The Importance of Home

I had always struggled in school. I wasn’t able to read like the other kids in my grade, I didn’t understand math, and my writing was far from good. No matter how much I tried, the teachers would always ignore my efforts to better myself and focus on how slow I was to comprehend problems that the other kids did with ease. Both teachers and parents were constantly yelling at me. I was always reminded of how worthless I was. Both places were horrible, so, I tried to avoid them both. I started skipping my classes and coming home late in hopes that I could run away from my problems. Every night, I would lay on my bed, gazing out of the cracked window, and looking at the house beside me. The faint echos of laughter coming from the open windows, and the shadow of a father picking up his son above his head. Nothing ever changed- it was never going to. So, I decided to leave. I packed all the very few items I had and left without a second thought. I asked if I could stay with some of my friends, and they agreed. The house was dirty, and littered with garbage, but it wasn’t all that bad. Until they started asking for ‘favors.’ ‘It's the least you can do.’ They said. At first, it was tiny things, like stealing gum from a small store, but soon it became ‘keeping a lookout while they talked to someone.’ It didn’t take long for me to realize what was going on; I felt horrible. It was wrong to steal from people who couldn’t resist temptation. So, I told them I didn’t want to help them anymore, and they kicked me out. Every day, I was getting yelled at by store managers telling me to get off their property. As a little boy, I walked past homeless people on the street, begging for money, and I would always look away, disgusted. Never would I have imagined that I would be one of them by the age of 19. All because I had a house and not a home.