I’ve never been the kind of person who likes to talk about herself.
I’ve always felt my story’s been told millions of times.
“Young black girl, grows up in Baltimore with a single mother struggling to pay bills every month.”
It’s a story that we’ve all heard on TV, and in movies, and books.
What makes me different from all those other girls?
I don’t know; I don’t really think I am that different.
Living in a single parent household as an only child, I watched my mother grow with me from a 22-year-old living with her mother, working at Domino’s, to a 47-year-old with three degrees working as a Medical Coder making $90,000+.
She constantly teaches me what perseverance is.
In life, you must create your own narrative because no one is just one thing.
My mom is not just a single mother. She is a mother, a daughter, a student, a teacher, a nurse, a cook…
She is anything and anyone that she wants to be because she is the writer of her story.
I was raised by many different strong black women who made their story their own.
My grandmother gave birth to my mother when she was 20.
Grandma and my mother’s father raised her -- then they had another child.
They were a comfortable family living in Virginia in the 70’s until one day the world took my mother’s father away from her because of his true sexual orientation.
My grandmother later met my grandfather, and they had three more children.
Yet, my grandmother is not just a wife and a mother.
She never finished high school yet has been the primary breadwinner for 20 years, raised five children who’ve received 10 degrees, and helped raise 7 grandchildren.
There is no story exactly like hers.
I told you I didn’t like talking about myself so, I haven’t.
I told you about the women who that shaped me into who I am today.
I am not just a young black girl, who grew up in Baltimore with a single mother struggling to pay bills every month.
I am a woman who is still finding her light.
My mom became who she is today because I was born, and she wanted to show me that I can achieve anything that I dream.
My grandmother became who she is today because of her children and her husband because she wanted her children to have the opportunities she didn’t have.
With two degrees, an amazing boyfriend of 8 years, and a strong family unit behind me, my story is just beginning.
It’s going to be one in a million.
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