She looked down the spiral staircase where her parents sat on a couch together. Two older kids sat on the couch next to them, but she doesn't remember who they were. Tara had to be around 4 or 5, this was the first memory she had. Her family took a vacation to a town called Nederland that was about 20 minutes up to mountain near Boulder, Colorado. That was the last time Tara remembers visiting the house her parents owed in Nederland. She wasn't sure why she still remembers that memory, but she does. Maybe it was the fact it was the last time she went on vacation with both of her parents together. This memory gave her a weird feeling in her stomach, it didn't make her sad but it made her feel lonely.
Tara's father owned a cheese company in Cleveland. He traveled a lot, was only home around two weeks out of the month. Her mother was a stay at home mom, but Tara didn't get along with her. They had more of a sister-to-sister relationship than a daughter mother relationship. When Tara was twelve she punched her mom in the face, she doesn't remember why exactly because as she got older their fights started to become more physical. Tara's mom had a cabinet full of pills and saw the doctor more than anyone should in a week. The doctor said her mom could be bipolar, but it was never diagnosed. The six pills a day her mom took didn't seem to help her mood swings very much.
Tara grew up going to a Catholic grade school. She knew what was wrong and what was right. Catholic's brainwash children, let them grow up thinking you can only be a certain way. Only boys and girls can date, don't have s** before marriage, go to church every Sunday, we all know the list can go on. Sending Tara to a Catholic school meant they didn't have to discipline her as much on their own. She was a kid with her head on straight, average mostly A's and kept out of trouble for the most part.
When Tara got to high school she would have been describe as a naughty Catholic schoolgirl if she were on a TV show. She was athletic, made Varsity in volleyball in basketball. The seniors loved her; they took her to parties on Friday and Saturday nights. They would get Tara so f**ed up on alcohol and weed then introduce her to an older boy telling them to go into a room together. She started to show up hangover to practice, she was failing cla**es, and going to the store to buy pregnancy test became normal to her.
Tara had problems. She didn't see a point in life; she didn't want to be living anymore. She knew a lot of people that she could talk to, but the only people she wanted to share her feelings to were her parents. She felt like she didn't have any parents. Every time she felt abandon by her parents the memory when she was five looking down on her parents sitting on the couch came into her head. The last time she felt like she had a family was when she was five. All she wanted was an “I love you,” from both her mom and dad.