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Dear Diary,

So everything was packed from the crate that was shipped by boat early to our many suitcases. We left Memphis that day with a lot of our family standing at the gate because back then you could get past security. We met up with our friends from MLC(my friend who I thought was my girlfriend) at the Miami airport to continue our trip together. We both had Teddy Rubskins or however you spell that teddy bear that talked and told you stories. It was in the Miami airport that I said goodbye to my long time invisible friend Jason.... I wonder where he went anyway? I bet he went to the Virgin Island's and has been kicking it there! We arrived in Brazil and made our home in Campinas where my parents would go to language school for a year and I was sent to Kindergarden at the Brazilian school. I made friends fast there... my neighbors all around soon became my best friends! My first day at school was dreadful... I hated it... it was loud and noisy and there were a lot of kids eating glue and acting stupid I thought. I was bored cutting out shapes and singing stupid songs. The teacher talked to my parents and I ended up in first grade. I loved first grade!!! I had two friends with me... Rebecca and my friend Daniel. So I learned how to write in Portuguese and spell in Portuguese before I learned how to in English and I thought that was cool. Within the first week I could sing the Brazilian National Anthem and I did it often... in fact my dad found a video over the holidays of me standing in my underwear singing it for the camera and family back home( my sisters loved that one). Brazil was home for me. I really didn't think about the U.S. except for family but I didn't miss all of them. My first Halloween in Brazil marked my first visit to the emergency room because I was playing around the swingset with friends when I fell and someone swinging caught my head and there was a nail hanging underneath which split me wide open. I remember getting up and feeling the warm blood on my hands and then it came pouring over my face. Looking back now it was like a scene out of the old horror movie Carrie! My parents and friends were inside having a Halloween party and here I came walking through the door screaming with blood flowing down my face. I got my first set of stitches that day and the lady doing it said it would feel like little ants on my head... she lied!!!! Stitches actually didn't bother me all that much... I was back to playing in no time. That same year I had my first root cannal and I remember the dentist who was my neighbor across the street pulling out a needle to numb my mouth and I refused it.... I pitched such a fit that my mom and he agreed to doing it without numbing my mouth. I got my way but it hurt really, really, really bad. I used to swim behind his house with his kids and try to do every daredevil trick I could. I tried a frontwards flip and cut my head open again.... My first birthday there I turned 5 and I thought I ruled the world. Before I knew it our time in Campinas was over and we packed up and moved on down to southern Brazil to a place called Cascavel which in English means rattlesnake. Sounded like an adventure to me and it proved to be some of the best days of my lifebut it was there that I also met another side of darkness....

Meet Virginia

Dear Diary,

Let me continue where I left off yesterday. So my family moved up to Virginia for a few weeks of learning how to deal with a new culture and I guess strategy and all that blah blah stuff. I liked Virginia... It was like vacation bible school but cooler! I was always around people and I guess I have always been the hyper kid that got quite a bit of attention which doesn't make a lot of sense to me because I was always nervous about first meeting someone but then I guess I get comfortable quickly. Miami Vice was big back then... I mean BIG!!! I had my favorite Hawaiian style shirt that I wore as much as possible so I could look like Don Johnson... I didn't really pay much attention to the dreams that I was having then or I guess I didn't really know what they were about but I knew I felt dirty when I would wake up. There was a young woman who was there for training to go to Brazil as a journeyman to teach missionary kids and she became my nanny. I fell in love with her immediately!!! I loved it when my parents had to go to meetings and she would watch me... geez... I got started early. Of course, the feeling I so deeply felt for my older mistress was not mutual so I found a girl more age appropriate.... She was my best friend and just so happened to be moving to Brazil exactly when I was so it was perfect. She was my first kiss.... I know... 4 years old right! There was one encounter there that wasn't so good.... brought back all of the fear I had left back in MS... but this time it wasn't family. Once again... I do not remember what was going on outside of her room but I do know my sisters and parents were out with the rest of the group that was getting together that evening. She was an MK(missionsary kid) but she was older than me. I remember she locked and I wondered why.... hmmm.... the shame was overwhelming and later when her brother knocked on the door and she unlocked it instead of walking in to freedom it felt like the doors of a prison were being closed on my 4 year old heart. What do you do? I didn't know.... Was this normal? I have done something wrong!!! Those were the thoughts swimming around in my head. Soon MLC was over and we were going back to my grandparents to pack and get ready for Brazil.... Yes!!! Brazil would be my escape.....

When Innocence Died

Dear Diary,

 It's funny how I can't remember how I got there or how I left but everything else seems like it happened yesterday. The pain and nausea still rushes my body as a wave crashing upon a statue made of sand. I can see the old rope swing that I could only climb up about 5 feet and I can see the path through the kudzu that I always thought was Poison Ivy so I would run through it. There was the rusty abandoned chicken coup that used to be our war prison when we played Cowboys and Indians. Oh the simple life of a 4 year old... He was 18 I think or maybe older.... I know that this time my journey into the magical woods behind my Aunts house was different. I ran down the kudzu path and walked out with my head lowered in shame and for the first time Poison Ivy didn't seem to bother me. Something broke inside of me that day. I felt ashamed and dirty. For the first time in my life I didn't feel safe. I didn't tell a soul because I was told that I did something bad and i would be in trouble but the scariest part was the threat of being harmed. Life continued and I stood still. Later on I visited the house again and this time I was spending the night. I remember being so scared and my breath speeding up so fast it felt like i couldn't get a good breath. During the day I was surrounded by drugs because my uncle had been selling... He later died from a heart attack alone in the bathroom. That night I was sent to sleep in my cousin's room. That night I don't remember as well... i guess blocked out most of it... i just remember crying and asking to go back to my parents because I had a stomach ache. At least that's what I told my Aunt and she said to wait until the morning. The next morning I was silent as we drove back to my Grandma's house and i was silent about all that happened for a while to come. I think it's weird how my mind could block out some of the events that took place but my heart still feels the pain. Then came the day we moved to Virginia so my parents could go to Missionary Learning Center because they felt God calling them to Brazil. Ah.... this was my first escape.......

Where Everything Starts

Dear Diary,

I guess I should start at the beginning. I was born in Mormon country on April 21st 1981. My mom tells me it was freezing outside and that her doctor was out of town when she went in to labor but I was coming none the less. I would have been born in the car if I was facing the wrong direction coming out feet first. Guess I really haven't changed on my approach of life. I was a healthy baby. A chunky monkey one might say. We moved to South Dakota when I was about 1 year old and stayed there until I was 3 I think. I can remember some of my days in the frozen hell of S.D. I remember making snow cream and looking out the window waiting for my sister Sara to round the corner at any moment from school. I also remember bouncing around on the couch while my mom was bringing in groceries from outside and for some reason feeling the need to jump and slam the door at which point I heard my mom scream because her fingers were caught in the act. That was the first time I hurt her and I felt physically sick knowing I had... Funny how I still think of that sometimes and regret ever doing that. Moving right along... When I was 3 we moved to Basfield, Mississippi, where my dad was a pastor at a local church. I have more memories there. I had an invisible friend named Jason and a dog named Pete whom I loved. Our family friend we called Doc was my hero and I practically lived at his house watching Indiana Jones and eating Raisin Brand cereal. I was big in to coffee and climbed up on a counter top one morning at about 4am and made a pot myself at which point my mom decided to cut me off. I was normal and doing normal things... you know the youngest of the family with 2 older sisters who lived to embarass me by dressing me up in their old dresses and parading around the neighborhood showing me off and feeding me mud pies. Life was good!!! There was the creepy neighbor who everyone thought was a serial killer and I dared not walk by his house alone. My grandparents lived in Pontotoc, Mississippi, which was only a couple of hours away so it was good. I would go visit them sometimes. I loved going to Pontotoc to see mamaw and papaw and of course Grandma and my grandpa whom we called Pupu. My parents always warned me about going to see a certain aunt and to watch out for a certain cousin. I was 4 though... they tell me now that they told my grandma not to let me stay at this cousins house... but she let me go a couple of times. Then came the day my life would be changed forever......