I didn't start breathing in 1997
My name is Leslie, of that, I can almost be sure. My birth certificate indicates my birth back to the date of July 1997. If I was born in 1997, why have I lived my life feeling as if I wasn’t, why am I not breathing?
The greatest part of me has always been missing. That I have always been certain of. It’s extremely difficult to find the right words to describe what my family means to me. They are everything, my family is the only thing that gives me life. You would look at me, and think I have it all. However, my family is the one exception, they are what I have never been able to keep. In my twenty-two years of life, I have only experienced a limited amount of happiness. I swear. To me, happiness comes and goes. It all begins when I finally get to be with my family. Happiness becomes me because I get to see them face to face, I get to hug them, I finally get to feel loved, I finally feel like I’m breathing. The oxygen I need on a daily basis finally feels like it’s doing its job, I feel full. Full of love, life, beauty; I feel full of anything that could possibly be good in this world. If I’m lucky, I get a chance to breathe every summer.
(Holding on tight to my limited time of hugs!)
(Holding on tight to my limited time of hugs!)
Growing up without them was extremely difficult. I always felt alone, and till this day I still seem to stand the very same way. I get up, I go to school, I go to work, I go home, and yet the one thing constantly running around in my head are my loved ones. A simple two and a half hour flight, or a 23 hour car ride. I would run the 1,459 miles there if I could, for them definitely to the ends of the earth. I appreciate family so much more because I grew up without one.
As a new born baby, I could have never had it all figured out. However, little by little, I started building the puzzle that was to be called my “life.” As I figure everything out, I know my life never began in 1997.
Your six-word memoir tells a story; it's poignant, and it makes me want to know more. You hint at loss, but I never know why you can't stay with your family, and that makes me want to keep reading. (Perhaps you will hints in the next assignment? It's hard to say. Only if you want to share.)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful details, Leslie.
Thank you so much Professor,
DeleteI'm glad I got you to be intrigued to the point of wanting to know more.
Hopefully throughout each assignment I will start opening up a little more each time. At least that's the goal! Learning to be ok with being vulnerable when it comes to me as a person, and my writing,
I hope so too. I think we need a little bit of time to get comfortable no matter if we are in face-to-face or online classes. Writing exposes us, even when we aren't writing about ourselves.
DeleteI hope you are feeling more comfortable. :)
Leslie,
ReplyDeleteAs you are with your family, I am with mine as well. My family means everything to me, without them I do not know what life would be like. I love to meet people that are just as close to their families because we're a different breed. In your writing it seems as though you have experienced loss, and I am very experienced with that. I'm not sure what exactly you are hinting at, but I know how finding family in times of difficulty can help. Even though my family means everything to me, I left them to come to school at SDSU. Yet I think it was for the best, I have grown as a person. Through being on my own I've come to know who I am alone, and when need be I go home. I think the ability to go home has made me grateful for the family I have.
Fautima
Fautima,
DeleteI'm glad that you can see where I'm coming from. You are stating a literal fact! Some people don't understand why I love my family above all things; and that lets me know where they stand with theirs. I think the way we are shows that we are strong. You state your family means everything to you, yet you left them to come to school. I do that every single time I go visit them, and it hurts every single time. The pain never gets any easier, and the tears never get any less.
Thank you for sharing a little bit of yourself!
Leslie,
ReplyDeleteHearing about what you have to say regarding how you view your family inspires me. The fact that you have so much love and faith in them and their role in your life truly exposes how passionate you are about loving those around you. Although I may have never met you, I feel like I can truly relate to the ideas you have regarding happiness. Happiness is not always a constant or a given, and that's okay. I believe that in today's world with social media, we are under the impression that these "perfect" lives will offer us unlimited happiness, when in fact, happiness is limited. And that is okay! It's something we must accept in order to grow and to learn how to love ourselves and others, just like how you love your family.
Sabrina,
DeleteThank you so much for the comment. I honestly had to read your second sentence over and over again. I love it! It made me reflect. I found it extremely interesting that you connected it to social media. That is definitely a way to look at it, it impacts so many of our lives. Acceptance is a step we all should feel in someway comfortable with because when it comes down to it we can't change everything. We must do it, like you said, to grow and learn.
Hi Leslie,
ReplyDeleteI admire your love for your family and the appreciation you have every time you get the chance to see them. Reading this makes me realize that I sometimes lose sight of how important family time is when we get it, especially in college while we still are afforded that time. As we all get older it becomes harder and harder to make time, but feeling the love of your family is something that we should not need to "make time for", you should find it no matter how difficult it may be. I totally agree, take advantage of the times you have together with the people who make you the happiest, but know that they are always with you!
Hi Max,
DeleteThank you so much. I think we are all going through that; we are getting to know each other and coming to see there are things that we had in the back of our mind and lost sight of/on, some of us not even knowing. I completely agree with you, as time passes it becomes harder to make time for many things. I want a break from "adulting." (*eye roll*) I will continue to take advantage of any time I get off to see them. Nothing in this life is promised, and I don't want to regret anything later on.
Thank you for reminding me there are always with me. That really helps even though I don't physically have them here.