This Is Us: Prologue

"Accept what you are unable to change. But, change what you are unwilling to accept."

Life goes on...whether you choose to move on and take a chance in the unknown; or stay behind, locked in the past, thinking of what would've been.

My momma does her best by me. She loves me as much as she knows how to. Some days are better than others, and some days she has those moments where I truly wonder how she manages to get through the day without killing herself, but it is all part of life. There is nothing we can do to change it. The only thing that we can control is how we choose to learn from it. Sometimes, even for the people that call themselves lucky, there are obstacles that are put in the way of their happiness. For my mom that’s kind of what happened. My mother married a man that she thought was her soul mate, but isn’t that what all people think at the beginning of their marriage? Soon she saw who he really was. Conceded, abusive, and manipulative.

So she left him.

I’ve never known my father...all I know is that I look like him; auburn hair, brown eyes, pale skin, and tall. Jokingly my mom has told me that if I was born a boy then we would have been a spitting image of each other, I asked her if I had his personality as well, but she told me that that’s where her genes kicked in; loud mouthed, quick to act, slow to consider, extremely hard headed, yet compassionate. I loved the idea that I was like my mom and I despised the fact that I resembled my father. Sure all I know about him is what my mom has told me but that’s enough. If a man is willing to put his hands on a woman out of an act of violence then he is no man, but scum. So, contently, I’ve lived seventeen years of my life with absolutely no information about him. Not his birthday. Not his name. Not where he was born. Nothing. My mom is all that I need. She’s both my mother and my father and I think she does a decent job.

Sure, there has been times where I have had to care for my mother as though our roles of parent and child had been reversed, but taking care of her is the least that I could do. Everyone has their breaking points, and even when my mom has been well past hers she still pushed herself to care for me the best she was able to. That’s why when I wake up in the middle of the night to find her passed out drunk I bring her to her bed with no questions why, or when she has one of her fits of rage and hits me in result I don’t hold it against her. Not even when she gets fired from job after job. I never judge her for it.

One of the things that we have to endure with her getting fired is getting evicted from the house that we were living in. To be honest that is really the only frustrating part because we're forced to live out of boxes even when we finally do end up finding a house to rent. We do this because as my mom has come to accept, its eventually going to happen so what's the point of unpacking?

The one thing I can say about moving; it doesn’t matter where you go, or how far you move. it’s always the same.

Same streets.

Same types of people.

Same situations.

Same attitudes.

Same everything.

Author's Note

You can find the complete story on Wattpad, just follow the link on my profile (This story is still in the process of writing, updates are every Saturday- starting May 27th, 2017)