Maggie Madsen p2 My whole way of looking at my family began to change when I was about seven. That mid-October we were living in our “new” small two story home in Fridley, Minnesota. There was always odd smells floating around ominously, loud roars of cars from the highway close by, and random wet spots on the floors. The house was old to my brother and I, but brand new to my parents. It was the first thing they could be proud of sense the accident.
To celebrate us moving into our home, the whole family came over bearing their southern style food. My aunt Glenda blasted inside the house yelling “If only I scooped up this magnificent house before you guys”, she has always tried to talk as if she was from a different generation than she was born into. After Glenda had grandfully entered the room, as she always seemed to do, was her loud trophy winning husband Todd. He had already built two franchises from the ground up by the time he was 34, and because of that he was always in a cheery mood. Following him sluggishly was my dopey cousins Jesse and Aaron. They always seemed to have a tired, worn out face, as if they had just ran a 5K. They came up behind me smelling of rotten eggs that had festered in the garbage for about a week. Jesse grabbed my legs while Aaron pulled on my neck, in unison they slammed me down on the ground. They hovered over me like I was some dead bug on a sidewalk. “What the hell are you doing Maggie, get the hell up, we wanna wrestle” Jesse screeched into my ear with his non pubescent voice. “I’m dead leave me alone guys” I struggled to say as I was clearly out of breath. “Whatever you’re no fun, we’re gonna go break your toys” Aaron said slowly so a “dumb girl like me” could fully understand.
I am the youngest in my family, and also the only girl. I have never really understood the phrase ‘girly girl’ due to the fact that I have been a tomboy my whole life. I grew up with three uncles that would always babysit me almost everyday, three boy cousins, and a brother. With hardly any female influence I was left to be on the dark side. Doing what four older boys would do on a huge plot of land that my grandparents own, with a creek, neverending woods, and a railroad track. We would always play army in the woods, trudge up the muddy, leech infested creek, live in the forts we made. I was left to do everything on my own, due to my cootey problem.
I walked into the kitchen to find my parents, aunt and uncle, and my grandparents discussing some weird thing about some group of people that want to burn our flag to the ground because they hate America so much. I didn’t care about this, so I grabbed my “squishy” cup filled with the usual mashed grapes and apples, and walked into the living room. I look up as if my neck was going to fall off, to see the grand windows on the ceiling, not fully understanding the concept of gravity, I fell back hit my head on the stair railing, and then everything went black.
But the blackness was only there for about a minute, I woke up. I was floating around, I was in so much peace. I could see a bright beam of light coming towards me, I stuck my arms out to grab it. It was finally my euphoria, my euphoria from all of the fighting, all of the name calling, all of the ‘you’ll never be good enough’s’. Then suddenly I felt a yank on my hair, then another one even harder, I stuck my hand up to see what it was and then I could see that my cousins were trying to pull me up from my peace. My head bobbled at the top of the water for about a second then my cousin Nick, pulled me up onto the cold tundra of a ground. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but all I knew was my brother Jack was crying and screaming for my dad. I could feel my legs tensing up as they hit the air. They were soaking wet, I did not know why they were, but I was about to figure out. They flipped me onto my back, one eye was open, but my other one seemed to be frozen shut. My body was trembling, I