[font="times new roman"]In the beginning of my sophomore year, I was 16 working at my favorite job and going to school. Life seemed to be going my way, but that was because I was naive and I didn’t want to realize the truth. I lived with my mom at the time; I don’t really have a relationship with my dad. My mother and I were in a tough situation, or so I thought by the way my mom always seemed stressed. She didn’t have a job at the time, so I would give her my pay checks to help pay the bills. After a while I soon realized that my paychecks were not going to pay the bills but to support her drug and alcohol addiction. It hit me like a ton of bricks, when I had seen the little pink envelopes stuffed away in our mailbox. I felt so mad and so angry, that I didn’t know what to do or how to confront my mother. I gave my sister (while I was in the break room of my job) a phone call and told her the situation. She proceeded to tell me that I needed to stop giving my mom my paychecks, and confront her on what she was doing. I being a very shy and emotional girl, thought this was the toughest thing I could ever do, truth is I was afraid of my mom and braving up to her was going to take some strength. So after I got off of work, I was in my room when once again my mom asked me for some money. No longer being naive I was so angry with her, she had some nerve to ask her own daughter for money so she could go and supposedly “pay the bills” So I braved up choked back tears and simply told her no. She became furious with me, and asked if I spoke to my sister. When I told her that I had earlier she began to call me the most hurtful thing that a mother could ever say to her daughter. And then the bomb dropped and she screamed “YOU THINK THE GRASS IS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE!” and by that time the water works were poring from my eyes and I was scared she was going to hit me, which she did and pushed me into the brick wall, she told me that she disowned me and how could I disrespect her like that and that I could get the hell out of her house. And that’s the day my life has forever changed; I became an adult and had to support myself. She kicked me out to live on the streets, all because she wanted drug money. From that day on I have never looked back, and I never will. I went into Youth on Their Own, and that program helped me out tremendously. Without the love and support I felt from each staff member I would have been a high school drop out. I was very dramatized the rest of that semester, living on my own I rarely made it to school. My grades suffered and the end of the first semester I was pulling in a GPA of a 2.6. The staff members of Youth on Their Own sat me down and made me realize how much I have over come and not to let bad things in my life let my grades go down. The next semester was a whole different story; I had the confidence and the courage to make it on my own. That next semester I rarely missed school and I brought my GPA up from a 2.6 to a 4.0! But that’s not even the best part. My counselor even told me that I had enough credits to even graduate early! And so I did, I graduated December 23 2006 that’s six months before I get to walk with my class of 2007! Looking back I wouldn’t change my life for the world. Yeah it was a bad childhood but I would never have gotten where I am today if my life were any different. I have always had the ultimate goal in the back of my mind and I truly think that’s what I needed to put all my time and energy into. My ultimate goal is to move to Florida and attend University of Central Florida and get my bachelors degree in forensic science, and eventually become one of the best crime scene investigators.[/font]
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[font="times new roman"]Thanks [/font]