Confessions Of Never Giving Up...

A time like this, I never imagined. Honestly, I was suppose to be done before I even knew it. I wasn't prepared for the cruelty of world...or was I? Where could I find shelter, when everything around me seemed as if it were a storm. I had no place to run, no place to hide and life just summarized itself into darkness.

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Could things get any worst? Well it did, when family wasn't even a stability. Neither were the friends I somehow made along the way. How could I shake the many secrets that pained me? I remember walking into what was portrayed as home, but to me...yeah to me it was more like a battle zone.

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On this particular day, I grew tired of feeling as if I was losing this battle. My mind begin searching for ways to outsmart the many challenges. I felt the joys in writing, felt the relief in dance, I found that expressing myself through the arts would save me from what was killing me inside.

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I never saw myself as an individual who would settle for less, but I made less look astonishing beautiful. I would go through my mental storage, seeking ways to bring ease to the many emotions I recognized as punctured wounds. This was not how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

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I begin to write letters, poetry, short stories, and songs. I begin to listen to the rhythms of music and dance my tears away. I begin to live! The thought of feeling as though I meant nothing, or feeling as if I was nothing wasn't what I was willing abide by.

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Being titled by world only pushed me to define who I really was. Being called every name in the book of degrade pushed me to to define who I really was. Being verbally and physically abused pushed me to fight back and edit my speaking!

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I, along with my sister was living in a single parent home. And I wasn't going to let that overpower the woman I knew I had to be and wanted to become. I remember being in my room plenty of times and hearing family bad mouth me. Me running outside to a neighbor's house with tears of frustration. Seeing the response I didn't always understand...I searched for ways to handle things better.

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For longer than I remember, I tried to find people who'd listen and want to help me. I tried to confide in the friends who I saw as family, who'd only spread what I told them...flip what I had told them, and even laugh at me and what I had told them. But I never had to be comfortable with it.

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Even though I wasn't sure about the journey, I decided to travel on the road of being the best young woman I could be! I begin to live!



-By Patricia Hardison