Dancing on Eggshells

This is when I met Winona and Violet

I was four going on five years old when I met my best friends .
It was late May 2006 and opportunities were waiting at our young and tiny feet.
I was still sassy and amazing back then, if you're wondering. I had just moved into the neighborhood of Southern Cambridge , Massachusetts. Since my birth and up until this period before we moved, my family and I had been residing in the inner city of Boston. As Chris and I were growing up, Mom and Dad had decided to relocate us to the suburbs to start growing in a natural and calm community instead of the rowdy and stressful city.
At the time, Dad was an avid golfer who frequently played tennis (he now plays tennis , like, every single day. He's also ditched golf but still is proud to say that owns a super fancy golf bag that no one in the house is allowed to touch or look at without paying) . Mom was insanely into the Black Eyed Peas and forced us to listen to their CDs in the car at least once a day so we could endure the 'Black Eyed Pea spirit' and Chris was a whiny seven year old.
"I want to go home!" He whined as we began arriving in our new neighborhood.
"We are home, sweetie". Dad comforted, who sat in the passengers seat.
"No we aren't, we've been kidnapped by Mommy and she's just making us stay here so she can get her hair done quicker".
He didn't make sense even then.
My parents even had the courage to tell him.
"Chris, you need to make sense of your words". Mom told him, who was driving.
He still failed.
"Mommy is evil and she's trying to make us miserable! Look at Keoria, she looks so angry!"
I wasn't angry, I just wasn't smiling. When Chris was younger, he thought if you weren't smiling, you were angry or sad. He didn't know there was such thing as being neutral.
"Are you angry, Kori"? Mom asked me.
"No". I mumbled.
"See, she's fine". Dad told Chris.
"Well, I'm missing SpongeBob".  Chris groaned.
"We can watch SpongeBob when we get home". I told him, as if I were the big sister.
"Well we can't, because we're never going home!" He attempted to scare me.
"Yes ,we are". I argued.
"Kori is right, we're even here". Mom said as she began driving down our new street.
I stuck my face against the window, looking at my new surroundings. I remember thinking that I was in some sort of film. The houses in my new neighborhood were entirely different to the ones in the inner city. They were much more historical and classic, unlike our old house.
It felt like I was the lead role in this film.

After a night of sleeping on blow up mattresses and Chris crying himself to sleep because he had ended up missing SpongeBob, we awoke to a visitor at our new house. The visitor was a short woman with black hair and a wide smile, she also had a young daughter at her side .
Her name was Winona.
I had answered the door with my mother since my curiosity was untamed.
I always knew there was something about Winona. Mrs Dawn and Winona had come to ask if they could help with anything involving the move. Mom agreed and Mrs Dawn and Winona were at us for two hours. Winona and I played together for those two hours. My doll house and dolls had been unpacked and we decided to play with it. Using my Barbie and Bratz dolls, we created a friendship.
"I also have another friend". Winona told me as we played.
"What's her name"? I asked.
"Violet".
I wanted to meet Violet, and I told Mom that I wanted to spend more time with Winona as well as meeting Violet. We all met together a week later and we ended up going to school together and sticking like glue.
As the years passed , we became a group. Not even a group- a posey, a trio. I became known as the one with the humor in our elementary school years. It started when our first grade teacher asked me a simple question:
"Why did Cinderella run away"?
"Because she really had to go to the toilet".
Apparently, that was the most hysterical thing you could hear as a first grader, because I got the whole class cracked up. The consequences for the whole class getting my attention was having to stand in the corner and a letter to my parents saying I had misbehaved.
Over the years, my humor increased and became more mature.
For example, fourth grade:
"Why are you all so rowdy today"? My fourth grade teacher asked.
I decided to answer my class.
"Miss Rigbird, because we honestly think you are the most boring person on this planet and we just want to go home and watch A.N.T Farm and hope we can become child prodigies and leave this hell hole".
That ended with the whole class in hysterics and I went on a trip to the principle's office for the first time in my life.
Mr Atwood (who I still believe to this day is a part-time drug dealer. The idea came up when we had a drug talk in third grade and I suddenly came to conclusion that my principal was a drug dealer. It's probably just the thrift shop blazers that creeped me out) gave me a lollipop and then told me that he hoped to never see me again in his office. This is the only reason I never tried my humor inside of class again, because of a damn lollipop.
But as you know, it always was kept outside the classroom.
Winona became the sort of person you would spill your emotions out to.
" Jayden told me my shoes looked horrific with my dress, how would he know, he's a boy!" I complained to Winona in fifth grade, before Jayden realized he was gay and gender equality came into my life.
"Some boys have a good sense of fashion". She told me, who was a little more ahead with her idea of gender equality.
I started crying for some reason, probably because I realized how idiotic I must've looked.
Then Winona matured and became more irritable and she became much more honest.
"Does my hair look bad today"? I asked her in eighth grade.
"It looks like your hair was shaved off and then you put on a wig made of straw and shit and considered it your new hair".
I actually don't know how I forgave her for that.
Violet became the hipster of our group. She began wearing flower crowns in seventh grade at least four times a week and wearing artistic clothes which consisted of loose cardigans and loose tank tops. She also started expanding her mind in terms of creativity.
There was times when her ideas were fantastic.
"Have you heard of the singer, Lana Del Rey"? She asked me earlier this year.
"Yeah, she sings Summertime Sadness". I replied.
"I bet you've only heard the remix though".
"Is she good, you seem interested in her".
"I like her song 'Black Beauty', everything else is too slow for me".
"Then why are you telling me all of this"?
"Because I think you'll like her".
See, amazing ideas!
She also has her terrible ideas.
"My parents watched a movie last night on our family Netflix account". She told Winona and I during July 2013.
"Was it good"? Winona asked.
"I don't know, I'm not allowed to watch it".
"So why are you telling us this"? I asked her.
"I think we should go and watch it".
We did, worst decision of our lives.
The movie was Knocked Up. It's not like we were traumatized by it, let's just say that it permanently changed our perspective of sex, marriage, life, children, one night stands, profanity, drugs, alcohol and basically life.
Okay, we thought this was the truth at the time but then we got off our asses and matured and realized you can't learn everything from a Judd Apatow film. You only learn half of it.
We didn't tell anyone about it, or they would know our 'recipe for maturity'.
We literally called it this for a year. I actually don't understand how my twelve year old self and I are the same person. We're not even that far apart in age! Yet, we're like two completely people: one really weird kid going through a stage where watermelons are popping up on her chest and this fantastic teenage girl who has really awesome hair.
You know which one I am.
With Winona and Violet by my side, all the pieces that we needed to prepare us for the obstacle course we were about to begin finally came together. We knew we would be ready when adolescent hood came knocking on our door.
Together, we became slightly prepared for life.
Together we were and are.