Big news
10/21/15 by Caity Farrell
You ever find out big news that you think will break you?
Only to figure out it makes you?
And it's never in the way you thought you'd find out.
My big news hit me in a high school bathroom stall.
Like a train would hit a deer, coming at me so fast I didn't even have time to widen my eyes.
It was my junior year of high school,
16th year in life,
8th month into a relationship,
And boy was I 6 seconds away from throwing up.
They tell you, in life, you get the test before you get the lesson.
Well, I got the test.
at 16, in a bathroom stall.
I was ready for the joke, I was ready for the punchline to hit me so hard I'd pass out.
You ever find out big news that you think will break you?
Only to figure out it makes you?
I was 16 taking a pregnancy test that came up positive
When I thought the hurricane raging in my head couldn't make things more unclear, I blinked away raindrops and prepared myself.
But staring at these two little lines on plastic could have never made things any more visible.
And it didn't break me.
"Teen mom" sounds so derogatory, especially stamped next to it's shitty statistics.
"50% of teen moms drop out of high school"
"less that 2% earn a college degree before 30"
"More than half the women on welfare had their first child as a teenager"
Being a teen and being a mom shouldn't be looped together to create such a disgusting connotation
Being forced to feel ashamed when you should be feeling happy is bad enough but forcing me to feel ashamed because I am happy is worse
I'm 17 and having a child,
Not 17 and dropping out
Not 30 with no degree
Not 15 with a drug problem
Not 27 and gone too quickly
I'm judged because my actions can be proven by the bowling ball shape of my belly under my shirt
But someone who does the same actions and doesn't bear its evidence is looked at as more of a human being than the mother who just happened to have a child the same year she took the ACTs
I'm looked at as a disappointment,
She's looked at as a mistake.
Unwanted.
A piece of big news meant to break me.
But she didn't break me.
Her name is Aurora.
The northern lights.
Because at my darkest time, she became my light.
And at my lowest point, she taught me to look up.
You ever find out big news that you think will break you?
Only to figure out it makes you?
And it's never in the way you thought you'd find out.
My big news hit me in a high school bathroom stall.
Like a train would hit a deer, coming at me so fast I didn't even have time to widen my eyes.
It was my junior year of high school,
16th year in life,
8th month into a relationship,
And boy was I 6 seconds away from throwing up.
They tell you, in life, you get the test before you get the lesson.
Well, I got the test.
at 16, in a bathroom stall.
I was ready for the joke, I was ready for the punchline to hit me so hard I'd pass out.
You ever find out big news that you think will break you?
Only to figure out it makes you?
I was 16 taking a pregnancy test that came up positive
When I thought the hurricane raging in my head couldn't make things more unclear, I blinked away raindrops and prepared myself.
But staring at these two little lines on plastic could have never made things any more visible.
And it didn't break me.
"Teen mom" sounds so derogatory, especially stamped next to it's shitty statistics.
"50% of teen moms drop out of high school"
"less that 2% earn a college degree before 30"
"More than half the women on welfare had their first child as a teenager"
Being a teen and being a mom shouldn't be looped together to create such a disgusting connotation
Being forced to feel ashamed when you should be feeling happy is bad enough but forcing me to feel ashamed because I am happy is worse
I'm 17 and having a child,
Not 17 and dropping out
Not 30 with no degree
Not 15 with a drug problem
Not 27 and gone too quickly
I'm judged because my actions can be proven by the bowling ball shape of my belly under my shirt
But someone who does the same actions and doesn't bear its evidence is looked at as more of a human being than the mother who just happened to have a child the same year she took the ACTs
I'm looked at as a disappointment,
She's looked at as a mistake.
Unwanted.
A piece of big news meant to break me.
But she didn't break me.
Her name is Aurora.
The northern lights.
Because at my darkest time, she became my light.
And at my lowest point, she taught me to look up.
Art Work by B. Pace's Art Students
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Overhill's Student Art Work
Shoelaces
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