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What does genuine mean to you? To everyday people, it can hold a sacred and fragile meaning and others, well, it can mean nothing to them. I can assure you, I was one of those people. I didn't care about anything or anyone on the inside but on the outside everyone saw different. As anyone would probably start a story like this, I choose to start it different because not every story is the same. I have 1 brother and 4 sisters. I was raised by a single mom who worked graveyard and tried her best at everything she did to make us grow. It was shortly after that I followed in my father's footsteps. Nobody told me a lot about my dad until after everything bad started happening. 

I was arrested a couple months later on an outstanding warrant. I was taken to the hospital to detox and shortly after was taken to juvie. I was only in juvie for a month and some days until I went to a boarding school for at-risk youth. While I was there, my mom lost custody of all of us. I then went to a group home after a year and 2 months at the boarding school. I continued to follow down this dark road even though there was no light to show. I overdosed at the group home and was taken to the hospital again and I was later sent to rehab. Ninety days of sobriety and I was ready to play this game again.

I was taken in by a foster family who fostered my little brother and sister. This family had no idea about my past nor was I going to let them figure it out. It was quite a long time, I’d say about a year, before they found out that I was drug dealing in their home. I was on probation and I still continued to use drugs and sell them. This is where I had no idea I was really robbing people of true happiness to replace with false happiness. I didn't know the meaning of genuine.

Later, I was arrested at school because my probation officer saw I had numerous positive drug tests. I was taken back to juvie and sent to another rehab. Being away for a while made me realize how much I really miss the sun. I guess after you realize that you cant keep going down that road forever and realizing you need to change, then you don't really look forward to those kind of things, especially when you know you got this! So I decided to make a change in myself and some of my recreational hobbies.

Now that brings me back to the very beginning. Would I say I've changed and made a better character out of myself? Yes. Me changing made me realize what genuine actually meant. I have heard several people’s opinions and most of them are very similar and very different in many ways. I know. “Genuine”. Genuine. Genuine, right? I've said that word a lot, but, it holds true value and true definition to the word. I can tell you what it means to me but I'd rather show you.

Benji

 

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