It was late October. I moved back to my mother's house just a few years earlier. Life was difficult, I was struggling. My parents were trying to force me to go back to school or find myself a full time job, but that wasn't what i wanted to do. I couldn't think of getting a full time job because I recently just got out of one, and going back to school? unmotivated and unwilling to focus? Naw wasn't gonna work. It was rather a confusing time, my early twenties, and needing to make a "decision"... who do I want to become? But I didn't want to become anyone yet, I wanted to travel and explore, see the world from different perspectives.
It was one night, I was feeling frustrated and confused at this whole situation, I needed a way out. Somehow in my memory bank my mind stumbled upon this idea of working in another city, and from that the subconscious recalled a memory
MEMORY: of the time I was living with one of my friends, it was around the age of 18 and I felt this urge to explore and travel, I wanted to get away from everything. I was working a repetitive job, doing repetitive things and wanted to get away. I searched the internet for work and travel programs in the USA and luckly stumbled upon one by the YMCA. It was a work program in the Colorado Mountains - far far away from everything.
I don't remember what happened after that. I think at the time I didn't have a social security number yet because I was an illegal and so maybe that's why I never went to Colorado that year.
But this time it was different. I was 22, I had a social security number, I had a few hundred dollars saved and I had the courage to do it. I pullout my laptop, searched "YMCA of the Rockies Work and Travel", it took me a few minutes to find it, but there it was, the program that I was looking for, the program that I had once seen before.
In the next month I managed to get an interview with the hiring manager and PBANG! I got hired... to work in the food department. Uhh, not so exciting? Fuck that! I was excited. "I'm gonna get to live and work in the Colorado Mountains. I didn't even know that the USA had mountains". To me this was like drinking cold water on a hot summer day, or taking a deep breath after diving deep in the Pool. It was f*cking refreshing.
I waited impatiently for the days to pass, they said "You start at the end of November". I tried to occupy myself with work, calling up my old boss and getting a few gigs here and there. Or whenever possible going to the library to stay away from the family. Eventually the day came, my mother and my siblings drove me to the train station. Before departing we had a meal together, but I just wanted to "get away" already, I had enough of living in the crazy, smelly, dirty city of Chicago, I was tired of my family's bullshit, the weekly arguments... No more.
An hour later I was at the station, finally alone. The train pulled up, I got on, and I was on my way to my new home.
That's how it all started