#2 BEFORE IT ALL STARTED

::Identities have been concealed with different names::

 I will get the basic info out of the way; I was conceived by doing the obvious by my parents three months after they tied the knot in 1988. I was born with the name Adessa Danielle Kingsbury on January 8, 1989. Needless to say I was three weeks early, so I guess I was going to be late for my life appointment.

   After I was born, my dad went crazy with his video camera. He recorded so many moments of me being a baby.  I was the only child for the next two years and ten months, then my sister unexpectedly shows up in my mom's arms. I apparently loved being the only child because I had the brilliant idea of not just asking, but telling my parents, "Can you take it back to the hospital?" To this day that will come up and we all laugh about it.  After I got used to having a sister, my brother comes home three years and two months later. I remember not liking the change at first, cause it had different parts than my sister and I. I was not comfortable with an enigma as a sibling. He eventually grew on me and I love him to this day.

   Elementary school was hard in the beginning.  I remember my first day of kindergarten. I was scared of all the other kids because I was leaving my comfort zone.  I got along with a couple of kids in my class.  We stayed late after school and waited for our rides together.  We were only in class for about 5 hours or so, but it felt like 100 hours when you're that young.  I remember gazing out the window at the round painted track where you would race your tricycles in a circle and imagine myself racing to the point where my wheels would fly off the bike.  Daydreaming helped with the day flying by.

   In first grade I had my first couple of bullies.  They thought my last name was so funny that they wanted to make up their own words and add them to my name; they also called me the devastating feature names, fat and ugly.  This was done by kids that had stuttering problems and wore glasses that made them look like they were trying to see a bird break wind in Mexico.  I was the type that did not fight back with fists or words.  Cause I didn't find anything wrong with them.
   Fast forward to fifth grade.  I was ecstatic that I was finally one of the top dogs of the school cause sixth grade meant "new beginnings" as a fifth grader.  The first time I ever got a pink slip, (that is not a pretty piece of paper you want to come home with) I thought it would be fun to clog all the toilets and the sinks with the brown paper towels that clearly were not just to dry your hands with.  So I got my first taste of wild behavior at 10 years old and it felt good!

    I was raised in a Christian home My mom was non-denominational Christian and my dad was raised in Catholicism.  I went to church with my mom every Sunday morning, and I had to end my Sundays with mass at my dad's church.  I was also told that I had to go to Catechism.  I remember when I was 12 years old I got spiritually saved and I remember feeling different the second I asked Christ into my heart.  I noticed that my mom's church was much different than my dad's church.  My dad's mass was very routine, and it seemed you could not interact with anybody.  I didn't feel comfortable at a Catholic chruch.
   When I turned 14 years old I started going to youth group at my mom's church. I was immediately attached to going. I remember I would rush home on Tuesdays after school to do my homework in time to leave. I loved the youth leader, he was so funny and he made everyone comfortable.  We went on two mission trips down to Ensenada, Mexico for ten days. We built two houses for two homeless families.  Both of those trips were life changing.  When I came home I would cry for days because I missed the people I met and I had to hold onto the atmosphere that I left in Mexico.  Everyone there was so loving and nonjudgmental, that made me feel truly accepted.

    In the middle of my seventh grade year our land lord told us that we had thirty days to move because they wanted to remodel the house. We moved form Serra Mesa to La Mesa. We had to go to different schools.  I had no idea there was a city named La Mesa, and I had an active imagination thinking that the kids were going to be completely different than what I was used to.  But no, all junior high kids are the same. They hate their parents for caring, come to school with pancake faces full of make up, and they thought rolling backpacks were so atrocious, they kicked every one in sight.  (I never really grasped the thought of doing that and feeling good after.) There was a clique for everything; popular, athletes, band, no-names etc. I am surprised there wasn't a clique for matching shoes. I was a floater in middle school. I made friends quick, but I never wanted to be friends with the popular people, because all of them weren't trying to be your friend, they just want to make sure they at least knew one more person acknowledged who they were.
   Eighth grade I made really close friends. At the end of eight grade I experienced my first "friend move away"  that hurt very much. My friend Kayla moved up north and her mom was going through some pregnant mood changes and she didn't like it when I would talk to Kayla.  She also made Kayla stop being the friend that she was to me.  She always made me look forward to going to school because she found humor in the simplest things.  I was very sad and lonely when she moved away.
   High school was filled with boys that didn't know they were already claimed by mine or my friends' hearts.  We were positive that they were our soul mates.  We never said hello to any of them, but for some reason we all knew what their schedule was because they would pop up out of nowhere and we would freak out! We made it so obvious that we might as well have screamed it to them that we could see them!

   I graduated high school at 18 years old in 2007.  That was a huge accomplishment for me.  After graduation, the life of a christian was not at all appealing to me.  This world held out its hand to me and asked me for a dance. I accepted.