Being Lost

Everyone I know right now seems to have their whole lives figured out, what they want to be, where they want to go, who they want it to be with, while, I’m here completely clueless about everything. I have no idea what I want to be, or what school I want to go to. I don’t want to move away from my family, but I also don’t want to stay here. Everyone I’ve known who stays here after they finish high school, never end up leaving and I don’t want that to be me. My friends often talk about what they want to go to school for and what they want to be and all I can think about is how I do not know what I want to be by now. When family or anyone in general asks me about what I want to do with my life, I get bad anxiety and try to change the subject or just brush it off. I feel dumb not knowing, but I don’t want to start doing something and a couple of years later find out that I don’t even like what I picked. I don’t want to waste my time. I feel lost right now, but what has helped me keep going is hope. Hope that in my last year of high school, or sometime before I finish school, something will inspire me and I’ll figure out what is it I want to do or at least have the slightest clue. What gives me courage to keep going are my parents because no matter what obstacle come in their way, they always have found a solution to overcome it and that gives me courage to keep going.

-H

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6uNCSVhPmE

Fear

My future is a scary thing. After high school I don’t know what I am going to do. I don’t have a desire to go to post secondary right away. It is scary that I am going to finish high school as a 17 year-old and basically become an adult. From that time on I have to work full time and start making a living for myself. I have to find a career that I can financially and mentally be stable in. Making money isn’t always the most important thing about your job. Being mentally stable is the most important. Why have a job that stresses you out and makes you want to pull your hair out? You shouldn’t see it as a job - it should be your passion. You should love what you do and enjoy going to work. It’s just scary that I’m going to have to find a “job” not something that I enjoy and want to do for the rest of my life.

I am vulnerable in that the “real world” might take me and eat me up. What I mean by that is, I am scared that I might not get to work where I want and that I won’t enjoy my life after. I am also invulnerable in lot of different ways. I don’t show emotion and don’t let a lot of people in my life.  

-By Cory Derksen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja7PhPTG1JE

Addiction

The strength of acceptance and the will to keep taking steps forward are two very important things, as well as the courage to overcome your personal beliefs for the benefit of others. Throughout my life I’ve been surrounded by alcohol and drugs used to counteract the overwhelming feeling of grief and sorrow. At first, I only saw it as an unreasonable and selfish act. I didn’t acknowledge the idea of hidden pain and I had a strong feeling of anger and sadness built up because these were the decisions of the people I love and I was left wondering why. Why would they do that to themselves? Why would they risk hurting the people they loved? The thing is, they didn’t realize they were hurting anybody. They sought out a temporary way to forget the hardships they’ve dealt with throughout their lives. Although, I’ve spent quite a bit of time reacting to this in a one-sided manner, I now realize how hard it must be for them to pull out of this difficult time in their lives. They were scared and unfortunately, it’s hard to just change your beliefs so quickly and easily, it takes time and I believe many people can help change and inspire people for the better. If we, as a whole, look after each other then we can prosper. It takes a lot of understanding and patience, but it’s possible. For years I didn’t have these aspects. My family members would continue doing what they did and I stayed back and minded my own business. I secretly hoped they would change their ways while also feeling a sense of anger. It wasn’t right of me to do and it’s a good thing I realized the actions I was and wasn’t taking, otherwise I’d still be in the same mindset.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8hN7fJMl6g

I chose this song because it makes me realize the importance of the care provided by others and the impact it provides for people through personal and difficult times. This song brings a sense of calm and inspiration for me and hopefully, for others as well. Despite the length and the shortage of lyrics, I think a sentence can go a long way in a sense of feeling inspired to help the people around you.

R.L.H.

My Life

Some say your future is like an open door, and you never know what’s behind, but you’ll just have to find out. I think that since last year my future has been even brighter than it has ever been before. Ever since I got motivation to work, life has treated me very well. I started working at GT Auto care ltd. and also joined the R.A.P at Catholic Central High, and I would like to be a mechanic or automotive technician. I love cars very much and have been working on them for a while. Hopefully after high school I will go to college for a mechanic and get my Ticket. After I get my ticket my brother and I will run our father's shop together. I hope that all of this becomes a reality, but also at the same time the future could change in a second, so I guess I'll just have to see what's coming my way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mihX0QmjDNA

-By Lowen Rokosh

El Salvador, San Salvador

I think that courage in people is something good because it keep us motivated in life. Without hope and courage when facing every difficulty we go through we would give up.  Not giving up it is good because  we earn more courage and by having courage we are not scared of attempting new things that we haven’t done before.  Even though they are new to us  we learn from the new things we try.

In my personal experience hope has been a really important thing in my life mostly because I was born in a country that has a really low economic stability, a country that is really dangerous to live in.  As the country's economy was getting lower the country got more dangerous  because people who needed money started robbing the people who were working. The gangs got bigger these gangs started to threaten the people to death if the people didn’t do what they told them to do.The gangsters also  recruit young people to join their gang if they didn’t join them they would threaten them to kill their family. My parents wanted to move because it was dangerous and my parents hope for a better life for me and also my brothers. They use to say that it was just a matter of time for the gangsters to come to make us join them. I always had hope that one day I would move from all the danger and that I would have the courage to leave my loves ones.

I haven’t forget where I come from, All of my good memories were left in the country I was born in. It can be dangerous, but it is also a beautiful country. I remember I use to visit the beautiful places of my country for example, the beach,the lakes and the rivers were the best places I have ever been. There are so many things that make my country different than others. I have many plans for the future and one of the plans is to go back; I hope that I will have the courage to help my country to be a better place.

-By Kilmar Delgado

Broken Wings

When your background is a combination of physical, mental, and sexual abused, and you have been so tarnished and used you start to feel as if you shouldn’t have wings and even that you don’t deserve your wings. You start to feel that you born with these demented, torn wings that just don’t want to work. To live a life of depression, sadness, and gilt so bad that you start cutting when you're in grade 7 and don’t stop till grad 9, you start to feel you are the only one with fucked up wings because no one notices. To feel as if no one wants you in their life, to feel as if your useless. This was my life.  Grade 10 came and I stopped going to school for most of the year and didn’t talk to anyone; I had no friends to talk to. For what ever reason I passed that year when I should have failed. Why did I pass? These are a few of the reasons I couldn’t see a future, a way out, or a new beginning for my life. My wings were grabbed and torn part piece by piece until nothing was left of then. My wings were now bent, twisted, ripped, scarred, and drenched in a thick black tar that wouldn't come off my one beautiful feathers that were easy to use and take for granted. My wings so drenched in the rusty truth of the past.

Then it changed.  My parents noticed I was depressed,  I felt relieved, my wings started to straighten. I stopped cutting and the rips in my poor drooping wings started to heal.  I got up the courage to tell my parents about the sexual and mental abuse and how it had been hurting me for so long. My wings started to untwist. I got help with the physical that had started so long ago that just wouldn’t go away by itself. My wings started shedding to get the black thick tar off. I finally realized I was smart, and funny in my own little way. I started feeling happy again and started going back to school my wings were know big and white not demented anymore but prideful. I felt as if my wings were bigger than everyone else’s. I use to think that I wouldn’t go anywhere in life that I didn’t deserve to go far in life, but now I know what I want, and I know where I’m going in life. When I'm out of school I’m going to get my health care aid and slowly work up from there. After I get my health care aid I’ll go traveling the world then I’m going to get my LPN and upgrade from there to become a nurse. After I get my nurses I’m going to work up to lab tech and then hopefully I’ll even get up to getting my doctorate. My life has been made up of steps.  From the day I was born it has been taking one step at a time and it is crucial for me to keep my wings and stop being scared to fly to the top of my life, to my full potential. My future is my safety net, it’s the only thing holding me to life. My goals are simple and beautiful. I am scared for what comes next, and scared to find out what other trials are going to happen to make me fall over and over again.  The only difference is that I have my wings and I’m not going to lose my wings ever gain.  

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DKtNYA4pAGjI&ved=0ahUKEwiWzf3D86jNAhUIElIKHapNDO4QyCkIIDAA&usg=AFQjCNEBFA09J_dZatVm-fTRLDFy2OAdAA&sig2=hsc9Nb1o2VHQSYffJo2mIw

-By Kerinda Paxman

Changes

Sometimes in life, people struggle with figuring out what they want to do in their life, they struggle to figure out their purpose on this earth. All you should know is that every single person has a reason to be alive, and being born is the hardest part, you won the race, now it’s all up to you.

A couple of years ago, around the age of 14-16, I was at the lowest point in my life. To sum it up, I was hanging out with the wrong crowd, getting into trouble, treating my body terribly, always glued to the gaming stations or the television, and running around aimlessly with no goals for myself. During this time, I was lost in the mess of my life. I had no passion for anything. I would always use the excuse of not having a father figure as a way out.

During the summer months in between grade 10 & 11, I made one of the smartest decisions of my life. I smartened up and thought about where I would end up in a few years if I continued to do the things I was doing. By the time my grade 11 year began, I took it upon myself to start talking to a new group of people who I went to school with already, so they already knew me quite well. They knew about the things I used to do, but I suppose they knew that I wanted to change my life around for the better, and I am ever so grateful for that and for them.

Around this time, I began growing taller, but not any bigger. I reached about 5’8 after having a growth spurt. This caused me to become much skinnier, I was still only about 115lbs. I continued to treat my body poorly by eating foods that interfered with my Celiac Disease. I wouldn’t gain an ounce of weight from the food I ate as a result of my disease, but thankfully for my conscience stepping up, I realized that I couldn’t continue to do this to my body, and I started eating right. Around the end of grade 11, I began working out, and this was the best decision of my life. My mom ended up paying for a trainer to make me a workout plan, and a nutrition plan to gain weight. I studied different ways of working out, studied how to count macros, different muscles and how they work, etc. I basically made myself familiar with everything I would be doing. It took a lot of courage for me to go into the gym and workout with people who were much bigger than me because I always thought people would judge me, I was wrong.

What I learned from that is if I get knocked down 9 times, I will get back up 10 times. And if you get knocked down you must land on your back, because if you can look up, you can get up. I grew a passion for the gym after I became familiar with everything. I love going into the gym with a focus like no other. Instead of spending my money on things that harm my body, I now spend it on clean supplements to help my body grow, things like whey protein, creatine, BCAA’s, etc. The gym is my second home. It is where I can focus on myself and focus on becoming a better person. By this time, I have forgotten about my old self, and I now just worry about my new self. I love the feeling after a good workout, knowing that nothing but good things will come from it, and knowing that I’m another step ahead in chasing my dreams.

https://youtu.be/m-N18WuhCRQ

I chose this video to represent changing your lifestyle. I watch/listen to these videos daily because they keep me motivated.

-By Nathan Mihaichuk

Future

The future is really quite a scary thing. I'm 18, and I have a girl that I love very much.just finishing high school, but I don’t know if I’m headed to college or university. I just don’t know where I’m headed after high school. I could end up being a doctor, or a surgeon working to save the lives of my patients. I could be an astronaut or a hockey player playing in the NHL. I could be a construction worker helping build really big buildings, or work as a cook making 5 star meals. Perhaps I could make it as a professional skateboarder skating with people like Moose, Andrew Reynolds or Paul Rodriguez.  I could be anything in the whole world, yet I have no idea what I really want to be. I know though that the future holds great presence for me when I figure out what I really want to be and what passions I have. The future will have some hard at times, and sometimes I may get confused and not know what I should do, but I know when I am ready that it will hit me, like getting punched in the face. I am afraid of what may happen in my future,  but I can’t wait to see what’s waiting for me. I will work as hard as I can, complete goals that I’ve set for myself and finally say that I made it. That I know as I keep moving forwards in my life; I won’t worry about my past but only what is waiting ahead of me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXODay6wckA
Here is link to a video of Moose skate boarding.

-By Ty Peake

Hope From Passion

I love playing golf, it is something I am very passionate about doing. There are many small things about golf that I love. I  love getting out at seven in the morning when the course is in perfect shape and no one is ahead of you. Some difficulties I endure with golf are losing confidence when I play one bad round. The way I get past this is by telling myself that I have done great things before and I am not going to let one bad round let me down. It is not just a coincidence that I got to where I am, so I just have to trust it and play well. Confidence is really just a combination of courage and hope. You need enough courage to tell yourself that you can do it and that you are better than you think you are. You need hope to keep you going and drive you to the next level. I truly believe hope and courage are what really drive people to make the really important decisions in their lives. Golf is all about having enough courage to pull off the tough shots needed to win big championships. When you watch the best of the best golfers play, their tournaments rounds are full of courageous shots. They don’t back away from anything and really show how mentally tough they are throughout the round, not getting distracted by anything anybody says or does. Once I develop that I know I will be great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkFYcVrGagA

Here is a quick video of me taking a shot.

-By Darin Bertschi

Sometimes I wish I was still a kid because I wish I could grow up faster. I like high school, but I like having money to spend on what I want, so I look forward to my job and the future I am going to have. My future I think is going to be good for me because I believe that I am going to go to post secondary school at the Lethbridge College and then get my diploma from there and get the job I want have always wanted in life. I believe that my future is coming true right now, but I'm still in high school, so I am doing the classes I need to do to get to where I want to be in the next 5 years.

-By Kurtis Mead

My Monsters

We all have monsters to battle and conquer in life. Some are internal and some may be people or tasks in your everyday life. For me, some of my biggest monsters are within myself. I have never really been one to talk to anyone about my personal life. I guess this brings us to my first internal monster, which is trusting people. I feel like I have a hard time trusting people, even my own family sometimes. I am young, so my life entails a lot of mistakes and wrong decisions. When we mess up in life the last thing we want is to be constantly reminded and ridiculed for it, but this seems to happen to me with my family. A month ago I went and got a tattoo done, and I proudly went and told my older sister about it and all she did was call my tattoo artist down, and then bullied me about my decision in artists. This wouldn’t have bothered me if she had just expressed her opinion nicely, but no. She went and talked behind my back to her friends and they started posting rude things over social media about it. How am I supposed to feel like I can talk to someone, of all people my older sister, when she goes and tells her friends everything I tell her?   Another example would have to be trusting my mom enough to talk to. I have an even harder time opening up to my mom because she is always so negative. I can tell her something good that happened today and get not even a look in response. Sometimes if I ask a question, she doesn’t realize it, but she almost sounds angry I even asked. Other times, I have told her something in confidence and she will have already gone and told my grandma and her sisters. Where is the trust? Mom’s are supposed to be caring, supportive and trusting, not tell you all of the bad and leave out the good advice and certainly don’t tell anyone your secrets. A teenage girl needs her mother to be her best friend, not her enemy. It has taken me some time, but since being on my own I have learned that having the courage to talk to people about what is bothering me is only going to benefit me in the long run. I will no longer have to carry whatever is on my shoulders alone.

-By F.S-E

Living Your Dreams

Everyone  has a passion to do something big and I think everyone should follow their dream and passions unless they involve being a drug dealer or something like that. No one should be made fun of for following what they want to do with they lives because. Everyone should be allowed to do what they think they are good at. You can become well known for doing something cool, or creating something that can change our lives for the better, like the earphone was created by a 14 year old because no one stopped him. Often, the only that stops us is someone else saying "you can’t do it" and people shouldn't listen to that. So, people need to push those negative ideas out of their lives and keep on putting all their time towards doing something they have dreamed about for years. I think people should follow their dreams.

-By Ryan Morton

Overcoming Vulnerability

People feel vulnerable in so many ways, but my vulnerability is about my future. I always ask myself what is the future going to look like? I always have vulnerabilities about myself and I often doubt if I am going to have a successful life career or not. Those kind of questions make me feel vulnerable about my future. In order to stop myself feeling vulnerable I have decided to create my own future by waking up every morning and going to school which will help me to make plans about my future.

We all make plans and plot about our future and try figure some stuff out by over thinking on it until we reach the point that we decide whether to start making moves on it, or we just second guess it. I like to sit on a comfortable place and contemplate about my life and try to figure out how I am going to do it and what it is going to take me. I found out that I like business and that is the career that I am going to pursue, but it was not easy for me to figure it out until I found myself. That is the first and most important step and it is finding yourself. After that comes the biggest issue that most of us find hard and it is, how are you going to work out your way to it? I get so frustrated questioning how and when should I start to take the steps toward my future and I start thinking way too much and I come up with ideas that were not on my mind before. I start to feel vulnerable about not knowing the way to start and I question if I am going to succeed in it at all, so I have decide to take a further step by looking up to the people who are successful in the business career because they say success always leaves a trail to be followed. I have also started reading some books to broaden my thinking and get more ideas. After doing all this I can say that I am capable of overcoming my vulnerabilities by starting to take steps towards what I like to do and by not overthinking things too much.

-By Samsum Haile

Loner

At this time, I am dealing with my own monsters. My friends are always nice and fun to talk to, but one of them likes someone who doesn't like me. Everyone follows my friend, who prefers the one who hates me, so then the moment they leave my monsters come out - anger, sadness, loneliness depression, fear, and pain. Those are my monsters, when I am all alone they all come from behind and I beg my friends to come back, but my friends are glued together, and wherever one of them goes the rest follows.

That was a month ago and now its all okay because we have worked out all of our differences and now we all hang out together, and there is no sign of my monsters anymore, and I am happy for once this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS8sqgBgzG8

-By Darryl Cote

The Dark

The “dark” that people face is different for each person. The “dark” is a metaphor for something in someone's life that challenges them or has a negative impact on them. Everyone faces the “dark” differently. Some people have the help of others to get through it and others look for drugs to numb the pain. The thing we can’t do is let the dark devour us. When there is only darkness in your life, you can’t see what is really going on. We need to let the “light” in and guide us through hard times. The “light” is anything that positively affects us through these hard times and helps us get through it. People need to learn to let people in and gain trust. The must learn to love themselves for who the are.

-By Slade No Runner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uARxM1Mb3W0

The Car Kid

I’m going to talk about my passion, and my passion is all about automotives - cars, trucks, basically anything with wheels and an engine. Ever since I was five years old, I have loved cars. When I was young, my parents would take me to the park. Well, I never wanted to get out of the truck, I loved that old Dodge.

     Honestly, cars aren’t just a passion for me, they are a way of life. There's just something about engines that calms me down and let's me get away from all the bullshit of everyday life. When I’m driving or in the garage, or just sitting in my car I’m calm, and there's nothing that can really bother me.

When my friend don’t know something about a car I’m usually the one they ask. If something is wrong with their car and they don’t know, they come to me. Out of my friends, I’m the one who everyone goes to when they need to know something, and I love it.

Because of all this, I got the name Carkid. Yup, that’s what I will probably be remembered for, not by how nice I was, or by my friends, but by some stupid name my friends gave me.

When I’m older, my dream is to own my own automotive shop where people can have their cars, detailed, fixed, restored, and even customized. It has been my dream since I was was young, probably five. Hopefully one day I’ll achieve my dream. As long as I keep my priorities straight (cars!), I’ll be fine.   

-By Brandon Wozniczko

Faded

“Vulnerability is the quality of being easily hurt or attacked.”

Vulnerability is like anxiety. Anxiety consumes you, it tells you that you can’t handle anything, that you're not worth anything, and it steals your self-control. It’s like being locked in a tomb, and there are no windows and no light other than a small candle’s flame, and then like a quiet whisper, the only thing keeping you sane is suddenly snuffed out, the flame is gone. Once everything fades into the restless inky blackness, the floor gives way beneath you, and suddenly all you have left is terror, dread, and a seemingly endless freefall to an agonizing, terrifying death. Yet sometimes, it seems to take over very slowly, dread inching its way into your very soul and there is no way to stop it, just as slowly, just as suddenly, reality comes crashing back, drifting back. Some days it doesn’t come back for a long time, yet other days it seems like only seconds have passed by. It never really feels like reality at first, but you just have to smile anyways, and hide the terror and the endless dread and never let anyone know about the constant lack of control and vulnerability that tortures you day and night. Don’t let them know how you always wonder what will set you off, or what they would do or think if they truly understood every second of your personal hell of panic and terror as you slowly fade away. That’s fine, it’s all fine, just don’t let anyone in ever, because feeling vulnerable is terrifying, and vulnerability is like anxiety. There is a great need for courage, and an everlasting search for hope within anxiety. But there is often little hope to find, it is buried deep into the depths, the endless abyss, and digging for it doesn’t always seem worth it, and the deeper you go the harder it is to come back and the harder it becomes to go on, reality starts to become lost and faded, it takes a lot of courage. Courage is difficult and painful and it requires vulnerability, but in the end it's a better option than death, which I know many people chose, but death is not the answer either. It's never the answer, because it doesn’t solve the problem, it just steals hope away forever, it’s just a more permanent way to run, and why run? Why fade away forever after fighting for so long? Even if you become vulnerable, you can overcome it, face it head on and stop the frantic, exhausting chase once and for all. It’s hard. It’s so hard, trust me I know, and it will always be hard. It always seems to sneak up on you when you least expect it or when you think you’ve made progress, like a ghost that haunts you, possibly forever, but keep fighting, that is what makes courage so important, that is why hope is continuously searched for, because being human is finding courage and reaching for hope, and fighting all the way to the end. Be human, have courage, reach for hope, and when you catch it don’t ever let go, don’t fade away, and always remember to fight.

https://youtu.be/dLdIx0epx3U
This song is meant to be listened to while you read my blog.  Give it a try and you will get the feeling of my written piece.

-By Jadyn Wheeler