When I Grew Up

I was home schooled until my freshman year of HS. I really wanted to go to HS because I literally had no friends and wanted to meet people... and boys...and have the whole public school experience. I grew up in a really small town. My freshman class was the largest class that NPHS had had in years and it started as a class of 86 people (the graduation number was...less ).

Growing up, all of my friends were home schooled too. There were like 4 other families in our town that home schooled and we were all weird and best friends. They slowly started moving away. My really good friend Jaci moved away when I was a beehive(12) and I was so sad, I literally had no friends left. They had all moved away (and to the same town too, so they still had each other...ooooh that was hard on me!). That same week a family moved into our ward and they had a daughter my age. My mom said maybe this was meant to be and her and I would be friends.Well we weren't. We are probably better friends now then we ever were and I wouldn't exactly call us close. I mean, our only contact methods are occasionally 'liking' something of each others on facebook.
There were quite a few girls my age in my home ward but for some reason I just could NOT get
'in' with them. I tried to be friendly and I would go to mutual and try to engage in their conversations but they really didn't want anything to do with me. WHY!? I was a nice, cute, totally normal 12 year old! I remember my first year of girls camp I didn't have any friends there so it was really awkward and lonely, and frankly I was embarrassed that I had no friends.


After I started attending public school I met so many people and quickly had a lot of friends. None of them were members. All the other LDS kids sort of ignored me. We would pass each other in the halls and not so much as smile at each other. Again I have no idea WHY!
I kept making new friends, some of them were great and we are still best friends to this day, others were not so great and I feel like punching a wall if they ever cross my mind. I started to get into trouble, and going to parties, etc. My YW teachers were (NOT all of them, I did have some great ones that I hold close to my heart still to this day) very judgmental and snotty to me. There is one in particular that I have a hard time with still to this day, and I still have to see her when ever I go home to my moms ward. She was not a nice lady to me (and still isn't!) and she thought I was the worst kid ever. and I wasn't. Not yet anyway. I started skipping 3rd hour/YW at church because I didn't want to be around that lady. So, every time there was a lesson on sexuality, or W.O.W, or anything else similar she would announce to the class that she didn't know where I was but I needed to be there for that specific lesson. WHOA! First of all that is no ones business, second of all I didn't need to hear that any more than the rest of those catty girls.

Now I am a Laurel, and all those 'good' Mormon girls who everyone thinks so highly of are in the same boat as me. They are at the same parties. But, everyone (leaders, parents, etc) thinks so highly of them still. That always made me mad. But at the same time it would make my little black heart skip a beat with delight ;) I was wearing my skirts a little to high, my sleeves a little skinnier, my shirts a little lower, tighter, and shorter, my 'modest' ear piercing quickly multiplied all over my body. I LOVED making them cringe, I loved making them mad. My seminary teacher was the only one in my ward who acted like they liked me, he was so good to me, and I made him put up with a lot! As soon as I graduated seminary (yeah, I totally graduated!) he acted like he didn't know who I was. To this day when I go to my moms ward, he wont even acknowledge me. I know I made people put up with a lot of crap, but I think know if the girls in my ward would  have included me the tiniest bit, or people didn't ASSUME I was Satan's spawn, I would have grown up a lot differently.

I had/have the best mom in the whole world (and dad too!) My mom wasn't a bad mom, that's not why I grew up the way I did. I think God put me in this family, and gave me the parents I have, especially my mom, because I was 'crazy' and she was the only person in the whole world who could handle me and all my crazy problems.
I have since grown up so much, and straightened my life out. I didn't get married in the temple, but who cares? I am sealed now! I was inactive for a while, but who cares? I haven't missed a Sunday in years (with a reasonable exception here and there). I feel like I have a lot more feelings than anyone else, I am not emotional, but I have a lot of empathy. I am a great woman now but, I am still bitter to those people who I needed to love me and care for me, but instead they judged and shut me out. I have had a hard time forgiving and forgetting. Especially when I have to see these grown people who are so much older than me and they still treat me the same way they did 7 years ago. Fortunately I don't have to see them often or I might choke them...(haha that's not was a joke ;)   )

To this day I don't have a lot of member friends. Most of my very best and closest friends are not members. They grew up with me, and we were all 'bad kids' together. But now, we are 'grown up', we are moms, we are married, we are professionals. We have come a long way.

I feel like I had it 'rough' for a while but I wouldn't have had  it any other way! I learned a lot, and grew up quick! Thank goodness all that did was add a couple years to my life and give my mom a handful of gray hair! ;) Silver looks good on her though.

Here are a few pictures from my teenage years, and some with (not all of them!) some my greatest friends, who have been the biggest blessings!!

One of my best friends had a baby at 17, He is such a cute guy and one of her biggest blessings!

ALL of my siblings were some of my greatest friends as well! I don;t have pictures of everyone..and its super late so i am not about to go searching ;)