Faults, Scars, and Guitar Strings

Prologue

Prologue

                Looking back on my life now there were so many things I could have done differently. I could have made the decision to change schools, I could have refused to keep my family's secret, or I could have decided to get help instead of resorting to self-destructive tactics. I did not do any of those things. Sometimes I think I should have changed but eventually I come to my senses and I realize that I love the friends and family that I have in my life now. If I had changed anything about my past they would not be here by my side today and I would never want that to happen.

                Going to a public school is chaos. You are thrown together with people your age forced to make friends with people simply because they happen to live in the same school distract as you. Cliques immediately start forming and some are left out while others continue pretending to be something they're not just so they do not get bullied for it. The bullies almost immediately show themselves and pick out a few of their favorite targets and trust me, once you're in their view you never get out of it. They will spend the rest of their high school years thinking about what they are going to do to make your life miserable. If I had realized any of this before I had started high school I probably would have acted completely different. I probably would have turned out to be a completely different person.

                When we do finally figure out who we are as people and we begin our lives in the real world remarkable things start to happen. In your late teens you try to figure things out, in your early twenties you think you've got it figured out, in your late twenties you finally figured it out, and by your thirties you've got a career or a family or both. You learn all these lessons along the way. These lessons did not appear there because of the successes. These lessons appeared there because of the mistakes; because of all the faults that happened along the way. These lessons, like scars on our skin, stay with us and remind us who we are.

                I could easily tell you that my life is filled with regrets. I could tell you all the tragic details that I wish I could erase and all the things I wish had never happened. I could also tell you the other side of the story; the part of the story where I had success and grew up to have everything I dreamed of. I cannot simply tell one side of this story. Like life, it involves both the good and the bad. My childhood never involved the word average or the word normal. My teen years never involved those words either and neither did my adult years. My story is extraordinary, like your story is as well.

                Everybody has a story to tell. Everybody has something they have to contribute to the world. When you're a child or a teenager it may seem like you have no purpose in this world, but I promise you that you do. Maybe someday, like me, your purpose in this world will be to spread your own story. Telling my story is the only way that I know to get these points across. It is the only way that I know I can help people, and maybe even inspire someday.

                While reading this story keep in my mind one thing and that is to never give up. I almost gave up once. If I had I would not be here writing this to you now. My story started with one mistake and it left a scar that I tried to heal with my guitar strings... turns out, I saved myself instead.