Never Imagined I'd End Up Here

How it all began

Hey, my name is Leona. I've been told it's a pretty name. Not one you hear very often. But everything I'm about to tell you is true. I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. The kind of town where everyone knows everyone and you hear gossip at the local gas station. Which gets old after a while. Especially when it's about your family.

My parents owned a small motel. No pool or anything. Just the kind that you had to walk into the lobby, which was beautiful wooden and log cabin feeling, to check in at the front desk and the access to the 24 rooms we rented out was from outside. It was almost like one of the shady motels you see in scary movies being it was built in the 1950's but it was home.

Life was great. I had two parents that loved each other and two younger siblings Emily and Jake. We used to take family road trips to Florida, Nevada, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and we even flew to Washington state once when I was very young. In kindergarten I met Kyle. He was a cutie back then with his blonde hair and blue/grey eyes. And I used to pick on him because I liked him. Kicked him in the shins and chased him down to braid his long hair up until 5th grade when we grew apart. That's when I started hanging out with the girls from gymnastics. And I ended up with great friends. But when Valerie moved away we all went our separate directions. There just wasn't the same glue or feeling when we all hung out without her.

Then in eighth grade I became friends with Jennifer again. We were kind of friends in 3rd grade. I mean I went to her Halloween party and Birthday. But she was friends with Johannah and me and her hated each other. I'm not sure why. We never talked. But eventually we became best friends. And she was friends with Kyle. So I finally had my favorite people around me all the time and I didn't realize just how much I would need them in the days to come. Life has a funny way of putting people you need back in your life right before it takes everything you've ever known away from you.