Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.
Charlotte Brontë in her novel, Jane Eyre
One day, my older sister invited me to a badminton game. It was scheduled in the evening, during peak hours when people was returning home from work. While I was preparing my sport equipment, I’ve noticed that my racquet was missing. When I thought about it, “Probably my little sister was using it right now”. Didn’t think of it twice, I contacted my older sister to borrow her racquet. She agreed. So I packed up my things and drove to the badminton court. Along the way, I was stopped by a traffic police in a roadblock.
The police asked politely, “License and registration, please.”
“License and registration? Here.”
“Seatbelt? On point.”
“Road-tax? Still active.”
Countless of situations were playing in my head.
Even though I knew for sure that everything were in check, yet my hands were trembling in fear. My body was shivering cold, and my voice stutters. It might seem weird, why would someone who did nothing wrong was reacting this way? In reality, I knew exactly where this odd feeling came from. This extreme nervousness.
After the police done checking everything, I continued my journey to the badminton court. It was fun. We played for about an hour before I returned home.
My mom asked me right after, “Why didn’t you bring little sister together? I thought you were taking her with you.”
I paused.
“I didn’t thought of that. She wasn’t home at the time.”
My mind suddenly realized the mistake. Perhaps it was better if I had brought her together. Moreover she was playing at a playground right next to the junction to our home.
Then, the guilt kicked in.
“That was so foolish of you.”
“How come you didn’t realize she wanted to play badminton? The racquet was literally missing.”
“Tell me again, what kind of brother are you?”
I know a lot of people who had been there. The kids who had been bullied in school. The people who was treated unfairly by the people around them. A dysfunctional family who’s child become the victim of their own parents. Stories that I’ve heard, mostly came from the ones that I thought problematic at first, only to find out the reasons behind it later.
In the past, I had many awful experiences too. As a result, I developed a deep mistrust for authority figures, and although most of the time this feeling was harmless, for this case it wasn’t. I panicked. Not only that, my mind would list out every possible foible and mishap and turn it into a whole catastrophe worse than it ought to be. Especially when it affects other people, the ones that I truly care about.
When this happens, I always try to remind myself of the exact opposite. None of these are true. In the past, I was a naive kid and powerless when facing dangers but right now I am living in the present. Even when push come to shove, the adult me had more resources and strength to protect myself and the people around me.
For the mistakes that I’ve made, it was completely normal. After all, I was just a human anyway. Sometimes, situations were out of my control. Sometimes, I was in control but I didn’t know any better at the time. I lived with it, made peace with it, accepting that my past mistakes shouldn’t define what I am, what I wanted to be. I do realize everything we did would trigger reactions and consequences though, but I must own up to it.
Perhaps there was a silver lining. I’ve grown into the person I am today, did so many great things which the little me never thought of.
If I had given up so early, things could have turned out very different. Luckily, I didn’t.
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