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If anyone would have told me that growing up would be a hassle, I would have never believed them. Sometimes I wonder if the things I have seen or lived during my childhood have somehow embedded into my subconscious and at times of uncertainty they come out to play. One of the things that I can still recall as if it were yesterday was watching three dead bodies lying on the hot asphalt one Saturday afternoon.

We were visiting my aunt, my father’s closest relative at that time. She lived in a double story home built on an aggressive hill in Juarez, Mexico. I don’t recall what my parents were talking about or if I was playing with my cousin or simply sitting there in the kitchen listening to grown ass folks talk about nonsense. I regard it as nonsense because of that age it was highly unlikely that I was interested in what they had to say about life. I was around five years of age, still full of zest for the little things.

We heard a loud bang outside and everyone rushed to the patio. My parent’s, including my aunt were gasping in awe at what they were looking at. I pushed through and witnessed something rather interested. Now at this age, I feel somewhat disgusted at that gruesome sight, but at that time of five, I just couldn’t comprehend what I was going to think or feel. A drunk driver had gone up hill and ran over a mother and two children. Their bodies laid on the floor, seemingly a bit mangled. You could see the blood smeared for a good distance.

The driver crashed into a pole when he tried to swerve in order to avoid running them over, but failed miserably. The loud crash that we heard wasn’t from him running them over; it was from him crashing into a giant metal pole. He must have been driving pretty fast since he ended up killing his brother who was in the passenger car. It was only until after when my dad and uncle ran down there to prevent the guy from running away that we found out it was his brother. Both were in their mid-thirties, and just a few seconds of misguided direction, ended both their lives, one figuratively and the other literally.

I never really thought about the incident, never gave it too much important. But now that I am older, I wonder if it somehow had anything to do with the person I had become. I’m not going to blame that situation on my present troubles, or futures ones, but I just wonder if the little things like those did in fact change something inside my head. As Freudian liked to say, we all have some sort of baggage.

The other day while venturing through youtube suggestions I came across a nice Pink Floyd mix. I played it with my studio headset and just went to town. I went into a nice little journey across memory lane. Going back to the little things we experience during childhood I uncovered a long forgotten bank of bad memories. I remembered getting my ass beat by father. I don’t hold any grudges anymore as I’ve learned to accept what things were. As I grew up, I never truly changed who I was, with or without the ass whoopings.

One of the things I’ve learned about myself is that I do what I want, and at times life was rough. Life was a really tough teacher, and even when I couldn’t get what I wanted, I fought back as if my life depended on it. I wonder if that was one of the reasons why I am a bit stubborn, and in the darkest moments of my life, when depression kicks in and life just wants to keep kicking me when I’m down, that I get up and fight back. I take no shit from anyone, unless I am tired and fighting back would only be a losing battle. Then again that was when I was younger. Up until I hit my mid-thirties I started being smarter about the way I did things, or how I dealt with people. I learned that many times you can’t help some of them; you just have to let life teach them the way it is meant to be. On a darker note, I have had friends who if I hadn’t talked some sense into them they’d probably be dead by now. Life can be really shitty, but it can also be one of the best experiences we get.

While I was listening, going into this journey, a few unwanted tear drops graced face, without purpose. I closed that chapter for good as it did no good for me anymore. I do wonder what would have become of me if I had always gotten my way. I wonder if by now I’d be some crazy narcissistic person who used and abused people. Life showed me that some things are hard to obtain, and just because you want them doesn’t mean that you will get them. This however, is a bit of a dilemma of how society keeps shoving these idealistic dreams of achieving our goals. You can do it… they say… they just don’t specify which ones!