Free Priceless Inspirations by Antonia Carter Page B

here, and whatever stuff I was going through wasn’t her fault.
    Dream wasn’t always the best father. He has grown into the role, but he’s always tried to see Reginae and spend time with her. Spending time with her often brought us closer, because we both love her so much. That’s how Dream and I got back together so many times. There was a part of both of us that wanted to be a family for Reginae. He proposed to me again and bought me another ring. I was happy and I really thought this time we’d finally be together.
    Again, it was not meant to be. We broke up again and he went on to other girls again I started another cycle of crying and hating on other girls and fighting again .By now, though, I was done with high school, but I didn’t have much going on my life. I spent my time worrying about who Dream was with, what he might be doing and why he wasn’t with me. Other than that, I had no plans, no dreams, and nothing special I wanted to do with my life.
    Was that the problem? I wondered. Was that what kept me and Dream from being together? Was it because he was living this interesting life, using his talent, doing things and meeting new people, and I was just stuck?
    It worried me, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I was afraid to stay where I was, but I was just as afraid to move on, knowing that Dream might come back and we might have our chance to be happy together again.
    He did come back.
    In 2003, when Reginae was five, he came back, claiming he’d had enough of fame and the life he’d been living. He swore he was done playing and that he wanted his family. He said those other girls meant nothing to him and that I was always the one that he’d planned to spend the rest of his life with.
    He proposed to me again , I got another ring (the third one) and six months later on Valentine’s Day, 2004 we got married in big wedding with lots of family and friends.
    I wasn’t expecting happily ever after, but I did hope that we would both try. I hoped that we would work together on the relationship and support each other in our goals and dreams. I had already taught Dream that I’d be there waiting for him, no matter what he did, and he’d learned that lesson well. After only about two months, he was gone again. He wanted to move to Houston, alone, to go to college. He didn’t talk with me about any of it. He just did it. No, that’s not right. He talked it over with his friends, his boys, and then he did it. I wasn’t in the picture at all.
    When we talked on the phone, he sounded strange. Distant.
    Soon enough, I knew why.
    I started hearing all these stories about girls there and that was why he was acting strange.
    It seemed like the wedding had been just a show, a publicity stunt and an excuse to throw a party. People were asking me “How’s married life?” and I couldn’t even answer. I hadn’t even visited him in Houston.
    Then, it got worse. He started getting more and public about dating other women, even though everyone knew we were married. For the first time, I felt as angry with him as I did at the other women. Things between us started to completely fall apart. I wondered what had happened to that sweet, funny guy I’d fallen in love with years before. He’d changed, and I finally realized that I had, too. I knew it was time to stop crying, to stop beating myself up about why he wasn’t interested in me anymore and to stop hating the women he chose to be with.
    I knew it was over. I knew I finally had to let him go.
    It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Letting go of Dream meant letting go of my girlhood dream that the three of us would be a family --him, me and our daughter.
    As hard as it was, it was the best thing I could have done. It took packing up and leaving New Orleans and all the people there who knew me as “Dream’s baby mama” or “Dream’s wife”, and setting off on my own to create a new life in a strange city for me to really leave it all