My Life Story - Part 1

Believe it or not, but back in 2005 I was just like them in that picture above. Now Im the complete opposite. In 6 years, I went from the top of the world, to the bottom of the pile. Back in 2005 I was 15 years old. I managed a low end skate team that I started with my best friend Ian.  My mom just married the man she had been living with for over 14 years. The broken relationship between my dad and myself was on track to being fixed, and my old brother was leaving to achieve his dream and serve our country. Life was great until about January of 2006. In January 2006, I was in New Jersey, the state I was born and raised in, and I received a phone call that I did not ever want to hear. My mom called me crying telling me that her husband was leaving her for his 21 year old secretary. My flight was scheduled to take me home 4 days after the phone call and I was willing to book out of New Jersey and head home to Florida to be with my mom and 2 younger sisters. My mom insisted that I stay and take my scheduled flight home instead of changing it. She wanted time to work it out before I got home, because she knew I would take her husband out back and he would never be seen again. So after taking my flight home, I arrive to a mother and 2 sisters in tears, a giant build up of rage that came out of nowhere, the sudden responsibility of having to raise both my sisters who were still in elementary school and take care of my heart broken depressed mother. I was only 15 at the time and I was in no way shape or form ready to step up to the plate and become a man. I was still a sophomore in high school. I was still growing up and learning how to live on my own and raise a family of my own. So I had to completely put my life on hold in order to take care of my family. My mom at one point thought suicide was a way out. I had to talk her out of it. There was no way I was letting her go and leaving my 2 sisters to live with their deadbeat father. I had to cook dinner almost every night. I cooked mostly breakfast and easy foods, but I cooked for my mother and sisters. I dropped out of high school to be with my family. To make sure they got up in the morning for school, to make sure they had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to make sure they had something clean to wear to school everyday, and to make sure they knew that everything was going to be alright. sounds like a tough life for a 15 year old right? Well guess what. I only got worse from there.