We've come full circle, ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) towny |
[27 Apr 09\11:56pm] |
Spam, etc. etc.
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[27 Apr 09\11:52pm] |
"You make the world better by just being in it. Someone somewhere is thinking of you and is happy that you exist."
It was inscribed on the front of every book that Ryan Prescott had ever written. It was also the phrase he used to begin every one of his talk sessions when he went out on his tours. The phrase was just the thing some people needed to hear to get re-energized about their lives and Ryan Prescott was just the man to help guide said people on to living happier, more fulfilled lives. Ryan Prescott was good at what he did and if one were to take a look at his schedule full of speaking engagements around the country, one would have to agree that he was. Growing up, Ryan had been a bad child from a fairly good family. A mother, a father, two older brothers and a small dog, they lived in a small town in Ohio where everyone in the town knew everyone else's name. It was was that sort of camaraderie that drove Ryan to rebel. Petty theft, arson, disruption of the peace, the list went on about his many indiscretions until he hit his senior year in high school. Keri Trewitt transferred in to the town's high school around that time and Ryan was, for lack of a better word, obsessed with her. Sadly for him, Keri never gave him a second glance because of his bad reputation. They had their first official meeting at the local police station where Keri's father had just been named the new Sheriff. Ryan had found himself in serious trouble and in one of the cells and Keri had come to visit her father. She struck up a conversation with the troubled youth and asked him why he did the things he did. His response was that the world was corrupt outside of the small town and it did him no good to conform to the belief that everything was good. Keri's response was simply that he made the world better by just being in it.
Skipping ahead a few years, it was that phrase that turned Ryan's life around and started him down the good path. He and Keri both went to college and it wasn't until they had both graduated from there that she actually went out with him. Touched by the fact that her statement had made such an impact on him, they were married over a year later. Ryan had plans on becoming a motivational speaker and Keri wanted to put her counseling degree to work. They decided that as a family, they would move to St. Paul, Minnesota where Keri was from and start their own lives together. Their oldest daughter Leah was born right around the time that Ryan had finished writing his first self-help book. It was in local bookstores by Christmas and toward the middle of the new year, it was picked up to be sold in larger bookstores all across the nation.
January of 1982 brought many changes to the Prescott family. Ryan's second self-help book was in wide circulation around the country and the family celebrated the new addition to their family, little Jerica. As Jerica grew, her father's job also grew. No longer only writing self-help books, Ryan was being invited to speak at various places on just how to get motivated about life. He was rarely home, leaving much of the childcare to Keri and Keri was forced to split her time between her daughters. If she was attending Leah's karate lessons, she'd have to miss Jerica's ballet lessons and so on. It became more of a problem as the girls got older. Jerica was an excellent dancer but the family never saw that because of the lack of time they spent attending Jerica's recitals. She was 15 when she first started to have thoughts about her life that could be considered depressed. She felt alone, forgotten and unappreciated which she found to be ironic considering her father based his life's work on making others feel appreciated.
Blame it all on daddy issues, but the feelings never seemed to fully go away. At 18, Jerica started to see a psychiatrist about her problem but that didn't really work. However, she played along and said the things her psychiatrist wanted to hear, the exact things her father wrote about in his books and spoke about in his talks and before she knew it, she was written off as being a normal teenage girl. College started and the feelings of abandonment seemed to disappear for a while. Being involved in the dance department helped because dancing took her mind off of everything. She focused all her attention to perfecting her craft so no space was left to think about any of her other problems. But there were times when it surfaced back up on her. The dance company's winter recital being one of them. Jerica had danced would could possibly be considered one of the best performances of her life but when she finished and looked out into the audience she didn't see her father. Her mother and sister were present but the one who mattered most to her, the one whose opinions she had never been able to have wasn't present.
At 26, Jerica's feelings of abandoment due to her father's absence still affects her. She has become a pro at faking a smile and pretending that the world was fine but deep down, she still felt like she wasn't good enough. If she wasn't good enough for her father, how could she ever be good enough for someone else? It was that mentality that kept her in a state of constant, hidden sadness. She's masked her sadness in caring for others, in her work at the ballet studio in town and even in her relationships. Through every relationship, she looked for the one person that was out there, somewhere happy that she was existing when the one person she needed that from was the only person she would never be able to truly get it from, her father.
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