From the Cradle

… into life

Making the move from my childhood home to the new four walls holding my dreams and fears was symbolic on a multitude of levels. Moving, at that exact point of my life, was as though the universe was gently encouraging me out of the safety of the cradle and into a big-girl bed.

I was eighteen-years-young and survived the toughest year of my life thus far. (You can read about it here.) It was time to spread my wings and fly in the new environment I now called home in a foreign land known as Wisconsin.

Everything was different. For the first time in my life, I knew no one. I was a stranger in a strange land. A few weeks after moving, university life began. Unlike others who moved to campus and still had a “home” to go back to, I didn’t. I couldn’t go back to the Chicagoland area with my family. I chose not to go back on my own. It felt as though my family (Mama & Apa) still needed me. In my naïve mind, I was the glue that held them together. So, I stayed.

The first day of university wasn’t as awkward as that of high school. I gained a bit of confidence over the past four years. It was time for me to fly on my own a bit. Before I knew it, I made friends and was in love with my husband-to-be.

I shifted my energy from missing my former life to getting excited about what’s ahead. I focused on the good. I allowed myself to love and forget about the previous year. This clean slate thing was kind of nice.

Only, I never really dealt with the events from the prior year. I never allowed myself to heal from leaving my only home, leaving my friends, and the stress of the family. I pushed those feelings aside. This was how we dealt with things in our family. We didn’t truly allow ourselves to feel the deeper wounds. In turn, we didn’t allow ourselves to heal those deeper wounds. We kept moving forward leaving behind anything that would weigh us down.

Funny thing though, if you don’t tend to the weights, years and years later, they’ll be heavier than you could ever imagine. Adding more weight to the heaviness gives way to the weights being nearly impossible to move. How was this 5’4”, 115lbs, 18-year-old supposed to move a tractor trailer? Instead, I added more and more and more into that trailer for the upcoming 25 years.

As memories of the cradle faded to black and white and slowly began to blur, I realized I was fully into adulthood and only loved certain aspects of it. I longed for the ease of my senior year of high school. I wanted the comfort and familiarity of my parents, not having to pay my own bills, and not having to deal with the plethora of adult decisions now crushing my shoulders. Adulting sucked. Where was my cradle? Where were my two stuffed animals that kept me company and protected me? Where was the safety of the family?