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

it now for the first time, I’m ashamed and hating myself for my choices. I’m angry that my life brought me to this place. I’m angry that my parents couldn’t control me better. I’m angry that I have already missed opportunities in my life. Although my readin’ thing makes a good story, the real story is how I have managed to fool the world into thinking that I could read. The real story is how Hollywood and show business wouldn’t want the world to know that illiteracy is a real thing that affects a lot of young people, like me. It is one of those ugly things that no one wants to talk about, yet keeping a secret just makes a new generation of illiterates. This why so many young kids don’t have jobs—they can’t read a job application. They are not lazy and ghetto, which is what everyone says about us. Is that what they are saying about me? Or are they not saying that because I’m a singer? Is the public image more important than what is really goin’ on with me? Instead of getting a free car, what I could have used was a tutor—but that would have meant that choosing me as the American Idol was their mistake.

I don’t want anyone to lose faith in me, but I decided to be honest so that all of the other young people like me will know in advance what droppin’ out of school really turns into. My life looks like a fairy tale in many ways, but you have to remember that life is not a fairy tale. I’m the American Idol, which seems like a fairy tale, but I can’t even read a fairy tale to my four-year-old daughter.

While I’m tellin’ the truth and admittin’ things, I should tell you that I don’t even have a driver’s license. J.B. was trying to help me get one, but the real work of learning how to drive and knowing the rules of driving, I had to do for myself. I didn’t even know where to start. When I won the car onIdol, they handed me the keys as soon as I stepped off the stage. I was filled with mixed emotions of joy, pride, and the fear of someone finding out that I couldn’t drive. I was afraid that they would take the car away. I was also filled with dread because holding those keys in my hand meant that it was really time for me to learn to read in order to get the driver’s license and to be able to live this new life that was right before me, that I was holding in my hand. I knew right then that I would have learn to read before I could really enjoy this blessing of having my own car.

In the midst of all of the excitement and rush of being the American Idol (like having to complete an album right away), I still have not had the time to learn all that I need to learn in order to get my driver’s license. I gave the Ford Focus to my mother, who had never had her own car. I bought myself another car, which I let everyone else in my family drive for me. If you can imagine that—I didn’t even get to test-drive my own car, because I didn’t have a license. My cousin, Angelica (we call her “Boo Boo” because her mother was called “Boo” and so she came to be known as “Boo Boo”), test-drove the car, with me in the passenger’s seat. I asked her, “Does it ride well?” Boo Boo said, “It’s a smooth ride.” I said to the salesperson who was in the backseat, “I’ll take it.” If I had stayed in school I would be test-drivin’ my own car. I would be arguin’ with the press when they misquote me. I would have been able to say somethin’ “smart” to Simon Cowell when he said somethin’ “smart” to me. I am missin’ out on that stuff.

On that day when I actually did try to get my driver’s license, the man looked at the mostly blank written test when I turned it in, and said, “Ma’am, go home andstudy. ” He didn’t know that I had never learned how to study.

My fourth mistake was turning my back on God. When I needed God most, I completely gave up on Him. I was going through so many things and I felt like He wasn’t listening anymore. It wasn’t God’s fault. He was putting me through these trials and I was doing these things to myself. God could see that I needed to be woken up and brought back to Him. And this is the positive thing about making mistakes. If you do believe that God has a plan for you, while you are going through hard times, you can always know that His plan includes you learning the things that youneed to learn. Your pain is just God’s reminders and they getlouder and louder.

God has successfully brought me back to Him and to my senses. But now, I worry that by tellin’ it all to the world, people might think badly of my parents. My parents did the best they could with what they had to work with. They taught us manners and the difference between right and wrong and to give our lives to God. Being raised in High Point was just a bad startin’ point, and so what happened happens to most families like ours: too many mouths to feed, too many children havin’ children, not enough money to feed them all, and a million dreams that never get off of Interstate 85.

Some people would say that it’s a mistake to tell my story like I am. I can just hear the ladies from the church sayin’, “I can’t believe that girl put her business out in the street shamin’ her family like that.” I can just hear them! But