Understanding

I’ve had to be an “adult” since I was 7. I’ve had to put on my big girl pants and put on a brave face since my parents split up when I was three. Not to be dramatic or anything but it sort of ruined my childhood. I was stuck between two people who seemed like they just hated each other, or maybe didn’t understand each other. I had to pick sides and listen to each one bad mouth the other, and a part of me always understood. At first I thought love was forever, and then I saw it disappear within my parents first few years here. It sucked.

School was my escape, it was where I didn’t hear the yelling or the ultimatums, it was were I got to shine and I was recognized for it. I loved it all, I loved the escape as nerdy as it may sound but school was rightfully mine. For the most part I made my parents happy always getting honor roll and never having any trouble in school. I was the golden child, and the only child. I did everything on my own, I never got help mainly because I had no one around to help me. I figured out how I was going to get to school when no one could take me, I figured out which were the safer streets of Paterson to walk to school on. I got up and found something worth calling a breakfast and I came home after and ate as many snacks as possible in order to complete all my homework without feeling light headed. My mom was always working when I needed her most, and when she was home she was too busy to play. My dad was still deciding whether he wanted to be around or not. That’s how it stayed for a while.

Sadly enough school became a bust and I became another number in the system and my escape was infiltrated and now, now I have nothing. I am going to school, knowing that I do have the potential to be great at something but not knowing exactly what. The things I would love to do are things I keep hidden deep within me because the few times I’ve ever mentioned them to anyone they’ve been shot down or never taken seriously. I don’t have a set support system, I never really did. I mean my mom is my main support system but she does the best she can and even then that isn’t enough and I don’t blame her for that. I blame myself for still being the kid who needs a support system.

Within still trying to be this perfect student to become something perfect in the future I have to worry about lowering the bill and not pissing off my dad. I have to worry about still maintaining a job almost everyday and doing my homework and studying in order to get all A’s and have some money. That’s the American “teenage dream,” although it’s more of a disaster to be honest.

I’m tired of worrying and having people tell me to stop and to listen because I just need them to listen. I’m so tired of being me and having to be this adult. Because everyone around me is welcoming me into this adult world full of responsibilities as if I didn’t have the world on my shoulders 12 years ago.

You see, I used to see the whole world in my eyes, I saw the possibilities and what I could accomplish. Now i see everything I can’t do. All I hear is that I need to make more money and make something of myself. I just want somebody to listen. To understand.