Sorrow of Youth Decisions, or Evils of Ignorance
It was a gorgeous day in the Dominican Republic. The sun was out, and the balmy humid temperature wrapped your body up like a warm blanket on an October day. I was four years old but this day would be fixed in my memory for eternity. Oh boy was I happy to be there I always saw all of my cousins and my older friends be so content with themselves when they came back from the baseball fields after their practices. For baseball is my country’s national pastime but really it is more than that; for Dominicans baseball is a religion which we follow study and live rigorously with now days off. Everyday in the Dominican Republic is a good day to play Baseball the baseball field is our sanctuary; and for many youths the key to survival. I was ready prepared for execution on the baseball field that day. For breakfast, my mother served me plantains with eggs and salami, the regular Dominican breakfast. I had my hat cleats and uniform on, oh yes I was ready.
My cousins my friends and I used to talk about that day the first day of baseball practice. My older cousins were all good athletes, they received many awards and prices for beings such good competitors. Therefore I had a lot to live up to, although I was very skinny it seemed as though I was the sportiest and energetic out of my cousins so the pressure to succeed was tremendous. My grandfather had spoken to me many times before the first day of practice about how he used to be a superlative baseball player in his day and that if he had the chance “today” with all of the technologies available back in 1992 and opportunities that were available to young kids who wanted to play baseball he would have probably made it to the pro’s. He said to me “If I didn’t have to work on the farms with my family to make ends meat since the age of ten who knows what would have become of me, maybe I could’ve been a fabulous baseball player or maybe a politician” then he said “never waste any great opportunities to advance in life, even though you have more then I ever had when I was young, you will only get a handful of real opportunities and you have to make sure you take full advantage of them because the one thing you can’t get back in this life is time”.
As my mother and I stepped into the field I smelled the freshly cut grass and the wind caressing my face. The older kids were already there throwing the ball around doing drills everybody with a smile on their faces and I sensed they all knew what they were doing, except for me. My mother had to go singed me in and she also had to talk to the couch about what team I was going to play in and what position I was going to play and how they were going to start teaching the me the game, so she left me by the gate in the front of the park, and that’s when it happened. I felt the feeling that I have felt ever since then whenever I was faced with an obstacle. The feeling was an anxious sick to my stomach feeling of doubt and insecurity. Damn I hate that feeling.
I often try to figure out why does this happen to me, why I feel weak whenever I’m going to do something that I might fail in. Why do I feel like giving up even before I step on the field or stand in front of a class to do a speech, before I ever got in back of a wheel of car, before I was supposed to danced with my Godmothers daughter for her sweet sixteen? Is thee something wrong with me mentally is it normal those this happen to everybody else this drastically? The only thing I do know is that it happens to me all of the time; Anxiety. I spoke to my doctor once about this problem and he said all I had to do was close my eyes take deep breaths and say to myself that everything was going to be ok. He said that this problem was not so severe that I would need to medicine for it or anything like that and since that day I can honestly say I have tried his solution and it hasn’t worked. I still feel it, I get scared every time the possible outcome can be one of failure.
So as I waited for my mother by the gate it happened. This was the first time and I will always remember it. as I stood there waiting for my mother to come back and tell me what team I was going to play on I started looking at the older kids who were maybe eight years old to the oldest being fifteen and I started asking myself hey am I as good as those kids definitely not. I was not fast I had never thrown baseball before then I though wow am I going to get dirty and filthy with the mud, im going get hurt these bigger stronger kids are going to hurt and then they’re going to make fun of me for being so weak and soft and a cry baby oh my God if I cry I could never show my face hear again. Wow there’s a lot of mosquitoes here they keep biting me and bothering me. And there it was the reason I could tell my mother to never bring me back there again. I screamed I hollered and ranted and belted my self claiming that these dangerous ants had crawled all over my body and I couldn’t take it anymore. Small tiny harmless ants those ants were my excuse for playing baseball that summer. Ants, creatures who can carry ten to twenty times their body weight these half an inch who have so much might and sense of unity were able to defeat me.
Looking back I am quite sure that the ants were not the cause of my problems. I wasn’t afraid of ants; frankly you couldn’t be afraid of ants, where I come from that is like being afraid of snow living in the North Pole. So if it wasn’t the ants what was it? Was it getting my uniform dirty was that the reason why I didn’t want to play baseball? That could not have been the reason I was only four years old and at the time getting dirty while playing out side was my favorite hobby. Was it the fact that I had very little experience playing baseball? That could not have been it either because I knew I didn’t know how to play but I knew that everything I had previously tried I had succeeded in so I knew that if I simply tried and put effort I was going to learn and eventually get very good at the game of baseball. I also wonder if maybe the fact that my mom was going to leave me by myself to run errands maybe that was the reason I cried out? Maybe I was crying out to my mother to no leave there alone by myself a young four year old. But that could not have been it either, because I knew that it was customary for mothers to leave their youngsters on the field by themselves and the fact of the matter was that I was not going to be by myself, I had my next door neighbor there who was five years older than I was, and my cousin was playing on the field next to the field where I was so he kept an eye on me and there was a couch for every five children so I was secure. I remember looking at the other kids playing baseball and I was terrified because I knew I wasn’t as good as they were, and I remember having a small trepidation to fail because I would look like a fool. But it wasn’t that either, heck at the time I didn’t really care what people though of me I was more concerned about myself than of what other people were doing.
Thinking about it I now realize the reason why I made a scene like if I was afraid of those ants, and screamed and I hollered to get out of the field as a soon as possible. The truth or the real evil which made me act like a brat was of all of the pressure that was put on me by my grandfather my friends and most importantly my self. I have been a person who has always looked at the glass half empty, and the fact of the matter was that on that glorious summer day with my uniform on and me ready to go play baseball I didn’t fear failing or ants, or the other kids, or my mother not being there, what I feared the most was the fact that there was a slight possibility that I was not going to be great. You see I wasn’t thinking like the rest of the kids who simply though about having fun and playing with their friends and making new friends, what I was unconsciously thinking about was that this was one of the few opportunities in life which my grandfather had told me about, and I knew I couldn’t pass it up, so for me it was not about having fun it was about being great at it.
My mother, like a resilient strong Dominican woman, was not going to let me quit that easily. She forced me that day to play. And I was only four so hesitantly I played that day which wasn’t like playing real baseball. On the first day I found out they never play an actual game. We did some drills and started to throw the ball around and we mostly just ran and ran and ran, never actually putting a team together and playing a game. I never got to find out which team I was going to play on I never went back.
Ants never bothered me again after that day. And I sometimes wonder if maybe if I would’ve stuck it out I could have become a great baseball player. Hey, I am not blaming the fact that I am not playing for the Yankees right now on that single event of my life, but you never know. Living with regret is a waste of time, I’ve learned, as I mature, that regret moments in life should not be looked at with sorrow but should be acknowledged as a moment of self growth and one should learn from all of those “regret full moments in life”. However, I still fear the fact that whatever it is that I do I have the possibility of not being great. I want to be great at everything I do and that is the problem I have to accept the fact that I am not perfect that it is ok to fail once in a while and that the whole world is not expecting me to succeed. I still have to deal with my inner conscience everyday; it’s a battle, if not a war that I am going to have to fight with for the rest of my life until I eventually ease up on my self and accept it.
P.S. I need help finishing this story. I don’t know if I should ended by giving examples of times when have had the same anxious scared feeling in the present time; or should I finish it by accepting that I am never going to get over it and have to live with it for the rest of my life, and even somehow appreciate it for what it is and embrace it as part of my human condition.
It was a gorgeous day in the Dominican Republic. The sun was out, and the balmy humid temperature wrapped your body up like a warm blanket on an October day. I was four years old but this day would be fixed in my memory for eternity. Oh boy was I happy to be there I always saw all of my cousins and my older friends be so content with themselves when they came back from the baseball fields after their practices. For baseball is my country’s national pastime but really it is more than that; for Dominicans baseball is a religion which we follow study and live rigorously with now days off. Everyday in the Dominican Republic is a good day to play Baseball the baseball field is our sanctuary; and for many youths the key to survival. I was ready prepared for execution on the baseball field that day. For breakfast, my mother served me plantains with eggs and salami, the regular Dominican breakfast. I had my hat cleats and uniform on, oh yes I was ready.
My cousins my friends and I used to talk about that day the first day of baseball practice. My older cousins were all good athletes, they received many awards and prices for beings such good competitors. Therefore I had a lot to live up to, although I was very skinny it seemed as though I was the sportiest and energetic out of my cousins so the pressure to succeed was tremendous. My grandfather had spoken to me many times before the first day of practice about how he used to be a superlative baseball player in his day and that if he had the chance “today” with all of the technologies available back in 1992 and opportunities that were available to young kids who wanted to play baseball he would have probably made it to the pro’s. He said to me “If I didn’t have to work on the farms with my family to make ends meat since the age of ten who knows what would have become of me, maybe I could’ve been a fabulous baseball player or maybe a politician” then he said “never waste any great opportunities to advance in life, even though you have more then I ever had when I was young, you will only get a handful of real opportunities and you have to make sure you take full advantage of them because the one thing you can’t get back in this life is time”.
As my mother and I stepped into the field I smelled the freshly cut grass and the wind caressing my face. The older kids were already there throwing the ball around doing drills everybody with a smile on their faces and I sensed they all knew what they were doing, except for me. My mother had to go singed me in and she also had to talk to the couch about what team I was going to play in and what position I was going to play and how they were going to start teaching the me the game, so she left me by the gate in the front of the park, and that’s when it happened. I felt the feeling that I have felt ever since then whenever I was faced with an obstacle. The feeling was an anxious sick to my stomach feeling of doubt and insecurity. Damn I hate that feeling.
I often try to figure out why does this happen to me, why I feel weak whenever I’m going to do something that I might fail in. Why do I feel like giving up even before I step on the field or stand in front of a class to do a speech, before I ever got in back of a wheel of car, before I was supposed to danced with my Godmothers daughter for her sweet sixteen? Is thee something wrong with me mentally is it normal those this happen to everybody else this drastically? The only thing I do know is that it happens to me all of the time; Anxiety. I spoke to my doctor once about this problem and he said all I had to do was close my eyes take deep breaths and say to myself that everything was going to be ok. He said that this problem was not so severe that I would need to medicine for it or anything like that and since that day I can honestly say I have tried his solution and it hasn’t worked. I still feel it, I get scared every time the possible outcome can be one of failure.
So as I waited for my mother by the gate it happened. This was the first time and I will always remember it. as I stood there waiting for my mother to come back and tell me what team I was going to play on I started looking at the older kids who were maybe eight years old to the oldest being fifteen and I started asking myself hey am I as good as those kids definitely not. I was not fast I had never thrown baseball before then I though wow am I going to get dirty and filthy with the mud, im going get hurt these bigger stronger kids are going to hurt and then they’re going to make fun of me for being so weak and soft and a cry baby oh my God if I cry I could never show my face hear again. Wow there’s a lot of mosquitoes here they keep biting me and bothering me. And there it was the reason I could tell my mother to never bring me back there again. I screamed I hollered and ranted and belted my self claiming that these dangerous ants had crawled all over my body and I couldn’t take it anymore. Small tiny harmless ants those ants were my excuse for playing baseball that summer. Ants, creatures who can carry ten to twenty times their body weight these half an inch who have so much might and sense of unity were able to defeat me.
Looking back I am quite sure that the ants were not the cause of my problems. I wasn’t afraid of ants; frankly you couldn’t be afraid of ants, where I come from that is like being afraid of snow living in the North Pole. So if it wasn’t the ants what was it? Was it getting my uniform dirty was that the reason why I didn’t want to play baseball? That could not have been the reason I was only four years old and at the time getting dirty while playing out side was my favorite hobby. Was it the fact that I had very little experience playing baseball? That could not have been it either because I knew I didn’t know how to play but I knew that everything I had previously tried I had succeeded in so I knew that if I simply tried and put effort I was going to learn and eventually get very good at the game of baseball. I also wonder if maybe the fact that my mom was going to leave me by myself to run errands maybe that was the reason I cried out? Maybe I was crying out to my mother to no leave there alone by myself a young four year old. But that could not have been it either, because I knew that it was customary for mothers to leave their youngsters on the field by themselves and the fact of the matter was that I was not going to be by myself, I had my next door neighbor there who was five years older than I was, and my cousin was playing on the field next to the field where I was so he kept an eye on me and there was a couch for every five children so I was secure. I remember looking at the other kids playing baseball and I was terrified because I knew I wasn’t as good as they were, and I remember having a small trepidation to fail because I would look like a fool. But it wasn’t that either, heck at the time I didn’t really care what people though of me I was more concerned about myself than of what other people were doing.
Thinking about it I now realize the reason why I made a scene like if I was afraid of those ants, and screamed and I hollered to get out of the field as a soon as possible. The truth or the real evil which made me act like a brat was of all of the pressure that was put on me by my grandfather my friends and most importantly my self. I have been a person who has always looked at the glass half empty, and the fact of the matter was that on that glorious summer day with my uniform on and me ready to go play baseball I didn’t fear failing or ants, or the other kids, or my mother not being there, what I feared the most was the fact that there was a slight possibility that I was not going to be great. You see I wasn’t thinking like the rest of the kids who simply though about having fun and playing with their friends and making new friends, what I was unconsciously thinking about was that this was one of the few opportunities in life which my grandfather had told me about, and I knew I couldn’t pass it up, so for me it was not about having fun it was about being great at it.
My mother, like a resilient strong Dominican woman, was not going to let me quit that easily. She forced me that day to play. And I was only four so hesitantly I played that day which wasn’t like playing real baseball. On the first day I found out they never play an actual game. We did some drills and started to throw the ball around and we mostly just ran and ran and ran, never actually putting a team together and playing a game. I never got to find out which team I was going to play on I never went back.
Ants never bothered me again after that day. And I sometimes wonder if maybe if I would’ve stuck it out I could have become a great baseball player. Hey, I am not blaming the fact that I am not playing for the Yankees right now on that single event of my life, but you never know. Living with regret is a waste of time, I’ve learned, as I mature, that regret moments in life should not be looked at with sorrow but should be acknowledged as a moment of self growth and one should learn from all of those “regret full moments in life”. However, I still fear the fact that whatever it is that I do I have the possibility of not being great. I want to be great at everything I do and that is the problem I have to accept the fact that I am not perfect that it is ok to fail once in a while and that the whole world is not expecting me to succeed. I still have to deal with my inner conscience everyday; it’s a battle, if not a war that I am going to have to fight with for the rest of my life until I eventually ease up on my self and accept it.
P.S. I need help finishing this story. I don’t know if I should ended by giving examples of times when have had the same anxious scared feeling in the present time; or should I finish it by accepting that I am never going to get over it and have to live with it for the rest of my life, and even somehow appreciate it for what it is and embrace it as part of my human condition.
1 comment:
OK, you wanted to "emphasize or explain some of the topics" you bought up. Good - 'cause that's what I was going to suggest :)
I see your essay as going quite well in one of two ways. (Maybe there's more, but as the author you'd have to decide that!) First - you could make it about your personal tendencies towards pessimism and anxiety, using this story to probe your own psyche.
Two, you could explore how you feel about Dominican culture. You mention a couple "Dominican things" and tag them as such (the baseball, the breakfast, your Mom's strength). Where do you stand on the culture? I presume you're proud of it 'cause I see no textual evidence to the contrary, but the fact that you "tagged" several times makes me think it'd be a good thing to write about. Perhaps you may want to comment on your relationship to the culture at large, or to its focus on athletic success, or something. Family pressure is made of so many things - its a very fertile field.
It's up to you - I'm just going by what I see as a reader!
I wouldn't add in more examples of the "anxious scared feeling" unless you make this one briefer, and write the piece in "episodes" or "mini-vignettes". If you were to tack more onto this baseball story, it could get unwieldy.
All that's left is to clean up the mechanics, the grammar (as you said) - I might remove the passage about your doctor, since it seems a little lost. If it's important to you, just relocate it, maybe nearer to the end.
Now, since I critiqued first, I must compliment your handle on sensory details - the weather, the wind, the psychical senstations of anxiety. And you've got the ability to switch voice in here - some passages sound like your kid self relating it and some sound like the grown Edgar. Maybe that's something you want to employ more, alternate between boy and man? Could be cool!
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