Chapter 2 – Emotions

“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” – Carl W. Buechner

Day in and day out, we are dominated by our emotions. Sometimes we feel joy, other times anguish. Happiness at some points in our life, and despair in others. Emotions are those indescribable beings which are born from our souls.

We are taught love and compassion from our mothers. Sadness comes from the acknowledgment of things we cannot have. Anger can be seen as a reaction to something being hurt deep within us.

What does it mean to feel? To draw breath and understand emotion in its true essence?

Where does that pain come from? The pain in our stomachs when we feel as though our entire world has been destroyed. The pain in our chests when we become heart broken?

Love, misery, animosity, livelihood. All of these aspects of our soul take place a number of times throughout existence. It is a blessing to even have these emotions. Where would the world be without it?

The drive would be gone. Willingness to accomplish feats, overcome adversities, strive for success. All would be meaningless without the passion, the desire to fulfill what an individual felt as necessary.

Human potential would never be able to reach where it has today, all because of emotion. A simple component of the soul which is neither given attention nor relevance. Neither thanked for nor appreciated.

Emotions have become victims of abuse, time and time again. Greed plays with the minds of mankind, permitting them to chase whatever follies they may dream of achieving. Rage can intensify to points of no end, resulting in utter chaos. Hate brings out some of the darkest atmosphere one could never even imagine, and the outcomes have produced mass murder repeatedly within the confines of history.

Without discipline or self-control, man becomes lost within the feverish alternate reality. Constructs of the soul attempting to feed itself more and more darkness. However, no matter how dark a substance may become, cleansing is always possible.

Light will inevitably prevail over darkness. Even in the very depths of shadow, hope will always remain. The only deciding factor between which will devour the other, is control.

Now that you know some background information, it will be easier to understand the many things that happened over the course of my life, simply because of the environment in which I was brought up in.

The real journey begins in 6th grade.

By the time I had made the jump from Elementary School to Intermediate, I was starting to get the hang of American culture. If anyone named a T.V. show, I knew about it. Famous popstars became common knowledge, and everyone’s favorite movie easily became my own.

I only attended Intermediate School for one year. The school district I was enrolled in had decided to build a new school which just happened to open the year I graduated from 5th grade. It was also the very first year I began to ride in a school bus.

Ever since my early years, I had despised the school bus. My parents would drop me off to school and pick me up every single day for 5 long years when I was in Elementary School. It was something I hated with all my heart. Why did I have to ride a bus to get to school? It felt like I had stooped down to a different class of people, as if I had become like the norm of school kids.

The first day, my mother came with me to the bus stop. Most of the kids from my block were there, waiting just like I was, except none of them had come with their parents. I instantly felt embarrassed, like the weak kid. I never understood why my mother would go to such lengths just for me to get on the bus, and yet she did it every day until I actually told her I was fine, only then did she stop.

She still looked out the window from the second floor of our house though. I would always see her looking out towards the crossroads between streets, waiting until the bus actually left her sight to move away from the window. The idea of over-protective parents started to enter my mind here as well.

In school, things were different as always. I met some of my closest friends here, a few of which I would know for years to come, even until present day. As usual, the learning process continued to unfold, adding new curse words to my vocabulary here and there, and learning more and more about girls, which ended up turning fatal at the end of the school year.

My closest friends became my lifeblood. The very reason I actually went to school. Education was easy enough, and I would completely ace everything teachers sent my way. The only value in going to school was to spend quality time with my friends. As a result, this started to take a toll on my family life.

The communication level I had with my parents began to gradually decrease as time went by. Discussions about school simply didn’t exist anymore, and since I did well in my classes, my parents didn’t have a problem with anything. They let me do whatever I wished as long as I kept my grades up.

As for my friends, the bonds just kept tightening. We talked about anything and everything, guys and girls alike. Many of the elective classes they had in school just helped us become even closer. School became the best part of our lives because it was where all the fun happened. At home, there would only be work and sleep. At least at school there were people who had interest in the same things as you, and were the same age so they could relate to you. It was hard not to be friends with your classmates.

All the meanwhile, my parents continued to keep an over-protective hold on me. I couldn’t understand some of their reasons for not allowing me to do things. For example, I wasn’t allowed to leave my street when playing outside with friends. This rule was never changed for years. Another rule was that I was never to go into anyone’s house without permission, even my closest friends who were neighbors.

I couldn’t handle rules. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to do things, but what’s weirder is that I couldn’t understand why my parents were like this. I tried many times to ask permission for a number of things, each being turned down one by one, forcing me to peaks of anger I’d never experienced in my life.

Having to abide by a rulebook wasn’t going to cut it for me. My friends couldn’t understand it either, their parents let them do whatever they wanted, they couldn’t see it the way my parents did, and since I was more identifiable with my friends, I saw it their way as well.

I remember distinctly the first time I ever disobeyed my parents rules. My friend had asked me if I wanted to come over to his house and play some games. At first, I knew the answer was most likely going to be a no, but then something happened. I took initiative. I completely ignored the rules, and agreed with my friend, as if nothing was wrong.

A few hours later I came home to a scolding I had never received in my entire life up until that point. My parents obviously knew, especially my mother, who would look out the window every few minutes just to see where I was outside. So when I disappeared for that long, she freaked. I remember her telling me she had walked out in the middle of the street and looked for me, calling my name.

I was devastated, but also enraged. Why couldn’t I have this one moment of freedom? Why couldn’t I just bend the rules this once? What was the danger? Of course, my parents felt I was too young to even understand at that age. And though I was scolded, I continued to break the rules knowingly, because I wouldn’t let myself come to accept the limitations. I wanted to be like everyone else, I wanted to have that freedom. I wanted my parents to be like everyone else.

And thus the parent-child relationship grew even wider.

Around the end of the year, many of my friends started to have their own girlfriends. The idea of having a girlfriend to me was never very appealing, especially since it all still seemed kind of gross. But all of that changed when I met Leila.

It wasn’t so much as meeting her as just seeing her. No doubt she was one of the prettiest girls in school. She was of hispanic ethnicity, a little shorter than me, with big black eyes and shoulder-length curly hair. I literally stared when I first saw her in school, and I instantly fell into infatuation.

I felt so awkward around her it was mind numbing. I had never even spoken to her nor looked her straight in the eye. I only knew two things at that point. First off, I would never have a chance with one of the most sought after girls in the school, and two, I wasn’t able to control this feeling of obsession inside of me.

I had no idea where it came from or how it struck, but it was like a jolt of lightning to my heart, pounding it away like a thief running from the cops. I became mesmerized by the thought of her. For days she became the only thing worth thinking about, infiltrating my mind in every possible way, shape, and form.

My thoughts began to control me, pouring out my desire into conversations with my friends about her, all the while keeping them in the dark as to who it was. The feeling came to a point where it was unbearable, and that’s when it slipped. Word got out that I liked Leila.

At first I felt crushed at the fact that she may find out, but also a small ray of hope glimmered inside me. What if she liked me in return? What would happen? I had never been in a relationship before, what would I have to do? Would I have to kiss her? Would I have to call her and talk to her all the time? Am I supposed to hold her hand?

An alternate world became my playing field, and I played hard, thinking about it all the time. Finally, I came to know that she knew about it. I was so eager to find out what had happened and what her reaction had been. I couldn’t bear the wait of an answer. And it was here my first heart was forever broken.

It was said that she made a face of disgust when finding out, and literally said “The sight of him makes me throw up.” Apparently, it was made clear that I would never have a chance with her for all eternity. Recalling that memory now makes me laugh out of stupidity, but 8 years ago it was a different story. Hearing this was like a shock wave traveling through my body, piercing flesh and bone, right into the very depths of my soul where it ripped my spirit in two. In those few moments, I had never felt so much pain and depression within the span of my entire life. It was worse than physical affliction, this was something which tainted the soul.

Ironically, I felt like throwing up. My stomach had so many knots I felt it would just blow up from the pressure. I was empty. Void of feeling and all that encompassed my life force. Hope drowned away in the never ending ocean of despair. However despite all of this, I laughed and shrugged it off externally, leaving me alone to carry my emotions for days on end.

I knew if my parents found out about this there would be hell to pay for, so I never said a word. I remained completely detached from school when I came home, my two face personality starting to take form into it’s early stages. I remained an entire mystery to my parents in the sense of my life at school. They still had the idea that I went to school, did my work, got good grades, and came back home. According to their view of my life, everything was going as planned.

In fact, it was entirely contradictory to their outlook. The fact that I never told them anything only helped my fake life become even more aloof. How can you blame them though? Who would ever expect a 6th grader, an 11 year old child, to ever be going through these things at this point in his life? It would seem like non-sense if anything. That’s probably what my parents were thinking, which is why they enrolled me into a weekday Islamic school and an Islamic school on Sunday the following year to prepare me for my retaliation against American culture. Little did they know that it had already spread through me like the plague, and was only going to get worse over time.

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~ by Ænima on December 8, 2008.