You never think your life is going to change. Sure, you move from grade to grade, from elementary to middle to high school. You go from riding a tricycle to a bicycle to a skateboard. You graduate from holding your mother’s hand in the grocery store parking lot to holding someone else’s hand. Hopefully, someone who’s cute and sweet and doesn’t make you feel like a dufus for wanting to hold her hand. Your interests and your taste in music and your shoe sizes change, but nothing huge changes.

Unless you’re me.

I’ve heard people say that change is good. This change wasn’t good. My whole world fell apart. Not all at once mind you. That day in the grocery store was like a tiny crack in the foundation of a house. A tiny crack that grows bigger and wider until the whole house comes tumbling down around your ears.

I knew my folks would have to find out sooner or later. It wasn’t like I’d stubbed my toe at soccer practice. I’d had a nervous breakdown in an alley, been handcuffed by Goliath, and nearly peed myself in a police station. After a day like that, ending up in a shrink’s office didn’t come as a big surprise.