Nowadays life is just so, well, how do I put this? People are just so blah. Now you probably don’t get what I mean. Well, I mean you have to move on in life. Too many people live in the past, when they should be working toward the future. Many people have messed up their lives in the past. Now they’re living the present like they are doomed because of their past, and it’s tearing them apart. I know what I’m talking about because I used to be one of those people.

Looking at me now at first glance, you don’t see much. You just see a girl: a girl that seems as if she is always “happy”. You wouldn’t ever think what kind of life she came from. You would expect her to have had a great childhood and to always have been a happy little girl. I hate to tell you, but you’re wrong.

Well this is my story: short like a smurf, blue eyes, long light brown hair, loving as a heart, and was always with my dad. That was me as a little girl. So, yes you can say I was a “daddy’s girl”. In reality though I was not a “daddy’s girl”. I was with him for the fact that momma picked drugs over me.
By the age of eight, I knew things that most people don’t know until high school, and that certainly kids my age shouldn’t have known or seen.I saw people do drugs and get their lives ruined. Even though I was young, I knew what was going on. I acted happy, but deep inside I was broken. My mom used to tell me she “loved” me, but no, I don’t believe she did. It was drugs every night. I only saw her for a little while.

Eventually momma got help. Life was starting to get better, but you know how it is, nothing good ever lasts. When I was nine, my dad left me for Florida. Feeling neglected, because of both my parents leaving my life, even if it was at different times, I became depressed. I acted happy, but really wasn’t. Actually, when I think about it, there was really no acting that needed to be done, considering all I did was sit in my room day and night, only leaving to go to school, take a shower, and use the bathroom. My day always went: wake up, sometimes eat, get dressed, go to school (if it was a school day), come home back to my room and talk on the computer. This went on for about a year.

After seeing what had happened with my mom, I swore to myself I would never do drugs. Wow, was that a joke. One day when I was hanging out with a friend, she gave me a cigarette, and of course, I smoked it. After I was done smoking the cigarette, we went to meet up with some people. Those people were the biggest stoners I knew. That was the first time I smoked weed.

I started out with weed. Then when I started to routinely hang with some friends, smoking went from once in awhile to an everyday thing. From there I moved onto drinking and other drugs. I went from straight edge to partying every night. There were times I woke up and didn’t know what was going on. A lot happened that I wasn’t very proud of.

I realized I didn’t like that lifestyle, so I gave it up. So, yeah, it was good because I gave it up, but still I cried at night because of things I had done. I never really told anyone, but I didn’t have to; it is a small town and things do get around. That lifestyle haunted me for years.

Then one day my boyfriend was over, when someone messaged me. It was nothing bad, but it was someone from the past. I couldn’t hold back, and the next thing I knew, tears were shooting out of my eye sockets likes bullets from a gun. My boyfriend looked at me with a sympathetic look on his face. “What’s the matter? Please don’t cry.” I told him I was fine. In disbelief, he wiped my tears, and told me to tell him. I couldn’t keep it in, so I told him. He listened, and I told him I was sorry. He brought up my spirits by saying, “Shelby, I don’t think any less of you; your past is your past, and you are no longer there. So, cheer up, baby. I love you.” He wiped away the last tear and kissed me on my forehead. It always makes me feel better when he kisses my forehead, for the fact that is where he kissed me first when we first started dating. I didn’t know it, but there I was sitting there looking like an idiot with a smile on my face, all because he had made me so happy by his words.

It was then that I finally realized what I now know. His words showed me that just because I had been neglected by both my parents at some point, and even if I had messed up my past, there was still hope for the future. Now it’s time for my words to you: even when all hope is gone, no matter what happens, move on. In other words, don’t let your past control your future; because as we grow, yes we are taller, but most of all we are wiser, and we also have a better perspective on life. It is your past for a reason; don’t let it be your future too.