My Life Story

As a child we imagine life full of fairy tales and happy endings, only to be disappointed when reality sets in. For most of my childhood, it was just my father and me, without my mother who would pop in and out of my life carrying false promises and shattered hopes. When my dad decided to bring a “new mother” into my life, I felt as if he was trying to build the perfect family he always wanted, breaking the father daughter bond we had developed. The year before my fifteenth birthday was one of the worst years of my life which changed life drastically for me. I was put into foster care in November 2005.

That year my dad and I fought each and every day. When we weren’t fighting, I was “playing mommy” to three small children. My schedule in the eighth grade went as follows: come home, wash the dishes, entertain the girls, feed them dinner, bathe and clothed them, put them to bed, clean up again, and then I was able to do my homework and get myself ready for bed. I didn’t have many friends or a social life and barely asked for anything or complained much, yet I felt unappreciated and more like hired help then apart of a family. I was subjected to fist fights with my dad and being told constantly that I was a no one and would end up just like my whore of a mother with children before I even finished high school.

Though my home life was a mess, very few knew about it even after I was taken away and placed in foster care. I never let my living situation affect my schoolwork, which was where I drowned my sorrows and was determined to prove my dad and everyone who ever doubted me wrong. I had decided that despite everything I had been through to make something of myself at any cost necessary. While in foster care for the last four years, I’ve continued to excel in school, found time to volunteer, work part time at the Department of Human Assistance as a Student Aide and at McDonalds as a cashier and go to church.

During the last few years I have volunteered with a foster youth mentorship program called Wonder Inc as a student counselor, where I was able to interact with young foster youth and see them experience adventures that they might not had been able to had they not been in the program. Seeing the small children who had been through so much in their young lives able to truly enjoy their childhood for such a short time away from the drama of their home life was the highlight of my whole experience. I have also helped out at the Healthy Five decathlon educating elementary aged children about how to eat healthy every day and at the Foster Youth Health Fair teaching teens about having healthy relationship through the art of drama in a play called "Hot Gossip".

In June 2009, I was the first of all my siblings to graduate from high school and go to college. I currently attend Howard University and plan to one day open up my own non-profit organization in order to help at-risk teens have a place to turn when the world lets them down and have someone who cares about their future waiting for them in the wings when they succeed. I refused to let the many obstacles of defeat and tough decisions I’ve faced stop me. I now use my past as a stepping stone to build on a better life for myself. Looking back on all I’ve been through, despite everything my parents put me through I continue to press on; no longer for the benefit of revenge, but now for the satisfaction of enjoying my life for me. I thank them both and many others for giving me the tough skin and tools I needed to persevere in life. Putting an end to that chapter of my life, I now am able to begin writing the fairy tale ending of the life I always wanted and deserved to have.