I sat on the dull wooden bench, staring down at my feet. The air was crisp and refreshing, the sunset was glowing, and the clouds were slowly passing, everything seemed perfect. If I were to go back in time a week and tell myself I would be sitting on this bench in front of my Uncle’s house in California, I would have laughed. But this wasn’t a joke, and I wasn’t allowed to laugh.
A week before today I was still living with my parents in the quiet small town that I grew up in. As a teenager, I often got into trouble with drugs and alcohol, and dropped out of school because there was nothing else to do in such a small town.