Me> part two

Middle  school through high school- public life

My step-dad had owned a few businesses before, and decided he wanted to start a restaurant. My mom became a co-owner. Of course, me and my brothers worked there. I worked there for two years before it closed down. Basically, it didn’t last long. As far as I saw it my step-dad only ran businesses so he could brag about them, not to actually make them successful.

I was a full-time high school student at this time, with the most chores in the house and the only one taking care of six horses. I was also in tennis at school from august to October. Basically, I had enough on my plate without a job. But then I worked at the restaurant. From Tuesday to Friday, and every other Saturday I’d work. During tennis season I’d go to school, go to tennis practice until 5, walk to the restaurant and work there until we closed around ten or eleven at night? Then go home, do chores, do homework, and get up again at around five or 5:30 am to take care of animals. So basically, I was busy. But when it wasn’t tennis season I only worked in the office at the restaurant until 6 pm on weeknights.

I remember one season I had poison ivy, which is pure torture. I couldn’t change the bandages on my legs because of it all day, and it itched and stung so bad. I’d beg my mom to drive me home after we closed around 10 or 10:30 pm. But she’d ask for “five more minutes”. Those always turned into at least another half an hour. The whole time she’d only be on facebook at the office, which she could do at home. Like I said before, all of us lived in our own world at the time.

I didn’t hang out with friends much. When I switched schools the new school was full of cliques and not what I was used to. I had gone to an elementary school and started middle school in a town of over 47,000. It is surrounded by a city of almost 600,000. Then when I switched schools there was only about 11,000 people in my new town. Almost all upper middle class white families. A lot were more sheltered than where I had originally grew up. It was a shock to me. And the friends I made my mother didn’t like, so I wasn’t allowed to hang out with them. I would spend most of my time in my room or doing chores, at work or playing tennis.

Later my mom would ask me why I spent all my time in my room. The only way I could explain it, is that whenever I would come out my room she would give me another list of chores to do. I had about 75% to myself, my brothers had to do about the other 15%. My mom did nothing, even when she didn’t have a job for a while.

We pretty much fended for ourselves. Many nights we had spaghetti, mac and cheese, or sandwiches for dinner. Didn’t usually have breakfast, but when we did it was cereal. And we ate lunches at school, on the free lunch program. Not many kids where I went to middle school and high school were on that program. I didn’t want to admit I was, so not many knew. Every once in a while my mom would cook dinner. And when we went to our dads it was usually a home cooked meal for every one. We used to make pancakes at his house every morning, until we reached high school. It stopped after that. But I don’t know why.

The things we used together as family just ended up fading away altogether.

Anyways, back to the restaurant. The last couple months it was open my mom just stopped working there. So I was the only person working in the office. As a junior I was doing almost all the office work, including the payrolls, emails, etc. I would explain more but I doubt most people would want to know about that. It’s not very exciting. I was also training people to become backwaiters, make espresso drinks, and be hostesses. The whole time I was only paid minimum wage.

Then after the restaurant closed my mom went to work for a coffee shop. She was starting their bakery, making their recipes and setting it up for success. So I got a job there, being her office and bakery assistant. I remember there were nights that we got there at nine pm and stayed until six am. That was usually during the weekends. During the week we got home around nine or ten pm. I was a senior in high school. It only lasted for about five months, starting in the summer. I was paid minimum wage there too.

My mom and step dad ended up divorcing soon after the restaurant closed in the spring of my junior year of high school.

Anyways, that’s what I can think of right now for my public life.. there were other things but I’ll get to those, don’t worry.