The Autobiography of Ryder Redding

Chapter One: A Little Backstory

Why am I here? And what am I wearing? Those are the questions I asked myself all of freshman year. But this story begins my sophomore year at St. Paul's Catholic High School. My parents sent me there because they thought it would be a more positive environment than your typical public school. It was a hard adjustment for me. At my previous school, I knew everybody, and everybody knew me. After all, there were only fifty kids in my grade. Now I was at a school with over two hundred fifty kids in my grade alone. The new school did not have the same problems as public school. There were never any fights and hardly any bullies. But that does not mean it is without its own problems. Everyone is forced to conform whether it is wearing the school uniform or having to join an after school club. You would be lucky to find someone who has not smoked or stolen alcohol from their parents wine collection.

My parents luckily did not have a wine collection or cigars lying around. They are very religious; they have not missed Sunday worship since before I was born. My great-grandfather started The First Baptist Church of Our Savior over seventy years ago. I always wonder why churches always call themselves the first when there was obviously a church before them. My great-grandfather was the first pastor, then his son was the second and my dad, the third. I was afraid my dad expected me to become the pastor when I grew up. I was not very religious, but my parents still made me give sermons every year. I dreaded giving talks, just reading a paper. I would rather have a good conversation than look at a sheet with lots of scribbles all over it.

It baffled my parents when I said I did not like writing talks for church because I loved writing. The best thing about St. Paul's was my English teacher, Mr. Christenson. He let us write about what we care about and even let us go a little off subject when we were talking in class. Sophomore year I was in his creative writing class, because sadly I passed his class the year before-unlike some of my other classes. He was always great to be around. He seemed to be the only one who believed in me. He always said motivational things with a weird twist that he thought was funny, but ended up just sounding weird. If you put your mind to it you can do anything, except fly. I never figured that out. He always told me to pursue my passion, and it would find me. It turned out he was right.

Chapter Two: A Change for the Worse

My average day as a Sophomore looked a little like this: I would wake up in the morning, hit the snooze button, and of course be late to school, but I would always sneak in the back. Then I would go to my first four classes and sleep through them. Theology was the worst. The teacher would always go on and on with super long lectures about things I did not care about. I would always eat lunch at the same table with the same people. I did not really like them, but I trusted them to help me when I needed it if I ever needed it. They were really funny, but it always bugged me when they would talk about the future instead of what was happening right now. After that, I would go to the next couple of classes just waiting to finally get to Creative Writing. I followed that routine for months without change. It was not until December that I got on the path that lead me to the life I live today.

It was cold, and the week before, I had just gotten my driver's license. I went outside to see that my windshield was covered in ice. I got the scraper that my mother gave me out of the trunk. I started to scrape the ice off the windshield. I soon realized I was going to be later to school than usual. As soon as I was done, I hopped in my car and rushed to school. On my way, I turned on my radio hoping to hear some music but like normal they were just playing commercials. There was one that always bugged me. I had heard it a million times. It was a man with a deep voice yelling, Monday! Monday! Monday! Your last chance at a huge sale! After waiting for all the commercials to be over, they finally played a song. Of course, it was terrible. I decided to turn off the radio and go the rest of the way in silence.