When I was younger I used to think everyone was just like me. I always thought that living in a small two bedroom apartment with your mom and brother was exactly how it was supposed to be. It never occurred to me that other people lived in houses with fathers and ate three plentiful feasts a day. To me I thought it was perfectly fine that every morning I would wake up go to Pre-k where my six year old brother would check me and get me settled before walking to his class down the hall. After school being picked up by a baby-sitter and awaiting our mother to pick us up at night. Not once in my little mind did I ever think that everyone else saw their father everyday. I ever since I could remember seeing my father was like going on vacation rare and brief. Oblivious to the world around me my little family living in my little apartment was perfectly fine. All of this changed when I met my best friend.

I had met her through my brother; his best friend was her older brother. It wasn’t long before she invited me over to play. When we arrived at her house and walked through the garage I couldn’t help but wonder why her garage was as big as my apartment. Into the house we went, I followed her through the kitchen into the living room down the hall into her room. She had her very own room full of Barbies and baby dolls propped up in their cribs. Suddenly a feeling overcame my body, I wasn’t sad or happy or mad. It was a feeling I had never experienced I was confused. Why did she have a house and her own room? Why was her mother in the kitchen on a school day in the afternoon? This feeling soon faded but it was still in the back of my mind as we played with all of her toys. Hours passed, we played and played until there was the sound of the front door swinging open. My new friend suddenly jumped up and dropped all of her toys and ran. I was curious to see what the big deal was, I walked into the living room to see her hugging a tall man. I asked who it was and she looked at me like I was stupid and replied “my daddy”. The look I got next when I asked when she had seen him last was worse. We gathered at the dining room table, my brother, her brother, her mom and dad and then the two of us. We sat there and ate the meal her mom had prepared for us and they talked about their days and asked each and every one of us about our days. We had the opportunity to tell our own stories. All of this was overwhelming. At this moment in time my four year old heart broke. I realized my life was anything but perfect and my friend had it all. I had nothing compared to her; I didn’t even have a complete family.
That night I cried myself to sleep thinking how my whole life had changed with one meal.
As the years went on I continued to go over to their house. To her it was a play date to me it was a fairytale. I would go over there as often as possible to pretend I was her with a perfect family and life. When I turned eight I came to the realization that my family wasn’t awful just abnormal. I didn’t have it all but I had more now. Over the years I had become apart of a new family in addition to my own. I had not accumulated a best friend but a whole family.