KOLTON MATUREY

ANTELOPE STAFF

I think around the age of 10 is when I became a lot more independent. 

I was tired of my sisters and stepdad calling me a “momma’s boy” because everything I did was with my mom. She took me everywhere with her. Chores, work and the bar before it got too late. She and I used to be pretty inseparable. 

However, I felt it was time I stood alone and made my own way in the world. I know this broke my mom’s heart, but she was never one to try and stop me from becoming my own person.

I think it was around this time that my mom began to “check out.” My mom was an alcoholic, and my stepdad hated alcohol. Because of this terrible union, many arguments filled our quiet home in the suburbs of Colorado Springs with shouting and loud banging almost every night. 

My three other siblings were at least five years older than me, and they were all in high school. They had found their ways of coping through partying and running away to try and escape the yelling. All of them, at some point, spent their own time in foster homes and went through the judicial system once or thrice. 

This being the case, I was usually left alone in the house with my parents to comfort myself to sleep, so I would not fall asleep in class again. I kept it all to myself, obviously. Because if I didn’t, where would I be sent? Where would my mom go? I had to endure this difficult situation for her sake and stay by her side through it all. If not me, then who?

I kept to myself, I struggled as quietly as possible and gritted my teeth when it was too much. I had to remain strong and sturdy for others, so they might use me to pick themselves back up. 

But I could never be the one to ask for help. 

Asking for help was weak. Asking for help was cowardly. Asking for help meant that I was not that rock. My pride would often ask, “If I was not that rock, then what am I?”

I know now that this is unhealthy, and I am trying to make myself more open to asking others for help. Sure, I am proud of what I accomplished by myself. 

I raised and taught myself right from wrong and established my morals through my experiences. I fought through school, and I was the only sibling to graduate high school — let alone go to college. I took an opportunity to kick myself away from drugs and clean up my life to reach a higher education. 

I have accomplished a lot alone, but teamwork does really make the dream work. I see now that my dreams can be realized so much sooner when I just ask for the right kind of help.