Passing time is lovely. It’s comfortable. It’s peaceful. It’s calming.
Good times.
But, as we think deeply, there is a give of another way to have spent that very moment in time.
Those times you chose not to do because they required grit and grind.
Progress would have been made but the work required, unwanted.
My oldest son took note that I had been nineteen at the time of bringing him into this world.
I wanted to correct him and say I was actually eighteen, three days before my nineteenth birthday, but I felt it was important to give him the adult moment to speak and I listen.
How can you explain to the young mind that even at such a young age, his very own mother felt to already be running out of time?
I had been working since the age of fourteen to afford events and functions at school. I had been set for the adult world.
The former generation clearly was at their lowest. There would be many steps up to climb for the following to even be at a respectable bar.
Time started before me. The time I was given, only granted to do something different than all times before that had evidently been wasted.
I recall that I had hardly listened to my first three children, being determined to keep on keeping on as a young mother and wife.
While their world looked calm and peaceful on the outside, inside, I felt like I had been wrapping them in a bundle from birth, ready to run forward and faster if time required me to.
I had too many forewarns experienced to resist upon in preventing my family to have to repeat anything that would be unbearable to my heart only because disappointment and silenced agony were far too familiar.
Not built in character to tell my children where I’ve been or what those around me did to place worry and concern about where I may end up, I had to trust that all would be just fine for their future, given that I had already fought the biggest battle- starting them far above from where I had been.
Why tell your children what you, yourself, didn’t even want to acknowledge?
And, even when some memories ooze out, the protected and secured mind cannot empathize what life they’ve never endured.
Those times passed, granted only the opportunity to work with given time before me.
Papa never spoke of his memories of being part of the proxy war in the Philippines during World War II, hiding and running from the enemy for three years.
He blurted to me seeing pregnant women lying lifeless against a tree, bayoneted through the womb. That was about all I can remember he said out loud other than American military soldiers saving his family by leading them to an underground shelter.
I get the silence of the past. Every step now is the focus. Why look back when reminiscence is hardly euphoric?
There is this Catch-22 to parenting. You somehow find yourself seen wrong upon deciding to do right.
Right isn’t always inviting or thrilling. It just is, sometimes. The problem is, the young have yet to know much.
I understand now, child number five, why Papa said hardly anything anymore by the time he watched me grow to my maturing age.
He could simply watch with hope I would prove his silent prayers for my success to come to fruition. I was that last.
My older sister had already married once at the age of eighteen. Her decision was my open gate to permit myself the same.
While everyone’s lives must follow their own path and destiny within their own system, as my greatest advice would be to those trying to fit into other people’s shoes, I am so ever grateful for having followed the intuition I had over thirty years ago when I chose my husband now as my partner and friend for life starting then.
Having so many hand-me-downs, I couldn’t wait to call my shoes to wear, my own.
The more forward I move, the more grateful and certain I am that my decisions way back then were right.
Did I know? Did I have certainty that I would arrive to great accomplishments and generational breakthroughs? No. I just stayed on the righteous path I knew would give me no regret.
I didn’t smoke. I didn’t drink. Recreational drugs were not in my chosen surroundings.
The only part I took in being naughty, not-so-nice daughter was attending after school dances in junior high without telling my Papa.
I finally had a chance to dance my heart out outside of my room. I wasn’t going to risk “no” for an answer. My love for music and dance was my reason for rebellion.
I learned to take the public Metropolitan bus just so I could arrive home from the “library” without worrying Papa.
I didn’t want to be a good daughter who couldn’t be trusted, however. By the time I was in high school, I would voluntarily call Papa to tell him where I was even if it meant hearing his objections on the phone.
Thankfully, I surrounded myself with good peers who were of positive influence, healthy in heart, mind, body, and spirit.
By junior year, as my classmates around me were beginning to speak of college entries, I quietly awoke. Time, again, was heard loudly ticking.
Where would I be after high school? I had not a clue. I could only push forward, finishing strong with time given to senior graduation.
Opposite of what my husband and I provided ours, it was my childhood homes and my environmental surroundings that felt uncertain and unmoving.
Placed in classes with students coming from stability and security provided me the positive and strong mindset. That was enough to keep me going.
Working after school to find means to keep on keeping on, I could afford school functions and activities without my parents even knowing what in the world I took part in.
I partook in good because it made good sense.
Time granted- used well.
While still so much more to discover, I know so much more now.
For one, it wasn’t just I taking one step at a time. So was my husband. Thankfully, he had dreamed and envisioned where we were going while I was just focused on KNOWING by faith I would get there- that elsewhere but here focus.
Undoubtedly the spear header and forerunner, my husband led the way with a wife who believed in the path with undying devotion and loyalty.
A weekend position, my husband would spend his Friday nights over at two paraplegic adult twins’ home during the time he worked to finish his computer science degree. There, he had opportunities to have priceless chats with the parents.
He shared with me that upon sharing his concern about me being so young to the twins’ mother, perhaps me eventually needing to go through some phases, he received the best response.
“Some phases girls don’t need to go through.”
Words of wisdom where now, in my golden years, I can concur to with utmost agreement and understanding.
The young will tell you to party and have fun. (Mainly because so they can be accompanied.)
Songs like Young, Free, and Single and Time of Our Lives definitely provided some lyrics of encouragement.
Time used up. Time done.
The issue at hand is what type of pastimes could change you into your future.
My husband and I were rounded-edged squares by design.
He witnessed and had to endure as a child many who chose to go through party phases to a point of chemical dependency and addictions.
While I witnessed no direct chemical dependency, I endured years of instability, moving to fifteen (to my counting and recollection) homes by the time I met my husband.
Instability with hardship creates turmoil and troubles for those who continue the cycle.
No, not I.
Both my husband and I were determined to have and do great things, not just for ourselves, but our children and to my husband’s continued drive, our many generations to follow from our moment of start.
I cannot explain nor do I feel the need to explain any of which checkpoints I arrived to and conquered where I could only hear myself say, What next?
You could say I was afraid to stop. I’m okay to proclaim such fear in my arrival to genuine love, peace, and harmony.
The path to get here certainly had a part of surrounding myself with those who wanted to just pass time with me.
My arrival to successes, however, were primarily and mainly within the times I set purpose and resiliently persevered.
While I’d like to think I took time to find good times, I could not afford to waste critical time.
Two year college. Done in two.
Four year university for a BA and teacher’s certificate. Done in four because I’d rather spend time taking classes during summer breaks than try and afford another year or two.
From start to finish, I had mapped out my courses as if I had already finished and visualized myself graduate the way I complete mazes, from finish to start.
Knowledge of discontinuity became my elixir to finish major starts.
My parents neither worked following Papa’s disability with both of them raising grandchildren upon living in the only home they did not rent here in America, bought by my oldest brother, after serving in the military.
Seeing the passing of time had instilled a fear in me when accompanied by nothing progressing for betterment.
When I hear one of my children console with their dad the concern of not being above average, I sit quietly close, the words as triggers to my very own thoughts for so long. An intrinsic character so well known.
You could walk into the room, everyone else seeing you, feeling you as the one and that’s just it. Those same will try and prove not you wrong, but their own feelings and beliefs. You, the target for their peace of mind.
The world attacks those targeted, not those with insignificance.
You learn, eventually, to pull back into the shadows, trying to master not even being seen.
And, yet, the silence creeps.
Time after time, the mind games play on. Are you the one? Maybe not.
Will you be of something? Maybe right now. Tomorrow and the next? Only time will tell. Time after time.
You conquered a moment. Just a moment in time.
This world may be visibly tiered under microscopic standards but those moving, by data, show being aimed at, not those down, playing dead.
But, move you must.
No matter the level of recognition, when you beat out those around you, unless you want to swarm in the glory a little longer, it’s time to move onto a new circle, room, or realm.
The challenge continues for another opportunity with time to do more and greater.
I hear, witness and, understand, that even in getting to that destined peak, there is only that voice inside that speaks again, “What next?”
There is no one peak high enough for those to keep going.
The balance is in seeing what has been accomplished so far in the push and drive.
You take a moment to breathe, inhale the goodness of blessings before a great exhalation.
And, then, that worry. As the children grow, as wrong turns have been reflected upon, as experiences have made you wiser and stronger, you know that you must show up again and again because now, the growing children are watching.
I have embraced every momentous glory with my children and husband.
Standing up to quietly gaze upon my three oldest fast asleep with their dad on our own carpeted family room after another movie night- my momentous glory.
Feeling sand between my feet while my husband and I walk along ocean beaches- my momentous glory.
Seeing our youngest two laughing and playing in comfortable clothes while happily munching on delectable treats- my momentous glory.
We have had a blast. I have truly arrived to a time in my life where I can say that although I sometimes barely remembered to stop and smell the flowers, the garden I worked to build with my husband so early on has bloomed beautifully.
Time is granted until time no longer. If my time as a wife, mother, and teacher requests more ahead, I will not have to look back.
I will smile happily, reflectively knowing that not only did I first walk a humble path, but I finished with one to humble those who once watched me speak at my academy and high school graduation perhaps thinking, “Where will she end up?”
The training days were never wanted and many times, unanticipated. And, yet, collectively, I wasted so little.
I lived. I loved. And, I laughed. A lot.
Until time ends I can smile to say, “I still don’t know. But, so far, so good.”
