True You by Janet Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

privileged to be there. With the exception of Brooke Shields, what other young kid could gain entrance? It was a fascinating glimpse into the world of extreme celebrity glamour.
    Mike could have excluded me from such experiences. But in his mind—and in mine—such experiences were fun. It was plain fun to see the outlandishness of one of the wildest clubs ever to host the stars.
    To be included was to be loved.
    I cherish such experiences. Despite whatever self-image issues I had—feeling I was fat, or a poor student, or inferior to my siblings—the presence of my family was and remains a comfort. Families can be challenging, and many are deeply dysfunctional.But despite that dysfunction, a family can provide a loving energy that’s hard, if not impossible, to duplicate.
    Long ago a friend told me this story that I’ll never forget. It’s testimony to the strength of family, even when that family comprises just two people.
    “When I was a little girl,” she said, “I lived alone with my father. My mom had died in childbirth and all four of his grandparents lived far away. It was just Daddy and me. Daddy had problems. He was a drinker, and he couldn’t hold down a job. We were always moving the day before the rent was due. I changed elementary school five or six times. Usually I was the one who had to wake up Daddy so he could take me to school. I was very young—five or six—when I started making him breakfast. I didn’t know the word for it then, but I do now: he was depressed. It was hard for him to get out of bed and get going. In the evenings, we ate frozen dinners or takeout from McDonald’s. When I got older, Daddy wasn’t really capable of helping me with my homework.
    “Once in a while he’d have a lady friend help me. One of his girlfriends was a bookkeeper and good at math. Another worked at the library and helped me with my reading. But Daddy wasn’t good at keeping these relationships. He’d quickly move from one lady to another. I often heard him fighting with them over the phone or in person. He had all sorts of problems that I could talk about for days, or years, or even the rest of my life.
    “But here’s what I remember most, and here’s what I cling tomost—the fact that my father was there. Every night when I went to sleep, he was there. Every morning when I awoke, he was there. I know that he fed me the wrong foods and I know that he never had the right stuff to fight the demons that kept him down. But the simple fact that he stuck around—day in and day out—told me the one thing I needed to know. That he cared. And because he cared, I was able to feel that I was worth caring for.”
     
    Being in the real world
taught me that when it
comes to relationships,
it is all about sincerity,
not class, or race, or
economic status.
 

    With my childhood friend La Nette. In high school, feeling fat even though I was so thin.

All Right
    A t the end of my stint on
Good Times
, I had to enroll in a new school. I no longer needed to be tutored privately. I had to go to a real school with real kids and deal with my real issues. It was one of the biggest changes in my young life up to this point. I was nervous and not happy. I was struggling with how I lookedand whether I would fit in with the new kids. I would be out of my comfort zone.
    New school, new kids, and new teachers. I would be without Mrs. Fine, the wonderful woman who had privately tutored me and my brothers. I couldn’t imagine any teachers would be as nice or patient as her. She came with us on the road. She was there when I did
Good Times.
Mrs. Fine was an angel, my second mother. And she always told me, Randy, and Mike that we were her children from another lifetime.
    When I wasn’t being tutored, I had had Mrs. Womack—my fourth-grade teacher and the only black teacher I ever had. She was a sweet and reassuring presence in the classroom. Now she wouldn’t be there to watch over me, to reassure me.
    If I could have, at age