No one ever said life would be easy....

No one ever said life would be easy...and if they did they were completely wrong.

I sit in the bathtub as I contemplate life. I rarely take a bath so when I do one should know that there is something weighing down on my shoulders. I sit with my toes under the faucet. I like the feeling of the water as it sprays out onto the top of my foot....the steam fogging up the mirror, and the only thing I can do is take a big sigh before my thoughts come pouring out of my brain. Today's thoughts are: growing up in life. I am not sure which one is flowing faster...the water or my thoughts.

The thing about the word wiser is it is paradoxical. In my opinion, you can't say someone is wiser b/c they now live on there own and have to pay bills. Yet you could say one is wiser b/c they realize that they are living on their own and have to come up with the funds for the bill...and they do just that, then pay the bills. That is neither here nor there. Let me relate the first statement and the word “wiser” to my situation.

I suppose as we grow and get older wisdom should come along through the lessons we learn along the way. We make a mistake, we realize we made the mistake, we learn from it, and we try not to do it again. That has not been my life. I have made plenty of mistakes only to turn around and make the exact same mistake expecting different results. Now this may sound foolish you. Hell this sounds foolish to me. Why on earth would someone realize they did something wrong and continue to beat their head? Well to be honest, I am not sure if I can answer that question just yet, but what I can do is take a look at my past.

Growing up life was relatively simple. My mom wasn't around much therefore I could do pretty much what ever I wanted to do. I was never into drugs, but with the lack of attention from my mom, I wanted to fill that void by getting attention from others. I would run around all hours of the night and come home when I pleased. There were no guidelines and the only time I ever got in trouble for something was when my mother wanted to see my father. See, from my point of view, the only time my father would come over was to discipline me and that was my mother's in with my father. She used me to get to him. So from an early age I figured out how to use people to get what I wanted. (not one of my best qualities or the one I like I highlight)

I learned how to play my mom against my grandmother, or my mom against my aunt. If I wanted something and someone would not give it to me I knew a little pouting and tears would do the trick. Looking back I am not proud of who I was and what I learned....that is why rectifying myself has become a big objective of mine.

Anyways using people carried into my adulthood. To be honest I didn't know who was trying to help me and who was trying to hinder. All I knew was that the women in my family all had tricks up their sleeves and the only way to win in their game was to out trick all of them. So I became a manipulator.

When I was 12 I stole a car, my mother's car to be precise. I had to go to court and the judge was going to let me go with a warning. However my father stepped in and asked the judge for a harsher punishment. I was very angry with my father at the time, but little did I know how much I would appreciate his discipline when I got older....At age 12 I was “locked up” at juvenile detention for three months before being shipped off to Boys and Girls Town in Missouri. Though I am not going to go into great detail about my stay there on this blog it defiantly helped to give me the structure that I needed/wanted in life. I was there for about two years and the only people that came to visit me were my grandpa and grandma....I believe this is the time when I decided that I was going to have my back whether I was right or wrong; I started thinking everyone was my enemy and I needed to defend myself no matter what.


Soon after I got out it wasn't long before I went back to my old ways(bumping myself on the head). Only this time I had more hate in my heart, my eagerness to learn and be open wasn't there, and I didn't care about anyone(myself included). My mother had kicked me out of her apartment whenever she felt the need to be alone but this time I stayed out for good. I was 16 and living on my own. It felt good not to have my family saying harsh things behind my back and smiling to my face. I mean they could have been talking behind my back, but I was not actively speaking to any of them so they couldn't be catty to my face.

Years went by and I saw who I was and who I wanted to be. There was a big difference. I see how the mistakes and what I have learned as a child has affected me and who I am becoming and want to become. I do not know why I did some of the things that I did in the past...but I do know that shedding my old skin has been tough and sometimes I get a clear notion that I have a lot more work to do.

Nowadays I keep climbing that mountain in order to become the person that I want to be. Sometimes I slip and and take a couple of steps back....but those who know me best would agree that I am very persistent...however I am working on being persistent for the wars that deserve the fight.

No one ever said life would be easy....and if they they did their life has not begun.

Pi