My girlfriend's parents didn't let her move out with me to the bay area because she was a minor and it was too far away for them to keep up with her and make sure she stayed in school. By the end of my junior year, my dad already have a job and a place for us to live in El Sobrante. .
I enrolled into Berkeley high for my senior year. And even though I should have been happy because I was almost done with school and thinking about college, I was worried about having to find a job and providing for my son to be born soon. At this point in time I felt a lot of pressure because if I wasn't working I was at school and to top it off I had to worry about recovering all the credits that I was missing from when I was doing bad in class back in Madera. I found out that the grandma I was close to passed away. Everything was falling down instead of falling into place. The people I started hanging out with smoked weed most of the time and I saw that they weren't stressed and they were able to handle everything that they were going through perfectly fine. Even though I knew it wasn't a good idea, I started smoking because I thought it would help. Little did I know that I was going to soon become addicted to it and especially that it would cause more problems in my life.
When my girlfriend found out I was smoking she did not approve. We would constantly fight and argue. Instead of thinking about quitting, I would go out and find someone to buy weed off of so I can relieve my stress. On January 15, 2010, my son Alexavier Mendez was born. That day my life changed completely. I promised myself that I wasn't going to smoke anymore and that nothing but positive stuff were going to come out of me because I wanted to make him happy and be part of his life. That promise didn't last long because reality had finally hit because even if my son and girlfriend didn't live with me, I knew that a part time job wasn't going to provide for my family.