Sun, Rain and Depression: The life of a teenage Floridian

Chpt 2. How I grew up

My full name is William Connor Fitzsimmons and Lakeland, FL is where its at. Born and lived here my whole life and I love it. Well I used to live near the local college before I was 4 and we moved into a bigger house when my brother was born. I was spunky as a little one, always getting into things I shouldn’t, climbing trees (which I still love to do), and basically just have fun. Actually we moved closer to the local airport but up until recently, I never really paid any attention to any of the airplanes that flew over my house on a daily basis. You should know that Florida is major tourist hotspot and family vacations were very common when I was little. From Busch Gardens and Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, to Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, we as a family would have a lot of fun throughout the year. The beach was also a common vacation destination including Clearwater, St. Pete and Anna Maria Island which is still my favorite. When I was young, we would go camping a lot and I have a little that I would tell you.

The first one is when I was 6, my family went camping and behind our campsite was this trail that we would walk on from time to time during the weekend. So my parents decided to go for a night hike on Friday and took me along with them, well right at the beginning of the hike I had to stop and tie my shoe. As I went down to do that, I noticed that my parents had continued on walking but I still tied my shoe. When I got up I started to hear singing coming from behind me and I turned around to find nothing. Now I thought I needed to catch up to my parents before I got in trouble but I then saw a little girl not to far up the trail from me that wasn’t there before I went to tie my shoe. So this little girl then ran away without me getting a real good look at her and I went to catch up with my parents but I never told them about it. Then came Saturday night and another walk but I never saw that little girl down the entire trail. Sunday night was the craziest because I decided to go on that trail by myself to see if I could find that girl again. Well I started to hear singing again but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from this time. So using my flashlight, I looked all around me to see if I could find anything but all I heard was a sudden thud next to my feet. When I looked down and pointed my flashlight at the ground, all I saw was a rock. I picked up this rock wondering how it got there and what was on the other side of it because I could feel some cuts in the rock. I turned it over to find my name etched into the rock perfectly and thats when I saw her. She was standing right in front of me with a really big smile and then leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, then disappeared. Though I never told my parents, I will never forget that crazy weekend.

Do you know the phrase “The Great American Pastime”? Well if you don’t then it means baseball and I personally played this fun sport for 6 years of my life and had a blast. Starting at tee-ball when I was young and with age came bigger divisions. The league that I was in was called the “South Lakeland Babe Ruth League” (SLBRL for short) which consisted of kids from tee-ball all the way to teen majors. For 6 years of my life, I was always at the ball fields either practicing or playing a game with my team during pre-season and playoffs. Then came time for the championship games which were always fun. I have to say that I am quite confused by this fact: in all 6 years of my baseball career, I never lost any championship game. This meant that our team always got tickets to go see our local team play for free as a prize. this also means that I have a lot of trophies on my shelves in my room (13 to be exact). I finally stopped playing ball when I was 12 after finishing my last spring season with the league but even now I still feel like I should pick up my bat and glove and step back onto America’s favorite diamond shaped field.

Lets head back to my house for a bit. I knew how to have a lot of fun around my home all year long whether I was in my pool, riding my bike or whatever else. I live in a neighborhood with a nice playground across the street from my house and 3 fishing lakes all within walking distance of each other. Well just let me say that everyone has an accident or two when they first start riding a bike and I definitely had my fair share of them. So while riding my bike around I saw one of my friends off to my left and so I looked over that way to see what he was doing. I should have kept my eyes forward because I was unaware that I was heading straight for a steel multi-housing mailbox. I was moving pretty quick and people down the street from where I was could hear the impact of me hitting that thing. Because I wasn’t looking, all I felt the the sudden cold sting of the steel and then I was on the ground in pain. One of the neighbor that I knew came out to help me up and then I painfully walked me and my bike all the way home and didn’t ride my bike for about a week. Like I said, we have three lakes around us so we would go fishing a lot, either with my dad and brother or my friends. I don’t know how but there would always be at least one alligator in one of the lakes all year long and we constantly had the animal control out here to get them out which was quite fun to watch. There were little bluegill, bass and sucker fish in all the lakes plus a couple of turtle from time to time. One of the lakes has a wooden dock that we would stand on and catch fish on for hours which honestly was a lot of fun. Even though it is constantly being repaired because of some really stupid people always trying to tear it apart, its still here.

So now you know how I grew up and what I did as a child. I wonder if you think of me as a weird or normal person by what you have read so far. Well don’t jump to any conclusions yet because you haven’t see the whole picture. I have much more to tell you about me. The next chapter will be all about school from pre-k to where I am now so get ready to open those textbook and get back to work.