A bit more comfortable, a bit more exposure.

Our move was not unexpected but not as bad as it had been in the past. This time we weren't moving in a desperate rush, my stepfather was still working the same job and we were only moving a town over, which on Long Island is a ten minute trip over. This time we lived on the first floor and there was a family with two boys living upstairs. As I saw over the years, siblings near the same age and gender tend to be a lot rougher than an only child, especially one like I was. Down the block were twins who, eventually, would be part of a small crew on the block.

This was the first time I was part of a small group of friends. Some days we'd all go outside and play, other days the boys upstairs would come to my house and we'd play games or with my ever-growing Lego collection. I found fun in creativity and building, and even more fun in having others enjoy it with me.

It was also around this time that I started to learn how to draw, thanks to my stepfather. He still tried to get me to play baseball, but we found a lot more common ground in comics and art. I had been drawing pictures of spider-man and the X-men regularly, and finding more things that I enjoyed. I also found enjoyment watching early morning before school shows like Dragon Ball Z and Sailor moon. I also enjoyed all my Disney shows like Gargoyles and darkwing duck.

This was also around the time where I found enjoyment in story line driven games such as the Final Fantasy series. Deep plot driven story lines started to pique my interest. I started carrying around small pocket-sized notebooks and jotting down random things that interested me. This slowly began evolving into random ideas I'd have, little bits and pieces for short stories or characters that I thought would be cool at the time.

This opened up entire worlds of thought processes in my head. Everything around me was ripe for creativity. Long drives I'd be imagining one of my super powered characters running alongside, then I'd imagine how they'd look doing it, and so-on.

My life was starting to actually shape at this point. I had clearer ideas of what I liked and how to interact with people. I was a little less reserved, and not so pulled into my own shell.

This was another short lived situation though, for reasons I don't recall ever actually knowing, we decided to move once more. It's moments like these that my memories blur and get clouded. I don't recall this move, or the weeks leading up to it. I just suddenly wasn't there. Like a skip button was pressed. I left this home with a better outlook on life and a bit more maturity.