The Things I Left

            I carry the shame of leaving everything I knew for 16 years to start a new life. I wanted fresh start, a new city, with no friends, no goals. I carry the guilt of failing my dad’s expectations in school. I carry the disappointment of playing basketball for 15 years and then sitting on the bench even though I had the skills to play. I carry 3 items on me; my wallet, cell phone, and car keys. More important then the tangible things are the intangible things, my past, my goals, and my thoughts of what to do next. As I reflect on past events I can only think of the type of kid I was. Suborn, annoying, immature, but still intelligent. These attributes shaped how I live today, as I grew older and looked back on the way I acted at my old school, I can only admit that I had some of the bullying and abuse coming. The constant teasing, my dad’s new girlfriend that despised me, my old traditions that my father and I held, all of this was shattered. For 15 years my father and I lived together, did everything…ate, played sports, slept, we were each others support. When my dad wanted a women in his life, my childhood brain thought, “Why not mom?” For the next 7 years I would try my absolute hardest to get this woman out of my house. The outright defiance I had for authority and everything that it represented effected me in school, and in my social life.