Once a month, on Friday evening, all Saturday and most of Sunday, this was always a strange time in the house where I grew up. On these weekends, my older sister, I and my younger brother were literally banished from our own house. All I knew was that I had to camp at my grandparents' house or stay with my girlfriends. I never minded that, because this was my time of freedom. My grandparents did not set a curfew and let me drive their cars, and my girlfriend's parents were usually away for the weekend. (That always made me curious.) Nice setup for me, because the rest of the time my parents were really strict and always kept an eye on us.
We live in the suburbs of Maryland outside of Washington, DC. Besides my mom and dad, their three children, Katrina, Karmen, and Karlos live there. I'm Karmen. While our neighborhood can be described as affluent, my parents have always kept me and my siblings very deeply rooted. My parents have been married for about 19 years. They met while studying at Georgetown University. My father was born and raised in Washington, DC.
His mother was half Seminole and half black. He didn't know his father, he just knew that he was a white man who used to be in DC on business a lot. My mother is Filipino and came to the States with her mother as a teenager. She grew up outside DC in Arlington, Virginia. Both worked for the State Department and had achieved high security clearances as well as high leadership positions. My oldest sister is actually my half-sister. My father was wild in high school and had a daughter before he was 18. She came to us when she was 14, and I was 9 years old. My younger brother is 14 years old and started eating his wild oats, just like his father did when he was in high school.