JUST LIKE A PASSING FEVER

I had been preached to, analyzed, cursed and counseled, but no one had ever said, “I identify with what is going on with you.” My life was bad and my options were running out quick like a breeze of fortune that blows from the windmills of the gods. Slowly and very steadily, my problems began to grow like a bush-fire, but all was just like a passing fever. I had to admit though, that I still wake up some mornings wishing all were just a bad dream.

Denial is the most cunning, baffling and powerful weapon of happiness, or so it is said. In certain circumstances, poverty is almost a badge of honor in some families, or it seems to me. It happened to me but I escaped the scrape goat. When I look back, it is hard to imagine that I did not see a problem with my life. Instead of seeing the truth, I just kept lowering myself.

I was about six years old when my life suddenly became a mess. It was very difficult for me to manipulate certain conditions. Feelings started to emerge that I did not understand. Depression, lack of concentration and all bad feelings crept into my soul. I felt like an insignificant atom in a molecule. Loneliness encrypted my social life, I even felt alone in a room full of friends. In fact, life did not make much sense to me at all. It is hard to say what sparked all of this, to neither pinpoint one fact nor event that changed everything forever. The fact of the matter was, I was miserable from early on in life. I was as a tiny threat caught up in suffocating web.

Everything resisted me, happiness, love and I started to live in wonder. The question “why me?” was always leaping in my mind like a chorus. I remember on many occasions, when I started to isolate from the playground, watching other children playing and laughing happily- smiling, and I did not feel like I could relate to it all. Somehow, I thought, I did not fit in. Even my school marks reflected my feelings. My behavior and my attitude seemed to be troublesome to everyone I associated with. After a while, I started to attend my class in the principal’s office more than my classroom.

My grandparents perplexed about such an unhappy grandson, began having difficulties. My house filled with sounds of arguments and yelling about my parents’ irresponsibility. I could not blame my grandmother. She was doing the best she could to bring the food on the table- except that my grandfather was a victim of alcohol. He looked at everything as the cause of his budget strain-except alcohol. My life was my prison and my house was my cell.

Nothing interesting ever happened there, apart from the fistfights and insults between my grandparents. The vows were broken and the peace was sworn. The dagger was my mark of grief. Each day, there was no relief. Finally, I got so low down. I was ashamed of my friends’ seeing me. My life was meaningless, so I tried to ease my soul many times. However, I would always wake covered with inoculations to begin another long treatment.

About that time, I started seeing social workers and counseling. I began receiving regular therapy. Just like Betty Friedan, “it is easy to live through some else than become complete yourself.” My problems were resolved. My grandfather too, realized that only God, not he, was the great Healer.

Since then my success has won many hearts I different spheres of life. Anyone can now easily grasp the intensity of my passion and depth of soul that kept me going in life. I have more friends than I ever had in my life-Friends who care about my welfare and me. What a wonderful life!

If only I could turn back the hands of time, I would like to rebuild the broken winged bird of my family. I would like to spend time with them until my last breath. All these feelings still creep into my mind. Who I was began with knowing who I did not want to become.