Do not judge

Before you start to judge me, step into my shoes and walk the life I am living and if you get as far as I am, just maybe you will see how strong I am.

You don’t know my story, or where I come from, or the moments of my life that will keep haunting me forever; you don’t know about it.

I lost my mom when I was barely twelve; I was left to take care of my younger ones.

I became the mother they missed so much and the father that was never there.

Life stole my childhood from me, I never enjoyed it; I was forced to embrace adulthood at the point I didn’t know what step to take.

I started hawking to make ends meet, dropped out of school, and started training my younger ones.

It went on for five years until I was able to afford a shop and started a little grocery shop. During those moments of my life, I stopped taking care of my needs, my siblings always came first.

I stopped buying clothes nor trying to look good; I invested it all in them. Life already robbed me of my childhood; I didn’t want the same for my siblings.

People always laughed at my looks, my mates could point and talk, calling me the ugly looking girl, the outdated girl that wears granny clothes, they called me an illiterate, they said I didn’t want to go to school because I was a harlot and used my shop as a point of contact; they said all manner of things.

Many of them didn’t know about the battles I fight or what I am going through, but they all judge me.