I turn my music on. I bop my head to the beat of the beat of the music. I have done this before, I can do it again. I thought. As we pull up to Edgewoood High School, I smile as me and my wrestling team pile out of the bus. I look at my friend Conner and he smiles at me thinking the same thing, Back-to-Back. Last year was our very first year at conference and I won it. I was the only one left who won a championship last year and I am gonna take advantage of it. I am really really hungry because I am close on weight, so I can't wait to weigh in. Once I weigh in, I eat an apple, a ham and cheese wrap, and yogurt. I look at my bracket and I see I am the #1 seed and I have a bye to the semifinals. I can excited and bummed at the same time, on one side I get a good chance to win, on the other side I only get two matches. So I am sitting around for a while watching my teammates wrestle. When it is finally my time to wrestle, I take advantage of it. I set up my shot, take him down, and stack him for the pin in the first round. I try not to smile but I do. I am in the championship again. Almost all the double digit numbers make it to the championship; 75, 80, 85, 90. The only one who didn't is our 95 pound wrestler. It is finally time for face offs. I watch my teammates go out there and shake their opponents hand. I do the same but with a smile on my face because I can't help it. I go back with my teammates to get all pumped up. Once it is time for our 75 pound wrestler, Jude, We all cheer him on like crazy. In the third period he gets a take down and back points to win 5-0. Our 80 pound wrestler is up next. His name is Will. He goes up there and just dominates and pins him in the second round. Now it is my turn, I go up their not wanting to pin him, but to just put it all out there since this is my last middle school match ever. So I start taking him down hard, then letting him up, take him down hard, let him up, take him down hard, let him up, etc. I end up winning my 2nd conference championship back-to-back 14-4. The kid started crying because of how bad I humiliated him. I stand on the top of that podium proud to be the first ever Indian Creek Middle School wrestler to ever get a back-to-back conference championship. This was a big deal because it showed how dominate I am when it comes to little schools like us in Indiana, I made wrestling look easy because I have only been wrestling since 6th grade. I still have a lot more room to improve as well, which makes it even better. This made me feel like I could do something with my life in wrestling. I feel like I might have a shot to wrestle college potentially, It would be a dream come true if I walk out on to a college mat, "At 125 pounds, Jackson Heaston!" I can picture it in my mind right now.
When I was in the single digits, I thought out family was perfect. I thought we had no problems what so ever. That all started to change right when I turned 10. All of a sudden I was paying more attention onto how my parents were acting. I started to realize my dad is angry more often and my mom was always sad. Then I started listening. I heard fights, things breaking, and crying. It just started getting more and more evident that my parents are barely happy and put a face on acting like it is all alright. When I turned 11, I tried to get in and help my parents, but I just made it worse. When I tried to help, they would get in a fight about me and I would think that it was my fault that they are fighting and just go and cry in my room until the fighting finally stopped. I saw my dad leave with a suit case and I wondered where he was going. Then after school, my mom said that we won;t be able to see our dad for a whole month, I stomped off knowing mom did this to us. After two weeks, we couldn't live in our house anymore so we had to move into my grandma's little house. It sucked, it really did. I just wanted this to all be over, be able to see my dad, be okay with everything. After that month when we went to see dad, I couldn't keep myself together, knowing that I barely get to see him sucks a lot. Then things started escalating quickly, more quart dates, more screaming ad yelling, and a lot more crying. It still goes on to this day, my parents fighting about money, custody, and child support. I just want this all to end, I want this all to go away and for everything to be alright. This is a big deal because it broke my family up, I am constantly having to drive back and forth from home to home for one night then going right back to the next. This all makes me feel hopeless and sad. I can't do anything about it because i'm just going to make it worse, and I can;t make it any harder on my dad, he has barely anything left. I am just going to have to sit and wait...