Today, tell us about the home you lived in when you were twelve. For your twist, pay attention to — and vary — your sentence lengths.

I have envied people who lived in one place for their childhood, then simultaneously been grateful that I lived the adventure of multiple moves as a child.  My mom always made an eager attempt to make us feel special that we were going to move again.  It worked.

But the year I was 12 would be one of the most difficult ones I would endure.  It was the year my parents divorced, and my mom and I moved to an apartment complex where suddenly I was surrounded by people doing drugs and choosing an immoral lifestyle.  By the grace of God, I did not get involved with those pitfalls, but moving again two more times that year due to remarriage and another subsequent divorce by the time I was 13, I was confused and hurting.

The grounds of the apartment were covered with cockroaches.  At night, my friend and I would make it a game and challenge one another to see who could kill the most.  We were going to rid our environment of these critters we detested.  Not so much.  It seemed the more we squashed, the more they flourished.  Nonetheless, we felt useful in our occupation.

Once inside on the second floor, I felt safe that perhaps none of them could climb to my home.  The air was stale in our two bedroom apartment.  My mom worked, so I would come home and make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  If we had extra quarters that were not needed for laundry, I would walk across the street to a Pic-Quik and get a snack.  My bedroom was messy, but it was pink.  What girl is not happy with that?

The walls and carpet were plain, but this was not our home.  It was where we lived, where we wept, where we stayed while we waited to see what would come next. The kitchen was small, but my mom’s food made it seem larger somehow.  The most important thing in that apartment was my mom, and that was all that mattered – we had each other.

Outdoors was what I liked best.  There was a swimming pool, and when I went swimming with my friend, there were no problems, no worries.  Just green hair from too much exposure to chlorine, and laughter.