Greetings to all, fellow weekenders. These great days are for resting and recharging energies, as another week will soon begin; unfortunately, they go by very fast, so we have to make the most of them. What better way to make the most of them than to get involved with WE93, in which we are given several topics to write about, all as thoughtful as they are interesting. I chose the first one:

One: When I grow up I want to...

As children we all had ambitions to be and do certain things as adults. Do you remember yours? (I wanted to be a fireman). Tell us about what you wanted to be when you grew up, and why. Did you attain your goal and if not why not? If you managed to achieve your desired result, what did you do to make it happen and how did you stay on track.

Although as a child I wanted to be a doctor, and I didn't achieve it, I think I will tell you something of more importance that I wanted to be since I was a child, something that has nothing to do with any profession...

When I was little I had many desires to be an independent and responsible adult. Yes, from an early age I wondered what I would be like as an adult, would I stop playing with dolls, with my toys, would I be a sourpuss like my uncle or my dad, would I be a sourpuss like my uncle or my dad, would I be a sourpuss like my uncle or my dad? These were things I remember asking myself when I was a kid; not when I was very young, because I remember those issues, but I wasn't old enough to be completely clear about what I would do with my life.

Why did I want to be an independent and responsible adult? You see, from a young age I saw many things in my family, like mistakes and frustrations that I understood and didn't want to see reflected in my life. Yes, I thought about those things a lot as a child.

I'll start by telling you about something that can be included in what it is to be a responsible adult. You see, my parents divorced when my brother and I were young; my father was unfaithful to my mother so the separation was the best thing for both of us.

On many occasions I saw how much my mother suffered because of this separation, although I never said anything to her about it. My brother also had a hard time and was very affected by not having a father figure to lean on during his childhood; of course, it also affected me greatly. Now, having gone through this made me promise myself, since I was a child, that I would never be a womanizing, immoral and much less unfaithful man. I promised myself that I would be a one-woman man and although I am single today, this way of thinking remains intact.

Something else that has to do with my goal of being a responsible adult has to do with the death of my grandfather. My grandfather was a man with a very difficult character to get along with, strict like many grandfathers of long ago; yet, he had a big problem and that is that he was, in his own words, an adventurer. He loved traveling and partying, drinking and partying. All these excesses of his youth he put aside as time went by, but the bad habit of smoking took its toll on him when he reached a certain age.

According to what my aunts tell me, when my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer, he simply let it die. He did not assimilate it, he did not accept it and he did not fight against the disease, he simply let it kill him in a very short time.

My grandfather died when I was a child and until that day, when he died, I had never seen my mother or my aunt and uncle cry. Seeing them like that had a great impact on me, these are things you don't forget. That's why I promised myself that I would lead a life away from any kind of vices, be it cigarettes, alcohol and the like. So far, I'm doing well with that.

Something else that made me want to be a responsible adult when I grew up was something I did to my mother. Like every kid, I loved (and love) toys. Back in the day, I saw a couple of Master of the Universe dolls in a toy store, especially some He-Man and Skeletor ones. Well, several relatives gave me an allowance from time to time, so I decided to gather all the money to buy these dolls myself, since my family was not exactly wealthy.

Eventually I managed to collect some, but they were very expensive and I could not even afford to buy one. One day, I saw in a place where my mother kept her money a bill with which I could buy the dolls, so I took it. I didn't think I would be discovered and I gave the money to my aunt so she could buy me the doll. Obviously I was discovered and my mom scolded me.

She didn't punish me or anything, she just stood crying in front of me and said "I'm not raising no thief". Those words scarred me and since then I promised myself that I would never raise my hand to take something that didn't belong to me. So far I have lived up to that very well, I have a clear conscience.

There are other things that, as a child, prompted me to want to be a responsible adult, but these are the ones I would like to discuss. Now, as far as being an independent adult I think there are a couple of things I can mention.

There are many young people who want to be independent so they don't have to be accountable to anyone, have "freedom" to do whatever they want or just not have to listen to nagging from anyone. Well, my motivations for this were clear to me when I was just over 14 years old, when I was about to graduate from high school. I knew what I wanted.

First, I wanted to be an independent adult because I didn't want to be a burden on the family, like many young people I knew at that age; I also wanted to become independent so that I could form a family away from my mother's home. You see, my mother and many of my uncles never left the maternal home and that brought them many problems and, in a way, prevented them from becoming independent and forming their own family or, in short, having a partner and a separate home. Two of my uncles never married and another of my aunts married after forty.

Having evaluated this silently, with my young mind of about 14 years, I told myself that I would study and prepare myself to be not only a responsible adult, but also an independent adult.

It was not easy, the road had many difficulties and bitter times, but today I believe I have achieved my goal of being independent and responsible. I live alone, I can support myself and I am responsible with my obligations, I also take care to collaborate with the family that helped me to get to where I am, those are not to be forgotten...

I like to think that children are not stupid. They are innocent and sometimes they say things that might make us think they are stupid, but no; children are very intelligent, they analyze things, they observe and realize situations that you think they don't understand. The environment in which children grow up can greatly influence what they will want to be in the future, either as professionals or as a person....

Well friends, that's all for now. I hope you found this personal writing interesting or at least entertaining. I invite you to leave your opinions below in the comments, as always I will be happy to read them. With nothing more to add, I'll say goodbye then...