I Was Not Blessed With The Best Of Childhoods

My grandmother passed away when I was nine and I felt torn up inside because she was my strength and I felt that it was my responsibility to take care of my grandpa now (Lincoln, 2014).By the time I was ten I was an alcoholic and my grandpa got sick and they took him from the house and put him in a nursing facility. I had to go and live with my parents. I did not want to go live with them due to the anger, bitterness, and hurt I had within me toward them for not having me with them and I did not want to be with them so I started sneaking out going to clubs to dance. I love dancing because it soothes my mind. These were challenging and very difficult years for me as I wanted to feel loved above all else. The idea of wanting love led me to seek for it in all the wrong places (Lincoln, 2014). At the age of eleven I had started to really believe my parents did not love me. I never could understand why my two brothers lived with them, and I did not therefore I started being rebellious and promiscuous. I was too young to realize that this was a trick of the devil to stop my destiny.

One day waking up thinking this was a normal day at my birth home, Jamaica, I walked to my grandparents’ house, stayed there for a couple of hours, then I saw this pretty, shiny, new Nissan Altima pulled up, and stopped. Moments later a tall dark-skinned guy stepped out the vehicle, fixed his hat, and walked to the door. When the doors open he burst into tears and said to me, “Hey son”, at first my siblings and I was in shock because we have not seen our father since 2004, I did not know what he looked like until I saw pictures of me and him together. Later that night we party and have fun together. The next morning, he drove in and we took pictures, then, we went to dunns-river falls, also we went and eat.

We had just celebrated the new year, a sign of new beginnings. The past fall my mother and I had a fight and were only communicating on a need to know. I had a boyfriend at the time, we had been dating for almost two years. I loved him and he loved me and I felt like nothing could ever go wrong, boy was I wrong. It was a cold morning, I woke up feeling strange but I could not quite figure out why. Jacob, my boyfriend, was the one who put the idea in my head. A couple hours later my life had went from just a normal nineteen year old, to being a nineteen year old facing being a mother. I was pregnant and there was nothing I could do to change that. Telling my parents, especially my mother was nearly impossible, “[a]nd after seeing my mother’s disappointed face once again, something inside of me began to die” (Tan 321).

I could not spend time with the neighborhood children. Even though I did spend time with neighborhood friends, people from school, with great caution. Ordinarily, after father arrived home, he ate and went to bed or stared out the front window. Seating along the curb in front of the house off to the side, I often talked to neighborhood kids raised up with, where father could not detect. One young man use to come by and we sit for hours talking, he became my best friend, a forever partner without all the love stuff, tall, slightly long, brown curly hair, a Harley guy for sure. Difficulties existed within his spirit, understanding them, we were a complete duet, however, I could not afford to lose the friendship, this was much too important, I did not believe in real love or that it existed, kind hearted young man and I exchanged the graciousness, and slightly less with others who were nearer to me, no one recognized what our lives endured throughout time, not even my best friend. If caught when socializing, these young adults in the neighborhood ran equivalent

Nothing interesting ever happened to me except for mi abuelo. Me and him will always see each other over the weekends, that is when he told me stories of his friends, how he met my grandma, his regrets, from his proudest to saddest moments, how my parents are the best thing I can get even though I did not realize it then. Even when I didn’t have time to go over to his house I called to check on him and just tell him how I was doing at school and that I will visit him when I have time. By the time I turned 12, I moved here to Laredo, TX because of all the violence that was occurring in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Even though mi abuelo lived just across the river I started losing contact with him, but I always remembered him and his “lessons”.

When we got to Interlachen, Florida it was March my mom was introduced to the man who is now my stepfather but still no matter how happy I should have been I became a party girl. I lost interest in school and life, I had the “I don’t care attitude” but somehow I still passed 9th grade on time. Over the summer I partied a lot more and then got my life together right before 10th grade when I started school at Crescent City. The school was boring at first, but I met my best friend Katie there we had early childhood together. I was put into chorus and I met my “brother” Brock there he is gay and he doesn’t care who knows it. His amazing we became friends on March 15 my mom’s birthday. 10th grade was a good year for me aside from the ongoing name calling. Yes I will admit I was bullied from 8th grade and even now in 12th grade. Four years of being bullied and sometimes I can’t take it sometimes I get to upset and start to self-harm. When I got into my junior year of high-school I still went to crescent city. That was the best year hands down I ignored all the bulling and it really worked I later found out that my other best friend Loretta she’s Katie’s little sister was pregnant and I was the aunt because we were like sisters her daughter’s name is EmmaJean but Emma wasn’t born until my senior year. Katie is actually currently

It was just another Sunday morning. There were birds chirping, sun shining, people driving fords and Chevrolet's up and down the streets. When I got out of bed and went downstairs I saw that my family had already started breakfast and were all still at the table and talking faintly about something very quietly. My mother noticed me walk into the kitchen and told me that the rest of the family had just finished breakfast and that I could pull up a T.V. tray and watch Sing Along With Mitch with my older brother and sister and that she would make me some “Flapjacks” and be there in a flash. So I went into the den and my brother and sister were there talking and greeted me. I asked my brother why they were whispering and my mom shot him a look saying and he said “Never mind, it doesn't matter” and then I felt that

Like many little girls, I grew up worshiping my dad. A small shy girl, hiding behind him, using him as my protection from the world, by his side every possible chance. I wanted to be whoever he wanted to be, wanted to do everything he wanted me to do. I did everything to make my dad proud of me, for years, trying to do my best in everything…all for him, yet somehow, it was never enough. The summer going into my sophomore year, when my dad was, as he usually was, drunk, told me that he was ashamed to have me as a daughter. This was the ultimate turning point that marked my transition from childhood into adulthood.

It was halfway through my sophomore year when my mom and two older sisters sprints down the stairs and storms out the house. Confused and worried, continuing to curl my hair. My mom walks back in towards me with a gruesome look in her eyes. With so many ideas already running through my head, I was notified that my grandmother was killed by my uncle. I cannot even describe my sense of emotion at the time. Confusion, hatred, and hopelessness all merged into one. And all I could think about was just giving up on everything. That is until my pastor said these words that I will always remember; “You're going to get through this, just have faith.” I took in those words and began to put his words into action

7th grade was the year I woke up. My mom called me into her bedroom late one afternoon and was still sitting on her bed, wearing her pajamas. The bright and cheerful sunshine that lit up the room gave a false ambiance of the tension that clouded the air. I already knew what she was going to say, but I did not want to believe it as the truth. I had noticed that my mom and dad's relationship with one another was growing apart just by the way they acted around each other. The conversations between them became shorter and their affection for one another began to fade. My dad spent his nights falling asleep watching TV on the couch, while my mom slowly disappeared back into her bedroom, alone. This had been happening for a while now, so I do not know why I was even surprised when my mom said to me that, “Your dad and I are getting a divorce”. I should have seen it coming. The clues were all in front of me, but I was too afraid to put them together. I was scared because, for the first time in my life, the image of my "perfect" family was crumbling before me. I knew inside that my family was falling apart, but I was desperately holding onto the fibers that I thought were keeping us together. It is hard to believe that one encounter can change the course of one's life forever. In this instance, I was awoken from the dream that I had been living in for so long.

Everyone has a story. The goal of my life story is to inspire hope, and show the way God breathed into me. I was born in West Palm, Florida. At six months of pregnancy my mother was checked into St. Mary's hospital, and gave birth to three pound, two ounce baby. Despite the expectation of giving birth to a female baby, she gave birth to a baby boy. She intended to name her baby Victoria, after the baby's grandmother on his father’s side. Instead she came to the name Victor after realizing the baby's gender. So there I was, on July 1, 1997 at seven-thirty in the morning. The third child to be borne by my mother, I was the youngest of the family. I was blessed with two older brothers, Paul and Santos (Danny). My mother raised us in Clewiston,

She let her guard down and fell in love and in that moment she felt safe not knowing that the boy who made her feel safe and calmed her deepest fears would be the one who would make her live in fear of losing him for the rest of her life. Yet she was the girl who would never give up. In the back of her mind she wonders if he thinks about her late at night. The way he needed to love me: selfishly, intimately, out loud and all the time couldn't be done. Know that I come with a past. A past full of heartbreak and happiness. Pieces have been took from me over time. So little that I didn't even notice it until I did. Something was took from me that couldn't be replaced. A sense that along the paths of heartbreaks, I lost myself. I lost a happy and beautiful soul full of love.

“No mama coño there are no more damn ties that match with this shirt!” I immediately answered back to my mom, annoyed. How could that possibly happen to me? I was not allowed to go and the sun was already going down. Out of all the nights it had to be that one. My short temper caused me to get in trouble with my mom and all I had to do was find a tie that matched the shirt. I truly believed I would have ended surely staying home and missing out my friend’s quinces. It was all I was looking forward to since i found out i was invited. Even though I was really excited it wasn’t because it was my friend’s fiesta de quinceañera but because someone really special was invited, someone that I would have never guessed would have affected my life so much. Well anyways, how can it happen I had no idea but it did, tragically the unavoidable occurred. It 's quiet average from that age after all I was only 15, to fall in love with someone again. Do I believe in love in first sight? Well sometimes it only depends on how amazing the significant other is or how foolish you are yourself. Nothing horrifying can happen if you truly like someone especially when you left that person for someone else in the 6th grade and that someone else left you for someone else. Well it really just ruins you makes you forget about the equilibrium of life, or what’s the good and bad. Becoming a new self-being, you are who you want to be. You are yourself, creating a different point of view on everything mostly

At 15 years of age, I discovered that I was 5 ½ months pregnant. As a straight-A student in my school, a quiet and reserved kid, this didn’t just come as a shock to my family, but also my classmates and the entire faculty. My sister was the one that took me to the doctor to get my first check up, and though I begged her to not take me to our Family Physician, she didn’t know where else to take me. He himself is a Christian and as soon as he put the Doppler on my belly, he looked at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, “Well, whatchya gonna do, Momma? Even if abortion WAS an option, I wouldn’t let you do it!” He sat in the room with us for over an hour while we all cried, he offered resources if and when I wanted them, but he knew I had a lot to think about. When we left, he gave me a hug and told me that he loved me and God still loved me. His kindness and his words have never left me. That was just the beginning. After we left, the questions in my own head started to rain down on me! What WAS I going to do? I told my mom first and then had her tell my dad. Two days after I told them, my mom went to church while I decided I didn’t want to face the shame seeing people that I not only knew, but I babysat for and had become a part of their families. My dad didn’t go to church that Sunday as well for the same reasons. While I was getting ready with my sister to go to a different church, my dad yelled down the stairs at me and told me that I had some company. I

As related to me by my mother, she and my biological father had ongoing relationship that resulted in my birth. Unfortunately their relationship started to fall apart shortly before my birth, so I was raised in a single parent household, by my mother. Growing up, I did not see evidence that her health was limited, because she did more than other some two parent households. I can say with all honesty, I had a good childhood. As a young adult I see her challenges and sacrifices, all of which makes me love and appreciate what she has done, and continues to do. My biological father, on the other hand has never been in my life, even though he lives right in the Bronx. I always wanted to have a relationship with him, though I told my mother it did not matter. As I grew a little older, I made efforts to contact him, but all the promises he made to visit me rarely came true. That hurt me a lot, but I have learned to cope. Besides my mother has always been there to comfort me and this has drawn us closer and sealed the mother-daughter bond that we share. Yet, I still desire the love of my father or at least a father figure!