Chapter 23

When do we become who we are?  Not necessarily what we are supposed to be, but who, at our core, we are.  This is a question I often think about and it came to me again today.  Are we born a certain way with our personality intact or do we allow external factors to take control and shape who we become.  I know logically it is a little of both but I still fight the idea that I was nurtured into who I am.  I believe I was born with a bit of fight in me.  I fought to become who I am today.  I didn’t always choose the right fights or the right people to fight with, but it was a fight ~ a struggle.  It was at this time of my life, living with John and Mary, that I began to show a glimmer of who I am today.  John and Mary were not good parents ~ this I already had experience with and knew how to work the system.  When I was living with my mother, I was pretty much allowed to do what I wanted.  I could go to a friends’ house any time and stay as late as I wanted.  I would often be walking home in the dark when most kids my age were already tucked in.  I was never asked if I had homework.  If I needed something for school, I had to take care of it.  I would forge her signature frequently.  At my grandmother’s, again, I could do what I wanted.  I would run all over town with my childhood friends, Nick and Lori, all day long.  I wouldn’t have to check in.  I would come home when the streetlights came on, only because that was when Nick and Lori had to be home.  Weren’t the 70’s great?  But having this type of freedom at age 13 was more difficult.  Trouble was bigger at 13.  13-year-old trouble could be life-threatening.  My foster sister, Maria, flirted with this trouble at every turn.  She was one year older than me, but we attended the same school, Williams Junior High in Davenport, Iowa.  Maria and I would spend a lot of time together in the year we were sisters.  We would go to parties together.  We would come home at all hours of the night together.  We would not do our homework ~ together.  But this is where my rebellion ended ~ staying out late and failing 8^th grade algebra.  Bad, I know, but salvageable.  Maria would drink alcohol at these parties.  Maria would go off with some boy and come back with tales of his “abilities” at these parties.  Sometimes, Maria would bring these boys home and use the bed I would later have to sleep in.  I decided Maria was not what I wanted to be.  I gave myself some rules.  No liquor and no “activities” with boys.  I’ve read that the undeveloped teenage brain cannot fully comprehend the idea of consequence.  This part of my brain must have developed faster than other teenagers because I had a very clear understanding of what could happen if I participated in these behaviors.  Maybe it was the words of the group counselor from 2 years ago that kept me from trouble.  Or maybe it was something else, deep inside me, moving me closer to who I would eventually become.