Narrative Essays - My life

I, like many others have lived a pretty hard life. Well for starters, mother use to hit me
and my younger sister, almost on a daily basis. No matter what we did, or didn’t do for that
matter, she found ways and reasons for hitting us. But what made all this worse was that my
father knew about it all and still did nothing to protect us. As years went by, we grew older and
the hitting or the beatings got more severe. Until one day I stood up to my mother. I told her that if she ever hit me or my sister again she would regret the day she laid her hands on us. She
stopped of course but our relationship has never been the same since. Going through school was
even harder on me as well. My mother made it a point for me to not enjoy myself and have a
good time. I rarely went to school functions, only because I didn’t want to deal with all the
arguing and fighting with my mother. When I graduated, I thought that would mean freedom.
Boy was I wrong. I had to find a job. I tried to go to school. But at the age of 18, you think you
know everything. So I ended up just working at minimum wage jobs. Where I met the father of
my first two children.

Bryan is my first ex. We were together for 9 years. I like most women young in love thought for sure that our relationship would last forever. He did ask me to marry him and I did of course say yes. But as the years went by I could no longer picture him as being the one I would sit next to on the swing in the front porch when I’m 65 years old watching our
grandchildren play. But we did have two beautiful children together. And I thank him for giving
methe best gift ever. Now even though we had our fights and our major differences, we are
friends to this day. We both realized that we make better friends than we did a couple. But after
our relationship ended, I then met my second ex.

Billy. We spent 4 almost 5 years together. And had one gorgeous son together. I, again thought that he would be the one. But after our son was born, he seemed to change. I became his everything but the person he fell in love with. And what I mean when I say his everything, well I was his chef, maid, launderer, babysitter ( because he had a daughter from someone a previous marriage) secretary, you name it and that was me. I started to realize that I was just a giving person and that I never asked for anything in return. I was being taken advantage of, but never given the respect I felt I deserved. I thought too little of myself and in turn didn’t respect myself enough to find a better life for me and my children. So I finally took a stand for myself and left Billy. He took everything and left me with nothing. And I had no choice but to move back home to my parents, to the house where my mother use to hit and abuse me. To the memories I spent so long trying to forget.

Since being here at my mother’s I realized that I can’t keep living the way I was living. So, I decided to go back to school and get a better education. That way I can finally get a career instead of working at some minimum wage job and living paycheck to paycheck. I started seeing the “light” and came to a conclusion. I was being to giving to the wrong people. I needed to be giving to myself and allow myself the things I needed and deserve to make it in life. I was shorting myself and my children. And I that’s not fair, so I’m turning my life around and being a hard working single mother of three who is attending school and going to a full time job, but most of all being there for my children the way my mother wasn’t there for me. Because I don’t want my children to have the same life I did.