Limited

I have always felt limited.  I was told as a young woman, that I could not have something for one thing or another.  I have been denied because I was black, I was denied because I was a woman.  I have been denied because I was overweight and denied because I was short.  I have been denied the right to be an American and limited to the characteristics of my race, gender and social status.   One day, I saw a show on television called the Cosby Show.  On that show, I saw what most people said did not exist.  There was a black family and they weren't spintered into a million pieces, and the parents loved each other and the children went to school encouraged to do better and they lived in their own home.  Something about that show made me think of all of the people who did not allow what they were to limit what they were.  I thought of Charlie Pride and Leontine Price and Tracy Chapman and Darius Rucker.  I thought of Marianne Anderson and Pearl Bailey.  It was the fact that they did not allow themselves to be typecasted as the only thing they could be, that inspired me to become what I am today.  A beautuful unlimited me.