One might think after all the time I spent in church and in private school, I would have been this perfect little angel as a kid. Uh, nope, not even close.
I was just 12 years old when I started dreaming about moving out. Getting out from under the thumb of oppression that was my parents, motivated me, and got me through those dark years. Lol When your grandpa used to wake me up at noon to go mow the yard on a Saturday, I would think about that moment of freedom when I turn 18, and I’d get through it. I was going to be rich; I didn’t need them. My dad was a tightwad, and scared to take risks….not me! I’ll show him.
You have to try and picture this: For 8 years of my life, I was like a guy in a cannon waiting to be shot out. I was stuck in that cannon, and if somehow, I could light the fuse of adulthood, I would blast off into everything I ever wanted. Every argument I had with Bil & Pat, (I called them by their real names a lot ) would end with me reminding them that my move out day was just XX days and 12 hours away. I remember telling them that they would regret the way they treated me, especially when I become rich and famous.
Writing this now, looking back, it all seems pretty stupid. I don’t remember my parents giving me any real reasons to want to escape. Well, maybe a couple…. There was that one-time mom put my bed in the garage after I left to go out with my friends for the night. When I came home at some ridiculous hour, boy was I surprised! It was the peak of summer in AZ, but I wasn’t going to let her win, so I slept in the garage. I can’t imagine what that place smelled like the next day.
There was also the time mom threw all my clothes out the bedroom window, and the times she would try to yell instructions to me while I was mowing the yard. Your grandma was a little psycho back then, mostly for good reason. I was a pain in the butt! My dad always wanted me to do stuff, and do it for free. We had some epic battles on chore days. I’m not sure what my parents thought back then. I was a nightmare teenager. I think maybe they just finally threw up their arms and said: “oh well, let’s focus on the other two kids.” Lol
When I go through my old writing, I get to see what my state of mind I was in back in the day. 50% of what I wrote before 18 was about my parents and how strict they were. The other half was about all the cool things I was going to do when I wrote my book. The stuff I wrote after high school….now that is a different story.
Let’s flash forward to high school. I’ve had about 8 years of dreaming about writing, and a few thousand words hastily scribbled on notebook paper to show for it. So, I took matters into my own hands and decided I needed to live a life worthy of writing about. It sounds pretty good, until I tell you I thought partying and doing stupid funny crazy stuff, was what I needed to make my writing come alive. I started thinking maybe I’ll write a movie instead. I took a few film and screenwriting classes, and I even got an awesome video camera from my parents for Christmas. Although I had a very good imagination that I used often, I could never come up with anything that seemed better to write about than my own life.
I’ve included some pics of things I was working on, or thinking about between ages 17-30. I call this my BS time. “Before Steph”. As I told you before, there was a lot of stress when I was in my twenties. Everything I wrote about was a future scene in my movie or chapter in my book. At least that is what I thought at the time, not knowing God had a different plan. I walked around like my eyes were a video camera, filming the next adventure. There were plenty of adventures, but most of them never made it down on paper. I’d come home, write down some bullet points so that I wouldn’t forget, then never come back to finish it.
If I were to summarize everything that happened during that period it would be this: Even though I was a rebel child, God still protected me through it all. He surrounded me with the best friends in the world, and a 2nd family who all looked out for me. I don’t want to glorify this time in my life, but it did help shape me into the man I am today. I just wish I had 1/10th of the money I wasted back.
Uncle Bill was a great example to follow when you are looking for what “not” to do. I have been to more parties than I can count, and I have a lot of them written down in my pile of old writing. Nothing substantial ever came out of any of it, except a bunch of hangovers. That is how my twenties felt from a success standpoint too. Ugh, what a waste… I tried so hard to fight against the current and get something accomplished, but God wanted me to turn around a go with the flow.






















