“You know we’re really gonna, really gonna have it made.”
I spend most of my time with my mom and grandma, the most amazing people I know. They are renowned for their kindness and empathy. They are both wicked and smart and can speak multiple languages. They are pretty much all I wish I could be as a person. I try to be just like them, and have it down pat, except for the language thing. Man I wish I were good with languages, except I am not. Especially for the culture, I can barely understand what they are saying (my family is Ghanaian). I often joke that people are lucky I even know English.
Not knowing another language and not being good at languages in general is always a sore topic for me. It is one of the things that makes me feel out of place and as though I don’t truly belong in the culture. By the grace of God, if I am meant to have children, what do I pass down to them? I need them to know their languages so they have a true connection to their culture. Even I get guilt for something that hasn’t even happened yet, or may not even happen.
Then I spiral. I spiral into the things I don’t think I am good at and compare myself to others, looking at where I am and seeing where they are, dreaming of the grass on the other side. But, instead of sitting there having pity on myself, I have been doing something different. I look at these moments, not as a time of me belittling myself, but a realization that I always want something better for myself. As I look at other people, I pull myself back into myself and I am struck by sonder, realizing that I don’t know everyone and what is really going on with them. Do I truly want to take on their pains as well as their gains, just because I am curious or looking to much at what they are putting out, that I am ignoring what is within with me. I then turn into myself again and look at all I have to offer. Even on my bad days, I have at least one thing to be grateful for. With that, it is like life is throwing me a safety rope to pull myself out of my own darkness, reflecting on what I truly want for myself and what small steps I can do to get myself to my own internal goals.
The realization is this. Though I may want so much for myself, there are chances that these things may not come to fruition. Do I stop working at it, not necessarily. But if I don’t reach a certain goal, there are at least a plethora of things I have learned on the journey, that have added to my sense of being and better understanding of myself, and those are little goals in themselves, aren’t they?
I have to remind myself, and like to remind others, that comparison is the thief of joy. You will be hit with a moment of sonder too, which will snap you back into reality and lead you to appreciate what you have and where you are going, no matter how big or small, fast or slow. As we are all the same, we have our differences as well that should be accepted and that is how it is meant to be.
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