Childhood Memory

The childhood memory I would like to share was sometime after my 11th birthday. I was with my family and we were eating lunch at McDonald's. My mom was going to a Wiccan school online, and she told me and my brother that one of the people she was friends with who was in the same school, wanted us to come up and live with her in Vermont. The idea was iffy to me at first because I was really happy with where I was living at the time, in Denver, Colorado. But then my mom explained it even more and also said that she had horses, which at the time were my favorite animals, and that hooked me 100%. I really wanted to go right then and there. So awhile later my dad flew up to Vermont to visit and see what she was like, mainly because our family gets suspicious with strange people we don't really know, and to get a good idea of the place. When he came back we began packing the things that we needed and some of what we wanted. We had left a lot of stuff behind though because we did bother renting a moving truck and so all the room we had was in the back of a GMC jeep. We had 4 cats I think, at least 8 ferrets, and a parrot. We brought one cat with us and the parrot. All our other pets had to stay behind. I wasn't even able to bring the stuffed animal I had gotten for my 11th birthday. It was really, really sad to leave all that stuff behind. But whenever I look back now, I think it was well worth it. Anyways we drove cross country for three days before we got to our destination. We unpacked and settled in and eventually I started my first day in a public school. I was home-schooled when I was living in Colorado. I honestly didn't like it. Because of my ADD, I was always getting distracted by something and always getting yelled at. The work I would be doing was mostly on the computer which was located in the living room where the tv was. And most of the time if not all of the time the tv was on and for a 5 to 11 year old that is very distracting especially for me cause of my ADD. So whenever I was supposed to be doing my work, I was watching the tv because it was usually something I was interested it. So whenever I was caught watching tv I would get yelled at. A lot of the time I was forced to stay up finishing my work until 1 or 2 in the morning because I was always getting distracted. At the time though I wasn't diagnosed with ADD, but now when I look back, I think it all makes a lot of sense. I am better with it now that I am older and have slightly more control over my distraction. But I'm still not 100% in control of my distractions. I still can get really distracted especially when my mind starts wandering without me realizing until I get confused on what I'm doing. Anyways, back to my memories.
I started fifth grade, about a month or so before winter, I would guess sometime in October or November. But I was having a lot of trouble with my math so my mom decided to take me out of fifth grade and put me into fourth grade. When you think about it now it's really embarrassing to have something like that happen to you. Half way through the year and get taken out of your current grade and put into the class below you. This fourth grade class only had, I think, 2 other girls in it so the class was happy to gain another girl. I don't even think they realized that I had been one of the kids in the grade above them, which may have helped but I don't know. They were all friends and so when we did partner work, I was almost always the last one picked. Or even never picked at all. Sometimes that still happens today, even when I have a class full of friends I still get last picked or never picked so the teacher has to pick for me, which sometimes doesn't help me still because it's almost always with a person I don't like or don't get a long with. But back to the memories.
I remember surprisingly well the little Christmas party we had I think the day before break, where we all got gifts to give someone. We sat in a circle with our gifts and as the teacher read a story, whenever she said right, we would give the gift in our hands to the person on our right and when she said left we would give the gift to the person on our right and so on. When she finished the story, everyone had a different gift than what they started with. Everyone opened their present one at a time. Mine was a series of 3 or 4 Scooby-Doo books. One of the guys in my class had told me that he actually got them for me cause he thought I would like them. It was really sweet I thought. What are the chances that you get a gift for a certain person, then during an activity like the one we did, that that person would actually get your gift? I'm not 100% sure, but I think I may still have those books somewhere around the house.
During winter break things with my mom's friend started to get a bit crazy so we looked around for a house so we could move out. We found an apartment in Littleton were we moved into it I think almost right after New Years Day. I started school that Wednesday I think. I made a few friends and things were going well. We lived there for about 4 years, until I was in 8th grade. Things were getting crazy again. The kids at school were becoming major bullies and most of the kids there, despite the dress code, wore whatever they wanted and it was mostly very showy clothing. But that wasn't the major reason for deciding to move. Our upstairs neighbor was a super idiot. He was always being noisy, he somehow managed to flood something up there in his apartment which then leaked into ours a couple times, and he was always doing something down in our part of the yard. We kind of got sick of him. So my parents searched for houses that we could possibly afford. We found a really cheep trailer home for sale at the trailer park in Franconia. Before Thanksgiving we had bought the house and moved into our new home. I started school, had some people show me around. Some of them, like one or two are still my friends now. I have one best friend and another friend who actually went to the Littleton school also. Back then we actually hated each other, so now, when I look back, I laugh because we are really good friends now. And have been since 9th grade.
Since living in the city in Colorado, things have changed so much. And in my opinion, all for the better. Even if some of those changes weren't good, it has helped in some way or another and turned out to be in a good, positive way. I love living up here in the middle of nowhere, and there is no way anyone is going to make me move back to the city. EVER. I may visit, but I'm never living in the city ever again. And when visiting, I will try to make it a maximum of 3 days. The day we left Denver, I have hated cities. And probably always will. The air is so much cleaner up here. This weekend I had gone to Boston Mass for a band trip, and when I came back home, I thought to myself that I have never loved the smell of fresh air before in my life. And everyday I have gone outside since then, so far, I cannot help but take a deep breath and smile as I realize how much more you can smell when the air isn't full of pollution. I had completely forgotten that Boston was on the coast. And, normally when my family goes down to Hampton you can smell the ocean for miles away. But in Boston, you wouldn't know until you saw it because the air is so polluted you can't smell anything. To me all I smelled was, what I describe it as, nothing. Well, that's the end of the memory(s) that have changed my life forever.