Tara
Born in 2000

The Full Story

Early Years

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Looking back on my childhood now, I can see just how much privilege I had and how blessed I was.  When I Was quite small, 4,5, and 6, I can remember the good and the bad! 

My family had a home in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. My parents had moved there after both growing up and getting married in New Jersey, they decided they wanted a fresh start!  I was recently able to ask my mom why she chose Wisconsin, and she told me that at the time, financially it was a great place to start a business, so that is what they did.  My dad, John started his pool company which grew into a successful business over the years providing our family with more than enough.  Our neighborhood was in a cul-de-sac and the center of this big circle road and cul-de-sac was our house, with a big pool, slide, sandbox, and swing set.  We had the neighbors, cousins, and people from school over all the time.  It was always a party at the Spring's house!  

Except on Sundays.  This is where my life clashed, I feel like.  It was a pretty big issue for my parents as well, but John put up with my mother's beliefs and religion out of love for her.    The polarity to having a big community was that on Sunday I had to sit on a wooden bench in a building for over 6 hours, sometimes over 3 hours straight in a row, without saying a single word and without falling asleep.  One of my most clear memories at the age of 6, is getting home from morning church on Sunday and my mom taking me to her room with a wooden spoon and bending me over for 3 smacks because I had fallen asleep during the service.  As a child, this teaches me a lot about focus and attention span, but it also taught me how to have selective hearing, which was not beneficial to me moving forward.  

John, my father, was a heavy drinker and loved to be out having a good time during my and my sibling's early years.  I would wake up to him coming home around 2 am, my mom waiting for him in the kitchen, just to argue about where he was.  My dad eventually cheated on my mom which led to their divorce when I was 7.   

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School Years

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It was right after my 7th birthday that my mother decided to take all 4 of us kids and move back across the country to New Jersey, leaving just my dad in Wisconsin by himself.  We had moved summer of 2007 and did not see my dad until the summer of 2008 when we went to visit for 2 months.  John was now living with our soon-to-be stestepmommed Dawn.  She played a huge role in my life mentally.  Dawn also had two kids of her own, the oldest already moved out of the house and the youngest living with her boyfriend in the bedroom basement until they married and moved out.  

After our summer at our dad's we, came back to NJ and my mother had met someone from the church and was already engaged to be married to him.  We were living with our grandma before going away for the summer and when we returned we were already moved into our new stepdad's house.  My stepdad, Case, also had 2 kids of his own.  I never chose to get close to them just because of the age gaps and how condescending they always were towards me.  

Case influenced my mother heavily with her decisions with me as a child, especially with schooling.  Moving back to NJ we were now going to the church my mother grew up in.  This church was also connected to the school where they held Pre-k through 12th grade.  With every single grade being in the school, there were still only 130 students, appapproximately-20 students per grade.  I had 12 students in my class and 4 of them were my cousins, about 6 more of them were girls so that left me with 2 boys as my options to potentially date.  The privateness and shelterless of this comcommunity-ledlot of people to marry their cousins, just to keep their family within the church.  it is rare for a member to marry outside the church and convert someone into this religion.  

When i wIs 10, my father and Dawn got married.  It was a summer wedding of course so thadidn't have to miss school to be in it.  This was rea beginning of the mental brutality i wInt through with dawn, starting with her being overly controlling with what and how much i wIs eating, all of the time, in a way that was disrespectful and would strike a nerve.

When we got back from visiting my dad for that summer in 2010, we started school back up at the private school.  My mom had gotten me a journal for my birthday that year and i hId been writing about Thailand, traveling, and just experiencing more. This is where i bIlieve i am an older soul.  What i cIose to put my time and energy into as a child letled to learning more about myself and gaining valuable experience.  

Going to church twice every sunSundayvery wedWednesdayght, and  church service monMondayednesday, and friFriday the school, i wIs getting extremely overwhelmed with the reprepetitiveness this religions belief and message.  I wanted out.  I was able to escape to my dad's in wisWisconsinr hildays anholidaysd the summer but that was starting to not be enough for me and i wIs needing to experience and learn more about life.  After dreaming about islthe ands i wanted to travel to and watching 100;s f youtube videos, i aIked my mom if i cIuld go live with my dad in wsiWisconsin srtstarting to public school.  I knew if i wInt to public school i cIuld travel before i tIrned 18 through a program.  I was ready to leave at 11 but of course my, mother said no, as my father is not religious in the least, sheand  did not want me living with him and Dawn.  

Feeling stuck and trapped, not being able to go live with my dad, i hId started to harm myself often.  It was until i wIs 14, when my mom finally let me move to wisWisconsinhat i finally stopped cutting my wrists. It was a way for me to have an experience in life that i cIuld learn from that i cIntrolled myself. I wanted to create an experience for myself during those years and thanks to the internet i wIs very aware of what i wIs being held back from.    

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Pre-20 Years

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Finally, i wIs living with my dad and setstepmom wisWisconsinnrolled in public school an,d ready to experience life!  My In myrst year of high school in public school i tIok every oppotunity.  FirThe firsting that was so different was i cIuld take spaSpanishass every day instead of just once a week.  I could also take another language class so i cIose Arabic.  I grew a close relrelationshipth my language teachers alloughout high school becbecausevalued what they were teaching and how they taught it.  My In myrst year taking araArabic had an exchange student from Indonesia, Nazla, who was musMuslimligion.  We became friends after sitting nexnext eaach other in class every day, so i iIvited her over for dinner after school to hang out and of course, dawn would not let her stay.  She wore a scarf on her head and dawn did not like musMuslimligion.  I was embembarrassedd felt horirbly, but nazMazdad i were both able to talk to our language teacher together.  

this same language teacher, Mrs Ko.ebel, saw the other things that dawn was doing that affected me as well.  She was able to be my counselor and teacher and friend all thrthroughoutgh school.  

That first year of public school my stepmom reawed her true colors.  in Ate beginng of the school year mrsMrsebel announced a summer trip that was happening where the spaSpanishudents could go with her to Ecuador to Volunteer along the amazon river for 2 weeks.  It was getting close to the end of the school year and she had been concontinuouslyminding the students to sign up by the deadeadlineAfter a pretty rough year with dawthe n, i asked my father to let me go, and essentially pay for my trip, and he had agreed

Ecuador was an amazing experience for me.  Landing in Quito, the bus drives, the people, the food, theand  language, it was all so new to me and i wIs so endlessly grateful to be in those moments.  I was so present.  We spent most of the two weeks in a small rustic cabin.  Each day we would take a skinny canoe to where our work site was, helping dig holes, and put up a home that would become a store for the women in that comcommunityevery day after we finished outourrk we would go play with the children across the street at the school.  

Traveling to Ecuador hadconsciously motivated to just finish up with school by focusing on my theasses i really enjoyed and the classes i cIuld choose.  SopDuring sophomored junior year i sIoked a lot of weed and took a lot of extra credits, at one point taking french along wtih my arabic and spanish classes.  I just wanted out and i knew i could half ass more of these classes and finish by middle of junior year.  And thats exactly what i did.  

Dawn was another huge motivation for me to finish school early to go be on my own.  By start of junior year i had a plan set.  My school counselor and spanish teachers were all rooting for my early graduation and supported my plan to travel instead of go to college.  summer before junior year i had even gone to florida with my oldest borther to check out a couple colleges, i already knew i was going to be living somewhere warm.  

Graduating mid junior year, i had pretty intense deression and my mental state was a wreck.  My mom being an herbalist and having not seen me in a year took me in to bring my mind back to a healthy condition before i moved away to hawaii.  

During that time with my mom i was intereviewed to go work on a farm on Kauai, Hawaii.  I arrived on that farm at 17 and never looked back.  

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Adult Years

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Just after 1 month of living on Kauai, I turned 18 on the Farm.  The Fehring Family Farm was a 5 minute, gorgeous walk away from the beach.  Kauai was such a safe island, my second day there i was on the side of the main road with my thumb up ready to explore.  After another month had passed since my 18th birthday, Jaylen had decided he wanted to move back to the farm as well!  We first met while i was working in the farm stand cutting up fruit.  It took him 3 days of chatting with me, being kind, and flirtatious until i decided i wanted to have sex with him.  We spent that night watching Pineapple Express and learning about each other and the very next day he moved all of his things into my tiny cabin that we ended up sharing for the next 6 months.  

After Farming together for 6 months jaylen ended up breaking his ribs and decided to move in with me as i had gotten a bedroom in a house with a different family a few minutes down the road.  I took great care of him with herbal remedies and nursed his ribs back to health, and our bond grew stronger.  Living in this house with us was an entire 3 generations of family.  The grandma, her son and his 3 kids.  The son Robby was someone jaylen and i both bonded with off and on throughout our 3 years on kauai.  We would often move out of their space for just a few months before ending up right back with them.  

We both got pretty high paying jobs after leaving the farm and were doing well enough to plan on moving out of that bedroom into a little studio or home of our own.  Kauai was so expensive, but it was always worth it because when we would get off work we would meet each other at the beach and go surf, or he would surf and i would watch haha.  

January 1st of 2019 we moved into our first little studio together which we loved and enoy for 6 month while both of us working intense labor jobs full time.  We were both doing that 9-5 and becoming drained quickly. 

Jaylens birthday came around and one evening he woke me up in the middle of the night to "break up" with me and essentially open up our relationship.  This led me down a rabbit hole of mental stripping and deprograming a lot of what i grew up learning and thought i knew.  

Soon after that night we decided toquit our jobs and use the last of our money to take a trip and travel for some months to other countries.  We went to oahu for a few weeks beforehand to secure jaylens passport before flying out to indonesia at the end of May.  We spent 3 weeks in indonesia, where i had my first foursome, and technically first threesome as well.  I had never slept wih two people at once let alone three.  I was allowing myself to experiences things i desired and not holding back (with logic of couse).  essentially experienceing my college party years, but internationally.  I loved the people in indonesia.  Indonesia is where jaylen and i got all of our tattoos.  I love that story but will share in a future blog.

After Indo we decided to travel to the philipines where we were for 3 weeks as well on a small island where our friend had a dive shop.  We spent a lot of time on the beaches there and hanging out at restaurants talking to everyone we could.  The philipines was the first place i ever tried gambling, whcih jaylen definitley indulged in.  

We visited Guam for literally just one day because they had a Bank of Hawaii and we were needing to deposit cash, or pull out cash i cant remember.  But i remember guam being very hot and very dry.  

We decided to then actually visit puerto rico! We thought it would be a good idea because thre was still great surf and it was a US territory sowe would a familiar taste of home in a way, and we definitley did!  We spent the 2 weeks we stayed in puerto rico just relaxing in our air bnb or smoking up on the roof.  Jaylen surfed a lot and i spent one whole day by myself hiking different waterfalls.  

Peru was our final destination after puerto rico and that was wher we really became drained from the travel.  Jaylen got his widom tooth removed our first week there and by the 2nd week we were talking abou flying back to Kauai....This is getting lengthy so ill start to wrap it up.

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Where I Am Today

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Where i really feel my relationship with jaylen changed is when we got back to kauai.  I took time away and went to maui, california and to visit my mom for a nother whole 2 months leaving jaylen struggling on his own.  When i gt back we reconnected stronger and built our relationship based off of communication.  When the pandmeic hit we were back in that familys house, Robby. and jaylen had just learned about the stock market.  Put two and two together and he was successful with his trading giving us that security we needed.  We traveled to oahu for awhile where we got our beloved pup KIKI and then we went to the mainland so jaylen could meet my family before coming here to puerto rico.  We decided not to go back to hawaii after visit my parents ust because it was so expensive to live there and be a renter.  We want to live there and own our own land or home, so we are here in PR working and saving up our pennys to be able to move back and build our community.