A break from the norm, or not so norm.

This was the start. Now something I didn't mention yet was at this point I had two new baby sisters, born one year apart. My mother and stepfather had most of the attention on them and I just did my own thing. By the time we moved this time, my sisters were a little bit older and interacted a bit with me. I had fun making them laugh, their giggles actually made me very happy, so I found different ways to perform and do silly things for them.

The new home we moved into was another two story house, we lived on the lower floor. We also had neighbors upstairs who were a pair of nurses, and downstairs, a kind lady who lived there alone in the basement apartment, which I found out was highly illegal in the area we were living in, but that was never an issue.

We also had a weird living situation, the apartment we lived in was a 2 bedroom 1 bath. 3 kids and 2 parents, we were a bit beyond cramped. The girls had their own room together and I basically had my own. My parents had a mattress that they'd drag into the living room every night to sleep and the girls and I would sleep in our own rooms.

It was at this point I started halfway through the school-year in 6th grade, everyone had pretty much already established friendships and cliques, so I came in as an outsider from the start. It was a rough start, I was still reserved, not as much as I normally had been but still was a bit. I was also a little awkward, I didn't know what to do. I figured making people laugh might make me some friends, so I tried being a class clown, despite not being very funny.

The jokes actually made me look weird and a lot of the other kids shied away. I was actually very sad being there at the start. After a couple months, I manager to meet my first best friend ever, Erik. He was tall and a little goofy looking, but he was thoughtful and funny. We became fast friends and it turned out he only lived a couple blocks away. I found myself going to his house almost every single day.

We played games of all kinds, we played outdoors with all types of sports, from basketball, to baseball, hockey, football. We rode bikes and he introduced me to other people. I was still awkward and had a reputation now at school for being weird, so none of the other friendships really stuck, until we met Eric. He was very athletic but very into his games as well, and very weird. He was like an extreme version of me. We got along pretty well and we hung out once in a while, but I pretty much still mostly hung out with Erik.

I rode bikes, I played sports, I played games, I met people, my life in general was starting to shape into something a bit more solid. I was more comfortable with who I was, and while my living situation was cramped, and I didn't have a lot of friends, things were looking up for me.