Life in general
Life is a
beautiful gift and you have the ability to make it as worth it and as
meaningful as you wish. There is truth in saying that with age your priorities as well as you
maturity level changes. Even just last year when I got the idea of writing this
post I wondered, “well… what would I say? I still don’t feel stable enough to
write anything "good" about my 20s. Little did I know that I was living a
negative lifestyle even though I would always make it seem otherwise. It also
didn’t ponder that it would take pretty much the full year to come to my senses
and change my ways. It was one of those things where I wasn’t practicing what I
was preaching.
Today however I
have concluded that my 20s were amazing! I lived a healthy decade both
physically and mentally, meet amazing people (whether or not some were just
phase friends), married a wonderful man, had two amazing smart, funny, and handsome sons,
moved into a spacious house, and worked wonderful jobs that taught me a lot and
prepared me for this next chapter of life. The list is endless!
Let’s review
some facts.
Every single
person on this earth grows up with different upbringings, experiences,
circumstances, luxuries, etc.
In my case, I
was born in a third world country and was raised by a single mother.
I didn’t really
have a father figure for long. The first 6 years of my life my father was in
prison for 5 of those years. Two years later my mother, siblings, and I move to
the United States without him. And two years after being here my father died.
I grew up in the
projects with a mom whose main concern was to make enough money to feed us and
clothe us. Which means she wasn’t really an involved parent with our education.
Not to mention she never truly learned the language.
Due to her
absence I was promoted to mother figure for my younger siblings. I was cooking meals
by age 11 and was responsible for dropping off my siblings at daycare and school
before getting myself to junior high.
I left my
mother’s house at age 15 with a “boyfriend”. Got a job and started supporting
myself. Of course that didn’t last long.
By age 17 I was back home. Shortly after, I found myself in an abusive
relationship that almost destroyed me.
A year after
that I met my now husband and got pregnant at 18. It wasn’t easy. I always knew I wanted to go to college and have a career yet I had no
ambition or true motivation on getting started nor did I know exactly what I wanted out of
life. I was simply going through the days as they came. Until my husband talked
some sense into me, of course, and motivated me to reach for the stars.
He on
the other hand had a completely different life story than mine.
All through my
20s I wondered what it would have been like if I would have had a different
childhood. I was envious of all the people I came across by that had a dad, who
knew what they wanted from an early age, who were smart, ambitious, and go
getters with an extrovert personality. Pretty much for the majority of my 20s I
compared myself to others while neglecting all the blessings and good I had
right in front of me.
Today, although
it took long enough, I have realized that the grass in not always greener on
the other side. From that other side my grass looks greener to someone else.
We are all
different. We all grow up with different experiences. We all want to be happy.
What we don’t realize is that we block so much happiness from entering our
lives by focusing on other people’s lives and their blessings instead of
enjoying ours.
If we want our
grass to look greener than our neighbors' then we must water our own lawn
instead of wasting time wondering how and why theirs look better.
I know still have so much growing to do and and so many things I want to achieve but right now I know that I am exactly where I need to be. My perspective on life has change so much. My priorities have shifted. I am so much more positive. Life feels good. It feels right. I can finally say that I have done some effective soul searching and that I am happy with my life.
Today I am thankful and feel blessed to be where I am and who I am.
to be continue...
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