The Future's So Bright...

I am on the verge of greatness. There i said it. I have spent my life (for the most part) trying my damndest to help others. It started off with helping my brother when i was younger and it has progressed significantly from there and i love it. I have come to realize that i am my parents' child. I get my affection and temper from my father. That man is capable of feeling every emotion, i learned love from him and i am greatful. For all the dirt i've done in the search for love, i can only imagine what it would have been like had i not had my dad there to show me what a real man was. My mother is a bit different... she's not affectionate. In fact it is only recently that she has started to communicate to me how much she loves me. I know that her lack of affection has formed my ability to make friends with females (that and the fact that she told me to stay away from all females), but she gave me a gift that i will always be grateful for.

My mother always taught me that i am nothing if i don't help someone else to acheive their goals. My sole purpose on God's earth is to help others. Needless to say, our views on religion are different, but i have never forgotten those lessons. My whole family knows that my brother's learning disability prevents him from learning to read, but no one ever discouraged me from trying to help him. when my friends had problems, i was the one who stayed up late to listen. I have always been ostracized for my attempts to befriend those who were unpopular and alienated for sticking up for the kids that were bullied. I was the first one to volunteer to tutor other students, help out with the canned food drive, mentor younger students, and anything else that needed to be done.

My parents were born and raised in DC. Neither graduated from high school. Although my mother went back and eventually got her GED and even took a couple college classes, they are basically people that worked hard and created their own american dream. They bought their first house 30 some years ago and have lived there ever since. They gave everything they could to make sure that their kids had the tools they needed to be good people and that our dreams were always within our reach, sometimes at the expense of their own dreams. There are places that my parents wanted to travel to that they will never see. There are things that they want to own that they will never have. But my mommy says she has something far better. She has four beautiful children, 4 beautiful grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. We have never been in any real trouble, never strayed too far and never done anything too terrible (can you tell that i'm the one that ruined the perfect record of my brother and sisters?)

Like i said, I'm on the verge of greatness and i owe that all to them. They made me who i am and i will always do my best to make sure that i make them proud. I will follow my dreams and achieve the things that they worked so hard to ensure that i could achieve. I might not follow the path they want or expect, and that's ok with them. They just want my happiness and success and that's what I'm doing. I will use the emotion and compassion that my father gave me to be a good friend, wife and mother. I will try to use the temper he gave me sparingly :) I will use my mother's dedication to service to help others to acheive their dreams, and her sense of humor to keep it all together.

I'm on the verge of greatness because they made me, and i will reach that point for them.

I love you.