If you’re not ready for a bit of a sappy story I’d suggest moving on and coming back whenever you do. I have to just announce that first of all, I don’t want any type of sympathy for this shit. I don’t need to be told about the lesson. There’s not many days I don’t wake up thinking about this shit, I’m down to talk about it always, I just will always struggle to say it out loud.

Okay here goes.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually processed it all—the most memorable day of my life.

Have you ever had a day so memorable that you forget what happened afterward? Seriously, I can’t remember what happened for the next few weeks or months—a couple of memories here and there, but nothing complete.

I was eighteen years old.

I don’t remember what happened the night before, but I had just graduated about two weeks earlier. I was getting ready to start the last summer before being a full-time college student/full-time employee at Chuck E Cheese. I was prepared to get my adult life popping.

I had been awake in bed for a few moments, but I haven’t gotten changed or anything. A knock at the door makes me get up to check who it is. I never was able to reach the peephole, so I never totally bothered. I open the door, and it’s these two rent-a-cops with a lady. The cop asks me my age, and I stupidly told him that I’m eighteen. He proceeds to tell me that I have ten minutes to get as much stuff as I can and leave the property.

Now, I’m not shocked by this. A couple of weeks ago, my parents had met with what we thought was an attorney to fix up this loan modification for the mortgage. The bank wasn’t doing anything about the crappy loan these loan officers gave them in 1996. I wasn’t exactly sure where we were in the process, but we received foreclosure notices a week before because the attorney told us to stop paying the mortgage. This same lady had come to the house saying what we considered to be stupid things. The lawyer told us there was nothing to worry about. Spoiler alert, this lawyer was full of shit and causing similar situations for families in San Diego and Las Vegas.

Back to that day.

I call my mom and tell her that we’re being told we have to pack up and get ready to leave. I wake my siblings up and tell them we have to go and grab some clothes and only essential things to carry. My brother asks if we could take the Playstation; I tell him no. Still one of the more significant regrets I had that day. I should’ve focused on getting him something to stay distracted. I proceed to grab Henry, our Golden Retriever, plus a few polos for work and work pants. I was working at Chuck E Cheese at the time as an Opening Coordinator, so I was either supposed to wear a dress shirt or these polos.

My mom gets there pretty quickly and goes in and grabs some things from her drawer in her room. We jump in the car and go. We left for my mom’s friend’s house. To this day, I can’t look at this lady because her face reminds me of this dreaded day. The rest of it is just remembered in bits and pieces.

I never cried about this moment. Not a single tear. I remember feeling a queasy feeling in my stomach, but I didn’t want to seem weak to my siblings and my mom. My mom is as strong as a woman as I’ve ever met, but you could tell that she was worried as shit, as she probably should be, but I thought that just meant I had to hold this shit together. You see, my dad was working in California at the time, so he counted on me to be the man of the house. I’ve never asked him what was going on in his mind when he told his employer he had to fly back home that same day abruptly. I can imagine all the shit going on in his head, and I get that same queasy feeling all over again.

As I mentioned before, the following memories were a blur. I remember booking a room at the Stratosphere to pretend we were on vacation with the family for the 4th of July. Little did I know that the Stratosphere was fucking ghetto as shit. I wonder what my siblings thought? Did they have a good time going up to the top and seeing the view? Did they imagine the thoughts of failure going through my mind? What raced through my mind was that I was the one my parents counted on to translate their documents, and I never got involved in trying to fix any of their shit for the house. I could’ve prevented it, you know. I know a lot of people always look back in hindsight and say they could have fixed shit, but I mean that shit. It was right in front of my face. I was too worried about trying to chase after some chick who didn’t even want me at the time.

That’s the most memorable day of my life. I always wonder about when chapters begin and end for people. I used to think that this day was the end of a significant chapter of my life. Now that I’m older, I realized it was just the beginning of a chapter that I chose to flip around like a motherfucker. I always hated sharing this story because it felt like an embarrassment, but I wonder who the fuck I would’ve been if that day would’ve skipped over us.

You know that saying, “life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you”? I think I started believing that shit that dreaded day.