The Echoes of My Past

The echoes of my past come as a rumbling noise or a murmur reminding me what I had gone through and how I got to where I am now. The twirls, the turns, the detours, the deviations I took in encountering dead ends, deep pits, steep mountains that I had to climb out or up in forms of heartbreaks, separations, hardships, losses. I used to compare my life to people around me and people I know. I came across too much juxtaposition, and the effects were too contrasting. I have two mothers, they are sisters. The one, who raised me and the biological one. Although, they came from the same family. one was loving and the other is indifferent. At fourteen, the one, who raised me left and I stayed with two families with contrasting values. Heartbroken, I was also pulled and pushed in the middle; however, they did not affect my two brothers. I felt not belonging to either of these families, an outsider wanting to be on my own. So I married young and had two children; but I also felt not belonging to my new family. Love is giving, understanding, sharing; but love to him was owning, controlling me. The continuous emotional, as well as physical toll wiped out my trust, respect and feelings. I took the whole responsibility to raise my two children in exchange of my freedom. I rather be a single parent than staying married in a dysfunctional family. My biological mother asked me why and told me what would other people say. She cared for their opinions or judgments instead of offering support or standing by me. I don’t care about the opinions of other people. I also don’t understand why some women stay in abusive relationships and think they could change their husbands, men or significant others. I remarried and had two more children. Our sixteen years was good in the beginning, as most relationships are, and was promising. However, the pressure of his business drove him to drink and the more he depended on alcohol, the more he neglected the business. His alcoholism and the financial stress in keeping the business were destroying our family as well as affecting me mentally, emotionally and financially. Although I loved him and I still do, I chose my sanity. I got the house; however, I had to take care of all the financial and legal matters, continue the mortgage payments and raise my two younger children on my own with the older ones. I worked two jobs to make ends meet while suffering from depression caused by the financial losses and the legal issues from his business that I had to resolve and managed the house and the children. I became the mother and the father. Some women closed to me used to call me to complain about their husbands and asked what to do. I told them, I did not have the answer and to seek professional help like I did. These women had too much anger, frustration, disappointment, regrets. They were depressed; yet rejected professional help because of the stigma of seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist. They rather suffer from desperation and I prefer keeping my mental health. They stay in a dysfunctional family, living in conflicts, denial, strife and worrying what other people will say or think, if they separate or divorce. Neither could I stay in an abusive relationship nor for love in a dysfunctional atmosphere. I rather be free and that’s the way it has been. Maybe love will find me someday or its already in front of me and I’m hesitant to let it in. Before when the echoes of my past came, I heard them like thunder, rolling, loud. Deafening me, leaving me speechless. Now, when these echoes come, I still hear rumbling noise; but softer, like a murmur, leaving me with a smile and sense of well-being. 11/22/20 Silent One Juxtaposition Poetry