go. My sister ended up living with my father. I don’t remember how it happened but I knew that the chance of me leaving was gone. For some peculiar reason I felt guilty leaving my mother. I felt as if one of us had to stay with her to watch over her. My grandparents had told me that if I moved out then they would ask my mother to leave. My mother didn’t have a place to go so I felt like I had to stay. My sister and I became much closer. We talked everyday. Even when we didn’t have anything to say we would recite lines from our favorite movies or sing songs. It was nice for my sister to also be my best friend. I noticed a change in her right away. Her hair, the way she dressed, everything about her was different. I envied her because she was strong enough to leave. Our lives were very different. But she lived my life before so she understood. When they talked about things they did before they went to bed I couldn’t believe it. Living with my grandparents, the most exciting thing I did before I went to bed was watching “Wheel of Fortune”. My sister was living the life that I craved. She didn’t visit my grandparent’s house often. But I couldn’t blame her. One day in June while my grandparents were away my mother and I had gotten into an argument. Once again she threatened to send me away. I decided to play her game. I was twelve; I knew her well by then. When she told me to leave the house I took the phone outside and called my sister. I told her what was happening and she assured me that they were on their way. When my mother let me back into the house I told her that I was leaving. She looked me in the eyes and told me that I lost her love and respect forever. Did I even have it to begin with, I asked myself. What I was afraid happening, happened. My mother started to cry and I felt bad. But I thought about it and I came to the conclusion that she never felt bad for me, so I brought my belongings outside. Everything happened so fast that day, but I was finally going to have the life my sister had. That Christmas my brother spent it at our house. It was unusual because he had never been in the house before. My brother and stepsister (the one that was supposedly molested) were even each other’s secret Santa. It didn’t make sense that my brother was allowed in the house, considering what they said he did. It seemed like everyone had forgotten about what they accused him of doing, even my stepsister. That was the last and only time we were together on Christmas. My mother moved out of my grandparent’s house and moved in with her boyfriend. I was so relieved that she found a place to go. I started the seventh grade in a new school. After a while apart of me missed my grandparents. As much as I complained about it, I missed watching “Wheel of Fortune”. I missed sitting outside on warm summer nights watching my grandparents fall asleep in their chairs. Stuff like that became apart of me, and in one day it was all gone. My sister started to spend a lot of time with my mother. She thought that my mother was cool because she let her do things that my father wouldn’t ever let her do. She got in trouble at school and at home so she moved in with my mother. It didn’t take long for my sister to realize that she needed rules and stability in her life. I felt so bad for her. I made up stories so that my life didn’t seem so good. I missed her a lot. I even slept with her picture. My sister ended up dropping out of school. Because of the ongoing problems she had at home she moved out. She jumped from place to place until she settled into her own apartment. When eighth grade started I became obsessed with boys. I felt like I had to have a boyfriend all the time. The thought of someone liking me was very appealing. After my first relationship I became very depressed. Rejection hit me hard. When I didn’t have a boyfriend I stopped doing well in school. Then something happened to me that I thought would never happen. The boy that everyone in school liked actually liked me! I felt on top of the world. That summer we went on vacation together to visit his mother. That was the summer that I lost my virginity. I was fifteen years old. I became very attached. During that year the chemistry in my house started to fade. I was getting ignored and pushed away. My father was the only one that talked to me and that wasn’t often. When the rest of the family communicated it was usually through e-mail or a note slipped under my door. They treated me like they were better than me. As if they had more right to be living there than I did. I was deeply depressed. My relationship with my boyfriend started to go bad. I talked about suicide a lot. It became too much for him so he broke up with me. We never talked again. Two years later he killed himself. That January my family asked me to leave. They told me it wasn’t working out for me there. I moved in with my sister in her studio apartment. For a while I was scared. I had everything that I needed at my father’s house. All of a sudden I was in charge of myself in a household where the oldest was nineteen. I was used to rules and privacy. Privacy was the last thing I was getting in a studio apartment. I didn’t work so my sister was the only one bringing in the money. I focused mostly on school. It was the only thing I thought I had left. Again, my grandparents became an important part of my life. I lived about twenty minutes away from school so they brought me to school and took me home. They made sure that I had lunch money and supplies for school. My grandparents kept me grounded. My sister and I struggled a lot. Even though we lived with each other we led very different lives. My sister was into drugs and parties while I was worried about getting my schoolwork done and going to bed at a decent hour. I began to go to school less frequently. Summer school became a pattern for me. I saw my father occasionally when he took me to the orthodontist. The only financial help we received from him was fifty dollars each on Easter. My sister and I got into too many fights so I moved out. I moved in with my brother and his girlfriend. It was the first time I had lived with my brother in a very long time. I felt so uncomfortable. Drugs were apart of my everyday life. Although I didn’t do them I saw and smelled them every day. I decided I wasn’t going to let my father get off easy. I filed a petition to get child support. My father hired a lawyer and before the hearing his lawyer approached me with a deal. He said, “if we settle this out of court I won’t rip you apart in front of the judge”. I didn’t have a lawyer and I was unaware of my rights so I agreed. I agreed to fifty dollars every week from both of my parents. My father brought my mom into it. Fifty dollars a week seemed like a lot at the time but it didn’t take long for me to think otherwise. I realized that one hundred dollars every week wasn’t a reasonable amount so I filed another petition. In the attempt to get a greater amount of child support from my father, I was emancipated and never talked to him ever again. Shortly after that my mother moved to Florida with her new boyfriend to find a better job. She never told me she was leaving. Surprisingly she came back. Who knew that finding a job over the Internet wouldn’t come through? She didn’t continue to pay child support after that. Things became tense at my brother’s house so I moved in with my aunt and uncle. While I was living there I met someone online that I had known from school that had moved away. We talked a lot online and occasionally on the phone. He drove to New York a couple of times so that we could hang out. I craved my own apartment. I worked with people at school and I was enrolled in a program through Hillside Children’s Center. It’s a program that helps teens live independently. I finally had my own apartment. It was a great feeling. The boy that I met online became my boyfriend and we started to get serious. I fell in love for the very first time. A year of calling each other and e-mails went by and we were still together. That summer I was seventeen and he was eighteen. We planned to go on vacation with his family. I knew that he would want to smoke marijuana during the vacation so I decided to try it for the first time. I hated it. It made him happy though, so I continued. The vacation was great. In November of 2001 he moved to New York and we got an apartment together. We had an occasional argument but nothing too big. Things became a little tense when I stopped going to see his family with him. I felt so uncomfortable being with his family. I felt like I was a dysfunctional girl that took their son away from them. His family was very well off and knew what they wanted out of life. Things became even worse when my father killed himself. I remember that day like it was yesterday. It was Valentines Day. My grandmother called us to see if we had plans for the night. That was unusual so I called her back. I begged her to tell me what was going on. She said that my brother and sister were coming over because they had to tell me something. I convinced her to tell me. She took a deep breath and told me that my father had killed himself. I threw the phone down and dropped to the floor. The only thing I remember yelling is that I still loved him. Shortly after that my brother and sister showed up. It took them awhile to calm me down. As the tears dried up we started to ask questions. First, why? What drove our father to suicide? We called my father’s brother because he was the one my father wrote the suicide note to. We were told that he was already buried. No one cared to let us know when it happened. I never got to say goodbye to my father. I have absolutely no closure. I later learned that my father had separated from his wife in August of 2001. After that my father lived with his mother. They moved out of town. We also found out that he was charged with molesting my youngest stepsister. Also for putting hidden cameras in the shower and selling them over the Internet. The FBI confiscated his computer and his trial was set for February 13, 2001. Whether it’s true or not my father probably thought he had no way out. He was most likely going to jail. On February 11, two days before his trial my father drove to a park and killed himself on a park bench. An older man passed by the park and noticed him and called the police. Everything felt like it was a mess. My grandparents got reported for the way their house was and for animal abuse. Through the years hundreds of cats were born and died in that house. Some of the bodies still remained. Feces and hair were everywhere. Furniture was destroyed. It was unbelievable. My grandparents moved in with my aunt while their trials continued. Graduating high school became a must. I wanted my father to be proud of me. By the time I graduated I gained eighty-five pounds. I was so depressed. I didn’t want to go anywhere. When I did I dressed in layers, even during the summer. Like many people I grieved through food. I was out of control. I avoided mirrors as much as possible. I was disgusted with myself. My boyfriend was a toothpick. It didn’t help watching him eat whatever he wanted. Sometimes I saw the way he looked at me. I always wished that he understood why I was eating so much but he never did. Graduation was the best thing that had happened to me in awhile. It felt so good that I stuck with something considering my obstacles. My family came together to watch me receive my diploma. Although graduating high school made me feel like I could do anything, my spirit started to decline. I hated myself. Countless nights I begged God to take me so I could be with my father. My boyfriend became angry and confused. After two years of us being together he broke up with me. At the time it felt like the worst thing that had ever happened to me. He was my crutch. He automatically had a new girlfriend. Because neither of us had another place to go we still lived together. I had to turn our walk-in closet into my bedroom. We still had sex for a little while after we broke up. Every time we were intimate it made me hopeful that we were going to get back together. But he had different plans. I had a breakdown. It was also around the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. Things were weighing heavily on my shoulders and finally, I was admitted into the hospital. I was under observation for three days. When I was discharged I stayed with my brother and his girlfriend again. I got back into the program at the Hillside Children’s Center. I often gave my ex money hoping that I could buy his love back. Everyone in my family told me many times to stop talking to him. Everyone except my grandparents. My grandparents once said that they thought of him as one of their own grandchildren. They didn’t want to support me through my difficult time just so he could help them repair their house. During this time I started drifting away from my grandparents. After awhile we lost contact. For a while things were looking up for me. I was in my own apartment again and I had a good job. But soon I started to spiral downward. I quit my job and lost all motivation to do anything good for myself. I was given a thirty-day eviction notice because I didn’t have the money to pay for rent. I was forced to move in with my mother and her two roommates. Their lifestyles were more different than anyone I knew. Something about them, something about their house made me feel lousy. I ended up getting admitted again. This time I stayed in the hospital from May 29 until June 17, 2003. From there I was put into Rochester Psychiatric Center. During my stay at RPC I was able to take medication for the first time. I stayed there for four months. I was assigned a psychiatrist, therapist and a social worker. During the day I went to groups to help with medication management and other life skills. It was there that I realized that I had the self-esteem to get back on track. I started to date someone that was on the same floor as I was. He was sixteen years older than me. At the time I saw nothing wrong with that. It felt good to be in a relationship again. I was discharged from RPC on October 20, 2003. I moved into a group home. My relationship with the older man continued until I started to become close to someone that lived with me at the group home. Like me, he was also in a relationship. As much as I thought I loved my boyfriend I had to follow my instinct. The both of us left our relationships and started dating. We fooled around a lot and got into trouble. It wasn’t long before he had to move out. I visited him at his own apartment on the weekends. We were very close. Meanwhile my brother got married to his girlfriend. They bought a house and started a new life for themselves. My mother moved to Florida again to follow some dream. My sister moved in with her boyfriend and got a job at Kodak. Everything seemed okay for once. I started to go to a continuing day treatment program called Strong Ties. There I had a therapist and a psychiatrist. I was assigned to groups that I was to attend Monday through Friday. My relationship continued but I became bored with it. After nine months of being together I broke up with him. I started to see another guy that I met at Strong Ties. We are still together. It has been almost eight months and things are going great. A lot has changed through the years. My mom once again moved back to New York and lives at the YWCA. She is currently looking for a job. My sister still lives with her boyfriend and has kept her job at Kodak. My brother and his wife had a baby girl on November 25, 2004. They are doing great. Everyone is doing great. For me, I’m doing okay. I moved out of the group home and into the apartment program. I stayed there about a month and then moved back into the group home. I still attend Strong Ties. As I’m writing this I’m sitting in the group home surrounded by my closest friends. This is just the beginning for me. I’m far from healed but I’m getting there. I used to be afraid that I wouldn’t amount to anything. I was worried that it was too late. But I’ve realized that there isn’t a deadline to success. It’s never too late to follow your dreams. Warning: fopen(/home/writingc/public_html/entries/b3_rating/b3r_data/.txt) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/writingc/public_html/entries/b3_rating/b3_rating.php on line 69 Warning: fopen(/home/writingc/public_html/entries/b3_rating/b3r_data/.txt) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/writingc/public_html/entries/b3_rating/b3_rating.php on line 69 Warning: fopen(/home/writingc/public_html/entries/b3_rating/b3r_data/.txt) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/writingc/public_html/entries/b3_rating/b3_rating.php on line 69 Warning: fopen(/home/writingc/public_html/entries/b3_rating/b3r_data/.txt) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/writingc/public_html/entries/b3_rating/b3_rating.php on line 69 |
|
The internet and new technology are continuing to change the face of the publishing industry. Will you ride the wave or get pummelled by it? Let us help you make money as a writer by giving you hot tips when new trends arrive. Join today and get 5 FREE EBOOKS! These ebooks are written by some of the hottest online gurus, and uncover many secrets about how you can make money right now by writing from home. Learn how to turn your computer into a cash machine by implementing the online writing techniques revealed by these masters! 
 A $475.00 Value for FREE when you join today!
HotJobs.com | Job.com | 100kJob.com | Monster.com | JobsInSports.com | CareerBuilder.com
Home | Contest | Write A Book | Write Ebooks For Cash | Be A Travel Writer | Write Children's Books
© Copyright 2005 WritingCash.com All Rights Reserved | Terms of Use | Privacy | Web Links
|