I wanted excitement and adventure and in my mind there was nothing exciting or adventurous about being a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. Besides, there were already plenty of doctors and teachers in my family and being a lawyer was just plain boring. I knew my family expected me to go to college and make something of myself, but I dreamed of being famous. And of course every teenage girl dreams of going to Hollywood or singing on a stage in front of a crowd. What girl didn't want to be Annette with a guy like Frankie at her side? And every girl longed to be as beautiful as Elizabeth Taylor or Natalie Wood. And adding to the excitement was the fact that no one in my large family would really approve of any of the things I dreamed of doing.
I was an only child, so I could almost always get away with whatever I wanted. Even if it was something they didn't approve of. Sure, they might protest and even threaten, but in the end they rarely, if ever, did anything. Don't get me wrong, I loved my parents dearly, but they were pretty old fashioned. They weren't too happy that I had convinced some of my cousins to teach me to play the guitar or that we were drinking and smoking regularly. They didn't like the music that we listened to or the concerts that we sometimes traveled several hours to attend. It wasn't that we did things to be rebellious or to upset our parents; we just knew what we liked.
My parents wanted me to go to college, but all I wanted to do was travel and see the world. I didn't want to stay in Brooklyn my whole life or marry the type of young man that they wanted me to marry…I wanted to make my own decisions. So the night after my high school graduation, I slipped down the stairs and out the back door of our little house. I met the boy I had been secretly seeing at the train station and together we headed for California, determined to be the next Frankie and Annette. It wasn't that my parents didn't like the boy; I just never allowed them to meet him. He wasn't the good, clean-cut boy that they wanted for me.
We made it to California, but didn't make it into the movies…we didn't try too hard and there were simply too many other people trying to do the same thing we wanted. After finding menial jobs, we were offered a place to stay by one of his new co-workers. Several people our age were renting a beach house together. Our new home was an exciting place…people coming and going at all hours, and music and parties nearly every night! Things to smoke and drink were always plentiful at these parties and there were several other new experiences to be had. I knew that my great-great-grandparents must be rolling over in their graves at the things I was doing, but I was having the time of my life.
Two years later, the party came to a crashing halt when I realized that I was pregnant…and I wasn't really sure who the father was. Something deep within me knew that everything that I was smoking and drinking as not good for the child within me, so I put that on hold. My housemates encouraged me to have it "taken care of", but I just couldn't bring myself to do that. Not after watching my parents try for years for another baby and listening to my mother sob month after month. I gave birth to a tiny boy that I named Cole, a name I had remembered hearing from somewhere in our family history. After my daughter Cassidy's birth a little more than a year later, I told the doctor to make sure that I wouldn't run into that problem again. Being pregnant meant that I couldn't do all the things that I enjoyed.
I had informed my parents of the births of both of their grandchildren and a few weeks after Cassidy's birth I received a package from my mother. It was that old silver hairbrush and mirror set that Mama had been hanging on to as long as I could remember. As I had no use for the antiques, they got tossed into my closet to be forgotten for another couple of years. When Cass and Cole were almost school aged, someone from the state came and tried to take them away from me. I was told that I had three days to find a relative to take them or the state would come get my children. I'm not sure I slept much that night and the next morning I did the only thing I could think of…I called my daddy and begged him to come get my children. He came out that very day to get them. We both knew it was for the best for them…I was in no shape to be a good parent and my mother would finally have more children to raise. As I was packing up their meager belongings I stumbled across the old vanity set that Mama had sent when Cass was born. The mirror had gotten cracked when I threw it in the closet after I had gotten it, but I knew that Mama would forgive me for that since I was doing the best thing I could for my children in sending them to Brooklyn to live with her. Maybe one day I'll get myself straight and return home for my kids.