No one really knows who they are, or for that matter, where they come from. I always wondered who I was meant to be and what I would become. Who decides our paths, our decisions, our lives? I make my path, choosing where I go and who I become. My life has been pretty mediocre; I opened my eyes in Las Vegas Memorial Hospital to two loving parents and a set of grandparents. My days were filled with heat – hit you in the face with a shovel kind of heat. My favorite color was purple and my childhood best friend was Myron, a boy who lived right across the street and loved to steal my sidewalk chalk. He was my first grade school crush and we did everything together, from jumping on the trampoline to walking down to the corner store for our sugar rushes. When he moved away, I was devastated. I dealt with the toughest emotion that year: heartbreak. At times, I felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs and my heart would shatter even more. That was also the year my mom told me about my real dad. “You’re adopted.” Ripping my t-shirt, pants, and socks from my body, my mother stripped me to the bare flesh that is my lie of a life. In an instant, everything I had ever known changed like a 24-year old coma patient waking up with no memories. She tried desperately to explain and apologize, but the band aid had already been ripped from the skin. Dad used to take me on long hikes up the mountains. He’d read me chapters from Alice in Wonderland before I went to sleep. Dad: (informal) n. a male parent, biological father, adopted father. The twin towers fell the year that my whole life changed. I was devastated, not because our world was facing a horrific tragedy, but because I found out my real father had abandoned me. Was this man I’d never met out there somewhere thinking about me too? Who could this man be? I didn’t know who he was, where he was, what he did, or even if he cared. He could be dead. Only one thing entered my mind, where did I come from? I remembered my fifth birthday, opening presents when a strange man showed up in the driveway; mommy and daddy were very mad. Was that my dad, the man that had helped create me? He had looked right at me, deep chocolate eyes, tinted with sorrow. The chocolate cake with vanilla, buttercream frosting turned bitter in my mouth. The polite conversation and laughing children around me seemed to cease momentarily. My fork slipped through my cold fingertips, falling to the concrete below. Tequila wafted from his breath as my dad pushed him farther down the driveway, away from the celebration. In his face, I saw my small, pale doll nose. At that moment in time, I hadn’t connected the obvious dots because I had no idea I was adopted. My five year old self was very content with her slightly perfect lifestyle; a loving mother and father, a best friend in my big brother, and completely spoiled rotten. I suddenly couldn’t shake the abandoned feeling growing in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to know where I came from. More importantly, I wanted to know why he didn’t want me, why I wasn’t good enough. And then, I didn’t. I had a dad who loved me, protected me, and never treated me like I was anything less than his own flesh and blood. He was my daddy and I didn’t need another one.