Stay Strong by Laura Deal

Stay Strong By Alexa Marchbanks

This is dedicated to my two sisters, Ciara and Tamika, and all my friends and family who are here to try and help me stay strong.

Table of Contents My Name!............................................................................................................ 5 My Neighborhood!............................................................................................... 6 Advice From an Adult!......................................................................................... 7 A Positive Day at School!.....................................................................................8 A Negative Day at School!....................................................................................9 The Big Game!...................................................................................................10 A Happy Time For Me!........................................................................................11 A Few Special Family Members!........................................................................12 A Time I Got In Trouble!.....................................................................................13 Life in Wisconsin!................................................................................................14

My Name When I was born my parents tried to name me Mercedes. I’m very glad that my sister told them not to because I hate that name. Instead they went with Alexa, like my sister told them to. I like Alexa better than Mercedes, but I still do not like my name. The name, Alexa, is supposed to entitle someone with qualities such as being outgoing, caring, and very intelligent. I am all of those things, so I guess the name suits me. It means Defender of Man, which sounds pretty cool to me. It sounds like a really important person, and I don’t really feel as important as it sounds, but I do “protect” the people I love or anyone who needs help. Although the name suits me characteristically, I don’t think it suits me like I wish it did. It just doesn’t sound like a very exciting name to me. I like the nickname, Yexa, my friends gave to me more than my real name. It sounds more unique and kind of crazy, like me. More people call me Yexa, or variations of it, instead of Alexa. So its become like a second first name to me. I feel almost the same way about my last name. The name Marchbanks is like a burden to me. Hearing it brings back painful memories from a few years ago. That’s why on Facebook and other social network sites I use my middle name as my last name. Alexa Monique sounds more suiting to me. All in all, I wish my name was more exciting and fitting to me.

My Neighborhood My Neighborhood Sketchy Drawing Tattoos Nightmares Flying Powers Superman Muscular Abs Hockey Guys Love Food My House Cold Ice Sidewalk on my street

My Neighborhood Police 21 Jump street Channing Tatum Magic Mike Chaz Michael Michaels Will Ferrell Laughing Crying Sad Clowns My sister Moist Sidewalk My neighbors who think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cool to never shovel their sidewalk.

Advice From An Adult “You can’t escape or forget what happened with your dad, and you can’t make your mom change who she is, but your sisters are here to help you and so are we.” Jeanne Meyer, Haylee Meyer’s mom, has been like a mother to me since about seventh grade. She works with abused children and child care, so my sisters and I keep her in the loop of our family problems. She knows every struggle my family has gone through and she’s been there to help every time. She takes care of me like I’m her own child. Though most people don’t know, my sisters and I don’t get along with our mom since what happened 3 years ago with my dad. To put in simple terms my family has been completely torn apart, but thankfully I have my sisters, they are like my guardian angels. It’s been a rough few weeks for me to put simply. I’ve never been more stressed out and felt as many emotions at once as I have the past month. Jeanne, Haylee, and their whole family have been here to help me at least get through each day since both my sisters live in Minnesota. Jeanne gives me advice at least every month, if not more. I feel like part of the family around all of them. I spend a good majority of time at their house considering they live half a block away. Hunter and Colton treat me like a sister, which doesn’t always have it’s perks! Haylee’s pretty much my sister and Brian is like a dad to me now. Jeanne gives me advice that literally gets me through each day. I could never thank her enough for all she’s done.

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Friday. 5:30. The Start to an amazing day. Who in their right mind is awake at this time, and why are they trying to talk to me ? That is the first thought that ran through my brain. ! I was rudely awaken by a text message from WXOW probably telling me about all the snow that ! fell during the night. I was wrong, it was a text telling me that today would be absolutely amazing. “West Salem 2-Hour Delay.” Thank you sweet jesus! But despite the fact I could’ve gone back to sleep, I didn’t. So I decided to start getting ready. Today was the day to look good, there was a hockey game that night. I had a certain someone to impress. When I was leaving my house to walk down the street I realized someone had shoveled my whole driveway, the sidewalks and the path leading to my front door. I don’t know who it was, but he/ she was my Superman or Wonder Woman for the day. I had a great day at school. No one tried to piss me off, ! funny things happened in almost all of my classes, and of course classes were shortened, which is great. My ! Friday at school wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, in fact it turned out to be one of the best days I have had this year. I hope there’s more like it.

A Negative Day At School My day started out pretty good - actually really good. I got a ride to school from my usual ride. I may or may not have a huge crush on the guy that drives me to school, but it’s no big deal. Through out the whole day every time we saw each other he would tease me like he always does and we pushed each other around. The few people who know I like him knew that I was overly happy because of him. In choir I added a new person to the list of people who know I like him. Jacey has been badgering me about it for weeks so I finally told her. After that is when my day took a turn for the worst. One condition on me liking this guy, he’s my best friends older brother. Even though I tell her everything, this is one secret I’d like to keep from her. She doesn’t like when I, or anyone, calls him hot. So I have a strong feeling she’d be pretty peeved if she found out I liked him and it might ruin our friendship. That’s why I only tell people I trust with my life. It can’t get to her and it could possibly happen. A well known gossip queen in our grade overheard me and Jacey talking in choir. I suddenly felt a huge pit in my stomach. I felt like a building being knocked over by a wrecking ball. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone after that, and I felt a little sick. It didn’t help when she saw him and I walking down the hall together after the bell rang. Especially cause we were pushing each other around and laughing. It was a really terrible way to end a great day. But I guess I should’ve expected it. Nothing ever works out for me.

The Big Game This year during a volleyball tournament my team worked harder than I’ve ever seen them work. We had one game left until the championship, and if we lost we wouldn’t make it. We were playing Holmen, who was a better team than us. We won the first game and lost the second, which left us with a tie breaking game. We were winning it at first, but then Holmen started gaining a lot of points and we were down by quite a few. That is when my team started to pick it up and work like an actual team. I think everyone actually wanted to win and beat Holmen because I’ve never seen everyone on my team work so well together and talk so loud. Every person called the ball loud enough to hear it from miles away. We tied up with Holmen. The score was 23 to 23. We had to get the next two points. After a long rally with loud calls and hard hits, we lost the point. Holmen was one point away from beating us. But we weren’t going to let it end without a fight. We fought till we couldn’t play anymore, and it worked. We got the points back. Once the score was 26-25 with us winning we only needed one more point to win. It had to have been at least 3 minutes of going back and forth cause we were all getting tired. I thought we were going to give up soon, but just then I was set up on the outside. The set was really close to the net, and I couldn’t risk hitting the net and losing a point. I aimed ran for it and spiked the ball to the ground. Various loud cheers and screams came from my team. We all came to middle court and celebrated the hard win. We had done it. We worked together as a team and later ended up winning the whole tournament.

A Happy Time For Me One thing that makes me happy is being with my sisters and their boyfriend/fiancé. We are like best friends and get along very well. I love being with them more than almost anybody else I know. When we’re all together we always laugh and have a good time. I probably strengthened my abs every time I’m with them because they always make me laugh. We laugh at stuff that’s barely funny, but we find a way to make it funny. When I went to stay with them to celebrate one of their birthdays we went out to eat. At dinner I laughed so hard I was crying. I’m sure I probably choked on my drink at least five times that night. After dinner we went back to my sister’s apartment and watched funny movies. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed more in my life than that weekend. From movies to dinner to the science museum, I think I laughed more than a total of four hours altogether. My favorite part was probably when my sister, Tamika, took a drink of my pomegranate lemonade. She set it down and said “Ohp, I have diabetes now.” The lemonade was pretty sugary, but what she said made me laugh for like five minutes. Then my almost brother-in-law, James, was making fun of Tamika and saying she was born with a tail. He loves to joke around all the time. He then proceeded to tell our waitress that my sister was born with a tail and my parents tried to name her Simba from The Lion King, which was hilarious. She had no idea how to reply. I wish everyone was like my sisters cause I have some of the happiest times with them.

A Few Special Family Members I can’t choose a favorite family member because both of my sisters are just simply amazing. They used to be really mean to me when I was little but we’ve learned to love. I don’t fight with them much, but if I do they usually win - so I usually choose not to try. We all think the same things are funny, so it’s not hard to get us laughing. Like one time in the mall this little boy got mad at his dad and tried to run away, but he ended up tripping and falling right in front of me and my oldest sister Tamika. We are probably terrible people, but we both laughed for like ten minutes about it. Hey at least we were bonding, maybe not over something we should’ve, but sue us! I mean it’s not like we enjoy laughing at other peoples pain it’s just that we find it funny when people fall. I felt bad for the kid, don’t get me wrong, but it was a little funny. My other sister Ciara is definitely “special”. She makes random crazy faces all the time and says things most people probably wouldn’t and they’re usually pretty funny. We have almost the same laugh. When we laugh at the same time our laughs sync and we just keeping laughing the same until we can’t breath and we have to stop. I love my sisters more than anything. They mean the world to me and we’ve gotten through so much together. I don’t think my life would ever be the same without either of them. They are the most special people to me.

A Time I Got In Trouble I got in trouble a lot when I was little. To make matters worse, when I was with my cousin we were like double trouble. One night I was sleeping over at my cousin’s house and we got in trouble for being to loud, so we went to sleep. When I woke up in the middle of the night she was gone and I was by myself. I didn’t like to be in the dark by myself when I was little so I started to freak out. I started hearing noises in the hallway. They probably weren’t real, but I was paranoid. I went to my aunt and asked if she could take me home because I didn’t feel good. And the lies begin. That wasn’t really true, I was just scared and didn’t want to admit it. So she took me home. The next day my mom asked me why I came home in the middle of the night. I told her I had a nightmare. She said are you sure that’s what was wrong. I said yeah I’m sure. And the lies continue. I overheard my mom on the phone with my aunt. They were talking about me coming home during the night. Oh no. I knew I was gonna get in trouble for lying. Sure enough my mom came and asked why I told them both different stories. I said I was feeling sick and I had a nightmare so I wasn’t lying, I just told one of them one thing and one of them the other. She wasn’t buying it. And the lie lands me grounded. Gotta love getting in trouble.