As a child, I had many ambitions. I was creative and talented in school. Always in academic competions and gifted classes. My second grade teacher called a conference with my dad after I wrote a conclusion to favorite movie, The last Unicorn, as an assignment. She told my dad that I would be a famous author one day. The teachers loved reading my stories. I was marked for success early in life. In middle school I'd write a story in first period and by sixth period, my pre algebra teacher would read it aloud as the entire class sat in awe wanting to hear more. Seventh period marching band instructor would raise his eye at me when I entered the class, his way of letting me know he too had had the opportunity to bask in my creativity. Even in his clas, I never practiced, I'd memorize the songs before the period was over and be able to play them without hesitation. Naturally, when I ran away from home, the teachers gahtered together to dicuss what was going on in my little pre teen mind. When I returned to school, there was no punishment, just a requirement ot write from my creative genius of a mind. When my grades slipped, they'd call me in at lunch. there was no excuse, I was not living up to my potential. By the time I reached High School, my teachers had already indulged in my previous writings. They too left no room for failure. I was a sure success. One that would bring fame to the little desert hick town of Barstow Ca.
Then I moved away. I found that I could not write myself out of bad grades and ditching. I was held accountable for my actions. Yet some still passed me along because of my courtesy and smile.
By senior year I had written a booklet of poetry and short stories about my own life, in creative form. I was told to write more if I wanted to graduate, and I did, only to have them stolen by a swedish born teacher longer for publication herself. 6 months late, I received my diploma, but lost my muse.
I thought life was all about roses and knights in shining armor. I had longed dreamed of meeting an NBA player tall and thin, sexy, and romantic. One who would whisk me away from my dungeon I had been in and shower me with pink roses and expensive white wines. Life as an adult was sure to be easy. As long as I did not follow in the footsteps of those before me, I would be successful.
Then I woke up. I received divorce papers staing supervised visitation with the children I had spent so much time with. I was left with nothing, and daddy refused to help me. I had to swallow my pride and get on welfare when I had my daughter. Finding myself at 6 months pregnant fighting for my life and the life of my unborn child, waking up before sunrise in an instrustrial shelter and walking in the hot california sun with nowhere to go and nothing to eat until 4pm when the shelter doors reopened. Her father busy galavanting about with various women and drugs, not concerned with our well being until the eighth month when I gave birth to her. The day I brought her home he beat me so badly that the right side of my face was swollen to resemble that of a possum. I had stooped so low in life that i had gotten ussed to not having anything and came to the realization that this is how my life was predestined to turn out. Everything I said NEVER to had came to pass and I was no longer living but surviving.
Its been 5 years almost since the birth of my daughter and I have grown accustomed to the convenience of the government paying for me to live. I no longer have to pay cash for food and when I run out I just travel to local food pantries and stock up on old expired foods that people no longer deem fit to eat them selves so they give them away to the poor and impovershed who can not afford to be choosy.
I've grown so comfortable in bad relationships as a way of life that hte possibility of rela love no longer exists in my brain. The NBA player I always wanted has been replaced by a lowlife controlling parttime working man who'd rather bark orders and lay in the bed while I, sick or not, catered to his every whim of a need.
Fear of the reality of failure no matter how hard I try or how badly I want it overcomes my need for change and success. I am stuck in a rutt of a life out of comfort and the convenience of knowing what to expect without thinking that I deserve so much more in life.
I spend my days encouraging others in hopes that one day I will hear my own words and encourage myself.
Then there is always someone who reminds me that I am no better than anyone else. I am just a person with a wasted life and should, at my age, accept the fact that life is no bed of pink roses and there is no white carriage prepared to take me away to fantasy land, So I should just be grateful that I still have life left in me.
Ha!
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