About me, an introduction

I am Brooke. People just call me Brooke. I am 49 years old and in that time I have seen and done an awful lot. For starters, I grew up in California but in 2018 I packed up everything I had and my dog and moved to Kentucky to be near my only child, my daughter Sydney. It wasn't brave and it wasn't for the adventure, but rather out of necessity. It was do or die time for me and if she and her fiance Ryan hadn't come out to swoop me up I likely would be dead right now. Yep, you read that right. I don't expect I would have survived much longer on the streets of Rancho Cordova, California. For one thing, I am used to having a home of my own. Second, my poor little Babydog was used to having a home as well. And we struggled. She struggled to keep up and I struggled, well, I struggled with a lot of things. I'll get into that more later. For now, let's just leave it at this: in 2018 my daughter saved my life.

From as early as I can remember I've been a fat kid. I think of myself this way even now, in my late 40s. What I remember from growing up fat is how much I hated having my picture taken. In our home videos, you can hear my voice, running commentary, from behind the camera, always. But there are very few pictures of just me.

The funny thing is, when I look at old photos of me, either alone or in family group shots, I realize I was chunky, some might say thick, but not really fat fat. I mean, not like I am now! And it always makes me a little sad, remembering how I grew up considering myself a fat kid. Because that stigma held me back. It made me think twice before trying things. And more times than not, I would choose not to try those things.

I remember exactly when my self-esteem tanked, too. My little brother and I had this after-school babysitter in elementary school because our mom worked, this was probably around the 4th grade for me. Her name was Susie George and she was also the recess lady at Roosevelt Elementary. She had three sons and all of their names started with the letter J, which is really neither here nor there. Anyway, they lived in a cul-de-sac and on the street that ran along the cul-de-sac, there were several more boys, all older than I was at the time. And this one time they teased me and called me "Beached Whale" until Susie told them to shut the hell up. But by then the damage was done. It hurt my feelings and I think it may have broken my spirit a little bit.

So it was at that point that I realized that I was a fat kid. Up until then, I'd really had no idea.

So that was in around, I believe, the 4th grade. Not everything about going to Susie George’s after school was bad, I just have to point that out. The George’s next-door neighbor had two kids. One was (another) older boy but they also had a girl and guess what? She was my age! Her name was Julie and she was a tiny little thing. Definitely compared to me, since I was a fat kid now! We played together and went through what I would call “experiences” together growing up. Most significant of those experiences I would have to say there are two: first, Julie was there the first time I ever tried using tampons. I can’t remember where we got the tampon or if I was even really on my period when we did this experiment, but I do remember taking it out to this camper that divided hers and Susie George’s driveways and she tried to help me with it. Yeah, I know. I remember the strangest things.

The second first was the first time I smoked pot. Now, we were in 10th grade at this point, because I had my DL and a car. We had found this half a joint in her brother (I’ll call him) Clark’s closet and swiped it. Not only that but we ditched school to this too! After we smoked it we drove to the South Coast Plaza, which was a HUGE mall-slash-shopping center in Costa Mesa California. I swear to God, we drove around that parking lot for over an hour, looking for JUST the right parking spot. The funny part was that it was the middle of the day in the middle of the week. The place was practically deserted! We were just too stoned! I don’t think we ever did find a spot to park, LOL! Anyway, Julie was a huge part of my childhood, but she wasn’t alone.

I would have to say my best friend growing up was most definitely Patty. When I met Patty we both lived in the same condominium complex in Anaheim. One of our favorite things to do was to ride our bikes around our complex. Another thing we loved to do was to turn her garage, which usually only held her dad’s car, into a roller rink. We skated so many circles around that garage and up and down her driveway! We had sleepovers as often as we could, she went camping with my family – until she crashed our quad into a neighboring campground’s trailer and my parents had to pay for it. After that, not so much!

Another thing we loved to do was swim. We were fishes, spending as much time as possible by and in the water. I had a pool in my backyard (this was after my family moved out of our condo and into a house a couple of miles away) and we swam all summer. It was there that we invented pool surfing (on a boogie board, of course), almost brained ourselves on the side of the pool while pool surfing more than once, and that backyard is where Cooking with Aunt Margie was born. That, my friends, was our pretend television cooking show, naturally. We would be in the pool, floating around, “filming” our cooking show, having a grand old time. I was Aunt Margie, of course, and Patty was my assistant. Trust me, it was a lot of fun for a couple of sheltered 12-year-olds!

By the next year, when we were 13, we went to Newport Beach on the bus (we lived in Anaheim) as often as our parents would let us. We had no cell phones back then, so we were two teenagers (barely) completely in the wind from the crack of dawn til dark and we loved it! By the time I got my DL, two and a half years later, we were pros at public transportation. It was way less scary back then, believe me. It was on one of those bus rides home that we saw for the first time two girls making out. It was awesome!

(This is the end of the first part of my story, which I guess you could say is about my adolescence. It is part of what will most likely be much longer, but this is what I have so far.)