By Mike Johnson
I wanted to part my hair down the middle.
But I knew my friends would laugh.
So the part stayed on the side.
Over time, relationships slide into grooves of habit and expectation.
Step out of the groove and you’ll hear about it.
So you don’t.
You’ve built your own prison and become your own jailer.
Yet the walls are not physical.
With a smidgeon of courage, you can walk right out.
I realized this at age 17.
I’d lived in the same house, in the same school district, with the same friends, from kindergarten through 11th grade.
Then my father suddenly moved our family 1,800 miles away.
This was a disaster!
I had to complete my senior year in a school filled with strangers.
The first thing I did was part my hair down the middle.
Peer pressure, I realized, suppressed far more than hairstyle.
Once free of peer pressure, I could do ANYTHING.
The fresh start, in a world where I was unknown, allowed me to reinvent myself.
I made several big changes that greatly expanded the outcomes of my life.
I thought my dad destroyed my life.
In actuality, he saved it.
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