Breakfast Willow

The willow tree rooted deep in the marsh next to the water as it sways slowly in the lush moist wind. If everyone were willow trees, life would be so simple because they bend without breaking and they can survive nature’s most deadliest catastrophes in the utter most instances that even the devil wouldn’t sum up the reasons to create chaos.

I lived life like a willow tree because I yearned to feel alive. It started when I was 7 years old, riding a bicycle for the first time without training wheels. It wasn’t long before I got on and stumbled into a pile of bushes. My brother looked at me laughing not because of my fall but my willing attempt to ride it without imagining the outcome.

My train of thought was if I seen people do it I can do it too. But life doesn’t always work that way. It takes practice, determination, and a lot of hard work to meet your end goal. Like the willow tree, no matter how many times I try to break myself from the inevitable it seems I always needed to repeat the same mistakes to feel alive.

Like falling in love with people who would only break my heart and rejecting people who would die for me. Like dancing with the wrong people and becoming addicted to the company of drugs. Like being someone else and forgetting who I am.

The first time I had felt broken was in 3rd grade, her name was Arianna and she was my next door neighbor. I’d always stop by in the morning when her mom made breakfast and I would always be late for school. Luckily my elementary school was just across the street from my apartment. Arianna was homeschooled because her mother was strict about people she met and didn’t want her to ever be in the wrong crowd. The first time I met her mother was by accident when I helped her carry her groceries into her door, she seen the Jesus cross around my neck that my mom gave me and she immediately fell in love with me. She was a full blown Christian. Her mother then introduced me to Arianna, the girl I will never forget.

Arianna and I were like twins, we did everything together. She was the first person who made me realize how much I loved adventure. Our favorite games to play was scavenger hunt and we would always build clubhouses in her living room out of blankets to hide away from the world. Everyday for 2 years we would always have the time of our lives together until the day that changed me forever. It was Christmas Eve and she and her family had just come home from a dinner party. I was excited to give her a Christmas present I made so I waited until she called me to come over.

I made her a friendship bracelet in school. It was made out of all the charms that resembled her; a lion for her zodiac sign Leo, an apple because that was her favorite fruit, the letter A for her first name, a North, South, East, West symbol for her love of travel, and a heart symbol. I made sure I used blue threads since that was her favorite color.

When I came over that night on Christmas Eve, she looked so dazzling I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. She wore a velvet red dress and judging from her face she was wearing makeup. She normally doesn’t wear dresses since our style was always basketball shorts and oversized T-shirts. I told her Merry Christmas and gave her the bracelet. She looked at the bracelet for 5 minutes, looked up at me and told me that it was the best gift she had ever gotten from anybody. Probably for the fact that she was homeschooled but I wasn’t sure. Out of nowhere she kissed me on the lips. I was so stunned by that gesture that I didn’t know how to react to it. She hugged me and I never wanted to let go of her. I looked into her eyes and she cried and told me she loved me. Based on all the emotions I felt about her, I felt the same way and said it back.

The next day when I hung out with her things were different. Instead of playing like we normally did she wanted to just sit and talk. We had talked about everything imagined but our conversation this time was a lot more intimate. She asked me what type of person I liked and if I had ever felt things about another person. I told her that she was the only person who made me feel like there was a person to want or like. I asked her to be my girlfriend that time and she said yes. I’ve never felt so happy in my whole life. For the first time I had found true love, and it was with my best friend.

It wasn’t long until her mom found out we were more than friends. One night she caught us kissing in the living room and kicked me out. Since we didn’t have cellphones back then I kept calling her home phone under a private number (*67) for a whole week but no one ever picked up. One morning before school, I summed up the courage to knock on her front door but a lockbox was hanging from the door knob. They had moved out. My chest was so tight that I skipped out on school that day. Everyday for 3 months I would go to the park we would always hang out at to see if she would show up but she never did.

Beneath the surface I looked okay but deep down a part of me was so depressed that I never looked at love the same again. The second time I felt broken was when my Dad left me in 6th grade and was left with an abusive mother. I remember screaming in my room so loud with the pain that I broke everything that he’d ever given me. I broke my mirror, my t.v., and my cassette player. When my mom seen what I did, instead of caring for me, she punished me with a belt for 30 minutes until my skin bled through my shirt. The physical scars on my body felt better than the emotional scars within me. In a way, feeling abandoned was normal and understood then, that nothing really lasts forever.

I ran away from home that day and stayed at my friends house. I never wanted to go back home again. Being with my friend for a couple of days was better than dealing with hell. I cried, vented, and told Claire everything. I felt grateful for friends that day and how important it is to feel comfortable and to be close with somebody. The cops showed up at Claire’s house a week after and they took me home. My mom cried and told me she was sorry for everything. She hugged me and told me that she would never do that again.

The countless days of healing from childhood experiences took me awhile to feel normal again. I had buried my feelings in the grave. In high school, I was a nerdy jock. I was a A/B student, Captain of the girls tennis team, and was good enough to be in the Varsity soccer team the first year. I was a loner back in high school because I was so focused on academics and sports.

I had the perfect life in high school. I was going to graduate with honors, had a scholarship with tennis, had a loving boyfriend London, and the bond with my mom was better than ever. With all of this in mind, why did I feel like something was missing? Why did it all feel so bland to me?

In the middle of 11th grade, I had to round up all of the girls for tennis tryouts and had to pick 10 of them to be in the Junior Varsity team and the other 9 to be in the Varsity team with me. There was one girl that caught my eye that dressed rather odd. She wasn’t wearing shorts or had her hair tied up like all of the other girls. She was wearing black Vans shoes, long black pants, and a white shirt. Her hair was long, black, and straight and she was wearing black eye liner and mascara at the time. When she walked across the tennis court I had asked her to change but she didn’t listen to me. She walked past me as she hit the upcoming balls to the other side. It was the best shot I seen anybody hit. My coach was so impressed that she placed her in the varsity team with me. Her name was Adeline, the girl who made me feel invincible.

We broke the rules together and we had a lot of fun doing it. I would cut class just so we could make out in her room, I would sneak out at midnight just so I can sleep next to her, and I had lied repeatedly to my boyfriend just to be with her. Her chaotic and carefree presence made me feel like a zombie coming back to life again. I needed the rush and the high so much that I did the unthinkable just to have it. Being with her was the good kind of intoxication not like the pukey drunk feeling you would get at 2am, but the buzz feeling in your gut that creeps up on you without expecting it. Yes, and I remember all the places we had sex, there was not one beach or park in Oahu where we hadn’t marked yet.

I thought my lies would never surface but all good things must come to an end. One day, Adeline told me to meet with her at the spot that we would always hang out at Kalakaua park. Having no clue of what was about to happen, I went to meet her at 6pm. As soon as I seen her I hugged her and quietly, she looked at me with a blank stare. Across the field I seen a figure walking towards us and it was London, my boyfriend. This was the time when my lies had to end and the truth needed to be revealed. I explained myself to both of them that day. I told her I didn’t know what I wanted and that everything felt so good to me that nothing felt wrong. I told my boyfriend that I loved him and that I never wanted to hurt him and that living a lie just to make him happy made me happy. I also told him that I was so in love with Adeline that I didn’t know what to do. People cannot have it all if people’s feelings and intentions aren’t true. So I had told my truths and Adeline didn’t want anything to do with me. She told me that she never wanted to see me again. On the other hand, London wanted to take me back with open arms and start over again. My life would have been so easy if I went with him. But that wasn’t what I desired. I desired chaos and the feeling of thrill. I longed to be different from the boring normality of life. I wanted to live dangerously with Adeline.

She ran from me and never spoken to me for weeks. I did everything I could to get her back. I had gotten her favorite snacks and placed it on her doorstep, I placed sorry letters in her mailbox, and I had even wrote her a song. The time alone gave me a wild reason to create, so the song I made for her was the reason for us to be together again. The next 4 months with her was torture. Every month she would cheat on me but I loved her so much that each time she did it I looked past the betrayal because I knew for a fact that maybe I deserved it for what I put her through. But the 3rd time around, I have had enough. I cheated on her back with the same girl she cheated on me with just to show her that they would betray her. We would go back and forth lieing and cheating on each other until I met Janica, my first real love.

At the time I was introduced to the world of partying. I met Janica when she was talking with a close friend of mine and my friend introduced me to her. I immediately felt a warm sensation from her smile and it made me feel comfortable talking to her. We hooked up that night and I had forgotten all the missed calls and text messages that Adeline sent me. I left Adeline for Janica and the 5 years I’ve spent with Janica was comfortable and we were the life of the party. We would get drunk, roll on E, smoke pot, snort white, and would travel everywhere. She introduced me to the wild side of life, a life that was so foreign to me that I felt like a caveman discovering earth for the very first time. We were the dynamic duo. I was a purebred hustler and she was the girl everyone invited to come to their party.

Things were different on the 5th year. I noticed our kisses were only a second long, and the butterflies I once had for her was gone. I felt so comfortable with her and was catering to her every need that I had lost the “wild side” of myself, therefore, lost my identity. My life felt boring and I had no idea as to what was missing from our relationship. One night, I had cheated on her at a party with a random girl I hooked up with one night because the argument we had together that time annoyed the crap out of me.

When she found out about it, she broke up with me and had started to pack her things. I had never felt so alive when I begged her to stay and the tears from my eyes had shown how much I wanted her to stay. Her smack across my face was a wake up call that I had messed up and the best thing that ever happened to me left me broken again for the 4th time. I sat all alone in my room and called out of work the following day.

Every weekend I would go out to a rave or to a house party to get wasted. Being surrounded by friends and doing drugs had numbed the pain and loneliness. Every party animal in Oahu knew me. All my friends would hit me up to buy drugs because I knew every drug dealer on the island. It’s funny how experiences happen the way they did. Not sure if my life was written in the stars for me to be involved with people who lived life on the edge but it was exhilarating. Everything that broke me made me feel alive. Being out of my comfort zone felt better than being bored. The things that was wrong felt right to me and the things that felt right to me ended in flames. I feed off the suffering to make it my own, and I yearned for heartache. I did anything to make me feel alive again.

The thrill of it all was worth bending backwards for because the experience allowed me to “know thyself.” Props to the genius, Socrates because before the current era, he was the Greek philosopher to question everything. He taught me that in order to overcome any obstacle, one must bend like the willow tree in order to adapt to changes happening in life. From the highs and lows that life hits you with, the only way to get out of the roller coaster seat is to ride it all the way through. Breaking out of your comfort zone and suffering is the best way to find yourself. No matter what or who breaks you, be like the willow tree and sway with the wind. Plant your feet on the ground like the willow tree, use the hurricanes to navigate your course on the right path, absorb water within the current, and lastly, use the experiences from your past as positive energy to grow from it. Only then will you live life like the willow tree, my friend.