LEARN FROM YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCES-THEN TEACH FROM THEM

I typed today’s post last night, and today as I got up to finish it, I do not know what I touched but everything erased from the screen. I sat here looking at the screen and I searched the board for the lost content which had reached over a thousand words but nothing! This is very hard for someone who cannot type such as myself, and I feel like crying as I type this, but I am reminded that there are no coincidences in life, everything happens for a reason, I will comfort myself with that thought.

My story began with me writing of when my family and I first came to America and how we were thrown out by my mother’s sister house, my Aunt who has since passed away. Iba Aunty Elaine! We had it rough for a time as we were in a new country and did not know anyone until my mother met upon an old friend Jimmy and his wife, who helped us find a place. Iba Jimmy, (Iba, is I pay homage to) who has also passed away. During those times, I, as a small child worried for my mother and us, how would we survive?. I had never wanted to leave my home Jamaica to came to America, but I was a child and had to do as my parents wanted.

Jimmy found us an apartment, my mother and older sister did odd jobs to make ends meet, and people who knew of our plight helped in any way they could. When I was sent out on my own, due to getting pregnant at a young age my mother told me to leave her house, I never forgot what was done to us when we migrated, and after how I was casted out of my mother house. I have always helped and sheltered anyone who needed it, often times not even knowing the person, I felt I had to, owing to my own experience.

I have experienced bad from doing good, because most people who I helped and assisted with shelter, food, money and clothes, sharing what little I had and to the risk of my then relationships (de baby father never liked that I was kind hearted and soft hearted, at the time I thought he was Satans General because of it, but he saw things which I was blinded to, I will give him that, only that!) yet they all never remembered me and what I did for them. Instead, most became enemies, without them and I having any quarrel, but them being not content with the fact that I helped them, most wanted to stay my responsibility, not wanting to try for themselves, to seek out life on their own, and after a while when they saw it not possible to lean on me always, they became my enemies.

There was a time when my mother had to forcibly remove a set of women I had taken in. Well it was one young lady who I had took in, but she sent for her friend to come also, and there was one who worked for me in my salon who also lived with me, moved right in on me. I had no idea at the time that the wicked baby father was upset about it, although he would ask me now and again when would they leave. I would defend them and tell him that they had no where to go and I could not put the out.

One day my mother had her friend call my house, unbeknownst to me, and threatened to send immigration over to my house for them, they packed out the very same night. I cried for them, and the wicked man was very happy. It seemed as if it was all planned by him and my mother. After they left, the women told everyone who would listen that I was wicked and evil, because I sent them packing, knowing that they had no where to go. O ma se O! me? No thanks did I get for helping these people out for two years of living with me, inconveniencing my self and my children in order to help them and that was the thanks I got, when I had no idea that it was even my mother who had done this, until months later when she told me she had her friend call.

They thought I was naive and easily taken advantage of because of my kind nature, these women never contributed to anything, I never asked, and to be extremely honest, I did not care. I just wanted to make sure that they were comfortable, because in my mind they were immigrants and I did not want them to suffer as we did when we came to America, or for anyone to go through what I went through after my mother told me to leave her house.

That was not the last time I sheltered somebody and the other outcome was the same. No thanks, just ungratefulness. I went above and beyond and was disappointed by them every time.  Now this is my blog, my story, and it is easy for me to create a story so I could look good and others look bad, But I assure you all, that I tell the truth, I gave all my heart and what I did not have and was rewarded with evil for lack of a better word.

I have since told myself that I will never shelter anyone again. It hurts, because I am naturally soft hearted and kind. I love to help and I hate for anyone to suffer. All that I went through in life, I would not want to see anyone go through the same or even worse. Yet my goodness often turn a sword to my bosom, and people I have assisted in life, felt that it was my duty and I was their responsibility forever. I had to draw a line, how many times would I go through the same thing. I love people but unfortunately there are many bad ones out there, and I have been stung by a lot of them.

There comes a time when you have to learn from your experiences. Learn from things that you have been through. No matter how you feel about a situation or about someone, you must think of yourself. Of course experience teaches wisdom, and there are some like me, who have been stung over and over and over again before learning, until I have now come to the realization that this that I am doing does not work for me.

I have told my children all of what I have been through, in detail, I have taught them a lot, and of course they, being my children have witnessed my pain at the hands of these people and then some. I am however very happy to say that they, make quick decisions when it comes to their lives, they allow themselves never to make the same mistake twice. Yet I never viewed any of these people, the ones I assisted as a mistake, I looked at each of them as individuals who were just not good people after I found out their true nature, and so I allowed myself to do it again and again, hoping each time that this one would be different, unfortunately for me, I had never met one who was different, they all ended up being the same.  Perhaps that was just my fate, and I had lessons to learn from these people, hard lessons I have to say, and I have learned them, I hope, yet in hindsight if I had it to do all over again, this part of my life, I would not.

I have been through being thrown of a home more than once, having no one to love and care for me, being pregnant young and being on my own with nobody, counting pennies while pregnant in hopes of finding enough to buy food, meeting horrible men who would become as my children fathers and their wicked evil families, having bad family members who were cruel and mean to me, going through a very rough awakening and more, all those I would do over again, If I had to (but please God do not make it so), however meeting these people who needed help and giving help to them and having them turn on me, hurt me, betray me, giving me bad for the good I gave, I would not want to go through that again, in this life or any other, and I do not wish it for anyone. I have met some awful people, I even married one.

Utilize wisdom, do not make excuses for people. Whenever you see a persons personality, when they show themselves to you, believe them, no matter their condition and circumstances do what you know best, listen to you true spirit. My Aunt threw us out because someone told a lie on me, and she believed, when my mother and sister defended me, she told us to leave. In doing that, I now realize that she did her duty and sent for us to come to America. Throwing us out for whatever reason was something that she had to do, so that we could find ourselves in a new country, she could not carry us.Yet because of what she and my mother did to me, I decided that I would not see someone who needed help and not help them, all this stemming from my own bad treatment, but I had to learn that we all have our own lives to live. You cannot not save or help everyone. There are times when you have to put yourself first, it is not being selfish, it is about survival and also loving yourself enough to make YOU, happy, do not allow yourself to be a victim, there are times when being kind can become a sword to your own bosom, take heed.

Add your own story, or what ever life lesson you wish to share here.

Kó wá kó lọ niyì òṣùpà tóṣùpá bá ti dàrànmọ́jú kò níyì mọ́. /

It’s more honourable for the moon to show up and recede; it loses honour, when it is static and unreceding…..Yoruba Proverb!

[Familiarity breeds contempt; what is unduly available loses value]

All religions are valid as long as it teaches peace and love…..Obara Meji!

There are no disappointments in life, only lessons learned…..Obara Meji

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
― Haruki Murakami

“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.”
― Haruki Murakami

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
― Plato

We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.”
― Santosh Kalwar,