Long Blue Line: Based on a True Story by E. McNew Read Free Book Online Page B

great daycare along with parenting classes for the remainder of the day to help you get ahead. Can I meet you in person?” she pleaded. Mrs. Snow genuinely sounded thrilled about this program.
    It also seemed as if she might have had several teen parents turn the program down based on the hopeful, yet uncertain, tone that I sensed. I did not know much about the program, but I knew that it was in the building down the street from the football field and away from the main campus. I always thought that the kids who went there were the troubled drug addicts. “Um…sure, I guess I’m willing to come take a look at the place,” I unenthusiastically said. I told her that I could come in on the following Monday to give it a test run. I had no clue what I was getting myself into, but deep down I really needed the extra support, and I was hoping that I could find it there.
    Once the shock of my decision started to fade, my mother slowly got back to normal with our relationship, and the old conversations that we usually shared seemed to level out. When this happened, it was like a breath of fresh air. It had made me sad and stressed to have negative vibes and unspoken anger consuming our home, and it honestly had put my life and happiness on hold.
    When I explained to my mother the conversation I had with Mrs. Snow, she seemed happy about the whole idea and agreed that it would be best to give the Young Parents Program a try. As far as becoming a teen parent was concerned, I needed all of the advice and education that I could get. When I was planning this entire pregnancy, my vision of actually being pregnant was way off from what reality proved to be.
    I did not see myself as a teen mom. I saw myself as an adult with her first baby on the way in a society that had no objections to it. I now understood that I would face criticism and the disapproving turning of heads, probably on a daily basis. I came to the realization that if this was going to work in my favor in any way at all, I was going to have to become the best teen mom that I could possibly be. I was going to need to rise above and beat the statistics. The first step that needed to be taken was to graduate high school.
    I was painfully tired on the morning of my first day. I remember feeling so overwhelmed from just moving to get out of bed.
    From the time that I was a baby, I have always hated mornings. Any small disturbance quickly set me off like a Mentos dropping into a Pepsi - fast, intense, and sizzling over the edge. I recall getting ready for kindergarten on a distant October morning.
    Talk about a terrible morning. I was only five, and all I knew was that I had to hurry up and put my socks and shoes on. We didn’t want to be late for the bus. In a hurry, I found my sneakers tangled up on the brown carpet in my bedroom, grabbed a pair of socks and carried my stuff to the bathroom where I plopped down on the floor. I had recently learned to tie my own shoes, so I wanted to make sure I had no interruptions as I was focusing on this delicate process. I never actually made it to the shoe part. THOSE SOCKS! They were plain white socks; I thought I would have no grief with them. My heart sank the second my tiny little piggys attempted to snuggle to the end of these particular socks. “THESE ARE THE WRONG ONES!” I was hysterically trying to explain to my mother that the seams at the end of my toes felt funny. She was dumbfounded. For the life of her, she could not comprehend why an almost microscopic seam would bring me to such hysterics. I later learned that I sat on that bathroom floor for an hour twisting the socks around my feet, over and over again, because I could not get it right. One way or another those obnoxious seams would, very rudely, bombard the cracks of my toes. My mother, at that point, was at a loss. We missed the bus, we were late for school, and I was at the maximum meltdown point that any five-year-old could possibly be.
    Finally, as if the good