I was an only child.
Born to a single mother.
For the first 5 years of my life, I lived in Mexico City. My mother didn't indoctrinate me into any particular religious belief system but was open to me pursuing whatever I wanted. I think she felt a little torn -- she was brought up as a Catholic and wanted me to be exposed to the traditions of Catholicism, the church and the ritual, but didn't want me to be exposed to the nuns. And I'm actually grateful to her for that. One of my first experiences with religious beliefs involved my Catholic babysitter. She was telling me all about going to hell. How God punishes us and all that. One day my mother and I were walking past a church and I broke away from her -- ran inside the church and up to the alter and started pointing my finger at the crucifix, saying "You shouldn't punish little boys... that's not right. They don't know any better. That's not right that you do that." So from the start, I haven't had any problem asserting my view if I feel put upon or if I feel something is not in integrity.
When I was 5, we moved back to Phoenix where the rest of my family was and I lived there until the age of 21 (there were a few trips of 6 months here and there ... but I didn't really leave and start a new home until I was 21). That's when I left Phoenix and moved to Atlanta.
It seemed that every school I went to, I was put in the "gifted" program. However, I was really rebellious and would start out real strong, and then screw off. And then I actually ended up dropping out of high school. I got a GED, took a few semesters at community college and then went to massage school. For the last 14 years, I've been a massage therapist.
When we first moved back to the United States, we were a lower income household for the first year or two: on food stamps and government assistance. Then my mother got a job at a union -- working for the rights of undocumented workers in the fields. That didn't make a bunch of money either. But one of the things that the union wanted to do was to start providing health care. So, she took it upon herself to write the proposal and get funding for a rural health community clinic that, by the time of her death 25 years later, had gone from 1 clinic to 30 rural health clinics. Half a million underprivileged people that hadn't had access to health care were able to receive health care because of that. As time went by, I’d say we slowly climbed the social ladder, going from fairly poor and on food stamps as a small child, to moving into the big house by the time I left home. But I never got to experience the big house.
There was no sexual or physical abuse in my family. My mother didn't really even believe in spanking. I think I was spanked twice in my life. My mother was a bit analytical and kind of reserved which, I think, led to a certain amount of “not feeling loved” and craving attention as a small child. Being raised by a single mother, she would need to go to work and I wouldn't want her to go, so there was a conflict with that... you know.. "If she really loved me she would do this." -- But that’s from the perception of a 5 year old. It wasn't necessarily what was happening.
I started smoking pot when I was nine. My uncle (who was bi-polar and used marijuana medicinally) introduced me to it -- and I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed being with him. He was my favorite relative -- the first real male role model that was fully accepting, fully loving and fun to play with. That progressed until I started smoking pot regularly when I was 13. I also started doing other drugs and ended up in drug treatment and eventually junvenile jail for various drug offenses. I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous when I was 14 (in drug treatment). I got sober in AA when I was 16. I was sober for about 2 years and then started using drugs again until I was around 20 when I sobered up again. When I was 21 I got introduced to the Buddha Field and was drug and alcohol free during my involvement with that – until the last year or so.
