Reading an account of a friend’s life struggles served to be a very powerful and personal reminder that we are in large part responsible for our own successes, failures, near-misses, joys and sometimes sadness. At the same time I believe in the existence of things that are beyond our control like fate, divine intervention and sheer bad luck. Nevertheless, I believe that we determine the where and the how we eventually end up in this life.

Strangely enough, I didn’t always feel this way.   For years, it seemed that I could not get a break and surely it was because the gods were against me. I was lousy at everything, especially in love and relationships. After being sheltered as a child by overly protective religious parents, I went buck-wild the first year I entered college.

I was allowed to go to that particular college because my older twin sisters were there and they could watch out for me (yeah, right) and report back if necessary. I wish that I could say it was only because they were genuinely concerned about my physical and mental well-being. I think it had more to do with protecting my so-called ˜virginity” (more about that one day). Never in the history of man-kind had one’s honor been so fiercely guarded for a nameless, faceless man that they hoped would be my husband one day!

I dated more than I cracked open a book and I was on scholarship! There’s this saying (paraphrasing here) “Once they see the city, it’s hard to keep them on the farm”.  It certainly applied here because you couldn’t get more rural than where the college was located,.so, the irony was not lost on me. I was only one year into my officially being allowed to date, so I pursued this new-found freedom with gusto.

Despite my constant partying and serial dating, I never had sex with any of my suitors. Mostly, because the thought of doing IT scared the hell out of me. Also, I’m convinced that an 8 track (ok, that dates me) was implanted in my brain that repeatedly warned me about the evils of sex before marriage, it worked, for a time anyway.

After I left college (notice that I said left, didn’t graduate from that college) and for some reason that I’m sure I’d discover if I devoted a few hundred hours on someone’s (therapist’s) couch, I begin to get involved with guys who were always unavailable. Either they weren’t ready for a commitment, they had just gotten out of a bad relationship or just simply wanted to have sex, no strings attached. I was like the patron saint for losers, since most promised to give me a religious experience that I’d never forget.

I was flailing aimlessly through life because I hadn’t given it any purpose. I was one of those “one day at a time”people. Life happened to me, why dare to plan it? I remember living in a three room shack (with my baby daughter) which is the polite way of saying  a shotgun’ house. You know, the ones with the militarily precise straight pathway from the living room doorway to the back door. If someone aimed a shotgun, you would hit a bulls-eye.

I told myself that I was doomed to this type of existence; that life would not get any better for me. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, I had convinced myself that I had gone so far off track that there was no way that I could correct the situation. I was a single mom, had only two years of college under my belt, a job that I hated and my house could be used for target practice.

This was my life and it wasn’t going to get any better, so deal with it! At the time, I didn’t realize that when things aren’t going well, we begin our sojourn in placing limitations on ourselves. I had learned to become helpless. Once I was knocked down, I failed to get up. I acquiesced. I folded.

I was convinced that everything that went wrong with my life had mostly to do with external forces that I had no control over. Perhaps, it was my way of not taking ownership of those poor choices. One of the benchmarks for becoming an adult is to accept responsibility and to modify your behavior in a way that brings honor to your true self. Needless to say, I was lost.

One day while speaking to my brother, who had the distinction of being the first in my family to graduate from college, he quite literally changed my life:

Me: “I’m so tired of struggling to make ends meet and living from paycheck to paycheck!”

Ray: “Well, what are you doing to change it?”

Me: “I’m doing the best that I can. I’m working two jobs, I wake up before the crack of dawn, I have to get myself and Carisa dressed, get her off to school, get on the bus to go downtown, then transfer to another bus from there to go to my first job. Then when I leave that job, I have to go on to the next and then pick Carisa up from the the Girl’s Club when I get off.”

Ray: “Have you thought about going back to school?”

Me: (after a lot of laughing) “Yeah….sure. Do you know how old I will be by the time I get my bachelor’s?! I will be THIRTY years old!”

Ray: “Renee, how old will you be if you don’t get your bachelor’s?”

BAM! It was like a ton of bricks hit me. That one simple, common-sense question shattered all of my poor excuses and low expectations and made me realize that my life would not get any better if I didn’t do something besides complaining. Sure, there would be sacrifices….no one said it would be easy. But, I would rather spend the next two years aiming toward something than wandering aimlessly.

Each benchmark that I’ve reached has required me to push myself even further. Now, I am a firm believer of speaking truth to power. After convincing myself for years that I wasn’t worthy of any happiness, I’m challenging those self-defeating tapes in my head. My self-esteem has taken a paradigm shift and I’ve started speaking of myself in glowing, positive terms and amazingly things have changed for me. I have a daughter who loves me, a bachelor’s degree, I’ve traveled the world, I own my own home and I’m content.

I haven’t achieved all of my goals yet…..but I’m on my way.