I was born and named, but I wasn’t supposed to make it. I was loved and claimed, but still, I wasn’t supposed to make it. I was born In West Philadelphia to a seventeen year old girl who had epilepsy, and a father who had a drug, and alcohol addiction. My mother only lived eight months after I was born. I never knew her, nor could I remember seeing her face. Yet, I found myself crying for her many nights. This void in my life was supposed to destroy me, and I wasn’t supposed to make it.
It was March 5, 1975 when my mother died in her sleep. You can say that my father died that day also, because he was the one who found her. So hurt and depressed, drugs and alcohol replaced me, and in that brief moment I was also fatherless. Unable to process the pain, he continued his addiction for my entire childhood. I grew up without an example of a real man, and as I searched for love, I always found pain.
When I turned 13, I started to seek love elsewhere. My grandmother no longer accepted me for who I was. She said things to me at times that caused scars no one on earth could heal. I was called a slut when I was still a virgin. I searched for anyone and anything to fill what she emptied. Yet, I always found myself in pools of pain. I then began to try and drink my sorrows away.
Unable to handle me, she sent me to live with my father when I turned 14. I had maintained an F average that school year, my grandmother was at a lost. My father had been clean for a while. It seemed the best thing for me at the time. But, living with my father was very depressing. Later I was allowed to return to Philly. The truth, no matter the place, I was going to be unhappy. I just wasn’t supposed to make it.
I can still hear the strong, yet, powerless voices, “Why bother going to school, you’ll still be dumb? You aren’t worth nothing, and you’ll never be nothing!” It’s funny how you start to believe others and their opinions become your facts about yourself. If for a second you start to believe you are special, and important, you quickly tell yourself you’re lying. I mean, everyone can’t be wrong, can they? Then, your goals seem unobtainable, and your dreams seem unreachable. At times I believed in myself and my piers did also, it was when I stopped receiving acceptance from my grandmother that I shut down. 2-Be Continued~~~GET THE BOOK!!!!!!!!!
