This morning I was reading a follow-up response to a blog Author Monica Jackson wrote about me, her response is as follows:
• “Angelia, I’ve followed you quietly for a long while now, and you’re as consistent as gold. I think you have to have gone through a little something to be able to lay it out real, the way you do.”
And all I can say is ‘Baby, you don’t know the half of it…’
By age eighteen, there isn’t much I hadn’t seen or been through…but you know what, even as young as I was, I always refused to be a victim of my circumstances…and I had some folk in my life who unequivocally loved me and was about my best interests…and do not doubt this for a minute, I was born an Amazon in a rain-forest full of Amazons…and was willing to learn from some of the mess going on around me without feeling I had to taste of the fruit…you know…if I see a drug addict, I don’t then need to try drugs to see how that will work for me…duh…if I see a woman with more children than she can possibly feed, born of men who told her they loved her, but rolled out…I could wrap my young mind around that without having to do that damn thing…come on…
For the very reasons mentioned above is why I chose to be the freelance mentor that I am, the reason I say freelance is because I am a free-spirit and I cannot be bogged down by rules and regulations when talking to young people…
I can remember when I was a counselor at Job Corps, I often wrote outside the lines and colored all over the page because those kids needed the real me…the one who had been through some things and come out on the other side and was willing to bring it as it was…when they first met me they would try to intimidate me, according to them I looked pampered and soft…ha ha ha, I had to tell them, I am, but you know what, do not let the smoothness fool you…I know how to carry myself but my back’s been to the wall a time or six and I know how to fight, I might not always win, but my opponents are sure to remember me…
So when I started writing and folk came after me for this reason or that, at first it was mostly telling me not to self-publish or how to tell my stories…I listened and took every bit of advice offered but they couldn’t move me or make me quit because I am and was a soldier and soldiers stay in the battle until the war is over…hooah…
That is why now when people are starting to ‘discover’ me, I smile and behave a graciously as I know how…no need to tell them I have been in the trenches a mighty long time…because any time is a good time, for real…
BE PEACE~
Angelia
www.angeliamenchan.com
