Priceless Inspirations (9 page)
That was wrong of me. He was really doing for his daughter already, and I was letting people get into my ear. I let my unhappiness with the situation between me and Dream drive me to do something out of anger.
Toya’s Priceless Gem: Don’t let people talk you into doing something you don’t want to do. Only you know your situation. Only you know what’s right for you
.
I struggled through high school and finally finished, but I kept failing the exit exam I needed to pass in order to get my diploma. I was determined to get that piece of paper, so I kept taking the exam until I passed it. It took me two years, and I got my diploma in 2002. I was supposed to graduate in 2000. I was 19 when I finished.
The Mistake I Made That You Shouldn’t
Getting pregnant messed up my chance to get my education. Although I did eventually finish high school, I wasn’t as focused as I would have been if I didn’t have a child at home. I was even more distracted by stupid stuff, like the things people said about me, the rumors about who was dating Dream, and my feelings of jealousy and hurt that I wasn’t the only woman in his life. As I’ve said, I spent a lot of time entertaining the challenges of those haters when I should have been paying attention in class. If I’d been paying attention, I would have learned what I needed to know and it wouldn’t have taken me two years to pass the exit exam.
If I’d paid attention, I might have done better. If I’d done better, I might have felt more confident about school and might have gone on to get a little more of it, like I hope my daughter will do.
Don’t make my mistake. Pay attention in your classes and get your education while you can. The older you get, the harder it gets. Even if you have a baby, if you have support, go back and finish. I know it’s hard to focus. Believe me, I know how hard it is, but go back and finish. Try to do your very best. You owe it to yourself and your child.
What I Did Right
Reginae and I have a good relationship. We talk about a lot of stuff, and we’ve been doing it since she got old enough to ask questions and listen to the answers. I don’t hide anything with her. I
want
to tell her things. I don’t want her to learn what I had to learn in the street. We talk about stuff like that and just girly stuff like who’s cute, who’s not. She likes Jaden Smith, for example. He’s her Hollywood crush. We talk about how cute he is and laugh. We talk about the boy she has a crush on at school, who he likes and how she feels about it. I want her to understand that it’s fine to like boys, but not to have a boyfriend, at least not yet. She knows better. She knows better because I’ve told her about my life. I was always sneaking around trying to do something I shouldn’t be doing. Being sneaky got me in a world a trouble.
I pay attention to her schooling in a way I never paid attention to my own. When she got old enough for pre-school, I researched the choices and visited and picked the one I thought was the very best for her. I did the same when we moved to Georgia. I check on her homework and make sure it’s done. I want her to be a good student and find out how far education can take her. My daughter has grown up to be very smart, very wise and very talented.
Now that’s she older, she’s really beginning to understand what I’ve told her about my life and how young I was when I had her. For instance, sometimes, when I go to her school, the kids ask “Is that your mom? She looks like your sister!” She laughs and I laugh, but now that she almost 12, we both know how close she is to the age I was when she was born.
If Reginae were to get pregnant as young as I did, I don’t know what I would do. I try to have the best relationship with her in the world, and I hope she’d tell me if she was ready to have sex. I hope I’d be like my cousin Mary and take her to the doctor for birth control. Of course, it wouldn’t be what I would choose for her.
I wouldn’t want her to have a baby until she was old enough and mature enough to take care of it. I wouldn’t want her to grow up as quickly as I had to.
When I think about it, it looks like I’ve grown up and I’ve turned into my Uncle Nat and my Auntie Kris who put a lot of rules on me coming up! I’ve come full circle, from a rebelling teen to a strict parent. I’m lucky because my daughter respects me. She knows when I’m playing with her and when I’m not. She’s my daughter and my princess. I’ve got my family, I’ve got my best friend, and I’ve got someone to love me.
Some people say that if you don’t have someone to teach you how to be a woman, or a mother, you don’t know how to do it. I don’t buy it. That’s just an excuse. It’s how people let themselves off the hook for what they
chose
not to do. I didn’t know how to be a mother, but I was determined to be a good one and I think I am. That’s the point of my priceless gem about motherhood:
Toya’s Priceless Gem: You can break the cycle. You. It doesn’t matter what your mother did, what your father did, or what everyone else you know is doing. If you choose to do it differently, it will be different, and there’s nothing more to it than that
.
Dream broke my heart, but I have been able to move through that and build a good relationship with him. Dealing with that heartbreak taught me a lot about myself and let me move on to find a new love.
My father broke my heart, but I have been able to move on through that as well, and accept him for who he is. We’ve been able to talk through our feelings and find a newer and stronger relationship with each other that allows him to be a part of my life and his granddaughter’s.
My mother broke my heart, but I have been able to move on through that, too. As I’ve learned more about the pain of her life, I’ve come to understand what I didn’t when I was younger--that I don’t have the right to judge her. Though she’s still struggling to fight her demons, and I’m still struggling with my feelings, we both want to be in each other’s lives. That’s part of what it means to be family.
Maybe, like me, you wish your relationships were different than they are. I know I’ve spent a lot of years wishing for things to be different with Dream and with my parents. Of course, wishing never changed anything. In fact, wishing makes it worse, because the time you spend wishing keeps you from accepting the situation and moving on.
This, like so many other things, is something I had to learn the hard way.
The Break Up
When Dream and I broke up the first time, Reginae was only two months old. I’d heard by then about all the girls he was with while I was pregnant and sick. Learning about what Dream had been doing crushed me. His feelings had changed. He would come around and barely have anything to say to me. There was a new girl who was getting his attention, so he didn’t feel the need to talk to me much anymore. I was old news.
It was like he stuck a knife in my heart.
“That’s it,” I told myself. We broke up and it was over.
However, it wasn’t over. I was still so in love with him, and we had a child together. I still needed to talk to him about her, and every time I did, all my feelings for him would come rushing back.
We got back together.
This time, I needed a place to stay yet again, so I moved in with his mom. I thought that since I was living in his mom’s house, it would be easier to stay close, but wasn’t. We broke up again when he started dating this other girl named Ann, and flaunting their relationship in front of me.
I couldn’t believe it. I was living at his house and I had his baby, and he was dating other girls right in my face.
I felt real disrespected and jealous. Two could play that game.
I met this guy named Donald who went to another high school. He had a nice car, a brand new bubble eye Lexus, and dated a lot of girls. He was interested in me. I started hanging out with him, mostly just talking and chilling. We were really more like friends than anything else. He taught me how to drive and let me vent about the situation with Dream. Donald and I were close, but there wasn’t anything romantic to it. I knew he liked me, but I never let it go there. He wasn’t my boyfriend, and he knew I was still in love with Dream. We used to hang out a lot and Dream didn’t like it at all.
I don’t know if it was the thought of me getting with Donald or if something else made him do it, but on my second Mother’s Day, when Reginae was about 18 months old, Dream gave me a ring, bought me a car and proposed to me.
The wedding didn’t happen. This time, Dream’s career came between us. He was hot and getting hotter. He’d had his first really successful solo album and his career was turned up. Reginae and I couldn’t compete with it. Within a few months the wedding was off again.
It went on like this for years.
Years.
We’d connect, then disconnect, then connect again, then disconnect, usually over some girl he was seeing. I hated those girls. I hated hearing about the ones at school and the other ones all over the country. Pretty girls, famous girls, white girls, black girls. Even though we were broken up most of the time, I felt disrespected by it. Every time I used to hear about him dating a new girl, I’d want to fight her. I started thinking crazy stuff about those girls. “
She messing up my relationship
”, I’d tell myself. “
I need to fight her. I need to show her whose man Dream is
.”
It was crazy. I was crazy. The whole situation made me crazy.
It was easier to be mad at the other girls than to be mad at Dream because when Dream came home, he almost always came to see me and Reginae. He almost always wanted to get back with me and I was so in love that I always took him back. I guess I kept hoping that one day, he’d get the player out of him and settle down and we’d be happy.
No matter how mad at him I was, or what craziness was going on between us, I never kept him from seeing his daughter. I think that’s a mistake some young girls and women make. They get mad at their baby’s father, and then try to keep him from seeing his kid. I never did that and I don’t think you should be doing it either. So many men out here never see their kids at all, and don’t take any interest in them whatsoever. If you’ve got a man who wants to be with his kids, then that’s a blessing for the child. You don’t want to stand in the way of that, no matter how much craziness is going on between the two of you.
I’ve also seen some girls treat their kids bad because of what they are going through with the child’s father, so bad that sometimes, it makes me want to cry I mean, that’s a
child
. You can’t take adult business out on them. Whatever’s going on between you and their father, it’s not the child’s fault. It’s just not. I’m not preaching. I’ve had moments when it was hard for me to keep what was going on with Dream out of my relationship with Reginae. I’ve also had moments when it wasn’t easy to be a good mother because I was so hurt inside that I just didn’t feel like I had much left to give. I remember once, when things between me and Dream were at their lowest, I went through a period where I didn’t want be bothered with nothing or nobody—not even my child. I snapped out of that real quick. I had to. I had to talk to myself and remind myself of how important it was for me to be a good mother to Reginae, and that she deserved that from me. She didn’t ask to be here, and whatever stuff I was going through wasn’t her fault.
Dream wasn’t always the best father. He has grown into the role, but he’s always tried to see Reginae and spend time with her. Spending time with her often brought us closer, because we both love her so much. That’s how Dream and I got back together so many times. There was a part of
both
of us that wanted to be a family for Reginae. He proposed to me again and bought me
another
ring. I was happy and I really thought this time we’d finally be together.
Again, it was not meant to be. We broke up
again
and he went on to other girls
again
I started another cycle of crying and hating on other girls and fighting
again
.By now, though, I was done with high school, but I didn’t have much going on my life. I spent my time worrying about who Dream was with, what he might be doing and why he wasn’t with me. Other than that, I had no plans, no dreams, and nothing special I wanted to do with my life.