For all of my life there have been immense obstacles in my way both physical and emotional; and after eighteen years of living with these obstacles having finally conquered the last of them I find myself lost in a world of infinite possibilities. I’ am told that the first many years of my life were filled with love and happiness, however I cannot remember those days. My earliest memories are of my parents fighting, and my father beating my brother, my mother, and me. This one memory sums up a good deal of my childhood. When I was six years old my mother divorced my father, I thankfully ended up living with my mother and brother. At that point in my life I looked up to my brother, I had many friends in school, and then my mother met John my step father. John was in many ways the father I never had but shortly after John and my mother got married my brother left for the navy. Then my mother and John decided to move to alabama, and because I was doing so well in school my mother decided it would be best if I stayed. So went live with my father and the abuse began again, this went on until I was about twelve years old when I finally said enough was enough and stood up for myself, after that things began to get better. However, what hurt more than his physical abuse was all of the mental and psychological abuse. He would drill into my head that I was nothing, that I’d never be anything, and that I’d be lucky if I lived another year. All of this lead a great deal to me having serious anger management problems as a child. I felt abandoned by my mother and I felt so hurt that the person I looked up to so much cared so little about me. When I was around sixteen years old I started to see the abuse and abandonment as obstacles that I needed to overcome, so that I could prove my father wrong. My mother realized what a horrible mistake she had made by leaving me with him after just a couple of months. However I will always be grateful to her because her actions made me the man I am today, and if it wouldn’t have been for her love and support all those years I never would have survived. My father stopped being abuse some years ago but he has only recently started supporting me and even this he does reluctantly. My mother is the only person that ever pushed me to achieve greatness because some how she know that I was special and that I could achieve anything I put my mind to. When my mother passed away on March 11, 2014 my world was turned upside down and I was lost. But I realise that being able to find my way without my compass rose (my mother) was the ultimate test god had for me, and now that I have found a way to live with the grief and move forward with my life I know that there is absolutely nothing that I cannot due. I know now that god has put me through all of this for a specific reason to inspire others to achieve their dreams,reach for the stars, and spread his word. But now that I am achieving my dream of getting a college education and starting my life, I find myself scared because all of those obstacles has become familiar like a safety net, and with out them I feel lost.