The Importance Of Love In My Family

As the emotional person that I am, I have so much love to offer in every relationship I enter. One of the strongest bonds that I have is with my family. They have always been so supportive of me and for that, I love them. My family hit a rough spot when my parents got a divorce in 2009. It was a very challenging time for all of us. Although this is true, it only brought us closer together after we had come to terms with the situation. My family and I have grown together and through the ups and downs, we are closer than anything. I have so many internal battles in my mind it is almost unbelievable. As I got older I learned more and more about the world and the harsh reality that comes along with it. Earlier in my life I majorly lacked confidence …show more content…
A famous quote by Elizabeth Gilbert is “Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotion.” I find so much truth in this due to the fact that I am a very impulsive person who makes most of my decisions on how I am feeling in that particular moment. There are so many emotions that run around in my head, one of the main one’s being love. Love is not something that you can fake and still find genuine happiness. The biggest source of love in my life is my family. There are technically nine of us in my family. My parents Charlie (68) and Coretta (46), my sisters Markita (30) and Channe’l (23), my brother in law Ahmad (who is married to Markita and 29 years old), the kids of Markita and Ahmad also known as my two nephews Shamar (5) and Elijaah (4 months), a niece Ariyah (3), and lastly in the family is me, Coretta Lorielle Simmons (15). There is not a moment where the Simmons/Goss/Walters family is not laughing or enjoying themselves when together. There is nothing that can compare to the love and dedication I have to these people. Without them there is no telling where I would be right now or the person I could have become if they had been anyone else. Now here comes the tragic part. When I was the young age of nine my parents …show more content…
After asking people what their first impressions of me were the results varied. From “I honestly thought you would only like rap music and you looked like you like to fight!” to “You seemed nice but I thought you talked really black.” I truly think I’ve heard everything you could possibly say to offend a dark skin female or any black person for that matter. I mean honestly, you cannot, I repeat cannot talk like a race. My dialect may be a little more southern and I may speak in Ebonics but that surely does not determine who I am on the inside. Racism is something that no person of color can avoid. Every day I have assumptions made about simply because of the color of my skin and the texture of my hair. I simply cannot be anything other than black and there is no changing that. After learning that the European beauty standards are not and will never be mine, I learned embracing who I am is better than trying to change that. Growing up, on Disney and Nickelodeon all the strong main characters on shows were white with blond hair and blue eyes and the only time I would see someone who looked like me, they were portrayed as the “wacky sassy black friend.” I felt like that was who I had to be which just was not true. Learning to embrace who I did not come easy and I still struggle with it. My appearance is important to me because I feel like I have to prove that I am not my stereotype. I have to go that extra