STRONGER NOW

THE DRAMA OF MY FEAR

Weakness is not a choice. It is not a liability nor a certain definition. Weakness is not a debt that you need to pay for. It is neither our partner as a consequence nor a bestowed property for our existence. And being weak is not the cause of crime committed. Truly, weakness is what is being seen by poor eye perception and thus, judging someone to be weak is apparently the poorest sense of perceiving, a person could have. Weakness is the story that tells uniqueness. It is the pride of success.

Living with my family was the last and the best resort that I could do for myself when I experienced and felt my greatest loss. Though it was not so noticeable in me, maybe because I chose every day to hide it with smile, laughter, jokes, and with my pillow when tears would start to fall out. Tears which were triggered by my sad soul. A soul who tried to cry silently because of not wanting anyone to hear his agony. The agony of which I thought as my inherent property. The pain that I kept because I thought it will never leave me and that I had to get used of it. But what I realized was that the reason why I did not leave it, is because I made it chain me and lock my significance, and then I didn't know how to release "ME", my mere exemption from the judgments that I let myself to be constantly judged.

It was 12 o'clock on the 24th day of June 2012 when my mama arrived at the house where we were working, my mama as the maid and my brother and I as the houseboys. She was composed and trying not to shed any single tear in front of me as she told me about my father. After she told me about what happened, I stood up from the chair I was sitting and went to the dirty kitchen to wash my hands. As I started to rub my hands, a whole bunch of memories detonated inside of my mind but still, I stood firmly in front of the faucet and watched the flow of water as it rinsed my dusted hands. As pieces of memories flashed, I swear, I felt my entire nervous system started to cringe in fear. And that was when I started to hate him for leaving me so early; for making me alone with my fears for the first time; for making me feel the sensation of becoming weak and small , and for leaving me alone and be judged for my fears and inadequacies, in front of the very own eyes of my own community. For leaving me scared.

I was 15 years old when I started to feel the heaviest load I had been carrying for almost all of the time. Yes! A fifteen-year old boy carrying his own fear, his thought that he was incompetent, his thought that winning was for the winners, his thought that living should be under the codes of others' perception, that to exist is to be judged, and that to exist is to conform precisely to what is seemed to be perfect and necessary. Those were the thoughts which I told myself. Those were the thoughts which I once made my life so dependent with. Though, it was not a choice but a decision that I needed to make. The decision which I once thought as part of my whole life's necessity.

I will not say how I overcame my fears, how I changed my thoughts, how I revised myself, and how I led my soul to my goal because really, I didn't. I am still with those fears right now, still pondering with those thoughts, still happy with the same self, still coping for my goals. I am still living the life I was built for. The life I knew I was built to become significantly different.