Prayer Works

Dear Diary,

I went from winter coats to camouflage and speaking with the most southern accent in a matter of days. Soon I was living in Algoma, Mississippi and attending South Pontotoc again. It was weird being around all of the people that grew up with my parents and family. People who remembered me in diapers yet I had no clue who these people who smelled like moth balls really were. I fell in love with some of them though. School was tough at the beginning because it was a complete culture shock for me.... I played American Football and Basketball that year and found friends there. At the beginning I felt like the outsider but I was getting good at the whole camilion thing. My friend was still ignoring me at school pretty much but we were hanging out outside of that and I think I hooked up with all of her friends... Not something I am particularly proud of... and when I say hooked up I mean we were "boyfriend-girlfriend" for a day or so. I was involved at the church there and did enjoy hanging with some of the guys who were mainly my relatives but at night I would sit up late on my knees begging God to send me back to Brazil.... It was the most faithful of my praying days. Funny thing is.... I was already sneaking around and "smoking" cigarrettes. Although I didn't inhale I thought I looked pretty cool. The school year flew by and summer was here again. I was in full puberty..... zits, awkward peach fuzz mustache, and the nose of Tucan Sam. I always felt less than others. I made friends with the "cool" kids but I still felt beneath them... like an outsider. I have always been a bit different even when it came to clothes I dress with whatever I like even if it isn't the "style" and back then I loved going through my grandparents closet and finding all of my dad's and his brothers old clothes and I would where them. What has become the vintage fad I guess but I was wearing Nike's that were 15 years old at the time and I liked them but people would talk about me. They were wearing the latest Mosimo shirt that every other guy was wearing and they had the "girl." I was the funny guy who made everybody laugh and who took risks. I was crazy and didn't care about the consequences and was not afraid of getting in to trouble. I was terrified! Mainly of being alone and the only one to hurt so much inside. My grandparents neighbor who I had a crush on and we were BFF's had a crush on every friend that came to visit me and was asking me to hook her up with them. I hooked her up with my friend who I will call Jay. He would come stay the night at my grandparents house and we would sneak out to go see her or she would come see us. I thought I loved her... we had been through alot together... her brother's suicide and her alcoholic father's verbal abuse of her. I was there for her I thought and I would sit there night after night watching them hold each other and listen to them ask me about there problems. She would invite friends over that I really didn't want to hang out with but I would because I didn't want to sit and watch them make out. Music was a big thing for me and always had been. I didn't just listen to songs... I attached myself to songs and they expressed how I felt.... the singer was singing about me...well... in my mind anyway. Aerosmith had just released their album "Get A Grip" and the song of the summer was "Crying" and I was captivated by the video. 1) it was Alicia Friggin Silverstone 2) It was about someone being in the shadows of a love affair... taken for granted....and I could relate. That song would come to mean alot more to me than a preteen crush though. My parents soon informed me that they had been offered a chance to go back to Brazil at which point I became beyond extatic.... they told me it wouldn't be the same city I grew up in but I didn't care!!! I was going home... my prayers were answered.... even this cruel God who sent me to the Ukraine was finally listening and sending me back home! But home is where the heart is....