I’ve titled this post "My Soft Spot", though I’m not even sure if, in the end, it actually turns out to be my strength. This photo, one I didn't even know existed until recently, when my mom sent it to me, shows my family back in the days when the very word "family" was still new to me, and an integral part of my daily life and learning experience. Here you can see my dad, my mom, my little brother, and me, dressed in some truly hideous outfits, sometime in the early 90s. Yet, it was from that beautiful childhood that much of who I am today as a person was born and shaped. At the same time, the realization that nothing is the same anymore and the nostalgia for those days, holds the power to completely shatter me whenever it crosses my mind on bad days... Like today...
I don't know who took this photo of us, but it’s new to me, perhaps my mom had it tucked away in some secret albums. Yet, beyond being such a delightful find, it stirred up a lot of emotions within me. Right now, I am older than my parents were in that picture, and there is a vast difference between what they had built by that time and what I have built along my own path. It isn't good to make comparisons, but at the same time, my concept of happiness used to be summed up in exactly what you see here: a happy family... I swear to you, we truly were always a happy family and the only thing that changed everything was that tragic accident and the sad, untimely end to my father's life.
I tell myself that I am in the prime of my life and I am not lying; that is truly how I feel, yet it took me a long time to truly identify with that sentiment, for the peace I feel today seems to be built upon my deepest wounds. One of the things filling me with nostalgia right now is that tomorrow is Mother’s Day here in my country; and although my mother is still alive, I won’t be able to visit her or take her out for a meal. I don’t have the opportunity to travel this weekend for various reasons, but it affects me nonetheless, it hurts me that my family is no longer a part of my daily life; indeed, I confess that it aches. There is much I cannot write about here because it is too personal, but our grief affected us all so profoundly and in such different ways, that it feels as though it wasn't just my father who died on that first of February, 2023, but my entire life and family history up to that point.
It is my weak spot, for precisely now, when I consider myself powerful, the memory of what was once my family holds the power to break me. I have a need for them. My father is no longer a real option; I have already accepted that he has passed on, yet my love for him remains intact, perhaps it even grows stronger with each passing day. My mother and my brother or at least this new version of them, sometimes clash with the version of myself that I am currently building; yet the love I bear them compels me to love them just as they are. In fact, the differences between us, as well as my father’s absence, have actually become a source of strength, for one learns just as much from the bad as from the good.
I may not have much information regarding this specific photo, I think I reached a bit too far back into the past for this weekend's challenge, but I do know exactly how each of these people made me feel back then, and how they still make me feel today... The saddest part is that the country's political situation itself had the power to transform us, not just my family, but every family. Many migrated; many died; many had their mindsets altered by poverty or hunger. We survived it all, yet I always knew that I would have to leave for another city to build a life for myself and yes, to help them as well, whether they realize it or not. This photo, in which we are dressed so shabbily, has become one of my new treasures; for anything involving my family will always be special to me. And just between us, they will always be my soft spot, the one thing that still has the power to either lift me up or bring me down, even to this day 🙏