Questival

Growing up, I remember thinking about how free I would feel when I was no longer a foster kid. Looking back, I realize that was naive. There are numerous ways that the trauma continues to impact my life.

As I walk up the mountain, I keep beating myself up about the icebreaker. I’m doing something I’ve never imagined I could do — climbing a mountain — and all I can think about is the fact that when it was my turn to say what my goal was as my fellow climbers and I got to know each other last night, I couldn’t answer.

I wanted to give up. The voice in my head was telling me I was weak and would never make it. Then I remembered why I had decided to do this climb and what it represented to me and my fellow foster brothers and sisters.

Antwan is knee deep in a snowdrift 8,000 feet above sea level. It is near 5:00 a.m., and the sun has started its push up over the east side of Mt.

This story was first published in The Huffington Post on April 4.  On Father’s Day weekend, I will once again don my climbing boots, grab the ice axe and head up the snowy flanks of 14,000-foot Mt.

From ages 13 to 18, I hated everything about the child welfare system: my social workers, my foster placements, court dates–you name it, I hated it. I was so frustrated with the idea that the choices my parents made forced me to be “different.”