Chapter 1
The people in your life are supposed to be there for you, supposed to pick you up when you fall, and take care of things that teenagers are not supposed to. For me that was my parents. At a young age I was doing laundry and making sure the house was clean. I thought it was normal, to do this all, but realized after awhile it wasn't. It's not normal to do what parents are meant to. It's not normal to do laundry before you're nine. It wasn't all on me, but on all my family.
Each of my siblings put the job of being a parent and put it on themselves. Some cleaned, some cooked, and my older sister was like a mother. She helped us clean and taught us how to cook and do laundry. We were all like Cinderella, wishing for our fairytale ending.
It was funny because those around us knew about this and tried to help. They brought over dinner, sent us a cleaning lady and tried. But at the end of the day the same things happened. We were the ones who had to deal with everything, with our parents drama.
My father was very aggressive, always complaining about work. He hated his boss, his coworkers and the pay. No matter the job, he skipped to, it almost always included working with food. He didn't last long in college he blamed it on the fact that he was stupid. Well as you can see this didn't really instill greatness in us. As children we always thought that we were nothing, that we were a burden to our parents that we weren't worth anything.
My mother, was challenging. She always slept after work because it exhausted her. I can't blame her since she worked with children in a nursery. Changing diapers and hearing crying the whole day took my mother from me. When she got home she never was there for us she just went straight to her room and took a really long nap. A nap that went through dinner and homework. I'm not sure if it's called depression but she was always tired no matter how long she slept, she woke up tired she went to bed at four and then again at seven. Growing up was hard. I even made a poem about how she was always sleeping and surprisingly now it's in a book.
I tried to look at my life positively because God only gives us challenges we can overcome. My challenge was being neglected, no one being there for you when you come home, being very independent making your own appointments, and being too young to taking care of yourself. I know it was hard at first but now I look back and I see that this has made me very independent and strong I'm able to call my doctor and take responsibility for my own actions and get things done make carpools, get my license all by myself, pushing hard isn't easy but it's well worth it.
