Why do we find ourselves doing the most for people who wouldn't do the same for us? Why do we try to prove ourselves worthy of people who are unworthy? Why do we feign for attention from people who we know could careless? Why are we making fools out of ourselves? What are we looking for in these people?
Well, I think that I know what my answers are. I want someone to love me. I want someone to care and just acknowledge my existence. I never had that. For the past 20 years of my life, people have told me lies, trying to convince me that I was wrong. But at the end of the day they were talking out of their behinds and what they were saying was just a bunch of bull.
My mother was 13 years old when she was pregnant with me. There was not one person in my family who wanted to keep me alive. Now I know that they did not know me and that she was young, but this is where it all began. Some may think, "well your mother clearly didn't go through with it". But her and my father went to planned parenthood, but were scared away by religious protestors. My mother felt like she did not have a choice. I bet that you all are still making excuses for this woman. I did too, until one day when she was yelling at me about something pointless and I actually listened to what she was saying. Then I thought about what she always says when she is taking her anger out at me. Now tell me if a woman who loved her daughter would say the following. Would she remind her of how she could have "killed" me? Would she constantly point out how the younger sibling was the planned one? Would she threaten by saying "I will beat you like a bitch in the street" ( the first time she told me this I was in fourth grade and was taking too long to clean my room) ? And this isn't even half of it. She is nice sometimes. Like when report card time came around and I never had anything lower than a B+ from kindergarten through high school. Or when I was accepting a school award. When I was being filmed for 60 minutes for my internship at Yale University. When I was chosen for National Honor Society. When she needed me to do her homework when she was going for her associates degree. When I was accepted into every single college/university that I applied to, with the exception of Yale. (She talked smack about my intelligence when that letter came in the mail.) Those were the times when she was happy. The only time I remember hugging her was when I was leaving home to go back to Georgia for school after breaks; and I was the one who initiated the hug.
I should not feel weird hugging my mother. I should not expect to be called a bitch and get cursed out every time I hear my name leave her mouth. I should not have been 7 years old, riding the elevator up to our apartment hoping someone can kidnap me before I made it back to my yelling, belt-wielding mother in apartment 312; mad because I did not take out the trash. I should not have thought about all of the things that I have thought about doing to myself just to escape her or this life. But I moved on because I thought that the rest of the people in my family at least had my side. However, I was wrong. My little sister is just like my mother. They look down at me because I do not have money to look as nice as they want me to. I think differently than them and I act differently. They want me when they need help. Then talk about me to the rest of my family and their friends the part of the time. I sit in this house and let them say whatever they want. They complain when I ask them for something, but the moment they need something I jump to it so that maybe they will see that I am a good person and will like me. The other members of my family, except two, can careless about me.
I have worked so hard in school so I could move miles away for college and never look back. But that was taken from me a few months ago. I worked hard again in this current school and replanned my future so I can escape once again. But relying on my mother failed me. She didn't care about me enough and did not pay for my tuition. So in a few short weeks I will be kicked out of school. And now I am lost and not sure where to go from here.
I titled this post "Turning Nightmares into Dreams" for two reasons. The first was sort of to tribute Maya Angelou who is my absolutely favorite author. The title isn't the exact phrase, but it comes from her poem "In and Out of Time". As some of you may know, she died yesterday. When I found out I was dumbfounded. The other reason for this title is that I need to figure out how to turn this nightmare of a life into a dream. For the time being, I think that from this moment on I just need to focus on me. It is time to be selfish until I figure out what I am going to do, and find the money and foundation to leave this family and life behind.
