Looking back at how I grew up, I’d say I was pretty fortunate. My parents loved me and would buy me anything. My oldest sisters were in their 20’s so they would always take me and my other sister, who is two years older than me, to kiddie shows and events. It was great.
I should tell you that I have 4 sisters. Three of them are 20-22 years older than me. They always took my sister, who is two years older than me, to the Christmas spectacular or to first showings of kiddie movies. I had a great childhood. Christmas was filled with toys and family and so much food. Honestly, it was the best.
I remember growing up and craving that time again. My parents DID NOT want to celebrate Christmas and I’d always have to say how unfair it was that my sister who is two years older than me had more years to celebrate than I did so we always got to celebrate one more year for every year.
In my teenage years, I realized how different the holidays were. We’d still celebrate but with every year, there were less and less people because everyone wanted to celebrate in their homes. I stopped seeing my favorite cousins and bonding with my aunts and uncles and with the separations from everyone else, I finally saw how my family really was.
When I say family, I mean immediate family. Two of my sisters moved away which bothered me because I thought they wouldn’t get to be here for the holidays. The older sister who stayed still took us out and talked to us, the way a big sister would. My sister, who is two years older than me, and I never did that whole dramatic teenager thing. Or at least we didn’t really show our family that side because we knew exactly what would happen if we did.
My dad drinks. He has toned it down now that he has gotten into his old age and because I left their house because of his drinking. Now, he still drinks but he paces himself.
In our teenage years, he’d drink a lot and get angry. When we tried the whole dramatic teenager bullshit. We’d get hit. Sometimes, my dad is playful. We would play so many games with him, like “don’t touch the lava” or “dress up”. We would have a blast. The only problem was, you would never know when it is playtime or if he is upset and one thing would set him off. I remember jokingly telling on him to my mom and him chasing me all the way upstairs and grabbing my arm and beating me with a belt. For no reason but he was upset. I was maybe 11 or 10 then. Just doing kid stuff.
Inviting friend’s over would be a problem because he loves to tell people how horrible my sisters and I were and basically that we were never good enough. Then he would pick on our friend’s too. I went thru counseling and therapy. H punched me in the face when I was 15 and we did the whole child care services and I was always top scared to talk about him because everyone said that if I did, I’d be homeless and live on the streets if I talked about him.
Last year, he and I got into a fight. If you click the word “fight” It will lead you to a video where I talked about it for 15 minutes. It was raw and unedited. It was maybe a month or a few weeks after it happened…
He strangled me. Pinned me down to the floor and choked me. I was so week on the floor, I constantly remember me pinching his legs in the hopes that that would make him get off of me. H only got off when my mom came downstairs. She heard me screaming for help before he had me pinned down. When she came, he stopped and made it seem like I was the attacker so I grabbed all of my things and my niece and nephew and left. Right after it, my family really wanted to help. To get my father some help and to make sure my mom and sister were protected but, as always after a few months, everyone forgot all about it and we have been back to normal ever since.
It still bothers me. It’s been a year and a few months and just the though of being strangled scares the hell out of me. I’m friendly with everyone with my family, because I love them all, even though they are crazy. I always want to leave. I want to leave and find my place in the world. And prove to my father who always said I wasn’t good enough, that I am the best but it always comes back to me. I work hard on things that I love and enjoy and I always think “I’m not good enough to because a writer or a youtuber or a blogger or anything” I can work hard but that point is that I am not good enough. It scares me to think that but it stays on my mind.
This year, I joined a group called JAIA, a youth empowerment organization. Everyone in the group is so kind and nice and it has been so helpful. I am the youth chairman now and it’s so exciting. I’m starting blogger and I have two channels and I have two stories for books that I want to write. I’m a student studying media arts. I’ve been making a list of things I want to do before I turn 20. One of them Is to play the Ukulele. I want so badly to move to London after I graduate. I really need a freaking job. so I can afford it.
I get this burst sometimes that I can do anything! But in the back of my mind, I always think…
Am I good enough? Will I ever be?
djenne g. 
Leave a Reply