Life Is Not a Fairy Tale by Fantasia (books for students to read .TXT) 📗

to her. I cried because I couldn’t read the large words on the colorful pages of the child’s book. I opened the page and recognized most of the words, but didn’t know how to pronounce them. I didn’t want to further humiliate myself in front of Zion. She had seen me in the worst moments, and it isn’t good for a little girl to see her mother that low.

At that moment I realized that when I was trying to be cool by dropping out of school, I was at home looking stupid, not being able to read and not being able to count. I cried because the truth was that I couldn’t even get a job because I was afraid that I would count somebody’s money wrong. I cried because I was dumb. Plain out dumb.

I cried and knew that my tears meant that change was coming. It was time. I didn’t want my daughter to come to me and ask me what I asked my mother only a few years before: “Mama, where is your diploma?” Just like my mother had to say to me, I didn’t want to say to Zion, “I don’t have one.”

So I started attending a program to get my GED. I also returned to church. I was singing as much as I could and when I wasn’t singing I was reading everything I could. I was reading street signs, signs in stores and markets, labels on groceries—I was reading everything. My relationship with J.B. continued. He was generous, loving, and kind—but still not what I really needed. God is what I needed.

As I started to listen to God, I started to become further away from J.B. It wasn’t because I didn’t care about him, but God’s voice made me start to care about myself. I realized every day that J.B. was the person who truly had it all, and although he was givin’ me a lot, I still had nothin’ and would never have anything until I got up and got somethin’ for myself. That is always the hardest thing when you realize something about yourself, but you have no idea how to make a change. What I realized was even though I didn’t know what I was going to do, just tryin’ anything would be better than sittin’ scared and not movin’ at all. I had a child now and needed to think about her and not think so much about myself. How would I sound tellin’ Zion that I had nothin’, was doin’ nothin’, and that my “man” was our only source of anything? Once I took the focus off me and my fear, I started thinking about this child that was here because of me and needed me to do more than just wait for someone else to take care of us. When you are in a bad spot in your life, it is easy to get so wrapped up in your situation that you can’t even see your way out of it. When you stop thinkin’ about yourself and think about the people around you, you will start to see the light of what you are doing and what you are not doing, just like I did.

MY MOMENT OF

FAITH:WHAT I LEARNED

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

ROMANS12:2

Your body is a special thing. It is a special part of you and you should never just give it away—no matter what the other girls are doing. You are a child of God and being too free with this gift of your body and your life doesn’t make God happy. He will bless you when you bless yourself with self-respect.

3.Learn

 from Your

    Mistakes

Alot of girlsI know say this, but I sure do wish I had listened to my mama. My poor mama spent so many hours trying to tell me the important things about life, and although they were all true, for some reason I thought that I needed to find out those things for myself. I remember saying to her, “I know, Mama.I know. ” When I really didn’t know anything but just thought that she was trying to scare me by making life sound harder than it is. She wasn’t.Life is hard.

I’ve already told you about some of the mistakes I’ve made in my life. Some mistakes have already been pulled apart by all kinds of people who don’t really know me and never will. Other mistakes I’m now telling about for the first time. I’m sure that people will talk all about those, too. I’m used to being talked about though, because through all of my changes I was the talk of the town around High Point. What’s kind of funny is that I would say that the biggest mistakes that I have made are not the ones that you have read about, but they are the ones that almost cost me the opportunity to be the American Idol.

Even though much of my life has changed for the better, I continue to live with the consequences of my mistakes every day. One thing that the public will never know is how itfeels to have done the things that I have done, knowing the difference between right and wrong and choosing wrong even though I now know I could have done a lot better.

The newspapers always go for the obvious: Fantasia had a baby; Fantasia grew up poor; Fantasia didn’t finish high school. You already know those things, and they are easy to judge and criticize because the people who have criticized me are nowhere near as harsh on me as I am on myself. If they think some of those things are terrible, imagine living it. I figure that I should talk about it openly and honestly and hope and pray that somebody who came from a place