Honestly, I am embarrassed to post here. Not because I'm ashamed of having no clue what I want to do, or even a slight understanding of where the world is right now, but more because of my background and where I came from. I never really had parents, my grandparents were really there for me through my whole childhood stretch. My actual parents were on drugs most of my life, my mom popping in and out through the years to borrow money from my grandfather and grandmother. And my dad just played chicken on the phone for years because he never actually wanted to be a father, but more of a side dad. I really don't want to rant, but it's really hard to explain my confusion without giving my story. I was 17 when my grandmother passed away, it was at random. On my first day of senior year, she had a brain hemorrhage after she dropped me off in the morning. By 3 o'clock that day, my entire life would change. I also want to mention I had some “behavioral issues” as a kid so during my whole teenage years I and my grandmother were constantly having issues. But at this point, I had agreed to obey her rules and be more considerate of how I acted towards her and my sister (that's all I had left as I walked in on my grandfather died in the house a couple of years back when I was 8). After school that day at the hospital, my entire family blamed my behavioral problems on the reason my grandmother passed and no one wanted to take me in (even though it was written in the will that I and my sister were to go stay with my uncle in san jose. He pulled me aside after the dust settled and they forced me to say my goodbyes and sorrys to my grandmother with a tube in her mouth after I had just seen her alive and well 9 hours before. After that, he told me I would never be a real “Malory” (that was our last name) and that I was just a repeat of my mom (his sister) and that coming to live with him was completely out of the question. At this point in the day, my current girlfriend's mother showed up at the hospital, completely shitfaced out of her mind, hollering about how she loved my grandma and that she was sorry for BOTH of our losses (since her birthday was that day and she had spoken with my grandmother hours earlier) she made the whole thing about her and my “family” knew another of her other than that she was the mother of the girl I was “running around with”. Let me just say it was all very ugly and a very traumatizing thing I had to go through to understand the value of people who actually loved me because from there it only got harder to find people that actually cared, nevertheless assuring me that in this world, no one cares about you. I got a ride from one of my teenage friends to go pick up my belongings from the house I had lived in my whole life. When I knocked on my own door, he told me this house was no longer mine and I was no longer welcome here. His wife was there, and his two sons and my sister were all at the door. (my sis. had no idea what was going on she just didn't want to piss off the ticking time bomb aka the family's biggest alcholic. So there I was 16 about to turn 17 grabbing black trash bags and just trying to get everything I could out of my room (they later sold everything that was mine in an estate sale, including my bed. I moved into my girlfriend's house unbeknownst to the terrible drinking problem and domestic violence problem between her mother and stepfather. They did all they could as alcoholics to make sure I finished my senior year of high school and kept having me work with my school resource officer like some charity case. The officer helped me square away driving with no license ticket, which I had got a couple of years back. The cop was cool, I just knew in the back of my head it was conditional with me going to that specific school and that they wanted the image of “helping minority youth” as they even had a segment on my local news with me and that cop and this story and how much he was “helping me”. They talked about my story and even lied about an existing job I had gotten and said he was the reason for my employment. The news clip is still on CBS but the vid is broken. I will add a link to this post if anyone could download the video for me. Anyway, that same cop had pushed, in collaboration with my girl's parents, for me to enroll in the state's ab12 program. This program houses youth that is near 18 and deemed “foster children” keep in mind that the only thing keeping me from actual foster care, was the legal guardian document my girlfriend's mother and stepfather signed to keep me from being removed from their home, and my girlfriend. Feeling like I had no other choice, I enrolled in the ab12 program at 17. Somewhere around the time I was about actually enter into the program, I got in a really ugly situation with the stepdad after he kept threatening to hurt my girlfriends mother and her. We fought, which led him to go on a 30-day drunk rant. Saying everymoring, “this is day 29, you got 29 more days until i get all of you out of my fucking house!” (my girlfreind, that had nothing to do with the physical side of the altercation, her brother that helped me beat him up, and the mother who was on the step dads side the entire time we were fighting). I really cant go into details about how or why this happened, I just snapped after seeing her mom get thrown around for the two years i was there. At 18, about a month after the altercation happened, the program was ready to move forward with moving me into an apartment (which i currently still live in in 2022). I obvisuly brought my girl with me as i didn't want to see her struggle with her parents issues everyday. I even convinced her older brother to move out and his own spot with his girl after another altercation he had with the step dad after me and his sister moved out. (he eventually moved back in after a year and a half). Also wanted to mention, I lived in a million dollar neighborhood with a lot of retirees and no kids, so its not like I'm from some type of troubled neighborhood and my grandparents wanted to make sure of that. I graduated at 17 on time with a low gpa, and attended community college but found myself going more for the financial aid check than to learn. It was all general ed, so it felt like i was repeating high school, which was already really hard for me. Fast forward a couple years and I'm 21, about to be 22. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. That program payed my rent for about three years, and i aged out of it at 21. So me and my girl have been paying rent for about three-five months give or take. Ive had millions of jobs and they all really sucked and kinda of damaged my mentality on special i was. After going through various retail, resteraunt and warehouse jobs, I decided that the automotive industry would work since i always loved cars. I was wrong. I started out at Nissan as a lot porter/car washer, which was cool until i realized i wasnt getting paid the correct amount for the amount of work i was actually doing for the company. After this realization, a couple of my coworkers that worked in the shop suggested i try and shoot to become a lube tech. It was all honestly a blur. Next thing you know i was getting 7 espresso shots in my coffee every morning just to keep my brain in my head, working on all these random vehicles with random issues and having to log it all in some company system i had no idea how to operate, and despite my efforts to constantly get a coworker to explain it to me, they always looked at me as if i was stupid and the system logging was the easiest part of the job. One day i dont know if i had too many espresso shots, or if i was just having an off day, because i went to the front lot to grab a mid sized vehicle for a simple oil change, and ended up side swiping the car i was in, plus the Nissan versa next to it. Weirdly enough, they didn't care, they restricted me from driving the cars for about a week, but after that I felt really uncomfortable, almost like the whole work place thought i was incapable of doing my job. I decided tp give the lube tech position up, and headed across the street to dodge where my girlfreinds brother, and a couple of other friends i knew through the skatepark worked. It was mainly an outside job, which i really didn't mind because my first job was at an automated car wash in the summer. I immdieatly built chemistry between all my co workers because we were practically all the same age. The manager hated it, and quickly resented me for having so much influence on my co workers. I was there for almost an entire year, up until the point i got really sick a couple weeks ago. My girlfriends brother called me and said “Sid (the manager), wants you to pick up your check”. Thing was, that day wasn't a payday, so I knew something bad was going to go down. I pulled up, he handed me a check and stack of papers related to my termination, and wouldn't give me any reason as to why he was firing me other than the fact that on a Sunday (where all detailers are supposed to clock in an hour earlier than when were scheduled) I clocked in 25 minutes early to go wash my blanket that my cats had urinated on. I really didn't like him at all due to the fact that we were both black, and he held me to this weird standard of being a golden employee and devoting my life to the shitty position I was in for money that barely paid my rent. The reason included most of my background is because I didn't want you guys to think I'm some privileged kid who just doesn't want to work. I know my worth, I just really can't figure out what's worth it. Trades seem to be more of a cult of organizations more than just a straight-up job. Education doesn't make sense as it would completely ruin the idea of 50-50 on expenses that I and my girl agreed on. All that's left seems to be amazon, which even to me is kind of scary considering this whole CEO domination time we're transitioning into. I'm scared, lonely with no more friends, and even worse, I'm broke and hustling every day to try to make next month's rent. I need some kind of out to this life. I need a path instead of some temporary financial fix with a entry-level job. Even if it's something I have to grind for years to get, I'm down. I just want it to be worth it and would rather kms than slave for some random cooperation that'll replace me just as easy as they hired me.