ESSAY ON ME: LEARNING TO APPRECIATE YOUR PAST
An idyllic childhood was all I had known. The sort of thing you see in a Norman Rockwell picture; family around the table, relatives and friends living nearby, and a Taste Freeze at the end of my quiet one block street. I remember how we could trick-or-treat at our neighbor’s houses without worry. Most of them were elderly and loved making homemade treats for the children. Other than the usual school bullies life was practically perfect. That all changed in sixth grade.
That was the year the screaming started, or at least was noticeable. There was yelling, slamming of doors, the refusals to go to church by my father, and my mother’s constant crying at the closed bedroom door. At twelve years old I discovered life was not perfect after all. The following year, my brothers and I were being dragged halfway across the country to chase after my father. Coming back home the following year, my thirteenth birthday was spent knowing my parents were signing divorce papers at the county courthouse that very day. People would wish us well and say they were sorry it happened.
And so the journey began! The only problem, I didn’t know it was a journey until a few years ago. I had heard the rumor but never felt the truth of it. During my teen and college years, the majority of my time was spent trying to create the perfect life of fun times and experiences. Instead of moving forward, I was stuck wanting the happy feelings of my childhood. What I really did is over involve myself, overachieve, underachieve in my studies, and allow myself to be in precarious situations, one of which turned into a rape that scarred me deeply. And people would say to me, “Don’t you wish it didn’t happen?”
By then I was burnt out and hell bent on just finding someone, anyone, who would love me, take care of me, and help me create that perfect life. After two beautiful children, one of which is learning disabled, a failed marriage, and various other calamities, I finally found out that I had to love myself. Something I hadn’t done for a very long time. I’m nearly forty now, and for the first time since I was a little girl, I can honestly say I like myself, just the way I am. I love my life. Sure there’s a few extra pounds and a couple a crow’s feet, but inside I know who I am and what I believe. I believe I would not be the person I am today had God not given me the opportunity and the strength to experience everything I have experienced in my life, the good and the bad. So when someone says to me now, “Don’t you wish you had never …?” I just smile and say “no,” because without “it,” and the other bits of my past, I would not be the person standing before you now that you know and love.
Juliet Hunt
