The Day I Saved My Life

I saved myself from a terri­ble life the day I moved 2,000 miles away from home. Had I stayed, I probably wouldn't be alive right now to tell you this.

It started in high school. I joined a gang because I wanted to be like my older brother. Before my first fight, I was so nervous, I was shaking. From then on, it was violence and more violence. My 'crew' became my life and I started to love it. Watching my back was something I got used to. Once, on the way home from school, I was jumped by seven girls who busted a bottle over my head and kicked me until they thought I was unconscious. Another day, I got punched and stomped on by 15 girls and guys on the bus. I was shot at too many times to count. Many nights, after driving in danger­ous territory, we'd get out of the car to look at all of the bullet holes. It saddens right now to think about how many kids I know who've been killed. I look back and think, jeez, what if I'd been standing right there? Maybe it would have been me.

When I joined the crew, they asked if I wanted to try drugs. At first, I was like, 'Nah,' but then they said, 'Come on, try.' By the end of sophomore year, I was taking drugs in school. My grades dropped big time. We were basically at war with another gang, and between classes and after school I usually had a fight to look forward to. At the end of my junior year, we had this big, big fight. I kept hitting this girl in the ear until she pulled a knife on me. The next day when I got to school, I found out she'd gone deaf in that ear and I was arrested. Later, as I sat in the back of the cop car with my mom, I felt like a total disap­pointment. Getting arrested changed my life.

I quit my crew and started at a new school (because of my grades, I had to repeat a year), but that wasn't the end of my problems. I still hung with some gangbangers, and I became addicted to cocaine. Then one day I got greedy with the coke, sniffed too much and ended up on the floor, shaking and spit­ting. Even though I managed to graduate, I knew I really needed to start over. That's when I packed up and went to California to live with my sister. I got a job, opened a bank account and finally realised how much life had to offer me. Friends would write to me about who got shot. I didn't want to hear it. I wanted to leave it behind. Now I'm work­ing and going to school. I have new friends, and I haven't touched coke in a couple of years. When I go back home, I see the old gang hanging on the comer and I wonder if I hadn't left, would I be there too? Would I even be alive? I thought I was so strong back then, but I was weak, a follower. Now I'm showing my parents that they raised a strong, intelligent woman who can over­come her wrong-doings and make something of her life.