My Life in Movie Format chapter 1

My life has always felt like a movie about a drug addicted actress. Except, I don't know how to act.

It all started on February 29, 1976 which is a leap year. I was supposed to be born on January 15th. My mother would go into labor and the doctor would tell her that I wasn't ready to come out. Finally my grandmother Georgenia called the doctor and told him to do an emergency c-section. Because I was born so late, my finger nails were even long.

I spent the first week of my life in an incubator. The cord had been wrapped around my neck causing me not to be born. The doctors said that if I had been a boy I probably wouldn't have had the will to survive.

The next 5 years went pretty smooth. I was even given a baby sister and brother. One morning my mother, sister and me went to wake up my 4 month old brother Michael. He
was in his crib facing the wall. My mother gently called his name. "Michael". He didn't respond. She called his name louder and touched his back. No response. Then she screamed his name and turned him away from the wall. His face was blue. I now knew what death looked like. Michael was rushed in the ambulance. All of our family started arriving at our house. I asked my grandmother Marion if Michael would be ok. She said "I can't lie to you, he's dead."

The next 4 years are a blur. All I remember is having to visit with a psychiatrist regularly. Finally, I felt a wave of freedom from my worries as we moved to Winchendon. I was so ready to move that I left early with the moving truck instead of playing with the neighborhood kids for one last time.

At my new school I was scared. I cried on the day that my parents dropped me off but soon a girl in my class befriended me. She gave me her lowdown on all the other kids. At recess we saw a red-haired girl named Peggy playing soccer. My new friend warned me to avoid her because she had was a dork. Peggy turned out to live right behind my new house. We became good friends for a while. This was during the time that the Jem cartoon was on TV. One day we called the show frantically trying to win a contest to sing the theme song. I got through to the voicemail while Peggy was in another room and I sang my heart out. Unfortunately, my singing voice is as bad as Mariah Carey is annoying.

On November 29th of 1985, my sister Tina was born. It soon became my responsibility to take care of her during the day and wake up with her at night. It was then that I began experimenting with alcohol. My father always had a bottle of Wild Turkey around and I would "enjoy" some on special occasions like 4th of July, when I was bored and when my parents weren't around.