Hello,
As many of you know my name is Ariel Star Fernandez Ruibal. I live in Colleyville, Texas and am one child of 10 (2nd oldest, oldest daughter). I just graduated from Grapevine Faith Christian School where I have been for the past four years.
However, my life has not always been like this. From the day I was born, I didn’t get to decide whether or not I lived with my drug addicted, alcoholic parents. I didn’t get to choose to sit in my crib all day and wait for either of them to remember that I existed as a product of their carelessness. I didn’t get to decide if my mother chose me or the drugs. If the decision was mine, I wouldn’t have left my grandmother’s trailer at the age of six. Instead, my mother decided to take me along on her latest hair-brained plan. We stayed in an apartment only big enough for one person. She would take me to a temple where she found her identity, but her religious zeal soon faded, and she found her identity in a man. That same man who seemed to give my mother purpose beat out of me what little identity I had left.
Soon enough I had nothing left to offer them, and they gave me up to CPS. My identity was broken, and my social workers put me in another broken home. My drug-addicted foster parents would isolate me, and the other four children in the home would antagonize me. To speak of the things that happened to me in this home would only sound like I was reciting some terrible made-for-televsion movie. Whenever I would attempt to tell adults of my terrifying situation, my foster parents and social workers would brand me a liar, and I would be moved to yet another home where I felt as if my isolation would become permanent.
Later, the system determined that my identity would be safe at my grandmother’s mobile home.
They were wrong.
Once again, it wasn’t my choice. I didn’t get to choose if my grandmother chose to get drunk rather than be with me. Once again, my identity began to break. As the days passed, my hope in who I might become began to dwindle. I dreadfully missed the overwhelming love that her trailer home had once possessed.
Until the day I was adopted. My identity would then find its final resting place in the home I dreamt of as a child. The home overwhelming with love.
True love. The home where my identity wouldn’t be decided for me or stripped from me each day. Instead, this home would help build my identity. Giving me a stronger platform on which to stand.
Today my identity has changed to one that is strong, compassionate, and fearless. An identity that has pushed me into public speaking and even sharing my story in front of my entire high school. Without my struggles, I wouldn’t have a platform to stand on for the children going through the same things that I went through. I used to look back on all the moves I went through as a miserable time that I wish I could forget, but now I look back at the places I’ve been, and I have come to realize that they have shaped me into the person I am today. These experiences also helped me to appreciate the spirit of giving. Which is why I am doing The World Race. To share what God has done for me in hopes that I can they can find hope and joy again. Sometimes just knowing that someone has gone through what you have gives you hope, and that is what I hope to achieve for the people that I meet in my next year.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I am excited for my next chapter, and I am so glad that you have chosen to be a part of my journey too.
-A. Star
