GERONIMO!!!

I was scared to turn 24, I felt as if I was running out of time to establish myself in my field; I felt as if I needed to snatch up one of those salaries and settle, but now I see that’s the wrong mentality to have in this century. Growing up in the 90’s we were fed a certain dream…“If you go to college you’ll get a degree, get a job, and then eventually you’ll get a pension or social security.” With the shift in the economy we can no longer glorify this concept and I refuse to feed it to my little sister, and cousins. Yes, go to school and get your degree, but when you come out know that entrepreneurship is where it’s at. If you don’t believe me do your research, there are so many professionals taking low paying jobs just to have a job, which means there isn’t much opportunity for the recent grads or young professionals. Most recent grads are sitting around in this claustrophobic limbo area waiting on someone to stop backsliding and take the backseat. Some of us choose to just stay in school or get a job, that’s not really where we want to work but it pays the bills; which is fine because you have to do what you have to do, but what’s the point? Is there chance that you can move up and get where you want to go? Will there even be social security for you after you break your back for 30-40 years? Maybe I’m impatient…maybe I just want too much, but I truly believe that life must be lived with purpose. Not quite sure if I want to join the zombie take over downtown; mundane, autopilot blah blah blah. If everything we do today is for our future, how good is it looking if we’re working for a company we can’t give to our children?

As my birthday is around the corner and 25 patiently waits for me to arrive, I no longer feel the need to search for a crutch just so I can pay my student loans. Depending on the company or project I’m working on depends on my title, with “independent” preceding it. I’m happy doing something that I’m passionate about and having enough flexibility to enjoy life, and refrain from being in autopilot. I don’t need the stability of a major company to pursue my dreams, although it maybe a bit harder to attain because my success depends my efforts, and not the power of a another’s brand; but I’m ecstatic knowing that I’m working towards having my own one day! I’m blessed to be able to have phenomenal women in my life that has shown me this prosperous path through their own efforts; LaTasha Kenley, Larvetta Loftin, Denitria Lewis, and my very own mother are all entrepreneurs who I get to work with and learn from everyday. I look up to these women; they all understand the importance of adapting because times are a changing and oh does it make me smile J. If there is one thing that I have learned from all of them, it is that you can’t be afraid to open your arms wide, take that leap, and scream GERONIMO!!

Let go of the phrase “In My Day,” you will be stuck in that “Day;” as the “Day” is now the present and is no longer yours, but my generations “Day”! 

Check out Larvetta Loftin on Facebook:

http://facebook.com/l3eventeurs

LaTasha Kenley:

https://www.facebook.com/KCMDA

Denitria Lewis: 

http://facebook.com/dnyree

Everything I'm Not Made Me Everything I Am

“I believe this is the first time in a long time I’ve ever admitted or thought about the realness of my childhood”

Have you judged me today? If so, how well can you say that you know me enough to even make a claim against me? I feel sometimes people are so quick to judge others but have no idea what shaped each individual into what they are today. I want to tell my readers all about me, but I can’t without telling you who my family is. Follow closely because I’m going to post about each individual in my immediate family, and show you how they’ve shaped me into Victoria Whitsett. So do you know my father, Victor Sanders? Many may not know too much about my childhood; not even my closest friends and I don’t think anyone other than family knows that my father was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was younger. A schizophrenic cannot tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, think logically, have normal emotional responses, and behave normally in social situations. My earliest memories of my dad was a loving father, playing with me with my dolls and having tea parties, but also being abusive to my mother; blackening her eyes, and chasing her down the street.

“This maybe a little too raw but you can’t truly know me without knowing my experiences.”

This is what I saw as a child though and seeing this changed my outlook on relationships. To this day I close my eyes on the bad scenes in movies like “The Color Purple”, “What’s Love Got to Do With it?”, and “Jason’s Lyric”. I guess I close my eyes because that’s what I did when I was younger, and if you can’t see it then it didn’t happen right? My mom wasn’t fool though; she only stayed because she literally didn’t have any place to go with four kids. We finally moved up north when I was 6, I guess my mom felt if we moved further it would be harder for him to get to her. He always found us though, I remember coming home late one night, mom turning on the kitchen light and my dad sitting at our table, just waiting. So we moved again! My mama let us choose who we wanted to live with, my sisters and I chose mama, and my brother chose my dad. When we moved this time though we didn’t tell anyone. By now I was growing into a teenager and growing tired of man I saw my father to be. I stopped visiting him and kept our relationship to just a phone call. But have you ever had a conversation with a schizophrenic? I would literally sit and watch hours of TV while I held the phone to my ear and ignored his antics. It got to a point when my twin sister and I would see his number on the caller ID we would ignore it, or if someone accidentally answered we would act like we were sleep. Eventually I forgot about him and it didn’t bother me that I didn’t have a father; my mama pretty much had it covered. I would force myself to go visit on some holidays but wouldn’t stay long because we were strangers. By time I got to college my twin and I used to joke about my dad and his disorder. Anyone who talked or acted irrational was in Victor Sander Land. Victor Sander Land is place you never want to go because you may never come back.

When you read this don’t feel sorry for me because God makes no mistakes, and he gives you the parents you have for a reason. I wouldn’t exchange my father for anyone; he made me, and I am who I am because of him; and I see nothing wrong with me. Although my parent’s didn’t know they were working together raising me, they were and they did it well. God gave me Loretta Whitsett as a mother…the hustler by all means; survival is my mother’s strong suit. She knows how to stay warm in the winter time on a park bench…don’t think she hasn’t done it before either. Her goal was to make sure she did everything she could do for her kids. If you been to my house then you know her favorite song is “Everyday I’m hustling…because “I hustle for my kids,” she says. She made sure we had everything we needed. The only thing my mother couldn’t give me was college tuition, but that’s what I have father for right; to be there when my mother couldn’t. God gave me a father with a disability, which meant…financial aid! I wouldn’t have been able to afford college if I didn’t have the father I have. I accepted my father back in my life a few days before my college graduation. My graduation was on Sunday and he showed up to my apartment 5am on Thursday. He didn’t see me graduate but he saw me in my gown and show me how to put my tassel on, and then he went back home. And I’m ok with that because I know my father can’t help it, and plus my mom was on her way down that night, and I didn’t know how to juggle them both. I now go out to breakfast with my father once a month and I’m fine with who he is and what our relationship is, because he loves me and what more can you ask for? This post was a hard one, it took me forever to write it because I forgot about majority of these things, and until I wrote them down I had no idea I felt this way. It was even harder for me to hit that post button, because I wasn’t sure if I should put myself out there. Now you know a portion of me but don’t be so quick to judge me just yet because there’s more to go.

A Journey Through Deja Vu

Who am I when I can only change my address?

As I walked through the halls I felt like I was a freshman in high school again. Being mistaken for a student by the security guards and teachers didn’t make my time warp less of a reality. Why did they hire me; what could I do about the problem in schools on the south side of Chicago? How could I reach these students when I grew up two expressways away? I was at this high school to aid in running The Alternative to Suspension Program (ASP). It was setup to reduce suspension rates, each student that created an infraction was sent to my classroom for half the days they would have gotten for being suspended. For instance, if they should have gotten 10 days they spent 5 with me, or 5 days they spent 3 with me. In my class we worked on behavior modification, conflict resolution, and most importantly respect. In order to complete the program a student had to follow all of the rules and submit an exiting essay; if these things weren’t done then the student was awarded their full suspension. I had students that saw fighting as a hobby, that saw a “D” as a good grade because it was a passing grade, and saw that if they weren’t hardcore then they were getting ran over. Each time a new student walked through my door I made sure I established the rules to set that “I’m not going” tone, but after that was done it was all about getting to know who I had to be with for the next few days so I could know how to handle each situation. I listened to their stories without bias and respected them as long as I received it too, I tried to show them that “keeping it real” all the time can go wrong, and most importantly I tried to teach them that life is not fair, so don’t expect the best, that’s something you have to work for. One day these twin boys was sitting in my classroom for keeping it too real apparently; they had a temper problem and as I got to know them the only thing that ran through my mind was “Déjà vu”! We had more in common than I could imagine and I soon started to see how much I had in common with my other students. All I did was listen to each student and gave each one advice on how I would have handled the situation, but in the same breath not taking away from the choice they already made. That’s all I did, all I did was listen, and soon those students that cursed their teachers for telling them to pull out a pencil during the test was asking their friends not to curse in front of Ms. Victoria because it was disrespectful; go figure! Students I didn’t know were walking up to me in the hall asking me if I could be their mentor, but then get upset when I told them I only helped the suspended students. After I read each essay I realized these students listened to me and it meant so much, because who am I? Some people talk all day but you will never remember a word that they’ve said, but these students repeated all of my lessons in their papers. When I read them it made my alarm clock going off at 5am, my $74 paid each month to a gym I wasn’t attending, and telling my friends I couldn’t hang out all worth it. I reached them, but who am I? What can I do about the major problem in the schools on the south side of Chicago, especially when I drive away from it every day to live like a fat rat among the diverse? I felt like mosquitoes fighting a windstorm, because as soon as they walk out of my classroom reality kicked back in and the walls came back up. What could I do about the problem on the south side of Chicago when the system is structured to keep things the way they are? Who am I when I could have easily been one of these students if I had a different address?