My parents separated on my prom night. Yep, that's kind of where it all began. I was getting ready with my friends in my room and mom came upstairs to tell me that her and my father were done. Cried a bit but carried on in the night. Nothing adventurous happened there, but that is when the door started to open. You see I had this plan all throughout my childhood and teenager years to be someone. Someone successful. Whether that be an astronaut, professional basketball player, a broker on Wall St, and maybe perhaps a writer. Heck, I was even thinking of joining the Naval Academy. Half way through high school I was diagnosed with Graves Disease and dreams of doing anything active for a bit were put on hold. So I hung up my cleats and Converse and joined our Theatre Arts program. We had a new building for all sorts of performances so it was a pretty neat time to join. Dabbled a bit in acting and spent a lot of time designing and programming lights. I got really into it, made a great set of friends and got through the rest of high school just fine.
Until Prom Night.
So fast forward through graduation, divorce, subsequent foreclosure of our childhome and nowhere to go. I stayed at a friends house for a bit. I had a car. I had a job and I was going to school at one of those not so fancy for-profit tech institutes. After about six months things started to fall apart again. I lost my job (contractual), was kicked out of my friend's house (by her mother), and started sleeping in my car. My mom was living with her new boyfriend, my sister was pregnant, my dad was living on his boat. Things were tough with our family. But we stayed in touch somehow, we all lived close to each other and I was fairly mobile (lol). I was feeling pretty down and went over to my mom's new place to chat with her. I didn't know what to do. I was lost. Then she said something that would change my life forever. She said you know what? Why don't you see if you can transfer with your school and move to Hawaii? We were in California. I hadn't been to the islands yet. I thought (as a new 18 year old), sure!
So I went. Just like that. Got the transfer to Oahu, sold my car, and bought a one way ticket to Oahu from San Fran. I may or may not have been influenced by the book "The Impact Zone" at that point but alas, I got there.
Three weeks later. I came back. Next blog? You'll hear about my travels to Hawaii and the challenges I faced along the way and what ultimately brought me back.
But not for long.
Comentários