After a while what you thought was temporary becomes real! The relationships you thought would never change do! You eventually start to build your own life! They eventually stop missing you! But I still live for their dreams... Attempting always to accomplish what I wanted initially and what they push for now.... I could have chosen the "normal" path.... Stayed in my little home town, got a husband, had kids..... Maybe then they'd be proud! Maybe then they'd be excited to see me......

I've realized after five years the people who used to care still do....... However, emotions have changed.... They've become so distant and I've become a waste of their income! This story is sad but true.... Every story ends with a tale of thieves and a rescued princess.

I'm happy here! I love my life and I love the place I live.... I love that I'm the first person in my family to have an undergraduate degree. Phone calls consist of "when are you moving home" instead of how are you. I'm not moving home. I pray daily I'm not shunned for that. I've realized I've been away to long to turn back the clock... I never want to be that person again.... I have the most amazing family and I'm so grateful for all the inspiration and support I've received in the last five years, throughout my life. I do now, for the first time since I left home realize that those family bonds will never be the same. Relationships take effort from both sides to maintain. It's the strangest thing how the one aunt you've lived the furthest away from the majority of your life becomes your strongest ally. She gets you, because she was once you. I've begun the process of building my own family. Or rather, they have began the process of unifying themselves. They have been doing it for years, without my recognition. Team Smash-as they are called are thicker than thieves and stronger then blood. I wouldn't trade them for all the lemons in the world!

Sincerely,
Smash

Smash Goes to Vegas!

I admire my mothers spontaneity. She loves to travel and isn't much of a planner! She'll call me a week before her travels, to tell me she's leaving. Her travels always end in warm weather, tan toes, and a smile from ear to ear. What an amazing life she lives! I envy her. I envy her sense of self! This month my mother decided I would be part of her fun!! Fun does not even begin to explain what happened in Las Vegas!

Las Vegas is a city built around sin and trust me it's hard not to submit to the will of LV's evil. I've seen this town turn people crazy. Bring out demons not previously witnessed in souls I thought so pure. This dessert hell hole in the middle of Nevada has become a Mecca for Sinners. Humans are drawn into its God like grip, via glass walled sky scapers and lights so bright they are seen from space. Once Sin City has you in its grasps you are catapulted into a realm of chaos in which you can't escape until your body literally gives up on the idea of recovery. You will survive I promise!

I went to Vegas to celebrate my twenty third birthday! In anticipation of the hangover to come I boarded the plane and quickly found my seat. The 9:30 am flight was full of middle aged vacationers praying for the time of their lives. We all started drinking. The plane turned into a party flight worse then a college packed flight to Cabo I once experienced in 05'. I wanted to scream I was so excited! Two hours and I would be with my parents, two of their friends, and my friend SWAT. Swat was there to celebrate her 21st birthday. Throwing up in anticipation or from the booze I exited the plane. I met my limo driver at baggage claim and proceeded to the Gold limo waiting for solely me. I love the drivers in Vegas they all have such unique stories! My driver immediately began discussing her upbringing in Vegas with me. Let's just say the 20 minute ride was filled with talk of cocaine, meth, drinking, and how she prays to never have a daughter like her! It made me smile thinking of how many intimate details this beautiful blond was sharing with me.

Welcome to Las Vegas, the door man said, as he snatched my bag and lead me to check in. This is where the adventure began.

Introducing Smash!

I'm a 22 year old girl/women (this has yet to be determined by me or others). I have always been a firm believer in act your shoe size, not your age. In my case that makes me eight and I still have the scares to prove it. I was born and raised in a lovely municipality called Casper. If you've ever been to Casper you probably wouldn't describe this brownish, desolate, windy Wyoming town as lovely. However, I do and I mean lovely in the sense that it was a great place to grow up, not a place to vacation (you hear that Greenies, stay the F out).

I had what I would consider a "normal" childhood and by "normal" I mean incredibly eccentric. I was raised by an over protective (incredibly caring) mother and a father who wasn't always around but was there when it mattered. This was due to his job which allowed him to care for the three extremely demanding women, he has currently lost a majority of his hair and blames the women in his life for this. My parents are indescribable and I've grown to appreciate them more now then I ever did during my youth. They are as close to perfect as humanly possible and I adore them more then words could ever express! Along with my "perfect" parents came my older sister. Oh Natasha LaVonne! Growing up she was as zany as her name. She shaped my childhood in so many ways and I thank god every day for giving me such a strong role model. As I write more you will learn that my sister and I haven't always been close (now she's my only leg to stand on) and I will relate a lot of my current life obstacles to the HELL she put me through growing up!

At the ripe ol' age of 18 I decided I was over my life as I previously knew it. The summer after my senior year I loaded up a U-Haul, a Kia Sportage, and my high school sweet heart (who we will call Hammer), and we headed north. Bozeman Montana to be specific. I was going to college, determined to be a doctor, lawyer, professor, anything with promises of power, prestige, or money. I had huge dreams for a 100 pound girl! I was going to be something revolutionary! Being in college was amazing and I started my freshman year STRONG. I gave everything 110% including drinking, partying, socializing, meeting, greeting, grinning, grieving, fighting, crying, and yes even academia! As I gave 110% to everything certain things began to fall apart, mostly my three year relationship. You see, Hammer was giving 110% to just drinking, eating, sleeping, and come to find out a little blond tramp who will remain unnamed for she is not worth it. The relationship was stuck in the most destructive limbo imaginable. Fight, make up, drink, fight, make up, drink, fist fight, make up, drink, fist fight, meet the cops, make up, drink, and eventually complete and total DESTRUCTION! Even as the relationship was coming to an end I fought like hell to keep him. This by far was one of the hardest loses of my life, even compared to some deaths I've experience. I have to tell you I have always have bad taste in men and as you read more I will relate back to the life lessons I learned from the Sledge Hammer and those who came before and after him.

Heartbreak hurts but life goes on!! I realized I was an adorable, young, listless girl, with a smile on my face and the world at my feet. Newly single I thought I was the SHIT! HA HA HA if there is one thing college boys will do for you it's bring you down. I spent the next the two years of my life meeting men (who were essentially just boys reaching out for a mother figure), who I like but never enough to let them stay in my bed. Let me tell you, nothing makes a college boy mad like making him sleep on your couch every time he tries to stay the night. There was only one who didn't mind that couch and he stayed for a long time. He is now and will forever remain one of my best friends!! I fell in love with this man on a much deeper level, then appearance or personality, and although I didn't realize it at the time, mainly because he too was a dick. I had fallen in love with his soul!

Throughout the trials of my single years, I made the most of it by making incredible friends. Drewfus, Nicky Noodle, Rodgo, Japan, and Nestle (who will be referred to as Team Smash when group together) became my confidants, my partner's in crime, my sunshine on a cloudy day. This was one of the best times in my life. I lived everyday like 5 guys, a girl, and a pizza place, except my life wasn't portrayed in a horrible comedy. Out of these 5 men grew Smash. Smash is my alter ego. She's everything I'm not and everything I aspire to be! Smash is brave, assertive, messy, uncontrollable, and fierce. During this time in my life Smash would show up in an elaborately thought out costume (I was sooooo into theme parties), Boones Farm in hand, and six sheets to the wind due to the mass amount of tequila she had consumed prior to noon. Not a care in the world! Smash danced on tables, snuck into bars, sleep when the sun came up, and my favorite, she would always attempt to fight the biggest man in the room (which eventually yielded a black eye from the bastard's girlfriend)! At the end of the night my alter ego and I would end up safe and sound on the stinky futon of a Hawk's Ridge apartment, only to wake the next day and start it again. So public, readers, fans, and family I would like to introduce to you, the one and only Smash!

Introducing Team Smash
From Left to Right: Rodgo, Drewfus, Smash, and Nestle! In this picture we are at a bar in Livingston Montana, population 12, all of who were at the bar with us, celebrating Nestle's birthday!

Rodgo, Smash, Nicky Noodle

Japan