This weeks entry is submitted under the pseudonym ‘Poetic Dictator‘ and simply titled “Grey“
We are all judged for the mistakes we have made in life. “let he without sin cast the first stone”, this is what the Bible says but people rarely follow this advice. Being judged was never the actual problem really it’s when your own parents lose faith in you, that’s when you feel like your world is crumbling. It’s one thing for people to look down upon you but your parents being embarrassed to even be associated with you is the pits.
My father is a stubborn man but above all he is a moody man. Being on the wrong side of one of his moods was not a good thing at all. He could shut you out for months maybe even for years at a time. I understood at a later stage in life that is, I mean it’s not like he had a father figure to look up to or to follow or maybe it was just me trying to justify my father’s actions to make it easier on me.
After failing and being kicked out of University all the respect and love I gained from family members slowly faded. With all the promise I showed gone they probably realised that their future “life-line” was not going to turn out quit as they had hoped. I was the first in my family, cousins included, to make it to university. After all my elder cousins before me either got pregnant or fled to foreign countries all the pressure was put on me. I didn’t mind at first, ill educated about the true motives of man I didn’t think that their intention were impure in anyway.
I mean there is just something that happens when you go to these advanced Universities. Mixed with so may different cultures and customs you can imagine how many things your mind is opened up to. I was a foreign student and to others it was to exploit such simple minded souls who didn’t believe that people could use you for their own benefit. As foreign students we are exploited by a system that says it’s there to safeguard our rights. I was naive to think that in a foreign country I would have rights at all.
Now here lies the problem, after spending two years across the border my mind became liberated in a way. I became radical, my thoughts always focused on flaws of the system. By the time I got home I could see how the rest of my family leached my father for all he had and not caring about our well being at all. Bunch of freeloaders really but I guess he couldn’t understand that. A falling out of sorts happened as he thought I lived “the good life” all these years under his roof.
Me being my father’s son the stubbornness that was in me also came out and we found ourselves engaged in many verbal battles. Now this had a profound effect on my mother being forced to choose a side, either my father or me. Obviously it would reach a stage where I was disowned by my father and set financially free of him. The repercussions one could never fathom or even come close to imagining the emotional damage or had on me.
With the loss of a father figure I turned to the only thin I knew could numb the pain, drugs. Usually when we heard the word “drugs” it excites us knowing that pleasure is surely immanent after consumption but there something different about using while you are in a depressed state. It’s not as if the effect is dull not at all but the dependency creates a certain desperation. Financially unable to afford the very substances I need to stay sane I turned to other methods of obtaining money.
Now I’m not proud of the things I have done in my life but this was my lowest point and with no one to turn to I had to make my own moves. It’s all good to have friends to drink with and celebrate with but when the darkness comes, when your troubles become more than just a grey stain on a white shirt you friends will leave. I didn’t blame my friends for not helping me, I had come to understand the selfish nature of man. Had it been them in my position I probably would have done the same.
So there I was lurking in dark alleys, scavenging for food in dustbins and trash cans behind restaurants. I had to survive no man can judge me for this. I would wait till it was dark, that was always the best time, the moment a person would walk past I would dash straight towards them aiming for either the purse or bad they would have. I’m not proud of it but yourself in my shoes and try imagine what you would have done.
I spent a couple of months on the streets earning some much needed education on family and compassion. It didn’t take long for my resolve to be broken sending me crawling to my father asking for forgiveness. That look he had on his face, wasn’t a look of anger or shame, neither did he mind my foul stench and hideous appearance. It was the first time I have ever seen my father cry my whole life he had been a stern man.
Sure we can depend on friends and cousins, all subsets of our initial family but there is no one in the world who will ever love you as unconditionally as your parents. That sort of love you can’t find anywhere else, so one must be aware of these “real friends” that will drop you like a fly the minute your life turns to grey. I know personally about this I had many I called brothers yet I don’t even know where they are now.
