Looking over my life, I started working when I was 16 years old. What for? The prevailing factor that haunts me to this day was to defy my parents and prove them wrong because I was going to be independent. And so I did just that, slammed the door in their faces and got a job.
I didn’t move out…if that is what you are thinking. I just showed them that I could, and would save and work myself like a slave to make a point. I did all this, so I can giggle and laugh when teens my age invited me to places. I would shockingly look at them like, “I have a job, don’t ask me that.” And so the question to hang out was dropped. Several weeks later, the same question would pop up and my reply would be the same.
I didn’t move out…if that is what you are thinking. I just showed them that I could, and would save and work myself like a slave to make a point. I did all this, so I can giggle and laugh when teens my age invited me to places. I would shockingly look at them like, “I have a job, don’t ask me that.” And so the question to hang out was dropped. Several weeks later, the same question would pop up and my reply would be the same.
Until finally the questions stopped being asked, and I had to come to grips that I had my head so far up my manager’s hamburgers. I craved the money that I was bringing in. I craved the complaints and the aches. Because I was finally…sigh…independent, and I had proven my parents wrong. But the relationships with my friends were on the fast track to being about over. Well, who am I kidding, the relationship was severed and the friendship over.
Fast forward to college.
And so, I poured myself into my studies. Found it easier to forget when I had something to show for my education. Straight A’s and my name perpetually on the Dean’s List. Yes, I thought, finally some proof. But I guess that was not good enough.
I convinced myself that I needed the library to pay off my education. That was the truth, the lie I kept to myself. I figured I could master all three and still succeed. And so, I began my path as a working college student, who maintained the grades that she wanted.
I was doing well with my educational success. Until I met four girls that would bring utter joy into my life. They made me realize that it was time to stick my head out of the hamburger and the book. And learn to smile and laugh for a while.
And so I did, I learned to laugh and smile. I welcomed their friendship with joy.
But in my heart it still wasn’t enough. And so I got another job. And just like high school, the phone calls receded; the text messages became weeks and weeks apart. My heart was confused; I didn’t know what I had done to receive such silence. And then I looked back, my relationship with them wasn’t a relationship at all.
It was a circus, and I was the ring leader. I was trying to juggle too much – homework, school and three jobs, until they all came crashing to the floor threatening the silence that I held within my heart.
