I Was The Quiet Girl

When I was younger I was always the quiet girl. When I would speak, someone would always tell me, “Hey, I didn’t even know you could talk.” I never had a friend until fifth grade, though, that came to an end very quickly. I was too shy to raise my hand in class or to tell others my ideas or thoughts. The fear that someone would reject anything that I thought or said completely enveloped me. The self-consciousness that I carried around was mostly encouraged by the environment I was raised in, and I unknowingly accepted that burden as if it were the only option I had.

I was raised in one of the poorest neighborhoods in town. It was a trailer park. There, drug addicts, alcoholics, and streetwalkers would linger day and night until one day, out of the blue, one of them would vanish and leave an unpaid rent behind. That, though, never bothered the landlord, as the trailer would easily attract another renter. It was a never-ending process that upset me because renters were never offered anything decent. For one, the trailers were unsightly. The mold would invade almost every corner of the decaying homes, and the paint was chipped off pretty badly. Windows were broken and grass was replaced with huge puddles, created by drivers who didn’t respect the yards of others. Another problem was the landlord’s unwillingness to fix the neighborhood up. He refused to kick criminals out and ignored any complaints. The only day he would ever show up was rent day. He would rush out of the