Once Lost

My dream is to be a screenplay writer. When my characters come alive, so do I. Writing is like air to me; take that away, and I’ll suffocate. My dad’s dream is for me to play professional baseball. I hate baseball, but I’m really good at it. And if I play the game right, I can use it to get a full-ride scholarship to my dream film school. That’s the plan, anyway. As long as I don’t mess up. But the other thing I’m really good at? Messing up.

The only thing I hate more than baseball is my father. Now I will do whatever it takes not to think about him, or his God. I’m on my way to pursue my dream of becoming a screenwriter. I don’t know how I’ll get to LA. I don’t know what I’ll do once I’m there. I just know I’m going to do what I want and I’m never going home. The day I walked out that door, I left all that behind. Time to move on to greater things.

Freedom. That’s all I wanted. Freedom from baseball. Freedom from my dad. Freedom to do what I wanted. Freedom to be me. Instead, I found pain. Regret. Loss. Unfulfilled dreams. No one tells you that the highway of freedom is paved with pain. Or that on your way to rock bottom, you consider choices you know will destroy you, perhaps because you’ve already destroyed yourself. Maybe what I really wanted was freedom from pain. And maybe true freedom only comes through pain. For years I blamed God. I thought he was the problem.