As much as I try and not let past experiences get in my way now I always find myself excusing my present behaviors on 'not-being-taught-when-I-was-younger'. But how long can I really milk that for if I even still can now? How long can I really say, 'because-my-momma-never-taught-me' or 'because-my-dad-was-never-there' or 'I-grew-up-way-too-fast-for-hygiene-and-etiquette-to-make-my-top-list-must-do's'. The fact that I even realize this must mean that the time is NOW to stop using those excuses.
Question is, am I truly ready to let go of my crutches? To truly abandon every justification that has made me a slacker, a procrastinator, a dweller of all things traumatizing, a push it to the back of my mind kind of person till the fees have added up hasta el tope? Or the fact that I justify dropping out of school to begin with because I got pregnant and I wanted to focus on mother hood and my daughter not my future. Can I really blame that on my child? Will she grow up thinking that she held me back? Is that burden fair to place on her? Sure she is young now and doesn't realize it but she is smart and just as I question my own existence as a burden placed on my own mother have I doomed my child to the same fate? I kinda want to cry even writing that because it's the first time I have ever admitted it and I am not sure if I am completely ready to admit it.
Since I'm on this path of self-revelations, the truth is I dropped out of school cause I was lazy. It was hard for me to work two jobs, pay rent, gas, go to school full time, do homework, buy books, have a social life, wake up early Monday thru Monday, essentially had no help from no one at the time, look good and be pregnant. I was not made for those duties. Faults I blame on my past. There were other kids making it. Why couldn't I? Was it really my fault I wasn't taught to handle and manage all these things together, that I was forced to? Who's fault was it then that I wasn't taught to fight through life's harsh realities when it came to 'normal-day-to-day' struggles like work and school and responsibilities but without question knew I didn't need a man to raise kids or be happy? Without question, I knew a woman could do whatever she wanted how ever she wanted with whomever so long as it was making HER life happy? Why couldn't these things include school, or work, or brushes, or money, or lotion, or true love, or true family love?
I was in my walking class when a classmate told me how she had taken a year off to raise her child. It sounded like an excellent idea. She made it perfectly clear that it was imperative I return after that year off was taken and completed other wise everything would be screwed up. I was already failing my math class. I couldn't for the life of me get out of remedial math in the two years I had spent studying there. My English professor would not cut me any slack on making up homework even when I had explained to her that I was on Medi-Cal and could only take the prenatal appointments given to me which just so happen to fall on the hour of her class. Bitch. And in the year that I took my leave, SJSU decided to switch everything online. Yeah nothing crazy difficult, but it was just another obstacle I had no intention on overcoming.
I felt like the two years I completed there were sufficient enough and joining the sea of college-dropouts wasn't really that bad. The fact that I was even accepted into SJSU was an accomplishment for me. I probably didn't even have to attend one day of curriculum and I would still ride that boat till it sank. So basically I was looking for an excuse to drop out and fail. Motherhood was the perfect, most justifiable, sympathetic way to not have to go back. Besides what kind of mother would I be if I left my child everyday just to go to school? I was working full time by then and I would never see her if I did that.
I lay in bed every night thinking of what if, or I'm going to call the school tomorrow and get a copy of my transcripts and enroll again. Instead I wake up the next morning late and I forget about it all. Even if my Grandma, God bless her soul, calls me every morning at 6 and 630 am to wake me up. I linger in the past because I think I'm still trying to figure it out and understand it. I still want these excuses to be valid in my present day life because it helps me to put off till tomorrow what I know I so badly need to do today.
Looking in the mirror is hard to do knowing all this sometimes. Aside from all physical defaults, my eyes are relentless once they see past superficial insecurities and go straight to the ones that lie beneath the surface. The ones I can't escape nor deny. The ones that need to be faced and dealt with as soon as possible.
And what comes next when writing this reminds myself to call the school and get my transcripts right now that their phone lines are open and everything would be readily available and I still won't pick up the phone and do it?
No comments:
Post a Comment