Finding Stability

Growing up, I had no stability. I moved from house to house a lot.

When I was six, I moved from Mexico to L.A. with my mom and her boyfriend. At school, I couldn't take anything in.I couldn't really observe it. I didn't know how to write my name because I couldn't focus in class. All I could think about was how I was abused by my family. The funny this was that my mom would hit me a lot, because she didn't like that I didn't learn nothing. But how could I?

She'd hit me, then wake me up in the middle of the night and ask, "Do you hate me?" Everyday, outside of school, I'd pray, please don't let her hit me.

I didn't tell anyone what my mom did to me. If my teacher asked me about the bruises, I'd say I fell off my bike. But she could tell that they were hanger marks, and she saw that I had scars from before. Every day she'd check me for new marks. Every day she'd ask me about them. Finally I couldn't take it anymore. She promised she wouldn't tell anyone. I believed her, so I told her. That day after school, someone says, they want you in the office. I went into the office and I saw my teacher with the police. They asked questions, I got scared. I said, I have to go. I was yelling, crying. And the police, they didn't just ask about the freshly done marks, they asked me about the burns, the scars on my back, the big stuff that would send my mom to jail. I looked up and saw my mom outside the window. I yelled to her, "Go home, get out of here!" They asked me if that is my mom. I said no. I said, "I have to go or I'll get in trouble." But it was too late. I knew that even if they let me go home, I'd still get hit because I made her wait so long.

But they didn't let me go home. They took me to the sheriff's office, and then another office after that. They gave me a teddy bear, then I went to a county foster home. My foster mom spoke Spanish and English. I did better in school. I was more outspoken -- I learned English that summer. They didn't hurt me there.

I didn't even know how old I was. I had a birthday. My foster mom told me I was seven. I stayed there until I turned eight.

I didn't know where my mom was all that time. But I knew that wherever she was, she was mad at me. I would have gotten attached to my foster mom, but I couldn't. It would have been a relief being in their house, but it wasn't because I knew that someday my mom would find me and hit me. I was always waiting for her to turn up.

Finally, the social worker asked if I wanted to see my mom. She'd gotten out of jail, but I didn't know that. I didn't know where she'd been. I said no, I didn't want to see her. But they let her call me. We had visitations with a social worker. I was eight. After a while they let me see her alone, and then she'd hit me. She told me to tell the judge I wanted to go home, she threatened me. I didn't know how to say no. I went back to live with her again.

When I turned eleven, I came home from school and saw she had company. I knew she was going to beat me as soon as he left, so I ran out the back door. She told my stepfather to go after me. He chased me down the street and grabbed me by my hair. People saw him, they said, "Are you her father?" He said "Yes." I said, "No." They said, "You shouldn't hit her." My mom's friend, she helped me. She knew there was a house nearby that had foster care. She took me there. But it was never easy. Nothing was easy growing up.

And when I was grown, I had nothing. I didn't know where to turn. So I went to the independent living coordinator at the program where I used to live. I told him I didn't have anywhere to go. He wouldn't give me any money, no home, no nothing, not even bus fare. All he gave me was a flyer about a job fair. "Go look for a job," he said.

I found a way to get to the job fair. There were lots of different jobs there, but I got interested in one because it had to do with animals. It was the Sea Lab, a small non-profit in Redondo Beach. The man who ran it, John Carlos, gave me a job, and when he found out I was homeless, he gave me extra money, so I could stay at the youth hostel. He didn't have to. He didn't know me. No one had ever done anything like that for me. He gave me a chance. It showed me that I could be seen as a person of worth.

Then I remembered a story I'd heard about a boy. His mom had kicked him out of her life, and he'd lost a girlfriend who he loved. So he killed himself. My mom abused me. I lost a boyfriend who was the only person who ever loved me. I could have done the same thing that boy did. But I didn't. That's when I realized that I wasn't weak. I was, in a sense, very strong.

I don't want anyone to go through anything that I did. I raised myself. I was lonesome. I didn't have anything except god and the love I keep in my heart. But I didn't give it to myself, I gave it to other people.

I didn't learn that I have to give love to myself until I was grown. Now I realize that if I don't love myself no one else will. Sometimes now when I see kids I feel overwhelmed, I get this feeling like when you see someone and you imagine what their life is like, and then you see your own life, in flashback, and you are hoping that this kid is not going through what you did.

If I'm gonna live and give something back to the world, I'm just gonna do it. I'm not going to be concentrating on finding love. I may never get that.

But I did find stability for the first time in my life. Stability doesn't come from someone loving you, or having a good place to live. Stability comes from inside. It's knowing what you want to do and how you're going to go about doing it. It's not about a home, it's not a place. No one can give it to you.

I have stability now. Because I gave it to myself.

Courtesy of Peace4Kids.

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