Growing up always has its difficulties for everyone. Everyone has a past. Everyone has their own personal problems, everyone wants someone to talk with about their problems, and people would be telling a lie if they said they never did. No matter what the problem in their life is, everyone deserves to have someone to talk to. It’s called their life story.

Growing up for me, my life was much different than it is now in high school. There was really nobody I could ever talk to. My parents were constantly working from when I woke up until sundown when I got to bed and my brother was almost always working in his mechanics shop. I can still remember the scent of his shop as he would work on his cars during the day, the mix of gravel on our road and grease from the cars gave a certain scent in the summer heat that I can’t forget. He eventually moved out when I was 12 years old and I had started going to kindergarten in Whitefish School District when I was about 6 years old... Every day I would go there, but no one would talk to me, I was an instant outcast throughout the school. I thought that was just the way life was supposed to go because I had never learned any different growing up. As school progressed and I moved into 3rd grade, our class got a new student about halfway through the year and his name was Devin. We were very different in a lot of ways, but very much the same. He was never successful in school, never had any friends, he had bad grades, and no motivation to do anything… just as I did. The first day he came to class that automatically caught my attention and I came up and introduced myself. After that day, I had made my first friend in Whitefish. I rushed home and waited until my parents got out of work and when they asked the usual question, “How was your day at school?” I had a big smile on my face and said that I had made a new friend! It was the first person who ever really talked to me like I was a human and I believe it was because we shared the same problem at school. We finally hung out one day on the weekend, it was a sunny day, the birds were chirping, everything seemed right; his Aunt and Uncle even seemed to love me. I tried my best to be as respectful and courteous as I possibly could, like I had been taught in previous years. This was the first chance I got to have a true friend in Whitefish so I had to make the best first impression I could. To my surprise, his foster parents, Mary and Bob, liked me because he had never made a single friend either just like me. I knew from there on that I would have a true friendship that would hopefully last forever.

Devin and I were constantly hanging out doing stupid stuff together. His parents were strict and I believe the stricter the parents the sneakier the kids. When 4th grade came, I got news from his parents that he would be moving to Kalispell and tears instantly came down my face. I had never had a friend before him, and he was the only friend I had. I was in shock and was unsure of how to feel at this point. It was as if a train hit my chest. I wasn’t sure if it was just a part of life’s cruel game, or I did something wrong, but either way my best friend was moving a town away which to me when I was that young seemed like a million miles away. Once he moved away I was back to my old lifestyle again, except this time, I knew exactly what my life should have been from the start in Whitefish. Although I got to hang out with Devin on some weekends, we could not stay at each other’s house as much as we could before. This felt like it was the start of the end of my life.

I went through school, getting laughed at, picked on, never accepted, and like I said before… no one to talk to, and I desperately needed someone there for me. It was the switch from elementary school into middle school now when I met my new English teacher named Ms. Gardner. She was the nicest teacher I had ever had in that school district. She would tell me to stay after class, ask how my life was going, help with some problems with other kids, she was a friend. A whole different type of friend than Devin, though, she was there to talk when Devin was there to hang out and do stupid things with. My parents owned a carpet store on the corner of Whitefish stage and Highway 40, called Hometown Flooring and little did I know Ms. Gardner had been a customer at my parents store for quite a while. My parents had talked to her before and finally realized she was my teacher, and my teacher found out that they were my parents. We all became pretty close as friends, but she moved away shortly after. As I moved into higher grades, I still never had any real friends, and when I finally got into 8th grade, my parents were being sued. They were great people, they had one guy come up to them one day and ask if he could help set up an auction in our shop to sell stuff we owned to make a little money. Quickly they said no because they did not have enough money to pay him. The guy started helping anyway, without my parents’ permission. The next day, when no one was helping or watching him, he was strapping a bungee cord to a sign and it snapped and supposedly “hit him in the eye” and he had to wear an eye patch for months after, even though he could easily see without it. He later sued my parents for pretty much the rest of their lives and they are still today, paying him off.

Later, we had filed bankruptcy, suffering from hardships at home, my parents screaming at each other when they got home every night, as I lie in my room and think about why my life the way it was. As I pushed myself through school every day, it was a struggle, as if there was no real purpose in my life. I had no friends at all in Whitefish, my parents were arguing every night, They didn’t get home until I was almost going to bed, I had no one to talk to in my life, I felt like there was no reason for me to be here. Every night in bed, I would wonder what would happen if I had just disappeared if anyone would even know if I was gone. My parents would have been working the whole time, so they would just think I was in bed when they got home; there was no one at school who would have acknowledged my disappearance, what was the point? My grades were awful because I had absolutely no motivation, had no intention of going to college because I figured it would be exactly like Whitefish school. No one there for me.

One night, I had enough. My parents were blaming me for things, I had piles of homework that I had no idea how to do, and disappearing just sounded like the perfect choice at the time. I figured no one would care. I mean after all, why would they? All I was at school was the kid that got picked on because he couldn’t afford new clothes, a new phone, or anything that the supposed “popular” kids had. I Played soccer so I got called gay, a field fairy, and other names all because it wasn’t the “cool” sport in that school. Nothing I did helped anyone realize that I had feelings just like them. I was a ghost that walked around aimlessly day after day. So that night I was done with it all. After everyone was asleep, I went and got a small gun that was in our house… I just remember walking into my room slowly, every step I took, I just had that much more thought, wondering who would really care if I took my own life, no one understood me, everyone judged me, I seemed to have no real reason to live. I closed my bedroom door and had the gun in my hands. I was tired… exhausted from life, as I put the gun up to my head. Tears were streaming down my face as I sat on my floor; my heart was racing faster than ever. “Now’s the time.” I said to myself. I took one last deep breath as the tears rolled off of my cheeks and onto my carpeted floor. I proceeded to pull the trigger, “Click.”… A blinding bright light had appeared as I pulled the trigger. I had no idea what had just happened, if I was still alive for some reason, or what that reason was. Well, usually I thought that my dad had the guns loaded just in case an intruder came in. But in my surprise, he had forgotten to load it. Instantly my heartbeat slowed down to half of what it was, I had sweat mixed with tears all on my face. I couldn’t think straight at all, and for some unknown reason, I was not supposed to die that night.

I heard a voice telling me that it wasn’t my time yet; it assured me that all was going to be ok, just to give it time. I had no intention of listening to anyone else at that time, but for some reason the voice had a calming effect on me. I put the gun away and tried my hardest to pretend as if nothing had happened, and I waited for something to happen, a life changing experience to unfold, like the unknown voice said. Maybe it was just a weird experience, but I believe that was my first encounter with God. You never know who is there for you, until you can’t take anymore. I was finally at that point when I found him.

When the bank finally took our house, we moved in with my grandma in evergreen and I was homeschooled from that place I was in named Whitefish. I soon after, enrolled at Glacier High School and as soon as soccer season started freshman year, I instantly made more friends than I did in 9 years of being in Whitefish… and that was all before school had even started. I had built up self confidence like no other, along with self respect and finally realized that I can’t rely on anyone else but myself in this life. That voice I heard is the only reason I am here today. The day school started I had literally felt the greatest feeling I had ever felt in my life. It was at that time, on the first day of freshman year that I finally felt worth it, I was accepted by my peers, and with that, I finally accepted myself. I still do to this day, thank that voice every night for keeping me here today.