I was sitting in the Taco Bell drive through, it was around 11:30 pm on a school night. I had gone to get dinner for myself. That day started with me waking up at 5 am going to work, going to high school at 8, then rehearsing for the upcoming One Act drama competition until 7 pm, then going to work until 11 pm. I had three projects for my AP classes to do that night and I still had to do the chores around my farm and clean the house. My mother was going through strong chemotherapy and had a mastectomy while also having a rare autoimmune disease, she wasn't really up for doing anything, other than leaving a mess for me to clean, and she is abusive as well. My mother verbally berating me each night then her crying at all hours while I keep doing work. My anxiety got worse because of my mother having worse mood swings and I was the only person for her to take out her emotions on. So I am sitting, exhausted in the Taco Bell drive through mentally preparing myself for the continuing of this cycle while I graduate my senior year until I die. Then I am handed my bag of food and I notice that I got an extra quesadilla with a message in sharpie on it saying, "just cause". I held it and started crying, in the Taco Bell drive through at 11:30 pm. The girl operating the drive through started calming me down as I violently cried my eyes out. The other people working at that moment came to the window and started telling me everything was going to be fine, that I was doing a great job, that it was okay for me to be crying, that my emotional wellbeing was important, that I was important. Those people had no obligation to tell me those things or give me that free quesadilla, but they did. It was the first time in a long time that someone had expressed such a simple kindness to me. I had been told constantly how I was making mistakes, that I wasn't giving it my all, that I was lacking in so many different ways and it was then being repeated in the back of my head every single moment, and here people are showing compassion to me when I was at a low. They did not know that I had hit a low point in my self esteem, they did not know what I was going through, but they did something so small that gives me solstice to keep going. I am going to strive to be something that they can be proud of. I want to be hundreds of times better than who I am so I deserve their words. I want those kind people at Taco Bell to say, "Remember that kid who had an emotional break down because we gave them a free quesadilla? Well now that kid is international spokesperson worth billions of dollars." That is something I strive to achieve each day, to make someone's kindness worth wild.

My life is my everything. My youth has been plagued by household abuse, trauma, and keeping it all to myself. Getting away from the unhealthy relationships and abuse is my goal, I value myself because if I do not then my abusers were right. I am going to become the person who is better than them, stronger than them, safe from them. I have to liberate myself and become my dream. I am not them and I want to be an advocate for people like me, I want to be able to be loud and tell those who put others down in their place. I want to go into law, but the abusive people are still in my life. I want to go to college and get a degree that can get me started and then I can take online school to fulfill my dreams of being free. My life is worth more than I have been told, so I am going to be more than what anyone thought I would be. I am going to become a pharmacist until I can get to my dream, but if I can get enough money to separate myself from my abuser then I will get to achieve my dreams sooner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Q3i5w6-Ug&list=LL&index=83

I find that I use art as a form of therapy or coping or what ever you want to call it. Art was something that takes practice, and quite frankly as a young child it was better to find something to do with my time then being subjugated to the abusive home that I had. I was terrified of my abusive step father, I remember quite clearly after being in my room all day, because of him lurking in the living room, hearing my mother and him having an argument then the lamp of the bedside table being smashed. It was quiet after that. My biological dad abandoned me at the age of three, it has been something I was tormented for in my rural town. People didn't understand why I never talked about him or why I couldn't participate in 'bring a parent to school day' as my mother worked nights at a very strenuous and physical job. She is abusive in every type but not to the point where I would call for fear of my life, that's only happened once. I assume she learned it also from my abusive grandma, but grandma isn't physical. I realize now that many of the incidents were suppressed and rediscovering everything that happened to me has been quite extreme. I have bottled up my emotions and decided that I would rather keep everything quiet, yet art? Art is loud. It is the one thing that not a single person in my family is proficient in. Its mine. They can't set a standard to subject me to achieve as they continuously raise that standard when they don't know what I am achieving. Being a person suffering ADD, Dyscalculia, mild speech impediment, and mild dyslexia, that combination leads to hyper focusing. I could hyper focus on learning how to sketch trees, animals, landscapes, cityscapes, people; paint with acrylics, water colors, colored pencils, highlighters, markers, pastels, oil base, alcohol based; use pastel colors, cool colors, all blues, all reds, all greens, primary colors, contrasting colors, complementing colors. With art there is always a next level, when I became proficient in one aspect I have something more to learn, to experience, to be proud of. I am proud of my art, proud of how much I have progressed when I look back on my old art books I get to look at it and know that things were bad then and they maybe bad now but in between there is good, there is progress, there is acknowledgement, and there is achievement. Getting to be an artist, I get to escape and be loud finally after being told for 18 years what I am to do and who I am to be. I was suffering from my home, the world hasn't changed enough for every kid to be safe, every kid to be loved, every kid to be accepted. I am openly bisexual along with being a closeted non-binary, so many younger kids in my school I now worry for. My senior class has a lacking of LGBTQ+ students, the same with the juniors, but the sophomores and so many freshmen are openly LGBTQ+. I am proud to be someone they look up too. I have been making art for them. So they can see it and know that someone cares about them, someone understands them, someone wants to protect them. I want to be strong for them and have influence to protect everyone like me.