Today, I was sitting at a local coffee shop flipping through an old folder on my computer full of pieces of writing I started years ago. I found a book I started drafting about my life that I started writing about 9 years ago (when I was only 20 or 21 years old!) but I never finished.
Even if you don’t read all of the old scribbles that I share below, my intent with this post is to share a simple, positive message…We’ve had it in us all along to create and follow our passions even if we don’t necessarily think we have. Our past can reveal a lot about ourselves and our inner passions, and in turn, can even help us with our future.
Right before I ran across this writing draft today, I read an article about something similar. (Ironic, huh?) If you have the time, I highly recommend this article titled, “To Find Your Next Act, Look Back To Your Childhood”.
Below I share the few pages of unedited writing I started around 9 years ago for a book called,
“Life of Aleesa”
What should you do when you have faced many battles to get to your future? This is a question that is reoccurring in my mind each day. When I came from the ground bottom, and I have fought hard to make to where I am now, I feel as though I should spread my experience to others in a community-serving — life-touching way. My story is a challenge that I hope to enlighten others to forgo so they will see what life will bring them. Go the distances and do everything you can to make your goals and dreams in life a reality.
I grew up in a single parent, poverty-challenged lifestyle. It wasn’t evident to me until I noticed in the lunch lines in elementary school my lunches were registered differently than other students. Why was I unable to get the Ali-carte lunch menu? I noticed something was different about me. Every weekend my mom and went to the local pantry to receive our box full of the necessities we needed to make it through. For many years at Christmas time, remembering faintly, I remember walking into a small corner room connected to a downtown business building. Inside it was like the North Pole before Santa made his deliveries, in my mind that is. Why did I go to an unfamiliar building for Christmas presents and not my apartment? It was hitting me that I was different.
I was told at a young age in a settle way that college was important. My grandmother made me a unicorn bank when I was born which was placed on a tall shelf in my bedroom throughout early childhood. My mother would put a few pennies in the bank and say leave this here and keep adding to it throughout your school years and maybe just maybe you’ll have enough money saved to go to college.
It was always there inside me after the realization that I was different than others that I had to be different than most children. I would detain from my friends and talk to grown-ups as though I was all grown up. I wanted to change the way things were. I told my mom I would find a job so we could get a house when I was only nine. I was unaware that no one would hire me. I know now what she must have felt. I learned the greatness of charity and donation at a young age. The nearby Christian Summer Camp named Kimble Camp always seemed interesting to me, but my mom would always say it was too much money. One year the camp offered students to come to the camp for fundraising efforts. Walking door to door around the community and standing just inside by the doorway at a local gas station named Eddie’s I raised all $700.00 to attend camp that summer. I felt great! I knew hard work meant you can receive something that’s great. I continued fundraising to attend for five years after. School was important to me growing up. I was told again and again by my mother I could do anything and be anything. I was going to make it happen.
I was the nerd that everyone wanted their homework answers from. I was the unfashionable queen who sat with the “Dirty Ball Crowd” and wore those ugly nylon, stretch around the foot spandex. I was the band geek. I was a National Honor Society member. I was the person who respected everyone. I was the news nerd that watched c-span and news reports because that’s the only channels that would come in without cable. I was the one who wore elf ears to help with Santa’s Workshop. I was the shy girl scout. I was the young volunteer who stood outside Walmart in zero degree temperatures ringing the Salvation Army bell. I was the girl whose family bought food at Save-A-Lot.
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