The Puzzle of My Life

When I was a young girl at the age of 5 years old, I loved putting things together, that was when I started to sew, crochet, and even put together my own doll clothes. My mother was not a scholar nor has she graduated from elementary school to high school. She moved to the United States before I was born but still didn't know the language or how to write in English. When I was born my sister was already 3 years old, she spoke Korean more than English but she was attending Kindergarten which allowed her to learn English. I also attended the same school when I was old enough so English is my first language.

I was always unique because at the time my sister and I were the only kids that were mixed Korean and African American, most of the children in our school were either white or black mostly black. The Church we attended was a Methodist Church, we lived in a small town where almost everyone was a relative to someone down the street there were very few strangers. When we moved into the neighborhood we were the strangers. It was challenging when I started school with my sister, we couldn't sit on the bus because the kids thought we were Japanese and for some reason they didn't like us. My dad had to ride the school bus with us and it was trying at times but we got through it.

When I was 5 years old I had 2 dramatic experiences that happened in my life, the first was on my birthday I was playing outside with some of the kids in my neighborhood at my house. My mom invited them to my party. As I was laughing and playing I jumped of the swing set like most kids do and landed in a tire my dad had left in the driveway after he fixed his car, our next door neighbor had a German Shepherd named "Moon" he ran over and bit a big chunk out of my right side hip. It was very painful but not as painful when my mom and the dad of one of the kids had me on the bed in front of all my friends and pulled my pants down to see where all the blood was coming from. I was then rushed to emergency and it's funny now but I can't remember what happened after that. It was a few months later when the most devastating thing happened in my life which was my daddy decided to leave us. I thought that it was because of me, my dad said to both me and my sister that it wasn't but my sister took it harder than I did, she was 8 years old at the time. I kinda knew what was going on even at that age, I just felt that well it is what it is, my sister not so much, she was suffering I could tell. One thing I have learned is that children know when parents are going through something, when they are depressed, hurt, sick, you can't hide it from them, especially when parents go through a divorce it can even be civil, it still effects children, they hurt too sometimes even more than the parents.

This piece of the puzzle had to be laid down first in order for me to add the next piece that allowed to go in the direction in which I was to go. I know you may think that its not true that everything in my life was set to order to make me the person that I am today, however, that's not exactly what I am saying. In life there are always 2 roads to take, the left, the right, backup or move forward. If you choose to go left or go right your destination is determined on what you choose for example, if you decided to not have sex before marriage, to complete college, get a career, then start a family but you met this awesome person and you fell in love, had a baby and didn't finish school until you were in your 40's does that mean you made the wrong decision? No, it means you took another road, you may have gotten to your goal later but your goal is still in tact you just decided what was more important. If you had things in your past that were tragic and you continued everyday reliving it by thinking about it, blaming those involved, and punishing yourself for it you are constantly moving backward your life is in reverse, if you decide to forgive, let go, and move forward by making better decisions learning from your past or others past decisions then you have decided to move forward. The puzzle is the same way you move the pieces around back and forward, left and right, to find where they fit so you can get to the true picture. This is just the corner piece, the other pieces will be added each day for you to see the big picture of your life story and know that you have the power to put the pieces of your puzzle anywhere you want to see your beautiful life picture.