Growing up down in the west Texas town of El Paso...

Cotton fields still surround my childhood home. I grew up around all boys. In order to fit in and keep up, I had to act like them. I wanted so badly to be able to do things as well as they all did. A true tomboy, my body is marked from horse-back riding debacles, being ran over by the death trap we called a three-wheeler and various other bad ideas my brothers and I came up with. I did anything they told me to do. We spent the days acting out Red Dawn. We truly thought WWIII was coming soon, a theme that has stuck with me for nearly 3 decades. I loved shooting guns, gutting fish and going camping. All skills that will serve me well if the World does go into a downward spiral.
All in all, childhood was relatively normal. My parents faught a lot, my Dad liked to drink. He would have me get his beers and I remember chugging them before giving them to him at a very young age. When he drank, he sometimes wouldn't come home until late, he and my Mom would fight and my brothers and I would wait at the window for him to come home.
I spent most of my childhood with our housekeeper. Maria was a wonderful woman who taught me how to speak fluent Spanish, cook great Mexican food and was my main caregiver when my Mother was at work. Mom was busy with herr own business and was at work a lot. She deliverd wholesale bedding plants to local nurseries and was very successful until about 2000. She delivered the plants in a renovated white handicapped "short bus." This was also our mode of transportation to and from elementary and junior high school. Another reason why I took the dark road ahead. Never make your kids ride the short bus if they don't have to. I was allgergic to milk as a baby and my Mother tried everything which, lucky me, rotted my baby teeth out requiring me to have silver caps on my front teeth. Kids can be cruel, I was different, this did not help my cause.
I found out I was adopted very young. My brothers never let me forget it. My parents didn't treat me differently but I always had in the back of my head that I was not a blood relative and that I did not belong there.
By the time junior high school hit, the stress level at home had escalated significantly. We all went to counseling. We tried everything to make it work. At this point in time, the focus of bad behavior was my oldest brother.  I didn't know what that meant. I remember that Christmas like a few others was started off with a nasty fight between the rents and us being locked in our rooms until it was over.
One night in 7th grade the fight lasted a lot loger tha usual. My brother Darren told me "Mom and Dad are getting a divorce." I couldn't comprehend what that meant. I didn't think parents could do that. I was given a choice. Stay with your dad or go with Mom and she will get you a dog. I chose the latter option. Ginger Snaps was a poodle mix that was dumped by the canal near my new house which was coincedentally located next door to my Fathers house. It made moving simple.
My mom and I moved into an old farm house that she redecorated and renovated to be a very cute little two bedroom house. It was perfect for us. It was around this time that I started acting out in school. It was the beginning of some very dark and deadly days.
I was a member of a Methodist Church. It was at a Church retreat that a game of truth or dare led me to an awful situation. I will not go into details but what happened changed me for the rest of my life. The game was played with me an 11 year old and 2 17 year olds. From that point on, whatever self esteem I did have went out the window right along with my innocence. I saw myself as less than, uglier than and dumber than everyone else in the World. This incident has also played a role in my resistance agains organized religion. I mean, what kind of God was with me that night? Now I know better but at the time, I was pissed.
The first time I got drunk was when I was 13. My brother gave me Southern comfort and Mountain Dew. After tripping over the dog and putting my hand through a picture frame, my Mom was on to me and my brother was in deep crap. I liked being drunk. I always was a dare devil and did whatever someone asked me to. I was extremely curious about dangerous things and this lust for a rush has brought me closer to death than I ever realized. I loved being goofy and feeling good. Soon after that, was my first trip to Juarez, Mexico, my first joint and a series of very poor choices.
My best friend and I only had eachother as friends in juior high school. Those were the most terrible times I can remember only next to prison. I was akward, my head was way too big for my body and I played the cello. We were picked on, abused and laughed at. It was pretty sad times for us. I was in track and ran long distance, it was during the two mile run practice that I smoked my 1st joint. It did nothing to me but I pretended it did. Come to think of it, I don't even think it was marijuana. Soon enough I was able to ge tmy hands on the real thing.
Since my parents lived next door to eachother my BFF and I went to my Moms when she was out of town. We loaded my grandfathers ivory pipe full of seeds and stems and maybe a bit of pot. At first I felt nothing but after awhile, we started laughing. We made the trek through the field back to my Dads where we were able to find some ribs, ice cream, candy and popcorn. It was the best food I had ever eaten in my entire life. From that point on, I had found my passion. I loved getting high and I figured, if pot feels this good, what does the other stuff feel like. I didn't dive into an empty swimming pool. I didn't go kill anyone. Everyone lied to me. The worst thing that can happen to a pothead is nothing. Which, if you think about it, sucks really bad. Some of the people I hung out with fell victim to this and they are all now 30 somethings, living with their parents and still getting high all day with no education, no motivation and nothing to look forward to. That didn't happen to most of the potheads I know, most of us made it out and some still smoke and manage their lives fine. The ones who stayed stuck had other issues to contend with. Soon, it was 9th grade. This is where things started to get very ineresting. Stay tuned.
Like I said previously, this blog is not supposed to be my life story and I am going to leave a lot of stuff out. I just want to provide a thorough enough background for you all who actually read this to get a sense of where I am coming from.