I have been in fifteen different foster homes in the last fifteen years. It hasn’t been easy. When I was three years old I was taken from my mother. I went into foster care and eventually I was separated from my brothers and sister. When I was around eight years old I stopped having family visits with my mom and brothers. I asked Cardinal McCloskey what happened to her and they kept making so many excuses as to why she hadn’t been coming. It went from telling me I would see her next week, to next month, or that she couldn’t make it or that I was being bad. Finally, they said that my mother left and she was not coming back. I was upset that she did not say goodbye and didn’t understand why she even left. From that moment on I trusted no one.
I started hanging out with out with the wrong crowd, but I was really serious about finishing school. I dislike quitting on opportunities in life and I knew school was a one way ticket out of the ghetto. There were so many bad influences in my life they became my mirrors. They were my mirrors because they did things I didn’t like or want to become. I noticed that if I “do good,” I “get good.” If I “do bad,” I “get bad.” Five minutes of happiness doing “bad” isn’t worth the rest of my life being miserable. I also learned how to not make excuse for the things I do. I have now learned to take responsibility for my actions. I am still growing wiser and stronger from the things that I have learned from my past. Now I try to apply those lessons to the future. I know that there is a purpose for everything that has happened to me and that sooner or later things will fall into place for me.
I have had many challenges in my life, which have shaped the person I am today. The challenges have made me more self-reliant, more skilled, and wiser and have helped me to develop stronger leadership skills. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is one opportunity that would help continue this growing process for me. It would give greater purpose to my life and provide me with an opportunity to continue to grow stronger and assert my independence as a person. It would feed my powerful curiosity. It would challenge me to persevere beyond my limits and reach new ones. It would help me to gain new perspectives on life by challenging me.
