Isn’t it crazy how life can start off one way and then at the blink of an eye it can end up being something you never expected? It’s like you spend your entire life driving on those smooth narrow roads. You get so comfortable with it, and then one day you wake up and suddenly those smooth roads are replaced by sharp turns and ice. You never see it coming and for some reason you can’t remember how you got there. As hard as you try, you can’t seem to remember which turn you took to lead you to this.

Like my life for instance. Although it seems like decades ago, I remember growing up in Ohio. I remember the family dinners, birthday parties, family reunions… I just remember the family in general. We were all so happy. It seemed as if each one of us was really going somewhere. And not just us kids, mom and dad included. I mean I remember coming home after my first day of freshman year, and mom telling us she wanted to quit her job at the hospital, and go back to school to major in criminal justice.

I swear everyone in the neighborhood must have thought she was nuts. Why the hell would anyone want to go from making nearly half a million a year to barely making enough to live on?

But that didn’t matter to her. She was her own person. We all supported her, and that was enough for her. As long as her husband and her three kids were behind her, she was okay with knowing every time she walked outside to grab the mail Ms. Johnson and the rest of ladies across the street were probably gossiping about her non-existent drug habit.

Despite all the neighborhood gossip it seemed like nothing could go wrong, but somewhere along the line it did. Somehow I must have taken the wrong turn, got off of the highway way too soon.

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"Okay girl, I’ll call you when I’m on my way!" I smile as the genuine laugh reaches my ear drums. In all the time I’ve known her, I can’t remember a time when Madison wasn’t in an annoyingly chipper mood on a Friday.