I spent my teenage years rushing to become a adult. I couldn’t wait to vote, couldn’t wait to be able to “legally” drink. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t the shit when my voters registration card was mailed to me. I was grown! Two or three years on down the line I was whipping my drivers license out proudly whenever I was carded.
My twenties was a blur of trying to figure everything out. I was arrogantly ignorant; the perfect oxymoron. At 22 I had a child and hadn’t even mastered how to keep my panty liners lined up correctly.
By 24 I was a Mommy and a Officer. Responsibility, Responsibility and MORE RESPONSIBILITY. I spent years juggling 8 to 16 hour shifts, trying to figure out who the hell I was and trying to teach another human being whom they should be. I spent a lot (too much) of my time looking for love. I wanted someone to be there for me. I wanted a husband. I remember telling a good friend of mine that I couldn’t wait to be a wife. She had been a friend of mine since High School she knew me, probably a lot better than I knew myself.
“Hope you’re not ready to be a wife”, she told me while laughing.
Who the fuck was she?
The nerve of this bitch to tell me what I am not ready for!
I was heated, but I kept my thoughts to myself because deep inside a part of me knew she was right. I didn’t know exactly why she was right but I knew her words had merit.
Years go by… I go in and out of relationships, my son gets older, work get a little bit easier. I’m still just as confused but at this point I’m honest and bold enough to admit it. I would look myself in the mirror every night before I went to work (when ever I did go to work) and wonder Who am I?
Is this what life is about? There has to be something bigger than this. Things will be different when I’m married (I didn’t even have a man) still holding on to that white picket fence and prince charming dream.
Couple more years go by… My body is beat up, spirit is diminished, heart on E. Now I wear a mask. My mask is my protection. I wear it when I go to work, I wear it when I go on dates, I even wear it when I’m tired and I have to show up for open school night.
Why didn’t anyone warn me wearing that FAKE mask only stopped me from discovering the true me?
At this point I was dating and dealing with guys that were no good for me. My gut would warn me but my heart had it’s own agenda. I know he’s lying, I know when he say’s that he loves me that it’s not the truth. I know that there are other women because the rumbling in my gut which kept me up all night told me so. Yet still I stayed, endured, sold myself out until finally the day came when I said fuck it!
This is the period in my life when I discovered that I had always had wings! I discovered that my beauty. It came from my strength, from my mistakes, from my tears. Vulnerability made me powerful!
Finally it was ok to say, “I don’t know what the fuck I am doing”.