Sugar Coated World

I remember that when I was little and there were so many things that I didn’t understood so I made up my own explanations, my own reasons to why things happened the way they did. I never understood why some people were the way they were, or why they would treat me they way they did. Over the years I made countless excuses for them not realizing that I was setting myself to a state of denial instead of looking at things for what they really were.

Bottom line is we won’t please everyone we meet. Unfortunately, that also includes family, people that we unconditionally love, people that won’t feel the same way about us. When we’re little our eyes see the world with a lens of innocence, time goes by so slow, we feel free, and careless. As we grow older we begin to see things by how they really are, and we realize that there’s so much more out there than we ever imagined. As children, some of us are lucky enough to have not experienced discrimination of any kind, our world was sugar coated.

What about the kids who are not as privileged? Children that have been: raped, molested, discriminated, abused, mistreated, and stayed in silence. A friend of mine told me I was privileged for knowing what it meant to love without fear. She was raped when she was ten years old by a family member. Another friend told me how he is always weary of visiting friends because when he was little he was discriminated by his friend’s parents for being African-American. Similar stories went on and on, and as I listened to every one of those stories I thought: how come I never heard any of this when I was little? These people are my friends, my peers. The people I see everyday with a smile on their face, and I was so angry and I felt so impotent.

“New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries”, and that’s when innocence is gone. Is it better to live in a state of innocence where the world is sugar coated? Or in a world where you see things for what they really are? I prefer to notice the stripes, and the dirt on my fries, sure there are things I miss of those “good ol’ days” but I wouldn’t want to go back.

Some people will smile while hurting inside, while the world remains unaware. Believe it or not, some people are very unaware of what is going on around them, let alone in the world. There are many vile people in this world, but don’t forget that there’s also good hearted people out there willing to lend a helping hand.

Smile, we are the hope of tomorrow.

Changes Are Coming

I was recently talking to my mom of how I was when I was little. Ever since I can remember I’ve had the same stubborn personality I still have today. Always wanting to do things my way, on my own. I learned to walk by the time I was 8 months, and started speaking within a month later. By the time I was a year old I was talking like a parrot and already running the house my way. My siblings couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to me first because I HAD to wish them a safe trip to school, I liked to walk by myself without holding hands with anyone. A few months later I knew my alphabet, and my numbers to 100, I would cut straight lines, I was pretty much ready for Kinder status. All thanks to my wonderful siblings who spent hours and hours teaching what I needed to know. By the time I started school I was more than eager to learn new things, I was excited and ready to learn and the same is still true today.

What really got to me was what my mom told me an old lady told her once, that her little girl was going to go far in life, I had the spirit of a natural leader. Mom went on to tell me to do whatever I had to do to find happiness, even if that meant going far from home. That’s been on my mind lately, and quite honestly I’m ready to leave wherever I am wanted even if that means the other side of the world. Although its been an idea I’ve kept with very, very few people somehow its starting to get around in the family, my older sister came to tell me to stay. Not like I’ll be missed right? Something in the way she told me to stay made me very sad, it was painful.

Image by *thefantasim

Its been an internal conflict of mine, to stay or to go in search of my very own adventure. I’m very torn between these two choices. For one, if I stay I’ll be home with the people I love, I’ll see my nieces and nephews grow, I’ll be ready whenever my love comes back home, communication with him will be easier. However if I stay, I won’t get much done. If I leave I’ll have the opportunity to actually go somewhere, be someone, isn’t that why I spent sleepless nights? To have a solid career? Haven’t I always wanted to have my very own BIG adventure?

I can’t have both, and I know that if I leave chances are I’ll come back to a very different home, a different everything. If I leave I’ll be completely on my own, no place to run to, no one to run and hug, no one to wish goodnight or good morning, and chances are if something happens at home I won’t even be able to come back right away. I’m trying to find signs, anything really that tells me to stay or leave. I ‘m running out of time to decide, and I purposely keep pushing it back everyday because this is a decision that will change my life in a zillion different ways.

Smile, either way changes are coming.

The Bittersweet Feeling of Nostalgia

    There’s these tables in the middle of a school. Its a middle school, to me its the best middle school in the world. By those tables are these big and tall trees that give the nicest shade on hot days. Its on those tables that I used to sit down when I was a little kid to talk to my sweetie about books, and the nerdy things we liked.

Back in the day we were just friends, he was a very shy boy, he was new to the school for that year. He was mysterious in a very captivating way. His brown eyes, his black hair, that thoughtful look that he still does when he’s thinking about things. Looking back I was (still am) a very nerdy girl, quite the weirdo if you ask me. I started to talk to him because we found out we had some books in common, and well mostly I just liked to bug him. At one point I had a crush on him but only to find out that all the other girls had a crush on him too. Being his friend is all I wanted, all that really mattered to me, we remained friends for years after that.

He captivated me from day one, always made me think with his questions and observations about life. During lunch we would sit under those big and tall shade giving trees, on those blue tables predicting what was to happen in our favorite book series. Here we are nearly a decade later, with many miles apart and very close at heart.

Whenever I pass by that school and look at those tables, those trees I get this bittersweet feeling of nostalgia. Remembering how it all began all those years ago, seeing how much we’ve done in the in between time, and where we are now. I’m not going to lie, going back always gets me teary eyed (in a happy way) whenever I think of the good times I had under those trees. It never hit me that that shy and mysterious boy I met all those years ago would end up being the man I want to keep growing old with.

Smile, any little moment can be THE moment that changes your life forever. 

Learning From A Dog

     Our dog may not be trained, but he is a great dog an amazing dog. I remember one time during the first times my sweetie and I would go for walks and he walked me home and was about to give me a hug when our dog started barking a bit, and was not happy that my sweetie got too close to me. It was the first time that I ever saw Duke being so protective over me. He always has been but it wasn’t until then that I really began to see it. Of course he got over being very protective of my sweetie getting close to me since he started to see him more but his protectiveness and loyalty is still there.

Whenever I go outside to the back yard he follows me, waits for me. When I go out at night to look up at the stars he sits by me, waits for me and walks me back to my door. Often times he sleeps outside my window, and always patrols the house. That ladies and gentlemen is real loyalty.

Isn’t it amazing? Duke is an amazing dog, he’s not just a pet, he has become a part of the family. What amazes me is his unconditional loyalty to us. I’ll be honest, we don’t play with him everyday and yet he’s still there for us. Sometimes I wonder why can’t we be the same? Why can’t we be so unconditional about our love and loyalty to our own kind? Why must we be so needy of reciprocation, is it because our egos get in the way? Something else?

There have been times when the only one that is ever there to listen to my rants about life is Duke. He just sits there and more than likely doesn’t understand a word that I say, but he’s there. When I cry he knows I’m crying and always wants to lick my face and sometimes cries with me. When I’m happy he gets so hyper and wags his tail. So I get to think, how can we call the human race this amazing and superior race? We kill each other, we bring each other down, we care about the less important things in life and here is a dog, a species that we see below our own acting in a more humane way. Its moments like these that I realize that us as humans we really are not as great as we wish to be, we are just another species in this earth. We really are nothing if we look at the bigger picture of the universe, just a tiny little spec in this vast place of mystery. I don’t know about you but I find it to be beautiful to be a tiny spec in our Universe. We each hold many ideas, many feelings, we have all done many things, and yet we are specs of life I mean how much more amazing can that be?

Smile, sometimes the most loyal of all friends is that furry little critter with four legs and a wagging tail .