Excerpt from Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

The Younger Years

On June 10^th, 1987 a star was born. Ha. I wish I could say that! While my parents may consider me a star, most people just know me as Ashleigh. I was born in the early morning hours of June 10^th. My parents first child, a beautiful green eyed baby girl. I am sure they were ecstatic, yet scared shitless. What young couple isn’t scared shitless when they pop out their first child? I have not popped out any babies yet, however, I imagine when the time does come my husband and I will be scared. Babies are cute and cuddly but a heck of a lot of work. Anyway, my parents, Chris and Patricia Johnson were graced with my presence on this beautiful day in June. For as long as I can remember my parents have always told me that I was the best thing to ever happen to them and I was truly a gift. I think that has to be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Being told that since birth has turned me into a conceited and confident biatch. Totally kidding. All jokes aside, being told that all the time allowed me to grow up with a high level of self-confidence that has brought me where I am today. Thank you for that, Mom and Dad. 

Many memories of childhood stick with you as you grow older. Certain events, people and places imbedded a permanent picture in my mind. One of my earliest memories is the day I popped out of the womb. I remember thinking to myself, “I cannot wait to get out of this woman and make my grand entrance.” I remember seeing the doctor’s hands reach for me and a bright light making my eyes burn. As I am being pulled out I remember screaming, “Here I am! I am finally free!” However, mom, dad and the doctors heard something totally different….what they heard is screaming and crying. It is not my fault I was less than a few minutes old and anything but articulate. Now for those of you who don’t know me, I am very sarcastic. That being said, do you really think I remembered the day I was born? Absolutely not, who does. In fact, I cannot pinpoint the first clear memory of my childhood. All I can remember is an assemblage of various memories throughout my first 3-5 years of life. I remember the people who meant the most to me and my first house.

I lived on a quiet little street across from a graveyard in good ole’ Alexandria, VA. My grandfather, who I will refer to throughout my book as “Pap,” had a hand in building all the houses on the street. Him and my grandmother, “Mimi” lived next door to us. I remember spending a significant amount of time over at my grandparents’ house. They were my afterschool care and summer time babysitter. My parents had it good, I never had to go to a day care and they only had to drop me off next door before going into work. I have fond memories of summers spent at Mimi and Pap’s house. At the beginning of every summer they would take me to the local K-Mart and let me pick out a backyard pool. I would spend hours swimming each summer day with the company of my grandfather, sunbathing naked on the lawn chair next to me. Please don’t say you actually believed me…Pap would sit out and sunbathe but let me assure you that he on swimming trunks and a T-Shirt. To this day, Pap still sunbathes. He probably is the tannest man I know. Being a brick layer and lawn mowing connoisseur his whole life, he developed a thick layer of skin and permanent tan, how he hasn’t developed skin cancer is beyond me.



Pap and I, Summer 1989

At a very young age I learned the importance of family, at the time I didn’t notice it, but looking back I am so fortunate that I had my family close by while growing up. In addition to swimming in the backyard I remember so many other great things that I did in the company of Mimi and Pap. I was spoiled. Mimi would take me up to the local grocery store when she did her weekly grocery shopping and she let me throw whatever my little heart desired into the cart. I was fed well, my sweet tooth was always satisfied and I had my own pool in the backyard. What more could a little girl want? After a day of being spoiled by my grandparents I would wait for my mom or dad’s car to pull into the driveway and then I would run over to greet them, only to be showered with love, excitement and more spoiling. They hadn’t seen their first born baby girl all day and they missed me so much! Oh how I knew how to milk things for all they were worth.

Life only continued to get better. My god-mother, who is now one of my idols and best friends, moved in with my grandparents. Not only did I have Mimi and Pap next door, I now had Pam living a yard away, what a lucky girl I was. Pam was in her mid-twenties when I was first introduced to her, I looked up to her, just as I do now. She would let me sleepover and spend time with her whenever I wanted, she was like the big sister I never had. My family was complete, or so I thought.

My baby sister, Blair, came into the picture in November of 1992. At that point we had moved out of our comfy one-level home on Lenclair Street to a three level home in Lake Devereux. One random memory I have from when we first day we moved in is sitting in the family room of our new home, with no furniture, eating the Cheetos that came in a bright green bag, the actual Cheetos were in the shape of cheetah paws. Since then, that kind of Cheeto has been discontinued (bummer because it was my absolute favorite), bad move on behalf of the Cheeto company because now I no longer purchase Cheetos.  Anyway, back to Blair being born.

Talk about a rude awakening…

First, let me start off by saying that according to my parents, all children are very different. My mom describes Blair and me as being the complete and total opposite when we were babies. I have been told that the only time my parents could remember me crying as a child was when I was sick. As for Blair, they cannot recall a time when she was not crying. I guess I tricked my parents into believing that having a baby around was a walk in the park, whoops, my bad. I was the perfect child and Blair, well, she had her flaws…but to be completely honest, I think that it all had to do with the way she entered the world...

Halloween night 1992 was the night before that little bundle of joy was born. It was also the night that I experienced what anger really felt like for the first time. I was 5 years old and Blair was about to make her first appearance into this world. Now you would think that I would be excited about a new baby sister, wrong. Blair’s birthday will be forever known as the day she ruined my 5th Halloween. In the midst of all the attention my unborn baby sister was getting, I was getting shafted on a Halloween costume that year. Now think about it, most five year old girls were dressed up in tiaras and pink princess dresses, guess what I was dressed as….Due to poor planning, procrastination, and an imaginative idea from our god-mom, I was dressed up as a homeless person. Are you serious? Who dresses their cute blonde five year old up as a hobo? And they wonder why I am the way that I am…Still to this day, I tease mom for letting her precious five year old daughter get dressed up as a homeless person on Halloween.

On top of the costume dilemma, as I was on my way out the door to go fill my bucket with my favorite candy, Dad scooped me up and said Blair is on the way, we have to get mom to the hospital! Try pulling away a five year old from a bucket of candy to go sit for hours in a hospital that smells like rubber gloves, it didn’t go over to well and it took me a while to forgive Blair for her inconvenient entrance into the world.