To help everyone understand where I"m coming from, I"m going to explain where I've been. I was born in the high-rate crime city of New Orleans, Louisiana. I lived there until the age of eleven. Then my life was suddenly uprooted to three hours north of everything I ever cared about. Now I will tell the story of my moral choice that began at the tender age of seven.
At seven years old, I wanted to be a writer. At seven years old I had long, brown, wavy, hippie-style hair with a hint of red when it was allowed to be seen by the sun. At seven years old, I wrote my morals in stone. Actually, I should say "moral," because I had only one. I made up my mind that never in my life would I ever under any circumstances do illegal drugs.
I was only seven and had already seen the horrific affects drugs had on my friends, family, and neighborhood. I watched my next-door neighbors being dragged away by the men in their blue uniforms as the sun beamed off their silver badges and into my curious, youthful eyes. I saw the hurt in the children's eyes as their grandma cradled them in her fragile, worn-out arms. Her eyes made her easy to read, for the whole world could see right through them into her heart where she would be asking the question "Where did I go wrong?" That was a typical day in my seven-year-old world.
During my eleventh year on earth, my parents spontaneously made a decision to move to my dad's "hometown." I was not included on the decision-making committee; perhaps they thought my feeble mind could not make such a decision. But yes they sure thought my feeble mind could handle the drastic change that was about to occur. My mind couldn't handle it. In fact, my mind was the first thing to rebel. Next, my heart hardened toward everything and everyone. I found acceptance to some degree while hanging with the kids who dressed in all black with at least three abnormal piercing each.