by Leslie RomanI bet when you were reading the title you thought I was about to start off talking about a breakup between a boy and a girl, girl and girl, or boy and boy. I will, but not at this very moment. What I want to shine light on is the way pain cannot be described in words—even though I will try my best to, and how it affects the person who held onto or still holds onto such pain, aka heartache. Heartache does not necessarily have to be associated with losing something, but gaining. The moment one begins to experience this is when you know you had to or need to lose whatever does not play out well in your life to move on to greater things. But, it is normal to have a set-back but to remember that you are totally over it. Each individual handles and deals with Heartache differently. I will give an encounter with someone whom I know. She was the youngest in her family, with four brothers. She did not grow up in the United States but in a different country. Her father was an alcoholic, and the mother owned a restaurant where she herself had to wake up early and cook for the customers. We will call her Courage. Courage as a young female helped her Mother with this restaurant, and you would think that because she had older brothers they will help too, but they did not. They instead preferred to live their life, go to bars, and find money whenever they can and use it to their own benefits. If it wasn’t for Courage, she would have grown up illiterate. She told her neighbor she wanted to go to school and with the help of them; she was able to go to elementary school, high school, and at least some college. Right about now you are thinking, why did the mother not put her daughter in school? Did the Father try to help ends meet? Did her brothers not do anything to help their one and only sister? These are the same questions that have been running through my mind, but that is a lot of burden to put on a thirteen year old adolescent. The moral of the story is not to go into detail on how her life was, but how she expressed herself as she expressed it to me. As the words rolled off her tongue, her eyes would look at different directions to avoid eye contact; I guess she was afraid of breaking down at any moment if she saw my face. Her tone of voice was soft, and relaxed. Suddenly, Courage began to tell me, “You are lucky to have what you have now. When I was growing up I did not have a Mother to give me love, or parents that thought it was a good idea to put me in school. I had to open my mouth to say that I wanted to study. Better yet, I did not even have toys. At this point, I began to feel her heartache. She was like a child in that moment once again, hoping that she could go back in time and change the way she grew up. “I remember waiting on line on where people gave out toys and someone giving me a Barbie doll”. As she told me this, her voice broke up and she began to cry as she struggled to finish. Courage had the courage to speak on what had hurt because she no longer has that life. But besides the heartache that one can remember from the past, there is the heartache that one feels when there is no support from the people who are the most closest to you. Parents or guardian have to know that there would be a time that a daughter or son has to explore the world trusting and believing that they know right from wrong. But, even though one may stumble along the way, it was a mistake. Parents want their children to look for opportunities in life but they have to let them go and be proactive. They can’t be like, “Oh look for a job”, and when you are looking for a job, they want to be protective and say, “Don’t be working too late”, or “The pay is low”. At least it is something. Parents are no longer the issue here, but the issue is it hurts when someone does not believe in your ability to go after your dream. We begin to think what if and now that dream is a long-forgotten memory. I do not know what your definition of heartache is, but everything I have said up to this point is mine. If there is a moment that you are about to experience Heartache, think if it’s really worth it? Would you prefer to hold on or let go? Would this be a good thing or bad thing? Take the chance or don’t take the chance? To be or not to be?
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