life...

i was asked what was one thing that i want people to know about me... and my answer was simple "from the day i was born...i survived life..." so, this post will expand on that sentence...please bear with me... sometimes my feelings get displaced and scattered when i write, but i'll try to stay on task with this one...

when i was born...the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck and i was blue... not only that, the placenta had become detached from my mother's womb...the doctors told her that if i was born the next day, i wouldn't have made it...i guess that friday was my lucky day...i was 2lbs 7oz, small enough to fit in the palm of someone's hand, just about...with no real hopes and dreams, just struggling to make it to the next day... little did i know...that this wouldn't be the first obstacle, and probably not the last that i would face in my life... i was born premature...two months early, to be exact...i came home in feb of the next year, on my mother's 16th birthday... the start of a childhood that i was robbed blindly of...

as i grew up, i was promised that my mother and father would get married and he, my little sister, my mom, and i would be a family... that's why she gave me his last name... somewhere down the line, that didn't work out, and he ended up marrying another woman and having 4 children with her...they were...a family... he was the father to them that he barely was to us... then he fell off by the wayside and wasn't too much a father to any of us... but i survived...without him playing a major part in my life... my grandmother is my rock, always and forever will be... she made sure that my sister and i had everything we needed and then some while my mother ran the streets, getting high and doing who knows what else... it was rough growing up... seeing your clothes, shoes, tv's, and anything else of value walk out of the house... imagine being young and seeing the kids across the street with your brand new clothes on... clothes that you picked out and loved, but never go to wear... my mother put men above my sister and i... there were times where we wouldn't eat until my grandmother go home from work which would be close to 9 at night...

*note* this blog is not to throw salt on my mom or any of my family for that matter... it's just to get out my thoughts and feelings about what has happened in my past...*

my mother went to jail... the feds got her during a drug bust at the drug dealer's house up the street... i remember i used to play basketball on the court him and his sons built in their back yard every single day... my love for sports started young... we went to visit her while she was in the fed, and it looked like she was changing for the better... she got her GED, was into church, and even looked healthier... better than the skin and bones i was used to... i was proud of my mother that she was getting her act together, and surviving... little did i know that she would just revert back to her old ways when she came back home... *shrugs* i was used to it though... not seeing her for days and days at a time... or seeing her spaced out... aggressive, bug-eyed...crazy... i survived that part of my life... only to be sent through the ringer in my later years...

i wasn't a rambunctious child... i stayed to myself... started writing seriously when i was 9 years old... writing was my friend... the only thing i knew that would not let me down, because i knew that i would never let myself down... i guess that's just the sag in me... there is a period of my life that i am going to call *the gray area* just because... i will never talk about it on here... not that it's too painful...there's just a time and a place for everything... let's just say that it took some time for me to forgive those who wronged me in the ways that they did... but i survived every encounter...

i graduated high school with honors... and went on to college... where i fashioned myself into what i thought i should be, based on the viewpoints and opinions of others... knowing that in my mind and heart, that wasn't who i really was... but just doing it to get by... with the lowest amount of conflict and drama possible... all i wanted to do was just live and be me... but i couldn't' because i honestly didn't know who i was... i was a chameleon, for lack of better terms... i will admit that i assimilated and molded myself into what others thought i should be... that was one of my survival tactics... just do it for now... you won't have to do it forever... just to get to the next level... probably the wrong way of thinking, but it worked... in some areas...not all... but i've always held on to the fabric of who i was...the inner being...

my relationships suffered... a great deal... then things started spiraling out of control and one thing led to another... my girlfriend at the time left me for someone with a better job and more security...someone to keep a roof over her and my kids' heads... more stability... only to find out that it was a front... revealing a woman beater... but, she survived it and left, and i'm proud of her for that... i sacrificed a lot of things, all in the name of love... maybe a little too much... i got evicted from the apartment she left me in... ended up living with one of my co-workers and her boyfriend in a one bedroom apartment... before i moved in with them, i would stay with people on campus... or sleep in my car in one of the well lit parking lots... when it was time for me to go to work on the weekends, i would sleep in my job parking lot after everyone had left for the night... then wake up early and go get something to eat and act like i was coming from "my house" or wherever i was staying... when my residence was that same parking lot... that was 2005, the year i was supposed to graduate... needless to say, i didn't make it across the stage... my car was repo'd 3 months before graduation and i had no way to get back and forth because i barely knew how to ride the bus... my pride wouldn't let me... so i saved my money and got another car... charged fall 05 to the game and decided to keep it moving... because i had survived the lowest point in my life...

when my cousins, who were around the same age as me died in 2004 (mind you, i still to this day have not mourned them...), i asked myself, if i died today, would i be happy with the person i was? and my answer was always no... because i was never at a point of completion... sometimes i feel like i'm still searching for that point, but i know with the changes i've made in my life here recently, i am closer than i've ever been...

by holding on to who i truly was... and surviving life.

peace.