"Lookin' back over the years..."/*Friday July 24th

"...I guess I've shedded some tears."

Recently, I'm really starting to regret A LOT of the decisions I made during my high school years. For a long time, I made peace with those decisions and often said "I regret NOTHING I've done in my life." That was a crock of horse shit. I made that statement to kinda sound rebellious, which i now realize was foolish. Of course I didn't regret them then; I hadnt reaped the sour fruits that were to grow from a lot of moves I made. Now, I've come to see that had i done just a few things differently, I'd be in a better position now (for myself, but mostly for my daughter.). I would probably still regret some of the stuff I did if my daughter wasn't here, but having her here... fully knowing now I could've been better prepared and definitely on my way to where I wanted to be in life, it kills me. I DEEPLY regret the decisions I made in high school, and especially the main decision I made after high school...

For the 4 years after I dropped out of high school, instead of planning ahead and building toward something for myself, I just rode along. I had a steady gig (I co owned a couple of retail stores), and I was makin' pretty good money for the first half. Then when the recession started in mid 2007....that was a crucial moment that I should've seized. When the recession first hit, us small businesses got hit first, and baby did we take a blow. It didnt kill me/us yet though, and it was at that point I should've started making a real PLAN B. I made it clear to my partner that I wans't trying to do the shit anymore; we had been reducing the size of our stores, and a separate project that she had going with my twin was startin to be a liability. She was cool with the fact that I was trying to go elsewhere, but when she asked what I wanted to do/what I was going to do, I couldnt even give her an answer. At least a real answer. I gave her some bullshit ass answer, and she quickly deflated it. I just knew that I wanted...needed to get out of retail for a second. I didn't care where I went. The problem now was deciding what I was going to do next.

Until the recession hit, I had planned on riding on the stores back for a while. I mean, my life was pretty straight. (Shit, I began 07 with my first apartment by myself, my own car, a lil money saved up, and a tax refund. Shit was looking sweet. Everyone I knew kept talking about how fucking awesome 2007 was about to be. I was getting ready to turn 21 too...muh fuckas couldn't tell me shit.) While we had slow spots in the two years and some change I was running shit (and more before I was running shit and just workin there) none of those events prepared me for a full scale recession. That shit wasn't even in my vocabulary. Didn't exist. By mid 2007, we all realized something was wrong. By summer time we knew shit was fucked up, and that's when I started to back out (and not because of the recession though, it was mostly because I wasnt happy with the relationship my partner and I were having around that time). So at the time when I decided that I was done with the store (summer 07) I now had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And I had NO real idea, since my life had been wrapped up in the store since pretty much 10th grade. The store had been my plan after high school, but I didnt plan pass that. I can not stress that point enough. Right before we closed down the home store (my store) and moved everything to our second location, I was lost. I still hadn't figured out anything yet, and I was sorta depressed. I had lost hope.

I made the decision in the new year of 08 to start smoking again full time. I eventually threw caution to the wind, after regaining some confidence in my business. I stopped planning past the store once more, as my partner had me kinda gassed about running the store again. Then my wife and I got back together. We had been on and off for over a year after I left high school, and us getting back together was kind of a big deal. I was enthralled. The event completely threw me off course. Even though I hadn't been really planning my future, at the beginning of 08, she was the fuuuuurthest thing from what little plans I did have. It just sort of happened, and almost instantly she moved in. I and me became us and we rather quickly. We eventually started planning our collective get a way from all that was going on at the time. Alas, after one too many gambles of unprotected sex, she became pregnant. We actually had made the decision to start using condoms again a month before we found out she was pregnant; too little too late. Needless to say, our plans were to change...

The week we found out she was pregnant, we also found out that an ongoing dispute with our land lord had come to a head, and we discovered that he planned on locking our store up. No way Jose. Tuesday we found out she was pregnant, Friday we found out our land lords plan, Saturday we moved everything out of the store before he could lock it up. We spent 12 hours straight packing and moving. Anyhow, it was a new ball game now; it didnt matter what I (we) wanted to do anymore. It had switched to the survival game. All of this was pretty much exactly a year after I had told my partner that I didn't want to be in the business anymore. Had I made a concrete plan then, or at least started hoarding some of the money I was still making, things would've been easier. Over the course of the next 4 months our work van that we had had since 2004 had finally broke down, I was facing eviction, and we were flat broke. Oh and Antoinettes pregnancy was getting ready to be in full swing. These were dark times...

I'm going to stop this little trip down memory lane right here. The main point, which I've reiterated a bunch of times already, is this:
Lately (the past 3 months or so) I've come to regret almost every major decision I've made since my high school years. I know now that I made some big mistakes, but that doesnt mean I cant change my life. I'm still young. I still have dreams and even with a child to look after, I can still make moves to set myself up for my future. I've actually learned from these specific mistakes now (not that I never learn from any of my mistakes before, it just took a while to learn from these particular mistakes). Anyhow, I'm once again starting to see great things in my/our future. I'm actually looking too far ahead in these visions, but nonetheless, I see great things. All I/we gotta do now is PLAN...