HOLD ON DEAR LIFE by Mia Hiley

Mia Hiley

Mia is sixteen-years-old and currently attends high school at Branson School in Ross, California.

In my past, danger has stared me in the face and I have been consumed by its dissatisfying anguish. I am positive that my childhood friends contributed to these experiences, however, I supplied my own instability with bad decisions and judgment. I met all of my friends when I was in the first grade and from that moment on, we were all inseparable. We all grew up together and they formed a big part of my young life. I will always love them, especially Yoshi.

I met Yoshi in the first grade. He was the first person I met at the new school I attended and I grew very fond of him. This young boy was an extreme daredevil. He tried new life-risking activities every day. He was a true boy and definitely one of a kind. I really admired his strong presence and courage. He always protected me from the older kids and scared them when they tried to show their dominance because of their fourth-grade status. He was tall for his age and was a butterball because his favorite foods were chocolate chip brownies and cookies. We were very close because we also had similar backgrounds. He was African-American and Okinawan just like me. As a result, we claimed each other as Blasian [black and Asian] siblings. Additionally, our birthdays were both in May, though he was nine days older than me. We both shared the same zodiac sign, the Taurus. Yoshi meant a lot to me and I also admired his strength and his power of persuasion. He was suave and cocky because of his unique persuasion techniques. I asked him one day, “Yogi Bear, why is it so easy for you to get people to do what you want?” He replied, “I know what people want and I just tell them what they want to hear and they give me anything?” I said, “Cool,” but I did not fully understand the dangers of this statement. Nonetheless, he was my brother and I loved my brother.

As we got older, our lives changed. We started school at Albany Middle School and reality began to set in for the both of us. We were 12 years old, both of our parents divorced and we both carried that anger with us. We both were pissed off at the world and no one understood my anger better than Yoshi. I always talked to him about the moments in which I felt so much hatred and disgust towards my father. We equally felt the same way. Because of our anger with our fathers we just didn’t give a shit about anything anymore. At that point, a piece of innocence was taken away from us.

I noticed at school Yoshi started to get into more fights than usual. Then he started to get into activities that usually 15- or 16-year-olds experiment with because of curiosity. However, he experimented because of pain. I did not like the idea of him experimenting especially at 12 years old, but I was not squeaky clean in my life either. I did not experiment, but I did play with people’s emotions on a regular basis. A guy named Keir had the biggest, biggest form of crush on me imaginable. I really was not feeling him like that, but I had to admit I enjoyed the power I had over him. Sometimes I lead Keir to believe that Yoshi or other guys were of my special interest in order to make him jealous. I made a lot of stupid decisions but I liked the idea of having a guy lose control over me and I liked the power of having control over him. I took advantage of that power and it caused me to enjoy things that hurt people the most. We became different people because of the pain from our fathers, even though this was not who we were inside. Our fathers changed us and we both began a self-destructive path together.

After skipping a couple of classes, Yoshi and I returned to school for more convenient classes, in particular, P.E. and art. All of a sudden Keir got in my face because he saw Yoshi walking and having fun with me. This is my fault because I made Keir so paranoid and kept him believing that every guy I walked with was of my special interest, which was definitely not the case. I told him, to “get the fuck out of my face” and walked away. I turned around and saw Keir charging at me, ready to punch me. Before his fist was even close to my face, Yoshi and his male friends tackled and secured him on the ground. I could tell that Keir lost total control of his emotions and was more than likely to fight me with all the anger that was bottled up inside. I stood there in shock and in disbelief. My best friend Goodiez ran up to me and said, “Girl are you ok? Keir lost his mind trying to hit you.” I did not answer, just the thought of him running towards me and the fire in his eyes, replayed in my head over and over. I did not think I was capable of causing anyone pain. The same hate and disgust I felt towards my father, I recognized those same characteristics in myself. I hated my actions and most of all myself. For the first time in my life, I felt like my father.

I started to take a hard look at my life. I asked myself why I enjoyed seeing Keir suffer? Did it bring me joy to see him confused, hurt, and mad because of my stupid immature head games? I wondered if I enjoyed seeing him in pain because I was also in pain. It was difficult for me to believe that I would do anything to hurt someone. That was not who I was; causing pain was not even in my genetic make up. I thought if anything, I was the person that knew what hurt felt like; so why would I inflict that pain on someone else? The power that I once boasted about I started to hate. I started to realize how precious life was, and doing the right things were more important physically, mentally, and spiritually for me. However, it was hard for me to take life seriously because of my environment. I saw people everyday strung out on cocaine, living on the streets, and in street gangs. On the other hand, that conflicting struggle became my driving force to want and do the right things. I realized young I did not want to waste my life and time doing the wrong things. After I realized the depth of my actions, I was not content doing the wrong things. I wanted something different, something that was stable and secure. I wanted love; I did not want to be angry anymore. I did not want to be my father. I realized my anger was destroying myself and other people.

The more I wanted to change and do the right things, the more Yoshi push and pulled for me to do the wrong things.

I said, “Yoshi I can’t chill with you anymore after school I have to get my homework done.”

Yoshi said, “Mia are you serious your doin’ homework?”

I said, “Yeah, I am trying to get a scholarship to a private high school and I need to have good grades to get in.”

Yoshi was immediately pissed with me. “Let me get dis right. So you sayin’ you don’t want to chill with me at the plaza ‘cause your doin’ homework and other nerdy shit like that. What the hell is wrong with you, kid? I thought you was goin’ to A-high (Albany High School) with me.”

“Yeah, I thought so, too, but I think I want to apply to this new school in Ross and maybe even go to coll-- ”

“Where the fuck is that?”

“Don’t worry about it. I think I’m going there for high school. Aren’t you proud of your sis?”

“Naw… . You ain’t no different from the rest of us. You’re full of shit, talking about goin’ to college and stupid shit like that, why you actin’ like you better than us? Did you forget where you came from?”

Now I was defensive, “At least I’m try’na do somethin’ with my life instead of bein’ like you sittin’ on your lazy ass all day watchin’ TV.”

Now he was mad. “Why are you leavin’ me, what the hell am I gonna do without you? And I don’t sit on my ass all day and I ain’t hella lazy.”

“The same shit you did before, the only difference is I won’t be there with you.”

“Fuck you.”

Yoshi was mad at me and did everything in his power to block me from leaving him. His art of persuasion could not stop me. For the first time in his life he could not get what he wanted. I left and made that change for myself and started a new chapter in my life without him written in it. That was the last time I spoke to Yoshi. It has been three years since then and I feel rejuvenated. I saw recently at a local football game. We made eye contact but we never got close to talk. I do not think we are ready to talk to each other. Sometimes the people you care about the most can hold you back from blessings that are life-changing.

Yoshi and I are no more; he is lost to me. Because of our history, sometimes I feel like it’s my fault that we ended up going separate ways. Maybe if I had tried harder to persuade him to make the right decisions, he might have changed for the better like me. Every time I think about him I am consumed with the “if”’ factor. Here I am going to a school in one of the richest counties and he is consumed with drugs, alcohol, and casual sex; all certified bullshit that will not benefit him in the future. I feel like I left him behind. I had to, to become the person I am today. As I get older I realize now, that I was so young on a path of destruction and now being out of the shit, I can clearly recognize the lost ones. Because I used to be one of them. If I had kept hanging around him and making stupid decisions because of pain, I probably would have been, as Yoshi put it, “no different from the rest of us.”