10 Best Shoes For Morning Walk

Best Shoes For Morning Walk in 2023

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A Walk in My Shoes

This is a short story of how I discovered who I am in life.

My mother has always been an amazing woman. She was also a very young and single mother. She gave birth to me when she was only fifteen years old. My mother and I moved out of my grandmother's house after living comfortably in my crib for two years. My mom was just not prepared for life at all. Life was very trying at times. My mother struggled everyday for me. Once she got married for the first time, life only got worse.

Do not get me wrong. The money was there, but unfortunately I had the opportunity to learn all about hate and anger. I cannot remember too much of my life from back then. However, I do remember my father beating my mother in the living room. My father's friends were all gathered around and laughing too. I had never seen hate like that before. This was the only time I could recall that this beating happened, but who is to say what I did not see. My mother was still very young and dumb at the time. Needless to say, she stayed with him for awhile. He was decent to be around some of the time. At other times he would do a complete three hundred and sixty degree turnaround and yell at everyone around him. My mom conceived my (now eighteen year old) sister, Jessi, during her time with Tim (I no longer consider this man my dad, so we will refer to him as Tim). I have always loved my sister, but for some reason I always had to pick on her and scare her. I have always blamed Tim for me being such a bully at times. Life was beautiful for awhile after she left that man.

When she left him, she decided to start fresh. We had moved to West Burlington, Iowa! This was a town that almost no one had heard of before. It was much like "Cheers", if you have heard of this television show. "Cheers" is a bar "Where everybody knows your name, and they are always glad you came!" Everyone in this town was so close that nothing happened in town without someone finding out. I had gotten into a little bit of trouble smoking cigarettes in the bathroom. It did not take my mother more that ten minutes to get to the school and drag me out home crying. I liked to push my limits once in awhile. I had a lot of friends in West Burlington and we were all very close. My mother had gotten a full-time job that included overtime plus benefits too. There, in turn, was a lot less stress around us in this town. It took my mother a couple of years to be comfortable with a man again, but when she did, he was no real winner!

This supposed "Wonderful Man" was named Craig. He must have been through a mess in his life, because he spent his days drinking away life's miseries. He also loved to take prescription pills. These pills were never prescribed to him though. He just went out on the streets and picked them up from different people for different prices. This, of course, was illegal. He did not care though. Craig also had very crazy and off the wall ideas frequently. One of those "Wonderful Ideas", was when he asked my mother if we would move to Daytona Beach, Florida with him. She told him that we would. My mother had a cousin that lived in South Daytona, Florida. So, Craig decided to move down first to get a job and a house. He stayed with my mom's cousin until a week before we arrived. This was when he found a home for us to live in.

For the entire month we waited to go down to Florida, I begged my mother to stay. I did not want to leave the place that we had made our home. I had so many friends there and I had even gained a boyfriend. He may not have been good for me, but I had no idea at that time. I cried and moped but it did not help. My mom was under the impression that she was doing what was best for her and her family. My other little sister, Bonita, had arrived during this period, as well. She was only a baby at the time though, so she had little contribution. Jessi and I were getting along much better when we were headed to Florida. This was because I had realized that my family would always be there and I needed to be there for them too. Boni and Jessi were indifferent to whether we stayed or moved. I, however, was miserable!

My crying aside, I had never realized how sheltered I was until we moved to Florida. I had seen so much just on the road trip alone. Once we hit Springfield, I had gotten to see my first large city. They had sound barricades that surrounded the city's highways. That was just the beginning for me. When we made it to Kentucky, I got to see some of the most beautiful wildflowers scattered across their fields. It was not all pretty and neat. It had gotten a little ugly along the way as well. Once we had made it to Atlanta, I had come across the first homeless person I ever saw. I was able to see many more homeless people later in life. There was also more crime in these larger cities. Graffiti cluttered the walls of old buildings and overpasses. These cities also had much more pollution and smog in their air. I could not believe my eyes. I wanted this road trip to be over soon.

We had finally arrived at our new home in Daytona Beach, FL. I may have been upset but as they have always said "Life goes on!" I got started at my new school and began accumulating friends. Stefanie was one of my closest friends at my new school. She was a good person with a good heart. She was just a little desperate for attention at times. That, of course, was probably due to her life experiences too. Stefanie and I loved to go to the beach and we loved to drive on beachside. The weather was nice and there were so many people. We also loved music and would listen to a lot of that in my car. Along the way, Stefanie had introduced me to one of her friends. His name was Rick. I thought that he was so handsome but he scared me a little. He was what I had perceived to be a Bad Boy. Of course, my perception of a bad boy was one that was handed down to me by my very own mother. This perception was of any boy that got into any kind of trouble with the law. He had been in such a mess because he was an aggressive driver. He was caught thirty two times by the police. As time went on I realized he was growing and that we had so much in common. He thought about people, things, and life in the same way that I did. We could talk for hours. I started falling in love.

Once I turned seventeen, I felt right with Rick. My mother was still with Craig and home was miserable because of him. All of these things weighed on my mind when I decided to move in with Rick. My mother had tried to tell me that we were not prepared. She, of all people, would know this most of all. I did not want to listen. If the circumstances were different at home I may have stayed and finished school. However, I was in a hurry to start my life and start making money, so I quit school. Luck for me I had my mother nagging at me to get my GED. She is the only reason that I have it today. I was just in a hurry to make money and I did not care about education or knowledge. Rick was always very supportive of anything I wanted to do. It was just too bad that I had not figured out what I wanted yet. One thing I did know was that I had always wanted to be married. Rick and I were married on April twenty first of two thousand and five.

After we were married, something inside me woke up. I had realized that I needed education and knowledge. I also knew that it could only benefit me in the long run. My life was great but due to one bad choice after another, we had very little money. Lucky for me I could get student loans for school, but for housing, we were forced to move in with my new in-laws. Do not get me wrong. My In-laws are very amazing, caring, and hilarious people. I just did not want to go back in time. I had spent all of this time rushing life just to end up back at square one.

I have learned a lot along the way, and I still have so much more to learn. I love the fact that I have so many good memories and just a bit of bad ones. These experiences have taught me many lessons. Do not rush life and enjoy every minute of it. Do not consume yourself with money. I try not to stress about the small stuff because I know that in the end all we will have are our memories and knowledge. We will be left with thoughts of people we have met and the crazy or bad experiences along the way.