Lena
It's been three years since I've lived in New York and I'm so nervous to finally be returning. I stayed with my grandmother in Brooklyn after my brother was incarcerated when I was 14 years old and didn't leave until I went off to college at 18.
I attend Howard University in D.C, I just got done with my third year.
For some reason, I never thought to come back to New York to visit for summer or even the Holidays. I'd always go back home to Philly to see my family but I never stopped to consider my friends and my adopted family in New York.
Every time my Granny would go to Philly for the Holidays, she'd beg me to come visit but I just never did.
The friends that I had all had different struggles. Some lived in the projects and others lived on the streets so I felt like they'd be mad at me for being the only one who made it out the hood.
I was ashamed of the opportunities that I was blessed with even though I shouldn't have been. That and the fact that I gained the freshman 15, sophomore 20 and Junior 30. I was slim thick and I was afraid of coming back thick, fat.
They were very supportive friends though and they even made my stay at New York way more fun than what I intended. They helped me to love myself and care about my future cause after my brother left, a piece of me was taken with him and I lost sight of the goal.
Rashad got 5 years for possession of a firearm and two counts of grand theft auto.
It had me upset because he didn't know his day one homie had him rolling in a stolen car. Real friends don't do that. And the gun wasn't Rashad's either, it belonged to the friend but when they were taken to the precinct, Rashad kept his mouth shut but obviously the friend didn't and that's what got my brother 5 years in prison. He was on his way to college the following fall and he never got the chance to go.
My whole word stopped and I just didn't care about anything anymore.
Rashad and I were together so much that you would've thought that we were stuck at the hip.
Of course My Mom and My Dad raised us right but Rashad just had a way of keeping me on track. He was like a third parent that I didn't know I needed but I was thankful for.
He walked me to school because my parents went to work early and I hated taking the bus, he'd reward me for the littlest things because he was trying to promote positivity in my life.
When I'd get in trouble at school and have to call my parents, I'd call him and he'd come pick me up and we'd talk about whatever happened and then we'd get past it. He never told my secrets and I never told his.
He was the realest one on my team and when I lost my Ace, I went from being this girl that only cared about her grades, family and friends to this girl that ditched school, was always in a boys face and became disrespectful to her parents.
And my parents did what any parent would do, they threatened to whoop me and sometimes they actually did but the problem was that whooping's didn't bring me to my knees like they used to when I was younger.
When I'd get whooped, it just made me rebel even more. I'm retrospect I did that because nobody took the time to ask me why I was acting the way that I was acting.
My Momma didn't tolerate no mess, she's like most black Momma's. But my dad would always tell her to calm down and let me do whatever I wanted to do because I was going to have to learn the hard way.
And for awhile I had my way until my parents started to threaten to tell Rashad about my behavior.
It's already mentally and physically hard to survive behind bars but to have added stress on his plate because of me wasn't going to happen, not on my watch.
