Over the past six years my life has changed and the path I once thought I was on had seemed to take an alternate route. I had moved from a quiet and safe neighborhood to a neighborhood where violence plagued the streets. A place where drugs were of higher value than education. I moved from Elmsford, NY to Mt. Vernon NY.

For every time I could smell the marijuana being smoked, I decided to delve myself in my math and science classes, trying to find the solutions to problems, which at one point seemed to be unsolvable. My determination is what moved me to solve these problems. My determination is what motivated me to find out, the maximum amount of ATP molecules. My determination is what made me who I am today. I do let the negatives impact me (strange right?). I let them impact me in a way that makes me strive for something better. It makes me want more from my life. I refuse to be the man on the corner, shaking endlessly, asking for a dollar so I can see another day.
My parents want the best for me. My mother and my father are both important in my life and it was hard to watch them go through a divorce. Seeing them both in pain is something that I have to live with. There were times where I felt like I could have done something different to help the situation. There are no other words to describe how I felt but that it sucked, essentially. It’s a feeling that I would not want to wish on any other teenager in high school.
I have played baseball all my life. It means a lot to me. So when my baseball team got to the championship game of our high school league, I could not help but feel ecstatic. Anyone could only imagine how I would feel if I would receive an injury that would hinder my playing. That day, I felt tightness in my back. It kept me from playing entirely. I asked the yoga instructor if she could “fix” my back. I laid down and told her that I had a sharp pain between my shoulder blades. As she sat on my back and proceed to get the knot out she said, “That is some knot Sean! You’re stressed!” At that moment, the tears started. The yearlong struggle that I felt seemed to come back at once. I held it in, because I had no other option.
That knot in my back, seemed to signify something more than just a pain between the shoulder blades. It signified the pain that I felt that no one could see. It was a symbol for how hard my parents divorce and my surroundings impacted me. That pain was a means to an end. I needed some one to help me, some one to push that knot out of my back. That someone was Sean.