Young Coco

So let me take a moment and write about my schooling because this question comes up at times. While I was living in California, I went to a Catholic School during my elementary school years and people will find it funny that Coco went to a Catholic school but yes, for 4 years I wore a plaid skirt, white blouse uniform every single day. I must say that I have to give a lot of credit to my catholic school for my fashion style of today because being that I had to dress in this uniform every day, as soon as I got home from school I literally wanted to wear every piece of clothing I had in my closet. I had a real appreciation for clothes and this turned into LOVING fashion later in life. Now mind you this was during the 80’s era and I thought I was Madonna! I wore skirts with leggings underneath, lace gloves on my hands and a big bow in my hair just like Madonna she was my idol. I had her posters all over my room, I would dress just like her, sing all of her songs, had every cassette tape of hers, I felt like I was really her! I must say though if I wouldn’t have gone to catholic school I would have never been so into clothes so much I don’t think. 

For 5th and 6th grades my family moved to New Mexico and my sister and I had to try out a new school, the school was called Montessori, we loved this school because it was a real “hands on” type of school. During the beginning of my high school years I tried regular public school but it wasn’t for me. The curricular was so much different than I was used to and I was very unhappy so I went into home schooling which is a big movement in Albuquerque. 

While living in New Mexico we no longer had my grandma around, my mom was a single mom, we didn’t have any family there and we were living very poor. We lived in a small apartment, my mom was struggling, and my sister and I shared a room and even slept in the same bed. We didn’t have any money so we dealt with what we had and took care of each other knowing we didn’t have a lot. We were so unfortunate; when my mom cooked she would have to get really creative. One story I like to tell is when she’d use ketchup packages from McDonald’s to make tomato soup for dinner. Another one is when she would boil a bag of pinto beans and we would survive off of that for a week. I remember when we splurged, we used to go to Pizza Hut’s buffet during lunch time and we would eat “all-you-can-eat” for $3.99, the kicker is we would only by one meal and eat off one plate. Man it was rough. It was a very sad time but we were happy to have each other and my mom was still kind of sick so it was a struggle. Going through this difficult time though made me realize that when I grew up, I wanted to make a better life for myself. There was no way in hell that I would go back to this poor situation so this actually helped me push forward and helped me to succeed and reach my goals to become the woman that I wanted to be in life. I realized at a very young age that nothing is just given to you, if you want something you have to work hard for it and today this is why you all see me work so hard and always on my grind because I promised myself to never go back to the way things use to be for me when I was a kid…. 

Throughout my teenage years I always had a job, I was very ambitious, I wanted to work hard and make my own money. I had to convince my mom to let me start working and finally she gave in. I started working at 15 years old and my very first job was working at “Subway” sandwiches. I didn’t have a car or anything so I walked to work every single day and really loved it. I thought that I was a master at making sandwiches. People don’t know but in the sandwich making world (Subway), they actually have contests to see who can make sandwiches the fastest and I always would enter and be the top sandwich maker, at 15 years old I was thinking this was my calling LOL. After awhile I was so reliable and hard working that I got a promotion to manager of Subway at 15 years old! Can you believe it? I was always so prompt and on time for work, always doing my job to the fullest that they made me manager. My next job I worked at was a tanning salon. You have to follow the pattern here; I worked at places I liked so I can actually get discounts. I worked at Subways because I loved their sandwiches and salads and in return I could take home free food to my family. I also worked at a tanning salon because I knew I would be able to tan for free (I hated my super white skin). At this time I thought to myself how else was I going to become a millionaire one day, I need to work hard and get that money, so, I thought working more than one job would help, so I went and got another job at a River Point Sports and Wellness. I would open up at the gym at 5am in the morning and then in the evenings I’d work at the tanning salon. There’s not many girls at 16/17 years old, would have two jobs, no car and get up at 4:00am in the morning to walk to work in the complete dark and in Albuquerque it snows a lot so some days I’d be walking in the cold snow, this just goes to show how excited I was about having a job & how badly I wanted it and that I was really about my business, I was a true hustler. I would walk from one job to the next; I did a lot of walking. There was a lot of fitness in my young life without me even having to go to the gym LOL. So when I started working at the gym, I was the front desk girl, then later moved up to being the aerobics instructor .Then my sister started working at the gym in the childcare area. She and I would eat lunch together every day in the child care center and I would sometimes help out with the kids then I realized that I started to get attached to the children, low and behold I started working in the child care too! So now I was working many jobs at this wellness center, I worked the front desk, I worked as an aerobics instructor and now child care, I mean I was doing it all, I thought that I was probably going to someday own my own fitness center. Again this goes to show you my hustler spirit and that I was willing to get the job done.

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