High school years...

So, high school... let's just say those were some tough years. When I started Warren High in Downey in 1984 things were good. I was a freshman, yes and that isn't ever easy but I was starting high school with so many friends that I had gone to school with since I was a little girl, some even since Kindergarten. So having so many friends and going to the school that my brother Mike had gone to and my cousin Don had just graduated from the year before was a good thing. I also had Tami there, she was a junior my freshman year so I already had an older 'crowd' to hang out with, that was good. However there was one thing that wasn't good. I had severe ADD and we didn't know it. It was the 80's and there wasn't really a term for it yet, and it wasn't as well known as it is today. So these four years that I was getting ready to embark upon were going to be tough. I was a good kid, smart enough but could NOT keep up in school. I couldn't stand sitting in class, it was more than I could handle so eventually I just started leaving. Yep, if a class or teacher weren't holding my interest or if I just knew I wasn't going to make it through the next hour, well I just walked off campus. I think in the beginning I was making up excuses for my mom or Mike to pick me up because I didn't realize how easy it was to leave, then when I had that figured out I just started ditching. Daily. I would forge my mom's signature so I didn't get much detention, they just thought I was absent all the time. Some of my friends from middle school were choosing to go down some really crazy paths at the time and I think everybody thought I was doing the same thing. I had several friends who actually dropped out that year, they either went to continuation school or just dropped out completely.

My parents weren't the super involved parents that most parents are today and let's face it, I was the youngest and they had already been through so much with the other 3 that they were like, 'what can she do that we haven't already been through', and like I said I was a good kid, I never drank, I still to this day have never done a drug, and I wasn't promiscuous. I was always home by my curfew, as a matter of fact by my junior year I don't think I really had a curfew, just because they knew I would always come home.

I barely scraped by my freshman year and when I came back my sophomore year I got a new group of friends and started staying at school a little more frequently, I still was not there all day every day but at least I was making an effort. Looking back I really, really wish I would have known what was wrong with me and I wish that I could have done something about it. I hate that I never went to college, I went to a local J.C. but just for early childhood education, but I really wish I would have been able to further my education. It's something that I find extremely important now and will do everything I can to make sure that my girls go.

High school ended ok and I am still friends with so many of the people that I was friends with then, and not just because of facebook, a lot of us were still friends before facebook became the rage and we started finding people we hadn't even thought of in 20 years!