Age Perspective Part 1

Age Perspective Part 1

Have you ever wonder what awaits you at every level of age (pre-teen, teen years, 20’s, 30’s, 40’s etc.), if you are reading this blog, you have gone through a few of those levels.  Sooner or later, as long as we are still breathing all of us will experience the next unknown age.  Unless someone has taken the time to discuss how it was for them you have barely a clue.  Even if someone did take the time, everyone has the potential to have a unique experience.  I’m sure you can Google it, and then you will most usually get the medical perspective.  I will share with you the everyday perspective that I have experienced, because it can’t hurt you to compare your experience with someone else’s; might even be fun.

My pre-teen years were a rollercoaster ride of emotions.  At one point I was so very happy to have the loving parents I had.  Not a worry in the world, I was loved, never spanked, not even a raised voice in anger (I was very well behaved).  I never took advantage but I knew that all I had to say was, I wish I had that (reference to a toy in a display window), and my parents would find a way to surprise me with it.  I was enrolled in private school at age 4, I didn’t really want to go but then, once I started, I couldn’t imagine not being there.  The children I mingled with were middle to upper class, yet I didn’t pick up their bad habits (acting spoiled).  My parents dropped me off and picked me up themselves; the other children were dropped off and picked up by the nanny or chauffer.

My parents were so in love that even after years of marriage they held hands whenever they walked anywhere, and when driving anywhere my mother sat close to my father.  Thinking back, I don’t recall ever being considered and intrusion, my parents always dropped whatever they were doing to pay attention to me.

My next statement is not a guess on my part; I was always told by my parents, that we were moving to United States from Mexico to secure a brighter future for my sister and me.  By securing attorneys in Mexico and in Los Angeles through my father’s family that lived there (Los Angeles, CA.) it was supposed to be a smooth process no longer the 6 to 8 months (it actually took longer than a year plus). That part of our life began to introduce the emotional pressure.  Since we sold all our possessions and moved closer to a border crossing in the Baja area (across country) we were displaced in every sense of the word.  In the beginning it was like a vacation or adventure, but when things don’t go back to normal it stops being fun.

When I started this post I had the expectation that I could write about all the age levels in one post (not going to happen).  Within the next two years we would achieve our permanent Resident legal status in the United States, I would start a new school, with a new primary language (English), and my parents would separate and eventually divorce.  As rollercoasters go this had to be the tallest rollercoaster in the world.

That period of my life always makes me appreciate the old saying, “what don’t kill you makes you stronger,” it did make me stronger emotionally.  Few other disappointments have touched me emotionally as deeply as that chapter of my life did.  The events just described happened before I turned 9 years old.  When I chose to go with my mother from California to Texas I went from being a carefree kid to feeling the responsibility of being the man of the house.

The following three years were difficult but we managed as a family unit to be stronger and closer due to adversity.  I loved my mother so much that I behaved, just to make sure that I didn’t add to her burden of being a single parent, with 2 and sometimes 3 jobs to keep all our needs and most of our wants met.  Before the age of thirteen (my teens and almost 4 years later) my mother met a very nice man and gave marriage another try (this time the marriage would last 25 years).  Up next the terrible teens period.  The best is yet to come….