In the summer of 2010 leading into my junior of year of high school my mother and I had a lot of altercations. We kept having disagreements about what time I came into the house at night, me always having company, and me never cleaning up my room. My mother and I weren’t the only ones having this disagreement. I had four cousins who were having the same exact debates with their mothers, who were my aunts. My mother and Aunts all sat down and discussed the matter. They came up the solution of us having our own apartment. When they brought the idea to us five we all agreed that it were a great plan. Us having our own apartment meant that we could do what we wanted when we wanted without our mothers nagging us about every little thing. We knew we were going to have fun, but we also knew we had responsibilities that had to be taken care of. We all agreed to do our part and chip in where we were needed. It was time to prove to our mothers we were old enough and mature enough to be on our own and make the right decisions. Frenchie, Dj, Crap, Jamarcus, and I moved in on July 21, 2010. We were going to be staying in Hill Top Apartments, apartment 312. The apartment had 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a full kitchen, and a living area. Since Dj was the oldest he got a room to himself. Jamarcus and I shared a room and Frenchie and Crap shared the other. We had two cars amongst us, mines and Jamarcus’s. Since we were on our own we tried to save as much money as possible so we always rode together in one car to school, parties, stores, and the mall. All of our mothers had split the rent and utility bill. The only thing we had to provide for ourselves was groceries, gas, house appliances, and anything extra we wanted. They gave us three chairs for the living room but they all were different colors. We all had a TV in our room and one in the living room. Our apartment showed no kind of style or artistic view. It was just a plain apartment with four walls. We didn’t care about any of that, we were just satisfied about having our own apartment and excited about living on our own. When school started everything was going smoothly. We kept food in the house, we kept both cars full of gas, and we kept our apartment clean. Every day after practice we always had a ton of people over. We had a big crew so of course they were going to come over every day. When you have a house full of boys you know it’s only right to have a house full of girls with them. So in all we had about 20 people over every day of the week. It was all fun and games until I started to realize a couple of problems that was beginning to start. Our food supply we down quickly, our apartment became less clean every day, they began to smoke in the house, and the cars never at the house. I sat them all down and told them we got to be more careful and stuff like that they all agreed with me and we did good for about 3 weeks and then it went back to the way it was. Jamarcus and I were seeing eye to eye on the situation at hand. So we sat the other three boys down and proposed we separate everything. When we went grocery shopping Jarmarcus and I bought our food together and the other three boys bought their food together. Jamarcus let them share his car while we shared mine. We all played football but Jamarcus and I got a job. We both worked at the waffle house at the same shift. We cleaned, cooked, and arranged the products in the back. Sometimes after practice we had to work while the other three went straight home. When we got off and went home we were tired and was ready to go to bed. Most times we weren’t able too because Dj, Crap, and Frenchie always had people over smoking and house out and keeping up a ton of noise. It had gotten so bad were our neighbors where starting to complain to the land lord. It really didn’t bother me because I could go to sleep no matter how much noise they were making. Jamarcus on the other had got fed up with it so one night and when we came home he flipped out on them all and put everyone out. Ever since that night Jamarcus put everyone out there had been a lot of arguments, fights, and ignoring each other. It seemed like we all were on different pages. Another meeting got held and Dj had set up a schedule for everyone. He could have company on certain days and on nights we had to work they had to leave by a certain time. We all were willing to give it a try. The schedule was working just fine but then a money issue started to form. The last couple of weeks Jamarcus and I were the ones buying all the food because we weren’t going to let them starve. They always kept asking to borrow money from us and we put gas in both cars. We bought the washing powder, bleach, dish detergent, cleaning supplies, air fresher, tissue, and toothpaste. It wasn’t the fact that we couldn’t afford it but the fact that they wasn’t putting in their part and was just living for free. They couldn’t even keep their rooms clean. I was the one to always clean the kitchen and living room. Jamarcus always found himself cleaning the bathroom. We grew tired of them so we talked amongst each other and Jamarcus wanted to put them out. At first I agreed but then thought about if we put them out then our aunt Becky, Odessa, and Vessie would start putting in on the rent. He said we could work it out and we could pay their portion. We took the motion to our mothers and aunts and they agreed with us. The boys were furious with us and we didn’t communicate at all. That didn’t matter to us now cause things were just the way we wanted it. Well at least that’s what we thought. We began to work longer hours to make more money so we could pay a portion of the rent, keep groceries, house appliances, and to have money just to spend. I was ok for the most part but the all the work and lack of sleep began to affect Jamarcus. It was times where he didn’t go to school because he was too tired to get up in the mornings. We began to be so tired that we didn’t even go out on weekends anymore. We weren’t even seeing our friends or girlfriends on the regular. The time we had to ourselves we spent sleeping. It was becoming clear that just the two of us could not live on our own. When the others were living with us and pitching in it was much easier and we only worked to keep extra money in our pockets so we could party and go shopping. Working went from being an option to being a necessity. We both decided to stick through it until December which was the end of football season and the semester. So at the beginning of December we told our mothers our plan and they all smirked and agreed. My aunt Vessie told us we lasted longer than she expected and gave us much kudos for that. They all claimed they knew it was going to happen sooner or later and they were right. We moved out of the apartment December 30th. We even had made up with Crap, Dj, and Frenchie. Before we left we threw a house party for all our friends and had a blast. We realized what our mothers were trying to do for us. They were only trying to keep us safe and out of trouble. We could still do the same things we did when we had our own apartment just with one rule. Be in the house by 3:00, which was a reasonable time. It that was nothing compared to running your own house. We were old enough to have our own place and mature enough but it seemed we weren’t quite ready for all the responsibilities of having our own place. It was a good experience and thought us some life lessons. My mother and I didn’t have any more disagreements after that. After a while she didn’t even give me a curfew anymore. Everything went back being easy for us and we were back together having fun again. Even though we wasn’t ready before we plan on trying to live together again when Crap and Frenchie graduate. It will start off with me and Dj living together. The next year Jamarcus will join us. Then Crap and Frenchie but we all agreed if things go wrong before then we will just make other plans.