Sierra’s Story

I’ve been on this earth 19 years. 19 years. Wow. It seems like so much longer, but at the same time not that long at all. You learn and experience so much in that time (enough to make you ask: Damn, there’s more?) I have seen myself and those around me evolve so much. And I guess this is the part where I start to tell you my story or at least the basics right now.

My name is Sierra. I was born in Louisville, Ky. My family and I moved around a lot because we could not always afford where we were living. Yes, you guessed it, another story about a girl who grew up in poverty. But unlike all the other stories I do not believe I would want to grow up any other way. Growing up how I did I learned what was really valuable in life and what is honestly a waste of time caring about. Anyways back to what I was saying; (see this is the crazy I was talking about. I cannot for the life of me stay on topic or in order.) We moved around a lot. We moved to various areas of Louisville, some not as great as others. We lived in the very poor sides, as some would call it the ghetto. And as you know in areas like these it is predominantly people of color. At the time I did not realize it, but it helped shape me so much. I remember in one house we lived in it had an alley that ran in front of it and everyone else’s house that was on that road. My neighbors were African American. At least to the right of us because I don’t really remember the neighbors to the left. They had a daughter my sisters and I would play with every now and then. But the main memory I have of them is one spring day my mom was cleaning the house and when she does that she makes it a entire days task. I obviously did not want to help especially with me being as young as I was. Cleaning was a no no, (or at least I wanted it to be I usually didn’t have a choice) so I went outside because I had heard music playing super loud.I walked to the front stairs and stopped. I saw my neighbors doing this dance I had never seen because no one in my family really danced like that. I stood on the porch and gazed at them fascinated. I so badly wanted to join because it looked like they were having fun, but I didn’t know what they were doing.

They saw me watching and invited me down. I thought for a minute and then slowly made my way towards them. I was nervous. I had never done this before. There were four woman and they were all standing in a horizontal line next to each other. They put me in the middle of them all (as well as my sister, can’t forget her) and they taught me the steps to move. I was nervous at first, but then it slowly came to me. They started cheering when we started to get it on our own. I was so proud of myself. I was just happy to follow along and be included. Later on I realized the name of the dance they taught me was the Cupid’s shuffle. My first taught dance. Something I will never forget.

Now there is so much more and honestly it gets a lot crazier if only I could tell you it all. My family is the definition of Psycho crazy. Man oh man.