Hello Everyone,

I have something on my mind which is rather troubling. I have noticed that several of my peers (foster kids/alums) have been making poor choices including myself. I mean these are some serious life changing events I am talking about here and it bothers me to a certain extent because I feel like as many statistics I have beaten, I am yet still falling into specific statistics. These statistics include young pregnancy, substance abuse, not passing high school, dropping out of college etc.

To a particular point it is true that my peers and I are falling into those statistics but I think it is important to remember that at our age (18 - 24) there are many different areas of 'statistics' that we fall into just because we are young and we are going to make mistakes. I think foster kids have a tendency to personalize their own issues a little too much. Because of what happened to us when we were younger we tend to think that these things are only happening to me because we dont know of anyone else who fits into that particular category as we do. (Or at least this is how I feel and the way my peers feel about the problems we have discussed).

The truth is that there will always be mistakes and failures in young people's lives... That is exactly what it means to be a young person. Dont be so hard on yourself either if you are making some horrible mistakes because I think it is easy to forget how old we actually are, not how old we feel. I feel like I am 35 sometimes but I have to remember that I am 21 and there are many times I am going to act like I am 21 simply because that is exactly how old I am.

I feel as though that we (as foster kids) are playing with a deck that is stacked, but not necessarily stacked against us. There are many things to be thankful for from my foster care experience; I have an excellent support system (that I did not use), I have ETV available to me for college (that I didnt receive last year because I didnt get the application filled out), I have free money from the state to help me with things like a car and a laptop. I am forever thankful for those things and I feel that actions speak louder than words.

Keep your head up people!!! You are on the right path if you are happy, and you are definitely on the correct path if you are struggling because if life were easy it would be boring...