what i learned from jerry springer
I know I’m taking you on one of those adventure books.
But that’s how life is, it’s a journey. Sometimes it feels as though parts of it were predestined for me to experience. Sometimes it feels deja vu, like I’ve experienced it before.
Luck has a part in it. When I worked at the Joule Hotel in Dallas, there was this quote in the stairwell, “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”
Sometimes I go back and reflect on the paths and patterns. Other times, I’m trying to blaze trails and work through something, which is what I’m doing with Summer Camp Project at the moment.
Maybe if I put enough consistent focus and effort to this, maybe I’ll be lucky. But this isn’t about me. It’s about the kids—maybe a few will be lucky to experience the magic of summer camp. The goal is to send 100 kids to summer camp in 2027. And I’ll need to raise enough funds by January before the campership applications open. It seems achievable, but we’ll see.
How do I take the learning and experience to inform me of how to achieve this seemingly big thing?
Some one, some where out there. Maybe even a collective group of people from over 8 billion humans in the world, will get behind this seemingly simple thing I’m trying to make happen. It has to resonate.
The simple things seem to be the hardest to pull off.
Keeping one foot in front of the other.
13 was a lucky year. 12, not so much.
Outside of my biological dad, I also blamed my biological mom.
Why does she keep having kids if she/we can’t support them? Doesn’t she know that if she has another baby, that means we have another mouth to feed?
We were already struggling.
When I was 12, a call came through on the caller ID that showed “Women’s Health Center” or “Reproductive Health Services.”
I knew it was the abortion clinic, because my mom didn’t have a history of taking contraceptives. She was raised Catholic. I don’t know how I knew this, but I did. I opted out of sex education in the 5th grade. I mean, I was experiencing real life watching the consequences, which served as the better form of education. I already knew that I didn’t want to have sex, because it meant having babies. And I had already learned about sex from watching The Jerry Springer Show.
I remember one day she was pregnant. She said she was just getting fat. Then another day she wasn’t.
