My life and my success has been handed to me on a silver platter. I’ve never been in a family that struggled economically. I did not have to learn English as a second language. I was never kicked out of my family's home or made to pay rent when I could not afford it. I have lived a very fortunate life. This very fortune is what lead me to probably the most difficult struggle I have had to face. Even if it perhaps fails in comparison to what others face, it was a great struggle for me to overcome. My parents have always looked out for me and tried to give me whatever I might need to find success and happiness in life. When I was about 17 years old, I fell head over heels in love like any teenager might. Unfortunately for me, the girl I fell in love with was from another country. We were together for about 5 months before she went back home. It was hard to say goodbye, and perhaps we should have, but we did not. We decided to have a long distance relationship but she was from Belgium and the time difference was 9 hours. Every night I would wake her up and talk with her before bed and every morning she’d wake me up before I went off to school. When I was back from school, I’d talk with her before she went to bed. On school breaks like christmas, I’d visit her or she would visit me. I gave up soccer, baseball and friends in order to make the time for this relationships to work. Finally, some 9 months later, when I graduated from high school, I decided to move to her country and be with her. At that point, we were both in a heavily dependent relationship. Over the next year or so I tried to adjust to being in another country, knowing only her and not speaking the language. There were some good moments with her but ultimately, I failed to adjust and decided to return home. We tried to keep our relationship going, I eventually visited again for another 3 or 4 months, but when I returned home the second time, although we loved one another, neither of us had the will to keep up a long distance relationship. So we ended it.
The end of that relationship spelled the start of an intense depression. My ego and my personality had somehow grown like vines deep within the cracks of the relationship. By removing the structure of the relationship, the vines dried up and I lost a big measure of my self-esteem and self-actualization. I did not know how to go about rediscovering myself and so I fell into drug use because it helped ease the pain. It was not heavy drug use. I did not start to buy 8 balls or snort meth but I did start smoking weed almost every single day. I even went so far as to get a job, despite having no expenses, so that I could spend two to three hundred dollars on weed almost every week. I continued this habit as I trudged slowly through junior college because it made me forget my worries and it gave me access to friends. Even if they were not the best friends to have, they were still friends and I had nothing else if not weed and them. While the vines of my self-esteem were being rebuilt on the structure of cannabis. Hardly a health structure to construct. I finally graduated with an associates from junior college and transferred to Cal State Long Beach. This transfer changed my life.
I moved to Long Beach but continued much of my habits. My school suffered drastically as I failed a class and dropped out of others. If I was going to make it at this school and have a life of my own, with a career and happiness, I needed to give up my addiction to weed. The one good thing that came from that semester was the intramural coed soccer league and my soccer class. I had hung up my soccer cleats some four or five years prior for the relationship but these two things brought soccer back into my life. Very quickly, I cut weed out of my life and replaced it with my love for soccer. I began following most of the leagues so I could talk about it and make friends with new people. I joined the club team on campus and made my own coed team, as well. Within a year, I was the Vice President of the club soccer team while participating in three other intramural soccer leagues and a beach soccer league, as well. I found a community in which I knew almost everyone and was very much a big part of. My school suffered a bit in exchange for being a part of this soccer community but I was able to give up my addiction and still be happy for the first time in years. I obsessed about club soccer, in particular, tried to expand the program by adding a competitive b team and eventually even helped build a team that made it to nationals for the first time in some 15 years. Cal State Long Beach and the soccer community therein took me to a stable place.
I graduated last semester and hung up my club boots after three good years. Being a part of that community was a lot of work but it was well worth it. I made a great many friends, some that are so close my children may someday call them aunts and uncles. The club team that brought so much of that happiness to my life now has a new president for whom I have full confidence. Although my life has been one of privilege, an untimely heartbreak lead to years of addiction and depression that was cured by a well crafted soccer community. Now I am entering a new stage in my life devoted towards financial independence. I’m moving out on the 24th of February, paying for rent, school, insurance, and every other bill I can afford. I’m hoping to work my way through my credential so that I take on as few loans as possible and develop a keen sense of personal finance. This is a new and big challenge but my experience in these last six years, particularly my time at Cal State Long Beach, has given me the confidence and drive to know that this is something I can accomplish.
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