I was accepted into New York Law School on July 21, 2008 and I am completely proud of myself. Being accepted into law school was a journey that had taken many detours, stops, and starts.
My life has been filled with ups and downs like every other person on the planet, but from my perspective the downs have been way downs. It starts with the amount of drugs in my life and how at age five I knew what a crack pipe looked like. I was fortunate enough to not be a drug addict at 5, but there were people in my life that were.
But this purging of my soul is not about drugs or the people who abused them, or was abused by drugs rather. It is about the losses that I cannot shake.
When I was ten years old my best friend died, my sister. It is devastating, a person who is responsible for everything you know, and encourages you to be the smartest, funniest person in the world, is just removed from you life, forever.
It’s about hitting milestones in your life, and your go to persons just going away. My cousin died my first year of college, the person who stepped in after my sister died to be my big brother. The guy who wouldn’t let me talk to any other guys, and continually reminded me that it was cool to be smart, and wouldn’t allow me to have a low self esteem, when I believed I was ugly, and too fat. It is about the guy who was too proud to say a real good bye when I left, so we never really got to say good bye at all.
It is about my grandfather, who supported everything about me. Who loved me blindly and gave to me freely. It is about knowing the sacrifices he made for me, to help me and not being able to be thankful enough.
My grandmother, the funniest person in the entire world, the smartest, most loving woman I have ever met, who taught me what it means to love in this world. Who would brag about me to her friend’s contempt. Who would remind me that she had over 50 years on me, to help me keep things in perspective, as she consoled my tears, as I worked though all the strife.
This is about the people who know where I have come from, and know how hard and difficult things have been without thinking I am trying to strum a violin. It is about knowing that I am not looking for sympathy, but understanding how hard I have worked to not become a victim of circumstances. It is because the people who helped me become the woman that I am and the woman that I strive to be are here only in spirit, when I desperately want them, and need them here with me, so they can see that I did it, and I am doing it!