Post a- My Lessons Learned

When I was a little girl, I always wanted the ideal relationship shared between a father and his beautiful little girl. Unfortunately, my dad worked a lot. He always had to go to New York, Georgia, Connecticut, or Chicago to make sure his workers weren’t “screwing everything up”. I tried to get my dad’s attention: fishing, snowmobiling, doing things he liked. That didn’t seem to be working, so I think I tried something a little more on rebellious. I started “hanging out with the wrong crowd”. All my friends wore baggy jeans --this applies to the girls as well as the guys--, wore dark make-up, and hung out at the REC Center until it closed. I was right; I started getting more attention from my dad. It just wasn’t the kind I wanted. He told me that people associate who you hang out with to your own personality. Basically he was saying if they were doing something bad, everyone thought I was too. I stood my ground and continuously disagreed with him, “Just because they’re smoking pot doesn’t mean I am!” Well needless to say, the people I was “befriending” got caught at school with drugs. Once they were found guilty, I was called down to the office and was questioned. I honestly didn’t realize that people did assume I was doing what they were. I learned that day that not only is it important to pick friends with some self respect, but that society does hold an image on cliques. I slowing stopped returning there calls, stopped hanging out at the REC, and began to flourish in a new group of friends.

Adventure has always been a huge interest in my life. My brother and I used to get our bathing suits on and adventure into the backyard known as the Mud pits. We dressed each with clay designs, and soon transform into “The Mud Monsters” to try to scare our mother. I used to find the tallest trees, usually pine trees, and climb as far up as I could. I loved the sense of excitement and something new. In 2003, my freshman year in high school, I was offered a trip to Australia and New Zealand with the Maine People to People Student Ambassador Program. I was so thrilled at first. I called all m friends, did tons of research, and assumed my parents would pay for the trip. I was wrong. After nine months of fund raising I eventually earned $6,000 to make the trip fees. As the time neared to go on our trip, the P2P group (as we all used to nickname it) started meeting and having little homework assignments. When it came down to actually filling out the forms, and placing my signature down next to my parents, I nearly backed out. I told them I didn’t want to go. It was stupid; I don’t know any one going! I didn’t care I was going to have to give all that money back: basically I through a little childish act because I didn’t know anyone. I wasn’t about to go to a continent fourteen hours away from the west coast of my own country with absolutely no one I knew. After talking to my parents they basically said, “Too bad! You’re going and you’re going to have fun!” The day of the trip, I was so hateful toward my parent; how could they be so mean to send me away for a summer with absolutely no one? Again, needless to say my parents were right. I went on the trip, and met some of the most important people of my life. I learned that being shy is overrated. I still have a really hard time over coming that part of me, but once I do, I’m tons of fun. It really isn’t worth missing out on climbing the Sydney Bridge just because I’m shy.

I always listened to everyone talk about how important their family is to them, but I never really felt like family was that much of a big deal in my life. Yeah, I love my family, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them, but I didn’t think that was exactly the “importance” people were talking about. This past winter, probably in February, my boyfriend and I went to New Jersey to visit my dad while he was working; we wanted to go to New York and the Jersey Shore. When we came home from New York, we got a phone call from my dad’s step mother. My Grandpa Don was in the hospital, and they recommended coming home immediately if we wanted to see him before he passed. We didn’t even think twice. My clothes were no longer thrown all over the room, our portable bed was deflated and rolled up, and the trucks were packed up and ready to move within twenty minutes. We got to the hospital a little after midnight to find my grandfather was still alive but didn’t know who anyone was and wasn’t making any sense of anything. None of the doctors knew what was going on. He had all the signs of a stroke, but without having one. We stayed at the hospital for a week and a half. My ten-year-old sister, Rylee, stayed with our aunt so she could go to school, but I refused to leave the waiting room. The entire time I was there, I was only able to actually go see him once. It wasn’t because the doctors wanted him to rest, or my parents didn’t think I should see him in that condition; I just couldn’t… I knew that deep down he knew he had all of us there: my Grandma Sally, my Grandma Bulldog, Aunt Leslie, my two cousins, and my family- my mom, dad, my boyfriend and me. I feel like even though he wasn’t able to understand who we were or at least let us know he knew who we were, he still knew we loved him. I think if he felt like no one cared and loved him, he would have stop fighting. Family is important. Everyone just has a different reason why.