I drank, I smoked, I had sex. When I was in junior high my mind went crazy, it was like some­one pulled a switch and forced me into over­drive. I could blame my friends for telling me how great it all was, or maybe my par­ents for crowd­ing my space, but when it all came down to it, I was the one who was to blame for the con­se­quences of my actions.

I drank what­ever I could around the house because it “made me feel grown”, I smoked with who­ever I could because it “made every­thing go away”, and I had sex with my boyfriend at the time because “that’s what women do”.

Every rea­son for my actions was a rea­son that was not my own. I wasn’t becom­ing a woman, instead I was prov­ing to all those around me of what a lit­tle girl I really was. I wasn’t mak­ing every­thing go away, I was adding to my frus­tra­tions. I wasn’t a woman because I learned to open my legs. My mind was over­whelmed with the regrets these types of actions caused but I still con­tin­ued to repeat these mind­less actions, until I decided to fight for con­trol of my life.

What I’m try­ing to say is…life comes down to the choices that you make. There I go try­ing to preach…I used to hate when peo­ple did that to me, but I real­ize that if I would have lis­tened to just one person’s advice, I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my time doing things that were not good for me or my future.