Best Advice

I was getting in the car after work, and the phone rings. It was my father. He asked me, “When are you going to be home?”, in Spanish, in an angry and frustrated voice. It was 4:07pm and I told him that I was going to be there in about 20 minutes, yelling and frustrated at the way he was talking to me. I drove slowly, knowing that when I enter my father’s house it is going to be as if I were opening the gates of hell; and exactly that’s what I faced. It was as if I was being cornered by a dragon. I could not escape its fiery breaths. My father accused me of being selfish, talking on the phone while driving, being inconsiderate, poorly raised, stupid, among other things that are not even worth mentioning that are completely false. I have been dealing with this same kind of problems since I was young, so I thought I was already immune to it. It results that I was not, because I felt that my father had gone too far for me to handle. I was not going to tolerate him telling me to be more like my sister, to focus more on academics than sports, he himself knowing that basketball is my passion. I was like a bomb ready to explode. Tic-tock, tic-tock, I sat on a desk chair shocked. Seconds later, boom! Words were coming out of my mouth rapidly, without any breath stops in between. Tears covered my cheeks with a layer of shiny glare after he threatened to hit me, even though he didn’t really mean it. I was feeling anger and sadness all at once; in one body, in one soul, in one person. My family was in Vermont. It was only me and my father that weekend, so I started making phone calls…nobody answered. Until finally my sister returns the call and asks, “What’s going on?”, in Spanish. I responded to her in incomplete words, things that did not really make sense. She was worried and regretted leaving that weekend. But there was one thing and one thing only, out of that whole conversation that I was able to comprehend, and it was probably one of the best advices I have ever received. She told me a simple eight word sentence which said, “Don’t let anybody take happiness away from you…”. I hung up the phone and came to a conclusion that my father was not going to control my happiness; this it was not worth crying every night because of something he had done or said to me. Since then, I have not really spoken to my father as a daughter and a father would. Everything between me and him has completely changed because he has left such big of a bruise in my heart that only time will heal. Now I go about without anybody controlling how I feel emotionally. If I’m happy, I’m happy. If I’m depressed, I’m depressed. Nobody changes me or how I feel.

Time is slowly healing the bruise left inside me by my father, but I still keep that eight word sentence on the back of my head, “Don’t let anybody take happiness away form you”. Form that advice I have learned that life is too short for sadness and depression. We humans are given the choice of happiness or sadness in life. The most exciting part is that we get to choose. One has to make the most out of it and forgive those who have done terrible things. One just has to live life to the fullest and enjoy everything in you journey. We just have to do as Bob Marley once said, “Don’t worry, be happy”.