The Blossoming of a Butterfly Chapter 2, the teen years By Erika Nicole West As I got into my teen years, my body changed from a big chubby fat kid to a lean muscular kid. This was attributed to playing intramural basketball in 5th and 6th grades. I sucked as a player but I was one of the taller kids and big, so I got in the way a lot. I remember running lots of stairs getting into shape and it literally ran the pounds right off of me. I can remember looking at my 7th grade class picture an
The Blossoming of a Butterfly Chapter 1, the early years By Erika Nicole West My story begins in 1959, born just a regular kid, ornery as anything, 3 siblings, older sister, older brother and younger brother and raised in a normal household by normal parents. Life was normal, then 1965 hit. I don’t remember exact dates but the weather was warm. I was running around the school yard, as kids do, but this particular day, I deemed it a good day to run with my eyes closed. Well, lo and behold,