Six years ago I was happy go lucky. Well, if you want to be technical, its going on seven years. I was going into my last semester of college and things were fanning out in my future. I was writing on various books I had dabbling in my head, along with a coauthor on esoteric material. My world came crashing down when my mother was stricken ill with a stroke. We got through months of therapy and her getting better. The final nail in the coffin, which is an ironic twist of words in my heart, was her passing in February of 2009. It was two weeks before my final exams. I had missed the max allotted time for absences and there was no way I could go into class. I was a wreck. My absence was allowed and we set forth with the plans of burying my mother. When we laid her to rest, I laid a side of me to rest as well. I laid my passion to rest. I didn’t have the urge to write anymore. I couldn’t even write my grief out on paper. I broke the damn of emotions this past winter. They flooded my mind. Words came in bounds to my fingers, along with tears streaming from my eyes. I had never let the bottled up feelings of my mother’s passing completely out. I was turning 21. Two weeks from OUR shared birthday. The number one fan in my life. The one who envisioned me going places with a college degree. I let her down when I graduated. Six years later that degree sits in a frame unused. Its not my fault. I couldn’t find a job to use it.

I haven’t heard I’m proud of you from anyone aside from my sister since my mother passed. When she passed, we became closer than we have ever been. We too are six years apart. Funny how numbers play a role in your life. I patiently wait for the rest of my family to recognize my accomplishments, but to no avail, they have yet to tell me how proud they are that I’m their sister. I’ve become the black sheep. I don’t get Christmas Cards from my older siblings. I don’t get birthday wishes. I feel like I don’t exist unless something happens to my father. I’m invisible in their eyes.

I published my poetry books to gain recognition in my family’s eyes. It seems I will never gain the respect I wish. So from now on, I’m doing me! I published my book for me! I don’t care if its sells. If it does wonderful! If it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. I accomplished something in life and took it by the horns. Recognition is needed no more. I do this for me from now on!