Out.

I grew up on a reserve and if you know rez life then you’ve had a very unique upbringing.

Unique is a gentle way of putting it. For as many good days, there were equally as many bad days. Kids were mean, parents were big children. Addictions and trauma ran deep, suicides were high – I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t know about the ugly of world.

In my family, the good days consisted of family gatherings, community feasts, holidays together, trips to the laundry mat with your mom and best friend, and walks to the river.

Happy moments were double riding bikes through the rez to your friends house (and the occasional crash while you cried for you mom and your best friend laughed – meaning all you could do was laugh too). Happy nights were staying out late, hanging out with your friends outside of the day care or the park beside the rec.

All in all… I was too sensitive for the rez, the bullying, the quick turning emotions, the backstabbing, the gossiping. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was to sensitive, I think we all just hid it from each other – either you became harder and meaner or quieter and weaker. I was the latter. In some peoples eyes, I think I was a mean kid.

I mentally left the rez when I was 13 years old. As soon as I got into high school and saw a way out – I took it with no remorse. You know the song Hate It Or Love It by The Game. I used to sing the lyrics “I’d run away from this bitch and never come back if I could” as if it meant something.

I look back at that moment, the moment of leaving, with regret. I didn’t realize the irreplaceable bonds that would deconstruct over the years of my absence.

There’s always love there but it’s different because I became different.

I went to a party on the rez in my teen years and I got into an argument with a long time friend. In that argument, he said you aren’t even from here.

It’s taken me quiet a few years to not take that personally and really look at what he meant – what he meant was I got out and I was different. I wasn’t like them anymore – whatever that means from peoples personal perspective.

This was followed of years of being told “you think you’re good” or “you are too good”

And if you’re an Indigenous person who left the rez or got sober or did something different than the norm then I’m sure you’ve heard those damaging phrase of being too good.

Never once have I looked at my people and thought I was better. As Anishnaabe people, we live for our people and I’ve never stopped.

I may have strayed or not realized the importance, as I sit on the deck of childhood home and look around my community I’m reminded of my purpose – the purpose of connection to people, spirit, Mother Earth and all creation. Yes, with my human eyes, I see the occasional sad story but they are overwritten with the love, the happy memories, the connection.

I wouldn’t change my life for the world.