the teacher who changed my life.
when i was a little kid, we moved around a lot. it unfortunately made me grow up faster than other kids my age, and also to have different interest than all of my friends. it was something that made me bitter over time. i would make friends, but never best friends because i was always afraid of having to move again.
in my seventh grade year i met a teacher named ben wahlund. over the next three years, he changed my life. by this time i was living in iowa. i had made good friends and maybe even a coulpe of best friends. i remember one day in music class he said to me, you know if people didn't know you they would think that you weren't happy. i asked him why. he said everytime he looked at my face he saw that bitterness there and perhaps even sadness of what i still was then. i thought about it and decided that i would change it.
i did start to change. it wasn't just because of Mr Wahlund, though he got me thinking about it. everyone in my family helped me grow up and change the way that i acted and reacted to things. thank goodness it was a change for the better. i started to have friends and to become best friends with a lot of people that i knew. it was the most fun i ever had growing up. it was all because i didn't want people to look at me and see what ben wahlund saw. i changed my entire life, of course i still have rough edges, but i'm a lot happier now than i have ever been.
the only thing that i regret is that ben wahlund never got to see it. he moved to illinois before i could show him the new and improved me. he probably still thinks of me as that bitter girl that he used to know, just as i will always think of him as the skinny guy with the tie.
now because of Mr. Wahlund, i look for people who were just like me and i try to help them too. serving people makes me happy. it is one of the funnest things i have ever done in life and will ever do. thanks ben wahlund and my family and God.