Life Is Not a Fairy Tale Read Online Free PDF Page B

you go through things. I must have been looking for my gift for years. Even though people were constantly praising me about my voice, I wasn’t listening. I was searching for my gift but didn’t know it was as simple as it being my singing voice. I was like a dog chasing her tail. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t hold it in my hands.
    So I made some mistakes in order to find my gift and find myself. They were big mistakes because I was sittin’ in High Point with nothin’ to do, no money, no plans for the future, no role models of people who had left High Point, and only the “borin’ ” reminder that God and church were always the only thing to do for the rest of my life. Like most twelve and thirteen-year-olds, I was restless, and going to church four days a week was wearin’ thin. By now, my brothers had left home and left the singing group and I was lonely in every way.
    My heart was empty and seeking somethin’ to do. I cried a lot because I could feel God’s spirit pulling me toward Him and boredom pulling me toward trouble. Trouble won.
    It was a feeling too overwhelming to describe. The confusion of curiosity and possible danger mixed with God’s pull on me made me weepy and sad. The heat of being frisky and “grown” just took over me and made me feel like cryin’ even more. Although I had been anointed when I was five, I didn’t realize that my anointing was God’s special gift. I took it for granted. As I got more curious about the world, God’s grip was loosened and His mysterious ways started to kick in. And little by little I could feel myself beginning to change—and not for the better.
    Let me go back a little. When I was a child, I was always so skinny and I had big lips. People teased me about it all the time. I used to go home to my mother and cry and tell her that everyone thought I was ugly. It’s lonely when you feel like you’re not good enough. When I got a bit older, I started imitating the girls I admired. I wanted to be like the girls who had it “goin’ on”—the ones with fingernails, makeup, and cell phones. The girls who got their hair done. I thought that if I was like them, I would be happy. Happiness was my gift, I thought.
    So, after years of growing up in the church, I went astray. I left the church with the idea that I was going to fit in with all the other girls, the girls who were not in church but seemingly having all the fun. I was going to fit into the world.
    By the time I reached the eighth grade and was going to T. Wingate Andrews High School, “sex, sex, sex” was all everyone was talking about at the lunchroom table every day. All the girls were talking about how fun it was and how good it was. I didn’t have anything to say about it because I wasn’t “doin’ it.” I wasn’t even thinking about how sex would feel or what it would do for me. I started dating the pastor’s son, who I’ll call B. He was sixteen years old and I was fourteen. B. tried to convince me to have sex with him. He talked and I listened. All I was thinking was that if I didn’t have sex with the preacher’s son, he would find someone else who would be willing and he would leave me behind. Finally, he convinced me. I didn’t know nothin’ about nothin’. At best, I was “tryin’ to have sex.”
    After we had done it, I was disappointed. It wasn’t anything like I had hoped. I thought sex would make me see fireworks and make my temperature go up. I thought it would change everything for me. And, I guess it did. Sex didn’t feel good at all. It just felt like loneliness. The next day I sat down at lunch and said to my girlfriends, “It was not all you said it was. It isn’t all that. ” I think my main disappointment was that B. really didn’t care anything about me. But I didn’t say that to them. I figured I just needed more practice.
    I thought that I was in love. B. had taught me everything I knew about sex, even how to French kiss. He was two years older