Life Is Not a Fairy Tale by Fantasia (e book reader free TXT) 📕

me that, but at that age, I insisted on being the same as everyone else—no matter how bad I looked and no matter what God was tryin’ to tell me. That is just part of being a teenager, y’all. You can’t help yourself.

Just because I used to be a hootchie mama doesn’t mean I couldn’t change, and that doesn’t mean that you can’t change either. You can change your clothes, but more importantly, I hope you change your mind about boys and wantin’ their attention so bad. I hope this chapter inspires hootchie mamas to think again about who they are. And I also hope that this makes a difference for those people who judge all the hootchie mamas that they see. There is more to us than those clothes. We are still people underneath the tight shirts and short skirts, and as I always say,people are people.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of ways to speak on this topic, without it sounding like a lecture. But because I am ’Tasia and I have lived it, I think that I’m in a better position than most to speak about it. I know that once upon a time, I needed to hear every single word that I’m sayin’ and there was no one who was in the same position that I am today—someone who hadtruly been there. I needed some straight talk without fakin’ or holdin’ anything back. I wanted to make my life better, and most importantly I wanted to know how to change, so I could love myself, finally. I wanted to have the love and respect that I deserved in a world that sometimes forgets that people who don’t finish high school, go to college, or have important jobs are stillgood people.

I am an ex–hootchie mama, and I always will be, no matter what happens with my music. And I will always speak up for the girls who are like I once was, because they can change too, if they really want to. I am hoping that you do.

One thing that you all need to understand is that a hootchie mama really thinks she looks good when she sees herself in the mirror. That’s the first thing anybody who is judgin’ needs to know. Most hootchie mamas want to live in the world they see on the television screen. Besides dressing like what they see in the videos, they think differently than most people outside the TV screen. When everyone else thinks that the hootchies have a big butt and should hide it, hootchie mamas think the exact opposite. They think the bigger the better and the more you can show a man, the more men you will get. It’s as simple as that. When you think you’re judging them, they are judging you for not being sexy enough. Being sexy and desirable is real important in this society, and it’s even more so in the ghetto, because if you succeed in being sexy and desirable, people think it means that you will never be without a man.

It may have been boredom that caused me to get up so early in the morning and get all dressed up like a hootchie mama just to walk my baby through the projects lookin’ for attention or just “somethin’ to do.” I didn’t think that I was lookin’ for a man, but when I think about what I was wearin’, I know deep down that I was looking for a man. I was that girl walkin’ the projects and hollerin’ at every man hoping to get a little somethin’ extra—an extra wink or a special touch or a promise that the guy probably couldn’t even keep. I used to look for the guys with the nice cars and the nicknames that described who they were. Those guys with names like T-Money or Ace-Love or Grip were the guys with the reputations. People were talking about them. They were legends in the ghetto. That was the kind of man I was trying to get. And when I walked through these projects I wanted to stand out from all the other girls, so I would put a little rhythm in my motion when I knew the guys were watching me. I would slow down my pace a little. I would wink at them and make sure they saw my butt. And if I had gotten their attention, they would call me over or take the cell phone out of their ear or put their car in park. Putting their car in park was showing that I was worth stopping for. That would excite me.

The conversations with those guys were always the same.

“What’s up?” I would say.

“Whatcha doin’ you? You look good, baby,” they would say. “When can I take you out?” they would then ask.

“Whenever you want,” I would answer.

I knew if one of these invitations really turned into a date, I could just get one of my girls to stay with Zion. That’s the silent code with single women all over the world: whenever a man wants to take you out, your girls will help you make arrangements to be able to go. These conversations would all end with “I’ll call you, baby,” and I would wink at them and know that they would never call me. Most of them didn’t even have my phone number or they couldn’t give a home number of their own. When they couldn’t give their own home number, it was obvious that they lived with some woman. The thing about those kinds of guys is that they were always slightly distant. Most of them sold drugs, and the others sold stolen electronics. They called it “stuff that fell off the back of a truck.” Because they were involved in these “businesses” they didn’t like a lot of people knowing where they were or where they lived. They usually lived with different girlfriends so they were not easily found. They talked to a lot of different girls,