This life really challenged me in several ways and navigating through it really made me traverse difficult terrain. I made countless mistakes. The difficult part for me is remembering every single mistake I have made up to this point and trying to move forward and live with them. These are the kind of memories that keep me up at night for hours as I fall into a spiral of anxiety thinking about how I could have done things differently. My worst mistakes are the ones in which I hurt others intentionally or by accident. Those are the ones that really haunt me.
I think back to when I was younger and my sister came into my life. I was not very nice to her for several years because she became my competitor for attention. That is a story for another time but the way I treated her as a child haunts me to this day. I would not want to play with her and would not include her when she wanted to be with my friends. I felt so vicious for always trying to push her aside. As the years went by she distanced herself from me and I fear we have permanently damaged our relationship. Her ideologies are different than mine and that tension continues to exist to this day. It is hard to distinguish what part was my fault and what wasn't from that time. I do understand all of it wasn't my fault and that based in my situation that I cannot be blamed for everything I did because I was a child but in my head, it was all me. I chose to behave that way in that time whatever the reasons behind it might be. It is difficult for me to not accept the responsibility for my actions. This is also not made easier because from an early age one of the ways my parents disciplined me was to tell me that I am old enough to know better and I cannot blame anyone else for my actions. In some ways, they are absolutely right but on the other hand, I have been hearing this since I was five or six years old. I don't think this helped fix the situation. By the time I became cognizant of the damage that had been made in our relationship, it was too late to mend. Although we are cordial with each other there will always remain a canyon over which the bridge is permanently burned.
Obviously, the other set of mistakes that haunt me is my love life history. This always proved to be a source of tension not just for me but for my parents as well. I was not supposed to have freedom of choice in the matter since the very beginning. I could not pick someone from around me and that left me feeling isolated but I thought I was doing the right thing when I started a relationship with someone I could marry. But even that situation was riddled with secrets and lies because neither of our parents approved of the relationship and we were teenagers. The emotions and feelings were intense with the hormones raging full control of our minds to the point where we lost control of who we were and what we were doing. I chose to trust the boys I was with and not be able to talk to an adult about the situations I was put in, I had to make all my decisions on my own without proper guidance.
Because of this, I obviously made so many mistakes. I wanted so badly to trust these guys I gave my heart to despite all the warning signs and red flags at every turn. I understand now why my mother would not have wanted me to be with them but I could not run to her for help because when she found out or things got out of control, all hell would break loose. While going through the anguish of broken relationships I also had to soothe an intensely emotional mother who did not understand why I was doing what I was doing. We were hurting and distrustful of each other. Although I am glad it did not work with these past flames, they were lessons I needed to learn so that I could grow through the experience. It would be very painful and I kept making those mistakes because of the desperate need to want someone whom I could trust and who would love me for who I am.
Then there were the lies. The first two decades of my life I would go through it lying in order to what I considered was protecting myself at the time. This is something I find very difficult to be reminded of because I do not define myself as a compulsive liar. It did become a habit at some point where I began lying just for the sake of convenience.
As far as I could see, my life became compiled of grievous mistakes or sins that I cannot undo. I did not know what to do or how I was to move forward from the burdens of my past. It wasn't helped by the fact that my mother loved to dwell on past miseries and would continue to bring them up whenever she was upset about something even if it would be completely unrelated. Looking back, I should probably have tried to seek professional help at this point so that I could function in the present day while I unpacked the causes of my depression however, hindsight is 20/20. I decided it was best to keep trying to manage everything even though I was unstable, volatile, and utterly exhausted. It would be made worse because I could not fully escape the habits I had formed and the changes brought on by adulthood made it even more difficult because of the hope of autonomy I saw around me which I did not truly have.
In my late twenties, I noticed that everyone around me was making mistakes, the old and the young. This situation was not unique to just me. As my siblings grew older, they began making their own mistakes and pushing the boundaries I had already fought and loosened. They wanted even more opportunity to pave their paths. At this point, my parents loosened their grip on everyone and started questioning within. At least for my mother, this stage became one of confusion and learning to adapt to the changes presented before her. The beautiful illusion that adults were perfect that I perceived growing up shattered spectacularly. I was striving for nonsustainable perfection and it was because perfection does not exist in the world of humans. We just move forward in a way we think is best in the situation we are given and try to make of it from our limited understanding of life and our purpose.
I began to understand that the standards my parents set for me were impossible based on the way they implemented them. Continuing this train of thought, I finally accepted the standards I set for myself were just as unattainable behind the weights I had bound myself to. From this point onwards, it was time to change my mindset. I would not get anywhere locked inside my head dwelling on my past which meant I needed to find ways to make peace with it. Although I had reached this epiphany I did not know how to actually bring this to fruition in reality.
Until Next Time,
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