IT'S ALL MY MOTHER'S FAULT. Beginning to end, there she was, butting in where she didn't belong.
SHE put on a good show of caring about me. That's the way she is, causing me trouble and then acting like it isn't her fault.
NONE of this would have happened if she just minded her own business and stayed out of mine.
IT seems like I spent my whole life trying to make Mom understand that I am the boss of me.
IF I could go back and live it all again, I wouldn't have talked to her. That was my first mistake. She didn't have the right to be asking me questions and I didn't have to answer her. I was over twenty-one. Mom didn't have any more control over me.
ALL my life, there was Mom, telling me what to do. She thinks she knows everything.
MY first memory is the first day I went to kindergarten. I hated the dress Mom made me wear. I didn't want to wear a dress. I had a new pair of jean shorts I wanted to wear. They had a matching vest and an orange short-sleeved shirt to make a set. That's what I wanted to wear on my first day of school.
I WAS the one going to school. It was my first day, not Mom's. So shouldn't it be me deciding what I was going to wear?
THE first day of kindergarten is the day you find out who you're going to spend the rest of your life with. All summer long I'd looked forward to that first day of school. Then Mom went and ruined it.
I FELT stupid in that dress. Maybe in the olden days girls wore dresses to school, but not in my time.
HERE'S how it all happened. I got up in the morning and had some cereal and then Mom said it was time for me to get ready for school.
"Put on the new pink dress I bought you", Mom ordered.
WHO is she to tell me what to wear to school? I was the one going to school, not her. I was the one wearing the clothes, not her.
I WAS almost the only girl in a dress that day. Everybody else got to wear whatever they wanted. Their mothers didn't boss them around.
THAT day I hated my mother. She didn't care about me. What I wanted didn't matter. She only cared about making me do what she wanted me to do.
IT seems like my whole life my mother just wouldn't leave me alone.
SHE always had to have her own way.
AND I always felt like I had to live down that pink dress. I hated my mother and I hated that pink dress.
THINK about it. This bunch of five-year-olds are all getting together for the first time, and they're going to be together all through school, and there I am sticking out like a sore thumb.
DRESSES are for dressing up. Some girls wear dresses to church on Sundays. Some girls wear dresses on Christmas or special times like that. Otherwise, dresses are for grown-up girls going out to clubs and stuff like that.
I DON'T know what my mother was like before I was five. I really don't remember anything from when I was real little. I can guess, though.
I'VE seen Mom with my daughter. She treats her like she's a brainless puppet. Mom pulls the strings.
"Do patty cake", Mom demands. "Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man."
SHE holds Cinnamon's hands and claps them together.
"Roll them and roll them as fast as you can."
SHE makes Cinnamon do a rolling motion like she's using a rolling pin.
AND on and on.
THEN she teaches Cinnamon a poem. "I have a little shadow..."
SHE doesn't leave the kid alone.
WASH your hands before you eat. Use soap.
WASH your hands after you go to the bathroom. Use soap.
COVER your mouth when you cough. Then wash your hands. With soap.
SHE always made me wash my hands when I got home from school. She's the only mother in the world so hung up on washing hands. And I had to get her! None of my friends had mothers like her.
NEVER once did I ever hear some other mother bossing her kids around to wash their hands.
I COULD go to somebody's house after school and have supper there and stay overnight and never be told to wash my hands.
THEN I get home and what does Mom say? "Go wash your hands."
WHY did I get the bossy one? Why couldn't I have a mother who'd just let me do whatever I wanted to do?
I AM THE BOSS OF ME.
NOBODY has any idea about my life, but everybody thinks they know all about me.
THINK again.
THINK all you want, but you'll never know. You might think you know, but you don't.
THE fact is, nobody knows me. They just think they do. But all they know is what I let them know. Even my brother. He probably knows more about me than anybody, but he doesn't really know me.
LET'S face it, there are things I didn't even know a year ago.
IT'S like this - you know where you want to be but you have to figure out how to get there.
I ALWAYS knew who I was and who I wanted to be. I just didn't know how it was going to happen.
THAT'S why there's a part of this whole thing that's OK. Not so bad. Just a little tiny part, but I always knew I'd be famous.
NOPE, I never talked about it. You can't go telling people that kind of thing. They'd just laugh at you. But I knew it. And that's my biggest secret.
ALL my life I knew I'd be famous.
GOD, I hate to talk about it, even now, I'm so used to just dreaming about it.
I USED to say I didn't want to be famous. And that's the truth, too.
IT'S like this - I knew I didn't have to go doing something to bet famous. I wasn't going to sing on American Idol or go on Survivor or The Bachelor to get famous. I knew it wasn't going to happen that way.
ACTUALLY, I knew it was just going to come to me. So all I had to do was live my life and follow my instincts and some day it would pay off.
SO now I'm famous but I'm locked up. All I can do is think about when I get out of here.
SOME people, like my parents, say I'll never be safe on the outside. That somebody will kill me. That's a bunch of shit! There are a lot of people who believe in me. They'll keep me safe.
ANOTHER good thing about all this is I'm finally free of my parents. I'll never have to go home again.
I'M just being honest here. That's what everybody wants, right? So here's the truth. I never did really want to be famous because I like my privacy, but I knew the day would come that I would be famous. And here it is.
I'M not saying I think I'm special. Everybody who knows me will tell you I have never gone around with my nose in the air. I don't think I'm better than anybody else. I don't think I'm smarter. I don't think I'm prettier. Or sexier. I'm just me, and I always knew that's all I need to be.
I DIDN'T know why I'd be famous or when I'd get to be famous or just what it all meant. All I could do is wait and see.
IT'S not easy sitting in a jail cell just waiting for this whole thing to be over with.
I DON'T like writing about this. It was always my secret that I was going to be famous. And I liked having that secret. Who wouldn't? But now I'm telling the secret so people will understand it. But I know some people will try to hold it against me.
OH, well, that's what it's all about, huh? Some people just don't like me and nothing I say will change that.
THE thing is, I'm more famous than any of them. I've even made some of them famous.
ALL my life I got through everything because I knew that some day I'd be famous and nothing else would matter.
EVEN when Mom made me wear that pink dress my first day of school I knew I'd show her and make her sorry. But it actually doesn't matter anymore.
IT doesn't matter that some girls in school were prettier than me.
IT doesn't matter that a lot of girls in school got better report cards than me.
YOU never heard of them.
THEY don't matter any more. And I knew my life was going to be this way.
ME, I've got the best lawyers in America, and that means the best ones in the whole world. And I have the best experts in the world.
YEAH, it's turning out just the way it should.
THE thing is, Mom put me in here. She started this whole thing. And now she's sorry.
I'M glad she's sorry. She has a whole hell of a lot to be sorry about. Like my whole life. So I'm glad she's sorry.
AND, like, she tells me she's suffering.
WELL, good for her. It's about time.
I SUFFERED plenty, but she never cared about that. All she cared about was bossing me around. So let her suffer. That's what she deserves.
I'M sick of being 'nice'. Sick of putting on an act. Sick of everybody thinking I'm supposed to be this good daughter.
IT'S about time everybody knows the truth. My mother never cared about me. All she cared about was for me to do what she told me to do. Eat what she told me to eat. Go to bed when she told me to. Get up when she told me to. Go to school. Stay out of trouble. Be a good girl. Don't talk back. Don't be mean. Don't be jealous. Sure. Right. Just let Mom boss my whole life.
PEOPLE see her on TV. They see what she's like. They see what I had to live with. Do it her way or be nagged to death.
MY brother can tell you I didn't have it easy. He knew I couldn't take being bossed the way I was. So sure, he knew about some of the times I went behind her back, and he didn't blame me for it. He understood. Anybody'd understand.
I DON'T hate my mother. It might sound like I do, but that's not how it is. We just had a personality conflict.
SHE would have been OK if she had a daughter who wanted to be bossed around. It's just that I'm not that way.
SOMEDAY, Mom might understand this.
SHE just shouldn't have been my mother.
THEN again, I don't know who I'd choose for a mother.
I NEVER needed a mother.
SURE, I needed a cook and housekeeper and all of that, but I didn't need a mother to babysit me. I've always been good at taking care of myself.
I AM THE BOSS OF ME.