When the mind is set different, there can be no fault to those who cannot understand.
Even the thinker must question their very own thoughts. Metacognition at endless best.
I married young. The decision to do such is not for everyone but it was for me.
Can there be any regrets to make such a commitment to one’s future at such an early age?
I ask in this manner in the way I have held no regrets for my very decision:
Does anyone ever know when is the right time to achieve perfection for what is to come?
Are there any guarantees that had you waited longer, all would be better if not best?
There is this part that Eminem (Marshall Nathaniel Mathers, if I recall with M.N.M. initials, yes?) empowers all by stating, “The moment, you own it, you better never let it go (Go)
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo“
I have loved dancing to music since I can remember. In fact, the very first time I heard the voice of my now, husband of over thirty years, he was in my living room with my older siblings and his girlfriend, then, when I quickly stepped out to retrieve a music tape (Look it up if you are confused here. lol) from the tape deck so I could hurry back in my room to dance by myself.
(I have always been my own party!)
It wasn’t until I was almost done with high school where my husband even thought to approach me.
Papa and Mama didn’t seem at all surprised to see me leave the nest so soon.
There are upbringing environments where you walk in and those around are quick to ask how you are doing and if there is any help you need.
The approach is real and genuine. The desire to help and give aid to help direct you in the right path is strong and promising.
Walk into a gathering where you must accept even before entering that you most likely will be ridiculed, taunted, and at times, laughed at, while being told you are getting fatter, too skinny, or whatever may be wrong with you as they saw fit that day and I would think, ‘You and I must know the same people.’
I am not sure if I would suggest being the fortunate one as it had been those around me who received the most criticisms.
I recall one of my cousins, having reached already an adult age, upon being told (once too many countless times growing up) that she was getting fatter, she replied right back, “Well, Auntie, so are you.”
No exclamation there. My cousin made that statement as if she had rehearsed the line so many times in her head until finally her heart could take no more. She managed the courage to bravely while somewhat still hesitantly spew out the words.
The room stood still. Respectfully, I hurt for my aunt as she stood, silenced, before I recall managing to blurt out my cousin’s name and laugh off what just occurred in family history for all to witness.
My cousin, using my interception as a gateway to further exhale justice to her clearly heard words, redirected my felt hurt toward her when she exhaustively added, as if having endured enough for so many years, “I’m tired of it, Anne.”
I may have muttered , “I know, I know” while still managing that smile to appease the room.
Deep inside, even when you aren’t the target, you get just as tired of having to endure years of the endless wreckage of the heart, mind, body, and spirits being torn in front of you, one soul at a time.
As I have mentioned, my husband points out that I tend to filter people’s words and forget what they say.
Recently, I came to accept that though I filter, it doesn’t mean I didn’t hear or that the negative energy wasn’t felt.
The training of having, maintaining, and saving face- an episode at a time.
One thing worse than being surrounded by those you know deep in your heart are in the wrong and outwardly negative is when they actually believe to be in the right, convinced to be helping.
It’s like someone trying to pull you into the dark convinced they are the light.
Some follow. With great relief, you hear Jiminy Cricket inside ask, ‘Say what?’
Thanks to Jiminy Cricket, I thankfully questioned all that I witnessed.
I was there in the living room of my grandma’s to witness my oldest brother being doubted and laughed at for choosing to attend college.
He was set to enter with a grant. Instead, he was being told rather by relatives to enter the military, taunted by uncles and aunties that he would have no future in college. The military would at least be able to give him a free meal and a better life.
To fight and stand up for one’s country is a must. We each are just gifted to do so differently. Yes?
My oldest brother learned to play chess before learning his ABCs. He was placed into college in the Philippines at the age of sixteen. He belonged in college with those who hungered to academically keep excelling.
Following that, when you see such a set course run amuck, how does that fare for the following siblings?
We lost our greatest fighter and protector, our second brother in a car accident with the next brother to not finish high school.
I wanted to micromanage those around me with what hope I had left- my sister.
For her sake? Perhaps.
For my sake? So I could create the model I needed to follow? I believe now, perhaps, even more.
And, yet, as I embrace myself to think and do differently from others, knowing now to having such character to have saved me, you simply can’t control others who choose with their own free will.
It didn’t help that I was the Type A who wanted everything in my room orderly while my sister whom I always shared a room with seemed to have taken pleasure in having me pick up after her.
I was a nervous wreck in trying to perfect my world, my path, while having to clean up cigarette buds just put out on a side table or wash, dry, iron, and hang up yet another dirtied shirt found on the floor.
Papa and I would sit, watch television, or drive together in silence many times. I know that subconsciously, I pushed away from my own daughters so they, too, could find that incredible friendship with their father I thankfully witnessed as they grew to become young ladies.
Priceless.
There comes a time where you know to have outgrowned your nest, however.
There was no fault to anyone who were who they still are.
Like a hermit crab, I was simply just growing out of my shell.
Like an eagle, it was time for me to spread my own wings and soar higher and wider into the world.
It was time for me to relieve Papa and Mama of their last responsibility.
I watched them hurt and suffer too many times and too long. Why stay and take part?
When I briefly caused both to have to come to my defense at the beginning of eight grade when placed into my neighborhood school, I silently, probably not even to my parents’ knowledge, for my appeasement, finished junior high with straight As for the last semester upon being returned back to a school up north.
I was tirelessly trying to not be another problem.
I immediately worked at the age of fourteen (this was credit to Mama who was good at getting her way) entering high school where, thankfully and finally settling in one home, I could afford my way through Academy of Finance, Mock Trial, and cheerleading expenses.
To say the moment I spoke at both my academy and my senior commencement was a world-wind is an understatement.
I was one foot out the door with someone who shared the same outlook in life. I wasn’t even looking back. Just forward.
Why have Mama and Papa endure any longer?
The setbacks of my siblings were clear. I could not add to their burdens.
To think they considered deeply about placing me in a convent before my sixth grade year meant to me they had to consider some things beyond me as a child.
You live long enough, you know there is more truth and understanding before that perhaps you weren’t meant to, ready, willing, or able to see.
The capacity one can understand would have to suggest they wake up to the same heart, mind, body, and spirit.
I am glad to have seen and witnessed examples and non-examples early in. In other words, there were those few who inspired me because of their good, healthy examples, allowing me to see modeling of what to do.
Then, there were those who were clear examples of what not to do.
Sadly, we swim enough times in the same waters, we ignore the signs that suggest not to eat the fish in that water.
What should that suggest of the hazards to swim with them or drink their same waters?
Protected within or protected without. Nonetheless, the heart, mind, body, and spirit must be protected.
Papa knew I was out of the nest soon or he would have forbidden me from seeing what was out there.
As parents, there is only so much you can do to veer each into the right direction. And, even when you think your way is right, you may realize sometime later, your plan wasn’t it.
You can protect as far as you can advise.
The rest stands on faith that the seed planted is good.
When the mind is set different, you can only hope one to not only swim upstream but make it to the other side.
