Life...

Life is a funny and mysterious thing. Its a puzzle that we can never solve nor decipher.

I sit here a little more than a month shy from my 21st birthday and realize a lot of things about myself that I am proud of. I was speaking to one of my friends from high school the other day, and she was filling me with all of the "scoop" about people we knew from high school. As she runs down and tells me all of her new findings, I am rather shock when I hear all that she has said. She informs me about a few more girls from high school, who are pregnant or just had a baby. Then on top of it, two of those girls who have had their babies, the fathers of their babies were both shot and killed. I couldnt imagine having a child now, and then not have your child's father in their life.

It's crazy because I think about how I am almost 21 and grateful, that I dont have any children, that I am not pregnant, never have been been pregnant, nor have had to get an abortion. I have plenty of friends who have had a least one abortion, and others who have had more. This does not make them any less my friend then the next person, nor does it make me respect them any less. I am just really grateful that I never had to experience anything like this.

Its funny, because I was born in the Bronx, lived in both the Bronx and New Rochelle all my life, but I am a product of the New Rochelle public school district rather than the New York City School district. After elementary school when it was time for me to enter middle school, my mother decided not to enroll me into the local middle school, IS 144. This school was conveniently near to all of my mother's job and day to day business transactions, but she decided to inconvenience herself by sending me to school in New Rochelle, because it is "safe and better" than the schools in the city. However, a lot of my peers, people whom I used to exchange hand written notes with daily all have babies or endured an abortion. Granted I didnt experience that, and I am sure that that was the goal my mother was trying to achieve, but would things have really been any different if I went to public school in NYC instead of Westchester County? Not really sure.

People assume that moving out to the suburbs makes life easier. That life is safer, the quality of education is better. In some cases that maybe true. But, moving to the suburbs does not make you immune from anything that you could easily happen to you in the urban areas.

My heart goes out to all of those who have lost loved ones due to violence. My heart goes out to those who feel that their money and affluence can take them out of situations like these.

Everyday I complain that my life is fairly routine, would rather prefer not to sure the word boring when that is how I feel at times. I worry about the same things daily, basically do the same things daily, and nothing new at all pops up. Instead of complain about my "boring life", I am going to be grateful for what I have, grateful for all that has and has not happened to me.

Y'all are all in my prayers.