Rise

I wrote this for a college English class, actually my very first one. It was, I believe, my first English paper and the second paper I ever wrote. The assignment was to write about a specific event that changed your life or changed you as a person.
I have changed a lot since I wrote this, yet it is still a really good way to get to know me. If you are new around here at Cross Castle, this would be a great way to start out. I am still very proud of this paper. I hope you all enjoy it.

Rise

I have learned that going into a new phase of life and using your old survival skills is like walking around in a house on a rainy day with your umbrella still open. Moving from inclement weather into dry shelter requires certain adjustments. I have come through many changes in a rather short time. I invite you to come with me and we will see what we may learn together.

I am looking out the window at the neighborhood kids playing in the street. They have two jump-ropes and are taking turns in the middle, singing in unison all the while. I wish I could join them, but I cannot. In the first place, I am not allowed to leave the house, and I am never allowed to leave the yard. In the second place, I am white and they are all black, so they most likely would not accept me even if I could go out and play.

Now, I am laying in bed, trying to sleep, listening to the gunfire outside. It happens almost every night. It is why I cannot leave the yard. It is why I cannot go to school. My parents do not believe I can handle school in this neighborhood. They believe it is too unsafe. So, they teach me at home. I never have to write papers or anything else like kids on television do at their schools, but I can read very well. I can read novels written for grown-ups. I like to read them, too. It is like actually going somewhere and doing something important for a change, in the books I am powerful and I always win – even though it is really the imaginary characters in the stories doing everything, I feel as if I am with them. I am always sad when I am not reading. People always ask why I am sad and I cannot answer them because I do not know.

I am eighteen and I am angry. I wish the world would end. I hate my life and I know now why I was always so sad: no one should have to be holed up like that under any circumstances! The kids in the neighborhood that went to school have better prospects for their life than I do, and they are not alone like this. I must face entering the world with absolutely no idea what I am doing. I hate my parents and blame them for everything. My parents could not teach me any better than they did, so they refuse to admit my education was inadequate – except for reading, that is. My reading is great, but that will not get me a job. I do not know how to do anything that anyone will pay me for. I know I will certainly have to face the streets and hear again the sounds that came from the old neighborhood when I was small. But this time I will be out there, too. I am terrified. But I know where I'm going if I die as long as I don't commit suicide -- I strongly doubt that will be necessary. This thought will have to keep me calm for now.

I am nineteen and am driving to Springfield, MO. That is where Kim and Michele live. I met them at a big Women’s Convention last year. I spent my life savings to attend, hoping that preacher woman with an abusive past had answers that would work for me. Kim, Michelle and I have stayed in contact on the phone and through e-mail. It may be a place to start, I cannot be sure. I have only eighty-one dollars to my name. I have no idea where I will work, but there are more jobs there than in Northern Indiana. I know they cannot put me up, so I will have to sleep in the car. I have passed St. Louis and am entering the beautiful Ozark Mountains. Sometimes it feels like I am riding a roller-coaster, the front bumper of my little car pointing almost straight down. It makes me tremble or it may be my emotions causing that. I cannot believe all this is happening; I cannot believe I am doing this. Sink or swim, I am going in – because I have no choice.

I am twenty-one, and deeply disappointed. I am half-running down Commercial Street. There is an unscrupulous-looking character behind me. My heart is pounding and my mouth tastes terrible. I am on my way to take the GED at a building called The Kind Place. It is a thirty-minute walk one-way. It stinks in there, but the people who operate it are indeed kind. I am not certain the bedraggled man behind me is chasing me; he may simply be going in the same direction. He seems harmless and is letting me gain distance on him. However, since he was headed the opposite way until he saw me then nonchalantly changed directions, then crossed the street a few blocks back and is now on the same side of the road as me, I believe I will keep up my pace. You never know about people. It is far better not to take chances. I will arrive early for GED as usual. There is almost always a reason to run in this area.

I am sitting inside at a desk. Sometimes I still hate my life. I believe I belong here, on the streets. My GED teacher keeps talking about college. I do not believe I fits well with who I am. If I studied anything, it would be welding. I may pursue that at some point, but I need any job I can get and my own roof first. I am a roughneck, an under dog, and a survivor. I was born and raised that way. I study in the school of real life. It is a school of hard knocks sometimes, but sometimes it is a school of miracles and mercy. College is for people with silver spoons in their mouth who want to sit around all day in an office and make massive paychecks. I am not made that way. Even if I was, I am so infinitely behind in every subject except English that there is no school in the world that will accept me. They cannot be expected to understand. If I am to bloom, I will have to do it where I am planted. I will stay on this side of the tracks, stay out of trouble and see if I can contribute anything where I am. Sometimes that thought makes me want to puke. It hurts, it is not fair, but that is the way life is and my feelings do not matter anyway, period.

I am now twenty-six and presently making a second attempt at going to college. I changed my major last semester from Occupational Certificate in Welding to a B.A. in music with a minor in theatre. I have lived all over the Mid-West and have been homeless three times in the last seven years. I have an apartment and a car, again. This time, I have friends who share a lot of my interests. With them, I help run a little off-the-wall, hole-in-the-wall place called Wake the Dead. We attract kids who don't fit in (or believe they do not fit in) and try to be good examples and a good influence for them. I believe I have ruined the last two or three years of my life trying to be someone I am not but believed I was destined to be. I am not a roughneck. I grew-up in a rough-neck family, but I never felt I belonged with them. I am Gothic and plan to make Gothic music once I play well enough. I don't care that most Christians believe Goth is of the devil. They don't even know what it is.

I am studying to become an ethnomusicologist. An ethnomusicologist is a missionary who embeds temporarily with indigenous peoples, learns their culture, art and musical style, and puts passages of scripture and worship songs into that style, encourages them to start making Christian songs of their own, and expresses the Truths of God's Word in art and drama. God's word kept me off drugs, off the street corners and from killing myself or perhaps even someone else. With the same Word, I can make people's lives better, no matter what their preferred culture or lifestyle.

I cannot believe I am still alive. As imposing as the odds appeared, I didn't even see at the time how bad the odds always were. I hope everyone can learn that growing up around water doesn't make you a duck. One must adjust to the fact that change will be frightening and will hurt and may take a long time but you must do it anyway because it is worth it.