Rooting for the Underdog

What do you want to be when you grow up? The big question to the children of my generation. Being an overthinker, I was always bothered by this question. I had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Around the age of eight my thought was, "Mom sure likes Dorothy Hamill, perhaps I'll be an Ice Skater". I have been ice skating maybe three times in my life. In my early teenage life, I wanted to be a lawyer because we watched a movie that led to Mom saying that I would be good at it. Ya know because of my love for arguing. Problem there was that I barely passed my classes, if at all. Are we starting to see a pattern here?

By the age of 15, my teenage life and my mental state had begun to dip. I spent a lot of days crying and simply did not know why. I latched on to the older bad boys, chasing self destruction and was not even aware of it. I started to develop a passion for the "Underdog". I started to realize that even as an elementary aged child, I always felt bad for the losing team in a sport or competition, unable to celebrate honestly for my own team's winnings. It was at this point that I knew for sure what it was that I wanted to do.

Ten year plan here we come. I was to become a Child Psychologist. I would for whatever reason, never marry and live with my parents until I was to adopt one of my clients who would surely steal my heart. The very next school year I signed up for a psychology class. On the first or second day of class, we were assigned a paper. I was so lost as to what this meant or how to do it and everyone is telling me now," this is nothing compared to college." Oh shit, I can't do this. And just like that my Ten year plan was dead. College was no longer an option for me so.... Now what?

The self destruction was working pretty well for me so I rolled with it for a long time. My junior year of high school, I was placed in an alternative school for credit recovery. I would say about half of the girls there were either pregnant or already had babies. Trust me when I say, this was never glamorized. Not by the school district and definitely not by the teenage mom's who were struggling to survive. Nonetheless, I stared that challenge directly in the eye and said but they have something to take care of, something to be responsible for. I envied that they had someone to love, who would always love them back. It's not that I didn't have that at home, I did. In fact that's why I was so confident that I could pull this off, I knew that my parents would be disappointed but they would carry the weight for me, and they did.

My daughter was born mid-way through my senior year where I was now ahead on my credits and back to attending regular high school. Let me add that the district was not pleased with that. They preferred I stayed hidden in the alternative school and not affect my peers with my choice of discrepancies. With the help of the district I managed to graduate on time. I broke up with the father of my baby (you know because he was a loser) and began collecting welfare. With my graduation money, I moved out of my parents house and into my sisters basement, then with a roommate, then you guessed it, back to my parents until my turn on the waiting list for subsidized housing. Huh, who needs a ten year plan?

I was content doing nothing with my life. I took on part-time, minimum wage jobs here and there but it took a few years and the Work First program to be implemented by President Clinton for me to decide that it was time to enter the workforce. Ultimately, baby-daddy came home and worked as an appliance delivery guy and Mamma here became a waitress. We carried this life all the way through raising our daughter. It wasn't until after I turned 30 that being a mom no longer held enough purpose for my life. I began to realize that we were going nowhere with our lives and that we had robbed our daughter of so many opportunities with our choices.

I started with trying to improve our marriage, get caught up on our taxes, fix our credit, find some common spirituality and practice it. I went through years of trial and error on how to become a reputable adult, making little progress. Then one day, I became extremely discontent with life and I just quit. I quit everything. I quit my job, I quit trying to perfect my marriage, I quit trying to correct the damage that my choices had done to my daughter. I went home and told my husband that I wasn't doing anything until God showed me what to do. I sat home babysitting my brand-new granddaughter and I prayed for myself, my marriage, my daughter and for what my purpose in life is now. After a couple years of doing what I could to get by, God finally placed me where I could grow, self-develop and discover my true passion.

This story is about to take a few more turns. Rewinding back, my husband did not have a good relationship with his family, we were tolerated to say the least and he never really got to know anyone from his Dad's side of the family. But there was one time when we were young that he reached out to his aunt to try and build a relationship, it didn't happen until about 6 years ago when his uncle passed away and we began to build a relationship with his aunt and one of her son's John. John is the key to me finding my passion.

John is an adult now pushing 40 years old who has developmental challenges. He gets by pretty good but he requires a lot of support. Less than two years after his Dad passed, John then lost his mother as well. He has a brother but Steven lives in another state and we all decided that John should stay here under our supervision. When we first began helping him out it was the best feeling ever. Finally someone worthy of our help, someone to make us feel that we were doing something good in this world. (Just look how we've progressed lol)

John was involved in a day program who did so many wonderful things to help support this difficult transition in his life. One day John needed a ride to this program, so of course we were happy to drive him there. We walked inside of this small farmhouse in Rochester Michigan called Dutton Farm. My husband walked over and signed John in while I stood in marvel. What would be the semi open concept living room/ dining room area was filled with plastic banquet tables and metal folding chairs. Happy happy people of all abilities and an overwhelming sense of love was everywhere. This quickly became my passion. I didn't know how I would do it or what good I could possibly be to these prestigious people but I wanted in. I changed jobs to rearrange my schedule and I found a way to contribute until I ended up with a job there.

I developed so much in the four years that I was with that organization. From the "Farmers" teaching me about acceptance to the founders teaching me about unconditional love. Not just how to do it but how to show it. They invested in their employees even when they had very little to invest. They strongly advocated for their friends who were being left behind in this world. I was finally living out my passion. Lifting the underdog day after day, easily becoming the person that I wanted to be. A couple of years into it, my focus began to change. I couldn't stay focused on just the special needs community. I began to desire addressing mental illness, homelessness, the foster care system, abortion issues, adoption. You name it, As the organization grew, they allowed me to grow beside them. Giving me one promotion after another and salary increases as quickly as they could afford it. They took great care of me. As I learned about Corporate America and how it works, I had to admit that it wasn't for me. I began to become discontent and the old me started resurfacing. I felt that I was no longer an asset to the organization and after two more years of holding on I decided it was time to part. I worked through the first part of the pandemic and in October of 2020 I quit. Staying home being domesticated helping with the kids of the family trying to figure out how to be heard.

Being at home has offered me time to think, this time not about me and my purpose but about how to bring balance to this world. The political issues that we face in this country have baffled me. We are so far left or right that we will never find common ground. We need balance. Equality, something that I had been fighting for over the last four years somehow overstepped into putting the oppressed on a pedestal and everyone wanting to be oppressed just to get on that pedestal. We need balance. This thing that you're doing is offensive to me has become everything you do is offensive to someone. We need balance. I have rights has become I should be able to do whatever I want. We need balance. The government should be protecting this country has become the government should be living life for this country. We need balance. We should be able to put whatever we want on tv has become pure smut as our main source of entertainment. We need balance. I need to make enough money to survive and maybe have a thing or two, has become I need enough money to keep up with my neighbors. We need balance.

I believe that I was born with a passion for the underdog and I am blessed to have learned what it takes to help lift them up. I am also blessed to have found balance on how to do that. I don't have to devote my life to an organization to make a difference in this world. I don't have to have lunch with people who are in it for different reasons than me to make a difference in this world. I don't have to address one subject or one group of people to make a difference in this world. All I have to do is love this world in a balanced fashion. I encourage the world to join me. You lift one person and I'll lift one person. We will have balance. You address one issue and I'll address one issue. We will have balance.