Choices, Choices, Choices, as the youngest of 3 in my family, I always knew I had “Choices” to make. My parents always told me we are going to tell you what is best for you but you have to choose what you want to do. Growing up I was pretty focused in school and I tried to make the right friends and stay around good people. I had a good family my father worked every day and my mother stayed home with us. Anyone would say that is the “American Dream,” my mother did her best to be there for us while we came home from school and had homework and other activities to do. We lived on the South Side of Chicago and it was not the safest neighborhood to be living in. One day while playing outside with my sisters and friends we heard gun shots and my father came outside and told us to come inside as he rushed outside urging us to come inside we saw a guy running and being chased by someone with a gun. That is when my dad decided to move us to the Suburbs.
Man, I was so mad, because I was going to miss all my friends in the city and I didn’t want to start over at another school. Well, guess what? I had to start over at a school that was in the suburbs and kids were not like kids out in the city. They all seemed different to me, but really they weren’t any different from me or my friends in the city. As, I was attending this school I decided to do the best to make good friends. As I went on in my high school years choices got tougher, I was invited to parties that had drinking and smoking. These were all the things my parents told me to stay away from. For some reason, I decided to listen and not go down the path of self-destruction. I remembered my uncle who was a drug addict and because of his addiction he passed away from the HIV/AIDS virus. That was a constant reminder to me that drugs and a crazy lifestyle wasn’t worth it.
But you see although I stayed away from drugs, smoking, and drinking, I still had to make choices in my life to be different than everyone else. I had a very close friend who was involved in a horribly abusive relationship and while she was going through all of this, I really could not do much for her. I knew it was abusive because she would always lie to us about her scars or reasons why she couldn’t hang out with us. While I had graduated High School and went on to college my friend was still in the same situation. I remember calling back home and hearing stories about how he threatened to kill her and how he would talk down to her all of the time. At that point, I decided that I was not going to let any man ever treat me in a disrespectful way or in a way that I did not approve of. You see my friend let herself be used and abused, she was having sex with him and it was affecting her physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. I knew that I didn’t want that, for myself at all. I am in an awesome relationship and although it’s not a perfect relationship because no relationship is we have learned from our mistakes and we know that we will be able to help others in the future that have been where we have been. We decided that we would not make the same mistake but that we would focus on our future and our dreams. On February 8, 2009 one of our dreams became a reality and we GOT MARRIED…YAY J!!! We love each other very much and are learning from life and enjoying life together…we call ourselves “Team Daniels”…. Although, people make mistakes all the time remember that it starts with the Choices you make each day and your dreams will become a reality but it starts with a CHOICE!