“What advice would you give to your teenage self?”

“What advice would you give to your teenage self?”

By Marcella S. Meeks

02/20/2023

I am almost 63 years old now. Things were so different when I was a teen-ager. Times were different. I noticed boys when I was probably twelve or thirteen. And I was married by the time I was fourteen and I had my first baby at fifteen.

I left home when I was fourteen and I lost that bond with my mama then. I suffered physical and verbal abuse from my husband who was only four years older than me. It wasn’t fair but I grew into that life and didn’t know that there was a better one than that.

I don’t know why my mama let me marry so young. She could have stopped me if she had wanted to but she didn’t even try. Didn’t she love me? She did. She just knew I…