Just Change

1

"If you don't like what you see, just change it."

"You really should lose weight, you'd be happier."

"You're so fat."

"You're a very pretty girl, you're just too fat."

"Why don't you go to the gym every day?"

"If you want to lose weight, stop eating out so much."

I've heard these words and so much more practically all of my life. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me take you back to when I was twelve, when I first got a taste of how cruel the world is.

I was raised (I say that term very loosely) by a single mother. My twin brother and I were left alone to fend for ourselves countless times. As I was the oldest, I took on the responsibility as best as I could. Our "mother", was always out partying and we usually would go a couple days without seeing her. The earliest moments I remember was being raised by our grandparents. They did the best they could with raising a set of twins and having all of their grown children in their house. However, they were extremely racist. Our dad was black, and they didn't try to hide their resentment on having mixed grandchildren. Our grandfather even starting to call us "niglets", like it was something to joke about.

Our mother gave birth to our half brother when we were about five. Our dad came around as often as he could. He took up truck driving just so he could see us more often. I remember one time our dad came and our little brother started calling him "Daddy". I saw the confusion in our brothers eyes when our dad told him that he wasn't his dad.

When we lived with our grandparents, I had friends. There was a girl around the corner who was so nice to me. Her house was my getaway. But because I had a twin, he had to go everywhere I went. And one day, he was asking her brother if he wanted to play with him and the boy told him no. My brother has anger issues, so he took a metal pipe and hit the boy over the head. Needless to say, we weren't allowed over there anymore. I resented my brother for making me lose the one friend I had in the neighborhood.

I remember one time, I was riding the bus home from school. The bus driver would always take me to the front door (it was a small town) and my stop was the last one. I was standing behind the driver's seat, anxious to go home. And the bus driver reached behind his seat and grabbed my ass. I didn't know what was happening, I was seven. It was only beginning.