Been flipping through old photos when I stumbled upon this one from 1998, I was in second grade, this one I recently got from a friend I met at college; we were best friends in grade school.
Though it took me 3 days to remember who she was, at the age of 18.
It was a class photo; everyone was looking straight at the camera, except for that dark skinned child with parted fringe. She was looking away, stroking a desk.
I giggled; because that was so very typical of me I could roughly guess what I was thinking about.
She said that I was like that all along, my friend. Mother says the same thing when she fumbles through my old stuff.
"You've always spaced out while around people. It was worrying, but it was great banter material"
Looking at my face in that photo, I could tell how much trouble I've caused my parents. My grandmother. My teachers. The few friends that I had at the time. The boys that liked me, even now.
I remember it clearly, when I used to hurt myself for no reason at all; how my mother didn't care much on the cause and moved on to the mitigation; because I "was young and it prolly wasn't deep", the marks still show on my body to this day. Though I don't remember how it felt at the time.
I still remember how she stopped lecturing me when I got into fights at school, and just moved on to calling their parents without giving me much hard time. Mother is like that; if it's too much trouble then it's prolly unnecessary. Dad was the exact opposite. Worrying for everyone else but himself.
For I could still remember at one point he eventually stopped giving me that sad look that clearly sighed :
"Where did I go wrong with you?"
When I would doodle lines and curves into thin air while laying on my back. Or chewed my food for too long. When I forgot what I've been told to do on the spot. Or when I was caught 3 blocks away from home with nothing on me but my clothes and slippers.
I remember how my father seemed to have given up figuring out where I came from on his own and left me alone to my curious habits and endless sketches; got me water colors and pencil colors and introduced me to reading way too early for school.
How he started to tell people that I'm "an artist", and that I was alright; being quiet most of the time because I was "busy thinking about stuff".
How he stopped praising me for getting full marks because it looked like he didn't have to keep doing that for me to continue.
How he gradually stopped raising his brows at the things I said; the questions I asked. How he listened to the strange dreams I recounted; the one with the teary pot that he told to my uncle while laughing then nodded his head in agreement that "she's on to big things, that child"
I remember that line for some reason, so many years have passed, and I don't even talk to that uncle of mine anymore, for personal reasons, but I still appreciate what he said because I really did make it my mission to be the pride of the fam, and I kinda am.
Children remember alotta things grownups think they can't understand. Nor pay attention to.
Not one that parents would wish they had.
But I wanna thank mine for raising me the way they did; trying to understand to their best, or at least pushing me towards the safe bank while stumbling alone in a swamp.
Thank you for being patient.
Thank you for not giving up on me.
And for being the one true home that I always turned back to when strangers and lovers failed to understand and walked away.
I only pray that I become half as good as a parent, and that i find the man that would help me raise a kid that would grow up to write the same in their diary.
