David asked me if am crossing over anytime soon,i would pretend not to have understood him till he would say, I simply asked if anything is changing in your love life...hahaha.. This question came or comes at a difficult transitional time in my life, i had just finished studies in computer engineering ,a few months out of college and getting intimately acquainted with the prevailing hard realities of power and money...i had worked on a work study program to offset some education loans,and as a young man in early twenties , living away from my parents,distanced from many things young people my age would freely enjoy..for some reasons, one, I was rather shy and the idea of me going out on a date was out of question, I rarely kept money any close, I just didn't have enough and I would do a general college life, just getting by on many things ,plus, my obsession with coding, blanketed me and kept me indoors mostly.That was fine,not boring..at least to a chap like me, restless and generally impatient with life, I only hoped i was not living into my parents failures...
Its 2013, March and David is my colleague, several years my senior, a little bit amazed and inquisitive of how a colored twenty-something like me ,doing several suits and wearing leather jackets, maybe handsome and all that would not talk about family, at least freely. Those free coffee evenings were not romantic at all, including today when he would just stare at me and he is like " I see you doing just fine, don't bash so much in life, try to settle down into a systematic rhythm, getting a cool fine ' babe' and live, sort of a code for saying you can move in together" " well , will think about it at a later date" I answered adjusting my belt. " young people of your age , love money and dislike responsibility, but you could be different" He offered trying to sound casual. I was already off, as far as I was concerned we were in different worlds and if I would entertain his talk I would eventually pattern life according to his world..
See, David isn't all that bad , I am only scared at how much he seems to be concerned about my getting "settled and domesticated" I had secretly conceded to the idea that perhaps he liked thinking about himself as a good guy but when I would scratch the surface it turns out he got some attitude toward people like me..people who are trying to see it differently , maybe holding on tighter on faith in God, well taught by circumstances and life about imperfections in them, still dreaming, somewhat conformed to their mortality..just like me, having worked hard, gone for all the trips, met many pretty girls but held back the urge to ask any out, hmmm, not bad at all just to stick to some principles you hold....maybe we were inwardly struggling, me and David, so i would somehow fall into his world and that was not working, including today...
I had not in any way forgotten about my limitations to every part of freedom I felt, I would easily settle if I wanted. Once or twice working with an african American had drawn me a little bit further into "settling down" than Id ever have imagined her, but I could not change myself, and someday we had a fight and I would push her away..again our worlds were different,I had a few long time obligations to think about, my education, my life, my fiances, a good footing in the world economy, some real office..all things about settling were to me thoroughly cockeyed! Well i had earlier failed, hurt badly at relationship, the kind of hurt that reminds you that life is not obliged to work as planned ,I had began to envy those succeeding at the same ,getting several things done at some point I arrived at an acceptance....
I accepted that our lives would be prettier if we dared live like its an adventure and not like a timetable,ticked every decade on some accomplishment....I accepted that the LORD guides us, we can still dream , we can screw up so badly but we can rise up again...that life can at times hit you with a brick in the head but that doesn't mean the same as loosing faith and generally giving up...I accepted that we can keep looking and looking and find what we love and that it was true to whom we love and our work...
to my tweny-something, there's more to life than 'settling down '. If you haven't found what you love, keep looking ,don't settle down, if you haven't found whom you love, keep looking ,don't settle....stay hungry, stay foolish.
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