The Things I Carry

Author Mark Caine says, "The first steps towards success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yoursef." Now just what does that mean? We find ourselves in different situations -- living in singke parent homes, having parents suffering frim addictions, being addicted to things ourselves, but what we go through determines if we'll break or if we'll stand strong. So how do we make sure we prevail? We must condition ourseles to conquer.
At the start of every morning - I stop and pray or just sit quiet and prepare for the day ahead. As I enter those crowded hallways of UB, filled with students and teachers, I carry a backpack. In it I carry a couple of notebooks, folders, pens, and pencils. I carry the textbooks for each of my classes for the day. I also carry determination and strength that even i didn't know I possess.
Clearly I hear my grandmother's words -- the words she says almost everytime she see's me: "You know you're the first of the grandchildren to make it into college with a free ride, and you should be proud. Were really counting on you to do great things!" As I look at the state of my affairs now. Me single and pregnant, in school, working a part-time job and searching for another or a full-time night position. I cant help but wonder if I've let them down. So everday now I try my best to carry on, to focus on the task of graduating -- even on those days when morning sickness, tiredness, and doctor appointments crowd my day, and I'm anxiously preparing to be a mother.
My family used to be so string and put togegther, in the church every time the doors were open, but then my parents began to use drugs and life hit a downward spiral. My parents argued all the time, my father lost his job, and next thing I new he was moving of to Florida, leaving us with an outstanding debt of $5,000 dollars to give to multiple drug dealers. If that weren't hard enough I was raped, got pregnant and at the age of 18 when everything was finally over I had had 5 abortions and 4 misscarriages. I would cry into my pillow every night hoping and praying that it was all a dream and that tomorrow I would wake up and still not suffer from the invisible scars.
After that,with the harsh reality of being left to raise three kids on her own, my mother realized that it was time to get her life on track, for all of our sakes. So she went back to church, stopped using and now we live in a house that we are buying ourselves.
I carry the pain, the flashbacks, the war scars both visible and non-visible, and I carry the memories everday. Yet, as I carry the load of my environment, I also carry the faith and the hope in the fact that I can change. In the fact that I can be whatever I want to be. I dont have to wonder around and become a lost soul and just simply give up because I have endured a hard past, or am currently facing obstacles.
I carry the strength to fight for my dream -- to be a CPS social worker and help some innocent child like someone should have helped me, and i have no intentions of letting people or setbacks stop me. I move forward and discard of all the unnecessary things, I control the things I carry, they do not control me.