The Four Pivots by Shawn A. Ginwright PhD

Author:Shawn A. Ginwright, PhD [A. Ginwright, PhD, Shawn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781623175436
Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Clean

When Alex was eleven years old, he saw his older sister get punched in the face by a grown man. He hit her hard, and Alex could hear the crack of the man’s big fist break his sister’s delicate face. She fell to the ground, and the man just walked slowly away as if nothing had happened. At first Alex was angry, and then he just went numb inside. For a while, he just stood there, unsure of what to do with all that he was feeling inside. I mean, what could he do? He was only eleven and surely if the man didn’t think twice about hitting his sister, he certainly would punch an eleven-year-old kid. It was in that moment that Alex told himself that to survive the hardcore reality of the streets, he had to also be hardcore, tough, and uncaring. So that’s exactly what he did. The next seven years of his adolescent life were spent on the streets. Where his crew went, he followed, because he felt like he needed them. But eventually, like most young people forced into the streets for protection, Alex found himself on probation, living in group homes within the foster care system, and frequently going AWOL (absent without leave) so that he could be home with his mother.

His mother was a custodian, and she always kept the house clean. She taught Alex and his siblings how to clean, and her drug addiction didn’t get in the way of her keeping her home tidy and clean. You could always tell when she was using drugs because the house would be really clean. Alex just wanted his mom to stay clean but didn’t know how to support her.

There’s something about not caring about anyone, or anything, that over time takes a toll on your soul. For Alex, the fighting, robbing people, stealing, selling drugs always felt empty, as if there was something missing. “I felt like I was glorifying something that I really wasn’t. I was really trying to like, be someone I wasn’t. It takes a lot of work to not care, to pretend like you don’t give a fuck that you’ve shot someone, or taken the life of someone’s son or daughter. It wears and grinds on your conscience to show people only the most ruthless part of you.” But that is all Alex knew how to do. His family didn’t talk much about their emotions, and even after he witnessed his sister getting punched in the face, no one really talked about it. They just stuffed it down and kept it moving. His crew only talked about fighting, popping someone, or disrespecting a woman. Not much room to share what’s really going on deep inside.

The thick armor he wore to protect him from caring became really heavy for Alex, and it became his own personal prison.

I felt like I was lost and I wanted friendship. I wanted to be around people that I could communicate with. But I’ve never really communicated to folks in my crew like that.

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