Priceless Inspirations by Antonia Carter Page A

shouldn’t have done, and try to accept that he had no way of knowing that things would turn out the way they did. He had no way of knowing that what he thought would be just an experiment for my mother would turn out being a life-long addiction.
    I also had to let go of my expectations for what I kind of father I thought he “should” be or what I thought he “should” be doing right now. I can’t tell him he should be a different person than he is. No one has that right. It doesn’t matter what I think. He makes his own choices and nothing I say will change that. I’ve had to accept him for who he is and hope that he’ll be able to be a better grandfather than he was a father.
    The Mistake I Made That You Shouldn’t
     
    I spent a lot of years thinking that I could change people into what I thought they should be or get them to act the way I wanted them to act. This is just wrong.
    I’m not saying that you have to be cool with everything the other person does. You don’t. You might even have to lay down some hard rules and limits on when and how the person is around you. At other times, you may have to say “no” and just walk away until the situation changes or the person makes better choices. That’s not the same thing as trying to change them, judging them or being mad because they’re not who you want them to be.
    People aren’t perfect, and trying to make them act the way you want them to act just drives a wedge between them and you. My father and I might have had a better relationship if I had been able to see him for who he was, accept what he couldn’t be for me, and move on without anger.
    Toya’s Priceless Gem: Don’t waste energy and time thinking you can change people. The only person you can change is yourself .
    Forgiving My Mom
     
    If you’ve seen my show, you know that my mom and I are still working hard on our relationship. My mom is still battling with her addiction, and it’s important for me to support her in that effort. Addicts are very fragile and it doesn’t help her any for me to beat her up for failing me when I was younger.
    I’m working hard to let all of that go, just as I worked to let my father and Dream go, so we can all move forward.
    Still, it’s hard.
    It’s hard because every day that I’m with my own daughter, I wish for what might have been. I still want my mother in my life and I still want her in her granddaughter’s life. I’m proud of her when she’s on the right track and getting help, but I have to be strict and cut her out when she’s not.
    When she first got out of jail 12 years ago, all six of her kids were in different homes, most of them unhappy, and most of them doing things they shouldn’t have been doing and getting in trouble. I couldn’t understand it. Why wasn’t that enough for her to want to get herself together?
    The answer hurt. At that time she loved drugs more than us. We weren’t enough to help her stare drugs in the face and say “no.” It made me sad. It made me start wishing again, wishing things could be different. As long as I had Aunt Edwina, I had someone who stood in the place of a mother for me and I was able to go on without really taking the time to find out more about my mother and her life.
    Until Auntie Edwina died, I didn’t know about the things that had caused my mother to use drugs. I didn’t know that she was escaping the trauma of being raped. I didn’t know she was avoiding her own pain. I was just embarrassed about her and, for the most part, tried not to have much dealings with her.
    Every now and then, just like when I was ten and I started to visit her apartment, I’d try to connect with her. Once, when Reginae was a tiny baby and I was between places to stay, I tried to live with her.
    She was in the process of getting off drugs, so I thought she wanted to be a good mom and grandmother. I hoped it would a new start for us, so we got a house and Dream helped us furnish it.
    The house was designed