The wonderment of the future, and the thoughts of the past keep me a constant loop of feeling stuck. I constantly look back at of my past experiences, the good and the bad. I would say that my life for the most part has been very positive. Yet I feel as though I deserve more, and the trials I've experienced in the past merit such rewards. My parents got devorced when I was in kindergarten. I remember being at my grandmothers house the day my father told me, and I couldn't stop crying. Luckily my grandmother was there to support me through that. So I lived with my mom, and my father would pick me up and bring me back to my grandparents, where he lived, on the weekends. My father was the most hard working man I know, he had a great work ethic, and he knew so many tangible skills when it came to anything hands on. He knew how to wire, paint, plumb, and a huge amount of carpentry. He has always helped anyone he could. The problem lied in the fact that he was a raging alcoholic, and that truly stopped him from reaching the success he really deserved. He never was abusive to me, and never did he lay a hand on me, and for that he still is a morally righteous man. The fact is, addiction runs in the family, and I feel as though he drank out of fear and regret. He was constantly overshadowed by my successful uncle, who had gone on to become a doctor. My father has a degree in biochemistry, and could have gone on to become a doctor or a dentist. I feel for him, and yet I just want to slap him and tell him to get his act together. Now that he's in his 40's he's even worse, and he seems to be convinced that he's stuck. His tour in Iraq didn't help much either, he was a military man, going though the national gaurd to pay for school. The way he has become however, has left a bad taste in my mouth looking at any military opportunities. It's just not for me, and I think he's slightly disappointed in me because of it.
That brings me to my own observations of myself. I try to look at where he went wrong, and I try to take the good from him, and apply it to my own ethics. Sometimes I think I'm just a whiney teenager with daddy issues, because I know for a fact that people have had it worse than me.
Growing up, it was usually me and my grandmother, because my mom worked until late in the evening. My grandma and I were the best of friends, she always encouraged me with my art and education. She was always with me, and I think that I gave her a purpose, considering she lived alone.I wouldn't be half the person I am today without her, and I hope she will always know that. Here's where life seems to have told me something, in her final months of heart problems and deterioration, I was going through the end of grade school, and I was getting progressively more independent. I found myself not wanting to visit her in hospice. Then on my birthday my mom got the call, she had gone into a coma, and passed away in that morning. I spent the day with my friend Ray, and when he dropped me off all of my family was at my house. I just knew, they didn't even have to say. Happy birthday to me right? Maybe it was her telling me something, a last goodbye. It was at that moment, I knew she would never fade from memory. Even as I type this I can barely finish the sentence. I'll always take what I've learned from her and apply it to my life, and I hope that for my own peace of mind, there is a life after death.
My homelife was good for the most part, I had a roof over my head, and lived a nice middle class lifestyle. However my mom could never find anyone after my father. She had a few unsuccessful boyfriends, that usually ended with me in the middle of a fight. She finally settled on one, and I've had to deal with him ever since, also a drunk by the way. He's been kicked out so many times, I've lost track. Always with the fighting, with me stuck right in the middle of it, I want to use profanity, but the decency I have is keeping me at bay. She had a kid with him too, like that would change his habits, and it didn't. In his later yeats, he has become nothing but lazy drunk, who will amount to nothing. I resent him, and there has been nothing good thay has come from him. I love my sister to death, but I hate him more. In my own "journey" through life, I'm going bto have to forgive him at some point, but not yet. He is everything I never want to be, and my mother foolishness is something I never want to inherit. My mother is a hard working woman, and a loving, butbher own faults and self abuse have worn her spirit. She settled, and I hope to give her something better in her later years. I criticize my family, but am I any better? I can't tell, but I can hope, and try to be self aware.
My older sister, well half sister, my mom had her with her first husband at the age of 16, is a whole other story. She was always smart and talented, until she started hanging out with the wrong people at the end of high school. She let the addiction that ran in bither my mothers side and her father side take hold. She became addicted to heroine. Also going to rehab more times than I could count. To this day, in her late 20's she still suffers from addiction. If it's not heroine, its booze, or a slew of prescription drugs. She has overdosed in my house twice, and a few other times at her family's. When she overdosed I had to sit in my room, helpless, just like when my mother would fight. My mom broke the bathroom door in, and she called the paramedics. They came and saved her just in time. I love my sister, the sister that I remember before her addiction. I hate what she has become, and for that I resent her. The selfishness she displays has slowly torn my mother apart. She has made me bitter against addicts. With the little shred of love I have for her, I hope she can come back from her hell. A week before highschool graduation I had to pull my intoxicated sister off of my mom, or vice versa, they would have killed each other. I was always the person stuck in the middle, and I looked at her with disgust as the police took her to her aunt's. She has also been kicked out of my house several time, each one ending with her screwing up.
It's because of these people I see the harm of abusing drugs, and I have seen how it tears people apart, and hurts the ones around them. So help me god, I vow to never be them.
I try to find the good in my life. My dad's side of the family specifically. My father, my three uncles, my father grandmother, my great aunt and uncle, and of course my numerous cousins. Lets say my father's side of the family is big, and very close. With everything at home, I could always go to my grandparents and know there was family. They are the model of what I want for my future. I want my kids to have the same family dynamic I have with them. My yearning for the past come from the memories I've had with them.
My uncle and I were always the closest, he's the youngest of the four brother, and is only a few years older than me. He is my role model, as I've seem his struggles and triumphs. He's got a fair paying job, a new house, nice vehicles, and a very nice girlfriend. He ran with the wrong crowd in high school, but was always extremely intelligent, respectful, and hard working. He got in trouble for selling drugs, and suffered from addiction himself. Through all of this he has come out on top. We share so much in common, and are almost the same people. We've only gotten closer as we've gotten older, and I'll never forget the times we've had as kids growing up.
Well that's it. I wanted to end on the positive. I try and take what I've experienced and apply it to my path. I hope for success, and I hope it comes soon enough.
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