Hogan England
Bio
I occasionally get the urge to share with other humans the things that run through my head or the things that have been a part of my life
Stories (2)
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The Day I Heard the News
It was sometime in the year 2000. I was in kindergarten, about five years old. It was time for all the parents to round up their kids and haul them off from after-school daycare. My brother and I attended this daycare directly across the street from our elementary school at the time. We had all sorts of activities in which we could partake. We made friends, played games, learned from the daycare staff and our peers, but mostly we just longed to be home and away from the grips of the academic landscape that was school and post-class daycare. We decompressed at home — played with our action figures, plugged in our Nintendo 64, or watched our favorite cartoons on television. That’s what we really looked forward to every day. On a great day, we would congregate with friends in the neighborhood ad pay elaborate, large scale games of tag or cops-and-robbers, or jump on the trampolines at friends’ houses whose parents allowed them to have one. Our parents told us not to jump on them which made us that much more excited to do so. But one day in October, instead of video games, cartoons and trampolines, the rest of our day would turn out to be more memorable than an episode of our favorite cartoon.
By Hogan England4 years ago in Psyche
A Beast With No Spine
I grew up just like most of the kids around me grew up. I went to school, I played basketball, I got presents on Christmas morning, I went on vacations to the beach with the family, I got into fights with my brothers. We lived in modestly nice houses in safe neighborhoods. We went trick-or-treating on Halloween. Anybody could look at a snapshot of my childhood and have no reason to assume that I would end up doing the things I did and that I would find myself wandering down the road that I so painstakingly trudged along. My brothers and I never wanted for anything. We had everything we needed, and then some. Dad brought in plenty of money from his job and made sure that our wants and needs were taken care of. So how did I end up being the person that was stealing things, and lying to the people I loved, in order to chase an elusive high? Why was it that I turned into that person that woke up covered in sweat, shaking and writhing in pain every morning until that next hit was in me? What was it inside of me that brought me to a place where I was so obsessed with the dope that I left my grandfathers house while he was on his death bed just to scheme up some money for another bag? These aren’t questions that beg for answers necessarily. The only reason I ask them is because you may know somebody who turned out to be this same type of person, and you have no idea what happened or where anybody went wrong. I don’t believe there’s any blame to be put on anyone particularly In these situations. The reality is, this kind of thing happens to people. Not just bad people, not just unfortunate people, and not just foolish people — but just people. Some of these people never make it out. Some of them lose their lives to this tragedy. Some people have the nearly fortuitous experience of seeing what life can be after a drug addiction is arrested. That’s my story today, and this experience has shaped me into the human that I am currently.
By Hogan England4 years ago in Psyche
