Her parents were both very hard workers who still managed to be very close with their three children. Despite being very spiritual and involved in their community church, Brenda felt left out. She is three years older than her sister and four years older than her brother but they are only 11 months apart in age so she didn’t feel like she was as close with them as they were with one another. As she entered school, Brenda still felt out of place, “Music was my hiding place so when I was singing or playing, writing songs or skits for church, I was comfortable because I could kind of escape from having to deal with how I felt about me,” she said. “I didn’t feel I was a pretty girl, I didn’t fit in with the popular crowd.”
Transitioning from school to school and finally making her way to high school didn’t get any easier for Brenda, so she decided she needed to graduate early or she knew she would drop out. She achieved this goal and started college almost immediately, where she found she didn’t fit in either, “I was a teenager in college among adults that were advanced in life and socially but I had lived a very sheltered life, I didn’t go to parties I didn’t smoke and I didn’t drink,” Brenda said.
Soon she became friends with the “party crowd” which lead to dropping out of college and an introduction to marijuana and soon there after, cocaine. At this time in her life she attended beauty school, became a licensed cosmetologist, and worked until she was bored with that and went back to school temporarily.“I had some pretty good jobs, I joined a band and I’d sing, and travel, we went on the road doing concerts, but I wasn’t happy, I was faking it but the drugs were a kind of way for me to escape,” she said.
Not much later, Brenda was introduced to crack and said she honestly feels that the first time she tried it, she was addicted and her life only spiraled downhill from there. She had moved into her own apartment but because of the drugs she was continually moving back in and out of her parents house because of not paying rent. “It got to the point in my life where i would get high, and I remember going to the dope house and staying there until it was time for me to go to work again,” she said. “Never changing my clothes, just getting high all night long, not even realizing time going by.”
She said her life changed ironically when she passed out in a hotel and woke up the next day in an alley, on a dirty couch, with no shoes. The alley was covered in broken glass and she was forced to walk through barefoot. Once out of the alley, she turned to God and asked what to do, she was ready to be done with the drugs. Brenda turned herself in – there was a warrant out for her arrest – and the probation officer would not sign the warrant, instead she gave her a reference book where she chose the Center for Healing, a place she could go to get clean. She went and hated it, but they gave her food, clothes an ID, she said, “They all seemed happy and at peace and I didn’t have either one so, whatever they told me to do, I did without fail, and a year later I was clean.”
Brenda then moved into the Oxford House for Women which she found helpful because she spent time with other women who were recovering but there was no one in charge, no one telling them what to do. They were responsible for paying rent and getting groceries, they were independent and a part of society, while still in a safe place. After she was clean, Brenda went home to Flagstaff and apologized to her family and spoke at church to apologize to the community. She also shared her attempts to better the homeless community, which she called Finding My Shoes, and the church sent buses full of people to Phoenix to help her.
“Education is the key to success and as long as you continue to learn you’ll continue to grow, but the answer really starts with believing in yourself.”
