With bitterness, I wonder how many people wish they had listened to their mother way back when. A part of me that I’d never admit to out loud, wishes that I had listened to my mother, that is when she offered her advice. Perhaps then I wouldn’t be in the mess I am now…
The funny thing about growing up is that when you’re young, you have ideas of grandeur and sophistication about what the future hold for you. You sit there wishing for tomorrow because you think it is going to be better than today. Then, tomorrow gets here and it is nothing like the image that you had played out so neatly in your head. The tomorrow’s you sits wondering about the missed opportunities of yesterday and how life would be different if only…
When I was young, I had dreams. They were vague ones and perhaps that was the problem. I dreamt of having a job. Each day that job would change. Sometimes I would want to be a lawyer and others a professor. My favorite was the paleontologist or the archeologist. I’d travel the world discovering ancient lost civilizations of the forgotten creatures of history. There was also a time when I fancied myself as being talented artistically. Those thoughts that I may have had about the possibilities of being an artist or pursuing something within the field were quickly stomped out by a mother fearing that her child would starve. Yet, to this day I wonder if her fears were for my benefit or hers? She was the only mother that didn’t lovingly place the stick figured drawings on the frig, but rather said that there was no talent behind the young child’s efforts. So I had many dreams. I imagined myself as being able to do anything. Whatever the scenario, I was successful and admired.
I dreamt of a husband. Ironically, that wasn’t a vague fragment to be filled in, but rather a very specific individual. He was my best friend. A boy I had known most of my life and one that my first regret stems from. Perhaps if I hadn’t listened to my heart and the influence of that show, “Felicity ”, I wouldn’t have followed a dream. The only reason I went to the college I did was to be closer to him, to make the dream a reality. Unfortunately, my dream of wifehood with him were never realized and so came the end of that chapter in life.
Four years of studying went by and I was good at it. Law school was put on hold for the pursuit of the word. One of my professors told me I wrote well and from that came the desire to reach out and touch the masses with the written word. I poured over books taking in how the moments of the books took possession of my emotions, how the authors could take a sentence and manipulate the emotions of the reader. To my mother’s horror, I declared myself an English and history major. Years later, I learned that my mother would have settled for economics or business degree. Again, maybe if I had listened…
Since the love of my life, or at least I thought he was at the time, didn’t care for me in the same fashion, I took to another addiction. I can only imagine the countless hours I spent sitting in chat rooms talking to people from across the country making the friends that I otherwise had difficulty finding. Shy and chunky, I kept to myself forming close bonds to only a very few in reality, but in cyberspace it didn’t matter what I looked like or who I was or what I did. People were genuinely nice and if they weren’t, all you had to do was block them, send them into the great abyss.
So it came to pass that I happened to meet my first boyfriend in one of these chat rooms. It all started with crazy games we’d play setting up the mood, time, and place for our role play. It was innocent, nothing raunchy or vulgar. We simply spoke to each other as if we were in the room together rather than miles apart. After sometime, we became a “couple” and then, after two years, we brought our cyber romance into reality with our first meeting.
All throughout college I dated him. Had I known how things would play out, I may have chosen another path, one that may have let me to meet more people, make more friends. Again, if only I had known…
Four years of dating and it conclude with him finding someone else prior to our actual breakup. Those years I spent dreaming of tomorrow and I learned that sometimes tomorrow isn’t as wonderful as I imagined it to be.
A college graduate with a degree in English and history, I could hear my mother’s voice echoing through my mind with disappointment. Our relationship was never really an easy one, a fact that could be seen by her absence from my graduation ceremony because of an argument that happened just the same morning. All I wanted was for her to be there and to see that I had graduated with honors. My enthusiasm for repeatedly telling her not to forget the tickets and how important it was to be there early offended her. She reminded me of the fact that she was not me and she would not forget as to which I replied that she shouldn’t bother going I she didn’t want to. My tone was harsh. The end result was my mother not going, a fact that still bothers me to this day.
At the conclusion of my studies, I found myself jobless. I think my mother took a little too much pleasure in the silent “I told you so” when speaking to my grandmother over the phone. She would never tell me anything, but the tone was there, the look, and the attitude. I was a disappointment. I could never be the child she hoped for. I wasn’t pretty enough, smart enough, popular enough. I never told her anything that was going on in my life because she believed that I didn’t know what problems were and in her opinion, I was too sensitive.
In an effort to make it right, I listened to another friend. What do you do if you find yourself with a useless degree and no job prospects? Rather than give my mother satisfaction, I enrolled in a Master program for teaching. Again, school came so easy to me. I passed the courses with little effort and even found a job.
The school was small, private, and an hour away. I enjoyed teaching there, although at times I was disillusioned by the students. There were nice ones and bad ones. I had days that I was right on the money with my lessons and other’s that I just eye balled my way. Over all, I had a good reputation among the faculty and I became close to some students.
I worked there for three years before I was fired due to budget cuts. I worked there for three years before I was fired due to budget cuts. I was let go suddenly and my degree was unfinished. Finding another teaching position was slim. There was some consolation. By letting me go so suddenly, the school had violated my contact and as a result they had to compensate me. I walked away with half my salary, but the bills don’t stop coming just because you’ve been fired.
So here I am now, nearly twenty-eight and a total failure. As a teenager I had so many wonderful dreams for myself. I would have never imagined myself here like this. I flip through my friends facebook pictures and it only reinforces the fact the life goes on around me, but I’m stuck. I have no job and I have been unemployed for six months.
Every time I send out my résumé and get now reply, it’s like a knife in the heart. The silent rejection is almost unbearable. I live with my father and I fear to become him. He’s fifty years old, endlessly dying, and with no sense of responsibility. He’s made a mess of his life and finds himself homeless because of the choices he’s made. Loyalty and the fact that he’s my father, makes me unable to turn my back on him. Having him in my life has put a hold on mine. Again, I keep thinking to myself if only…
I have one stable rock in my life; a man that adores me beyond understanding and for reasons only known to him. He helps me when my car payment is due and when I can’t even stand to look in the mirror. Even he has his limitations though. Life would be easier if it was only the two of us. Again, I tell myself there will come a day when…
For most of my life I have wished for tomorrow, now I wish I could go back to tomorrow and make today easier. I still look for tomorrow to bring relief, but with my experience I fear that I will find myself once again wishing to turn back time when I get there. Hope if very few and far in between, yet I have to believe that there is something better out there. I have to believe that I won’t always be a failure and that I won’t always be a disappointment. I have to believe that it is darkest before the dawn and my dawn is just on the horizon…
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