Chapter 1.

Hi! Welcome to chapter one of my life story. I have yet to figure out just how many chapters there will be, but I have to start somewhere. So lets start in Dallas, Texas where I was born. My mom (Tamara) and dad (Casey) were not planning for a child at the time. They split up about 6 months after I was born. If you ask my dad he’ll tell you that my mom was using drugs and he was angry at her for not quitting so he left her. If you ask my mom, she will tell you that my dad was a raging alcoholic who was also using drugs and was physically abusive to her and me, so she chose to leave.  I have no idea what’s true or not. Probably a little bit of both if I had to guess. After my mom left my dad she moved to Carrollton, TX where she met my step dad (Richard) when I was two. (When I refer to “dad”, I am referring to my step dad unless otherwise specified). 

We lived in a green A-framed house. I remember sitting out front and making mud pies in the yard. I remember receiving a cupcake, a Winnie the Pooh coloring book, and jumbo crayons for my third birthday from my Uncle TJ. I remember finding those crayons in the car door in the back seat of my mom’s purple Jetta, completely melted by the sun. I vividly remember the feeling of sadness at that time. Fast forward a bit to when I was four years old. We moved to Princeton, Texas and lived very close to a lake called Lake Lavon. This is where we spent almost every weekend during the spring and summer. My parents had a huge group of friends who would go camping at the lake. They’d party, get drunk, and blare loud music, which was fine to me because I knew no better. To be honest, as a kid, I was having the time of my life on those weekends. I looked forward to them so much. My nickname was “Britt Brat the Water Rat” because I loved the water. My mom and step dad were happy, so it seemed. Life was good. 

Thinking back, the memories are very spotty. Rightfully so because I was so young. Here’s a few things I remember as I write about my younger years at the ages of 4 and 5. I remember having chicken pox and wearing my moms t-shirt (which was a dress on me at the time) while being covered in calamine lotion. I remember there being a tornado warning and hiding in the bathtub with my twin mattress over us. I remember my biological dad’s parents taking me school clothes shopping and being so excited to wear them in kindergarten. I remember riding the bus to school and having a crush on a boy named Keton who rode the bus with me. By the end of the year he was my “boyfriend”. We had matching lunch boxes. Mine was Barbie themed and his was Barney themed, but they were the exact same otherwise. I remember wearing what I thought was a really cute dress, and when I asked him if he thought it was pretty he responded with “Eh, I think it’s a little short.”  Kids, man. It makes me laugh thinking back to that. I had a babysitter back then. She watched me until my parents got home from work. Well, she wasn’t very nice and one day she choked me. It wasn’t for long and I don’t remember all the details but what I do remember is that she was mad at me for something, was yelling, and then all of a sudden she was choking me. When she let go I ran to my room and hid in my closet. I remember sneaking to my parents room to use the house phone to call the cops, but when they answered I hung up. I was too scared. Well the cops came anyway, but by the time they arrived the babysitter had left and my parents were home from work. I told my mom it was an accident and it wasn’t until later that night that I told my mom what really happened. I was never babysat by that babysitter again. I don’t have a ton of memories of my biological dad at this time in my life. I know that he had visitation and I went every other weekend if he showed up to pick me up, but I can’t recall how often that was. He lived with his parents in Celina, Tx. My grandad owned a gun store there and my grandma owned an exotic pet shop. I spent a lot of time at both of those places. I hated going to my dads when I was younger. There’s a lot to unpack there but I’ll do that a little later. 

So although me, my mom, and stepdad lived in Princeton at the time, my extended family lived in Farmersville only about 15 minutes away. My maternal great grandma (Referred to as Granny Lola), grandma (referred to as Granny Kaye), and grandad (referred to as Papa, pronounced pawpaw) lived there. There was a dead-end gravel road; County Road 569 to be exact. The first house on the right was my Granny Kaye and Papa’s house. My mom’s little brother (referred to as bubba) was still a minor and lived at home with them. The house at the very end of the street on the right hand side was my Granny Lola’s house, and all the land in between her house and my grandparents house was owned by the three of them. I don’t remember all the details mainly because as a child I wasn’t involved in any of the conversations, but essentially Granny Lola ended up buying my family a double wide trailer home and my grandad gave my mom and (step)dad an acre of land to put it on. Granny Lola wasn’t gifting it to us. I remember the stress of my mom paying Granny Lola for mortgage every month when I was younger, but my mom and dads credit wasn’t good enough to get it on their own. My mom was pregnant at the time and we needed a place to settle down and call our home for good and we wanted to be close to family. After all was said and done, we moved to County Road 569 in Farmersville, TX. We were the second house on the right pretty far back off the road. There were pastures, ponds, and cattle in between the three houses on that road. My grandad worked as a farmer for someone else and owned his own cattle that took up his time at home. He handled all the acres on the right side of CR 569. He was kind of the “head honcho” of the family if that makes any sense at all. My grandmother stayed at home and my great grandmother did as well. My mom worked at an insurance company and my dad worked at a window tinting company. My uncle bubba and I were in school. He was in 9th grade and I was in 1st grade. A lot happened on County Road 569 that shaped who I am today. I will begin digging into that in Chapter 2.