Butterfly Effect

From a young age, I believed that everything happens for a reason. I still believe that. Looking back at my life, I realized that if even one thing in my past had been just slightly different, I could be somewhere entirely different. My life had been put on one very specific track from long before I was born. I don't know much about how I got from place to place as a child, but the earliest I can remember that had a large effect on where I ended up was when I moved from Texas to Utah. My father lost his job in Texas, which resulted in us losing our house. Because of this, my parents decided to move to Utah to be closer to my mother's family. For the last half of my fourth grade year I was living in my uncle's basement. If we hadn't moved in with his family, we probably would have been homeless.

Shortly after the move from Texas, my sisters came forward about some pretty messed up stuff that happened to them in years prior to the move involving my father. This led to a full blown investigation of my father, leading to my uncle kicking him out of the house. This pushed my father to find a place that the entire family could reside. He found an apartment big enough for all of us that we could afford and we started the next part of our lives as a complete family. During the investigation of my father, my sisters and I were asked a series of questions to reveal just what exactly my father had done. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. In later years, I discovered that my middle sister had actually lied to the investigators about what had happened. This was because my sister knew that if she told the truth, my father would have been arrested. She knew that if that happened, my mother would be unable to care for all three of us and we would have been put into the foster care system. That seemingly simple lie saved me from a life of struggles.

At that apartment, I found out that my parents were planning to get a divorce. They planned to stay together until my oldest sister graduated high school. We found a house for rent that my parents could afford and the our landlord knew of my parents situation. He was willing to lower the rent for my mother when my father moved out to keep a roof over our heads. I honestly don't know what would have happened to me if my mother couldn't afford that low rent. I was able to choose who I wanted to live with, and I moved in with my father between freshman and sophomore year. I didn't yet know what my father had been under investigation for, but moving in with him led me to finding a love for business. He ended up kicking me out before my senior year, making me move back in with my mother. At the time, this messed with college credits I would have been getting at my old school, but instead pushed me to graduate a semester early.

At the age of nineteen, I had been living back with my father and started a job as a waitress. Three days into my job, I went on a camping trip with my mother. I was learning how to ride a jet ski when my cousin got a little to close on another one and broke my leg. It sounds bad, but it actually put me on a great path. Because of my broken leg, I could no longer be a server. I met my ex who I took to a Halloween party my mother was hosting and that was the day my sisters pulled me aside and told me what my father had been under investigation for. To say the least, as soon as I got back home, I started packing. My father went away on a trip to get married and got home to most of my stuff being moved. This all happened while I was trying to start college but prevented me from taking the tests to place me into my classes. I had lived with a friend for a few months until the couldn't rationalize me living there rent free, which led me to move to my other friend's apartment.

After moving in with that friend, I was able to start working again, but shortly after I had to move again. I bounced around a bit until I met my ex fiancé on a dating app. I had moved in with him, got a better job, and eventually ended up separated. This better job, however, led me to the man I know call my husband. If anything in my past was different, I may never have met him. I could have been dead at a young age or homeless. But because of how my life went, I am now married to an amazing man and I have two degrees in fields that I love (and might I add I got a bachelor's and master's in a year and a half for pretty cheap). I will forever believe that everything happens for a reason.