Inner Strength

Despite what many people may or may not think. Things we/are not always copacetic and cool with me. I've had to dig deep within myself to refuse becoming the very things that have surrounded me all of my life. I'm not claiming to have a sob story of a life, because believe it or not -- there are millions of adopted/foster children in America that have similar stories to mine, crackhead mother, deadbeat/absentee father, despicable family members. We have overcome them - to become lawyers, journalists, parents, teachers, professors, businesspeople, CEO's and everyday people.

My ambitions have been magnified since I noticed that I had to break a generational curse of motherlessness in my family. No one in my family for the past 5 generations in my family has had a mother. My grandfather's mother died in childbirth with him, as did his father's mother. My grandfather's wife died while my mother was in her childhood, and my mother has been dead to me since the Court System deemed her unfit to raise a child. Since then, my mother gave birth to 3 other daughters, one she doesn't know the whereabouts of, one with her biological father, one given to her for being clean for a year, and myself, a 21 going on 22 year old.

I've tried to let my past go, let go of the inhibitions, the guards, the fears, the walls that I've built around myself so that those close to me could never betray me, never promise to be there knowing that they won't, promising that they'll always hold a pivotal position in my life yet are out like thieves in the night when I need them most.

I'm not gonna lie like the rest and pretend not to be insecure ... I actually am. I have fear, I have concern that I'll be a failure, or that I won't become a mother, or once I finally get the chance to become one. I'll fail my child -- like my mother failed me.

However, recently -- I've had to reach deep inside myself, nearly turn myself inside out. Allow myself to breathe and exude confidence that generational curses can be broken -- that I don't have to run away from my fears, I can confront them and banish them from where they came.

Honestly, for 22 years, I've always felt like I was holding my breathe, hurting for all the wrong reasons, blaming myself for my mother's drug addiction of 21 years. Cursing the very day I was born -- I know I was born to inspire others.

I'm not gonna wait for my blessings to roll out the red carpet for me in the future, I truly recongnize that I've been blessed with abilities that could only come from spending most of your life in fear, yet digesting it all with maturity. Since I was young there was no verbal or written challenge that I couldn't overcome. Observation, spoken word, writing, and intellectual and philosophical discourse has always come easy to me.

I want to use this ability to affect others, like many before me have come into my life, showing me the way away from my problems, was accepting their existence, and not trying to erase them but work through and not ignore them like they didn't exist.

Recently, I was on academic probation, in Spring 2009, I came back on campus with a 1.9 CUMULATIVE GPA. I am writing today, a year later, with a 2.7 Cumulative GPA. I could've buried my head in the sand like a true Cancer, like a person who's been hurt a thousand times from the woman who's womb I dispelled out of just 22 years ago. I refused to victimize myself, to hurt myself, to come down on myself. Today, I'll be resting up for day 3 of my internship, ready to champion the world, and essentially build something my kids can be proud of their mother for accomplishing. It took one step of inner consciousness. ONE.

It took alot of mental discipline to be where I'm at. Seriously.

Inner strength and serenity is what many pray for... I am that.