Focus on the Youth

         Sometimes I don’t understand my position in my family. I feel like I don’t belong. My mom knows me, but I don’t think she knows how some people outside of this family see me, or at least how they used to before I had my daughter. Especially while growing up as a young black girl, in Los Angeles. Being as sexual as I was scared me at the time, but it’s also how I learned myself. It’s how I understood the men around me. It’s how I survived. It was my own secret for a long time, but a mother knows her child. The way I was raised, everything done in the dark comes to light anyway, so when I got pregnant at 16 and again by his best friend at 24, my mom knew that not only was I sexually active, but the picture of her daughter is a little more complex than she thinks. We still didn’t talk much about anything, but I also realize how uncomfortable it must be to realize that your daughter is not only more explorative than you sexually, but you somehow must now let her know you know and slow down! Or at the very least me as safe as possible. The pregnancies and their complexities were enough of a scare for me to slow down, but my mom then stopped scare tactics that she had done before, I’m sure realizing that didn’t work, started to then just encourage I do it with guys she had met and at least approved. I was into it because I think that’s what I had always craved. For my mom to care about what I cared about. I liked boys and film. Film wasn’t happening the way I thought at the time & I fell into the boy trap as per usual.

Now as I type that I realize that’s what Callie wants which is why I need to kick it in gear and allow this fencing class to happen no matter how far I need to drive because I’d do it for a friend, or Kelsie, or Chad. I don’t want Callie to fall into the boy traps like I did every time things get too hard. I did that with everything and am still battling that demon and attempting to get them to work WITH me now! I realize now it’s because my mom was tired and didn’t push herself to give me her energy for my interests. Me not pouring into Callie allows “the devil” to win over and she’ll put her all into her other main interest, which is a boy trap! Look how she crushes now. It’ll intensify when she has nothing to do. I just want to be the best mom I can be for Callie. Not the best mom in the world, but the best mom for Callie with her best interests in mind. I desire to pour into her now. RIGHT NOW!

I’m not mad at my mom for the lessons I had to learn in this life to make Callie who she is today. I now understand that my mom also gave me all she could. It didn’t matter what I missed out on because I learned what I needed to elsewhere and it taught me to be well rounded in a way I can teach Callie. Everything literally happens for a reason. Every thing…