My Life When I Was Blind

Aaron Torres Medina

10/12/20

Period 3

Ms. Acosta

I was no longer a kid, I didn’t obey, but I was stuck in the comfort of a cell. I was raised

with shackles, I was growing without a guide. The first week my dad left, I chose to believe it

was some sort of business trip he had, since that’s what he told me. What I couldn’t understand,

was why everybody was crying, he’d be gone only for a few weeks, right? A month fled after

that, my naivety finally fleeing. The thought of being without my dad was, absurd, I was always

with my dad, you could even go as far to say I was his favorite. So him leaving me, it never set

in until years after. It was such a sudden rip from my life, it was like a numb broken ankle. You

don’t know you have it until you finally try to walk, and notice your vision is lopsided. I was

lifted from my booster seat, and thrown right onto the steering wheel.

It was still so early in the morning when I woke up. A summer day consisting of the deep

blue sky, warm sun on your skin and the beautiful golden hours of the evening. What could ever

go wrong in a summer like this. The usual eggs for breakfast, and some waffles with golden clear

honey. At the time I didn’t know what serious was, my life just consisted of peaks and valleys,

never any tunnels or cliffs. When you look back at a moment in your life you truly understand,

that moment you thought was so cemented as it was. You realize how much more depth and

emotions were happening. It’s like watching a cartoon and catching all of the adult jokes you

missed as a kid. So as I grew, I realized arguments and seeing who yelled louder was nothing

new to me. The innocence I had was still so preserved untouched by the moment my dad sat us
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down that day. The whole family, even my seemingly fearless brother, was crying, making fists

at his knees. Everyone was already so full with the situation. Of course I was the last one to

know. I was also the last one to feel it. “I'm going on a business trip today, I don’t know when I’ll

be back” My dad told me, but only me, what he said to everyone else was,

“Sorry, I’ll miss you”. He said, “I don’t know when I’ll be back but don’t worry about

me” I didn’t move or talk back, I just stared at him. Worrying? I was supposed to be worried?

Something about hearing his voice in person for the last time, wearing his white shirt for

the last time. Being in our house the last time. Felt so normal for me. I missed him and even

cried and had weeks that I couldn’t sleep. It still slips my mind if this was a fallacy, I woke up

one night to his shake kneeling beside my bed. “Why are you back?” I asked.

“To pick something up, something I left behind” He said as he reached out to hug me.

“Why did you leave? I missed you”, I was too tired to get out of bed.

“I already told you Aaron, I need to leave now, I love you, bye my son” He said as his

last goodbye to me for that night

I fell back asleep as fast as I was shaken awake. That was the last time he would have

woken me up from my sleep. The weeks passed and I started seeing lapses in my life. There were

little tears and rips that were hallowing my daily routine. Little spots of left over space, this

hasn’t happened before.

Why were things seeming so empty all of the sudden? I wondered if this was part of

growing up, as I was about to enter middle school. The rest of the days were a blur, I guess I

brushed it off as growing up. I was maturing finally and I never knew it was because it was

pushed onto me to be able to fend for myself. My life took a drastic turn into an oncoming

freeway, you can’t come out without any scratches and bumps, but with a dice roll you’ll end up
 My Life When I Was Blind

making it to the other side intact. That dice roll was rolled by my mom. I never understood the

concept of people having life-changing moments. I thought it was just secretly implemented into

your head, and your body goes with the jolts and rolls. So I wouldn’t ever understand my mom

until I was older. Simultaneously carrying both parental figures, I never stopped to realize that. I

went through middle school as a child. A missing pep in my step everyday when I got out of the

car. Same old same old, each day rushed by with the same results,

It was a fast phasing passage through my life, slowly building up the base on which the

pylons are built upon. The same breakfast, the same classes, the same people, the same bed. It all

felt so comforting and sound. I was pampered, I was taken care of, I was always in the passenger

seat with my feet up along the dashboard. Did I ever know what growing up was? I thought it

was so simple and linear. Though, I simply matured, how or why never occurred to me. I was

being taken care of by my mom, I was in double jeopardy. A child who doesn’t know wrong

from right, but never allowed to make mistakes, since his problems weren’t in his hands. I’d

grow up, go to college, have a stable career, have a family and die peacefully. With as much ease

it takes to say, the opposite amount of ease it takes to even commit. Once I grew out of thinking I

was an adult at such an early age, another passage began again.

Coming into 10th grade my perception of life started to change, just as everything else I

was determined to believe this wasn’t my problem. Yet again, the same empty void I so easily

brushed off in Elementary has once again, just as easy, came back. I shoved it under the rug, it

left an ugly imprint in a tidy apartment. This was no different from what I’ve done before. I took

right after my mother, I just sat the problem out, why was there a need to mention it? If it was out

of sight, it was out of mind. Further problems arose, for nothing more than the existence of other

problems., was this normal? Upset that conflict existed in my life. I wondered all this throughout
 My Life When I Was Blind

the years. Maybe someone noticed this though. My brother sat me down, “What's up with you

lately?”I didn’t know how to answer, I didn’t know something was up with me.

“I noticed your grades are getting worse and you’re talking less.” He said

“Maybe it’s just school,” That was always the answer, and it was never wrong, but that

was the only problem I thought I had.

“Are you sure?” He asked me, and it’s always so easy to answer, saying yes would

simply stop the problem, so why ever say no? My step started feeling lopsided, as if I was

unbalanced. Was I always like this? I ignored it, but it all still felt abnormal, why did I feel

abnormal? I started searching through my life, turning it upside down in the process. Why

couldn’t I find the problem? I had so many questions and they all filled my head to the brim, I

was left in a silent desperation, but it was so easy to ignore it. So throughout more years I did.

It was last summer vacation, if you could call it that. We were in quarantine. I thought to

myself, more time to waste. It’ll blow over in a few months, just like Ebola, it’ll be fine. I was

naive, I was basically in a zoo. Enclosed, cut off from the rest and left in a small square. My bars

were the window. It was a prison. Though, the shackles went wherever I went. When did these

get here? Were they always here, can they come off? And a moment of realization came over me.

Though, it took its time, a couple months. Isolation does a lot of things, I didn’t realize how

empty everything around me was, until it was all squeezed together. A small apartment with

much more prisoners than it could hold. It was just then, I realized truly indifferent I was with

my mother, and how indifferent my brothers were with her as well. We always had problems that

weren’t ever noticed by us. Though, why was this? Was it because she rubbed it off on us? I

started connecting the dots in my head. It wasn’t ever me or her, or my brothers.

 My Life When I Was Blind

Suddenly I was jolted back into reality, that I was never a part of. Life was progressing

past me in the background. I was in control of the steering wheel, but I never learnt how to

control the car. Who was supposed to teach me how to drive, wait, why didn’t I know who was

supposed to teach me? I was oblivious to the fact that I was confused from the start, I was

pressured to grow up in a life that was troubled from the start. I thought this was supposed to

happen.

Until I realized that my fears all stemmed from my absent dad.

They were slowly growing underneath me and molding themselves to fit into my

environment, little by little. My problems were normalized to me, and I was finally on the

receiving end. At this point I prayed for ignorance, I didn’t want to realize I had problems.

Growing up without a dad seemed so normal to me. I didn’t know that the issues I grew up with

weren’t supposed to be there, as a child who grew up to love a haunted doll. My mother rubbed

off her own issues onto me at such a young age. Yelling parents was the norm. The bases to grow

up upon were also missing. I was just numbly blind to it all. So today I realize I’m still the child I

was long ago. The maturation I’ve had thus far was just a growing fondness of the past.

Old world blues resonate in my head, my fondness for a secure livelihood. Still, the travel

continues. Never does this story end. Up and down like a roller coaster. Because it is easy to

admit that the road I have traveled has molded me into who I am. Shared fond experiences will

never end, such as painful misery of learning is never-ending. Self-awareness is the first step.

Such as I lived through the first 16 years of my life painfully but surely, I was making that one

step. Through this, I was already prepared for much more years ahead of me. This isn’t a sendoff,

it is much more than a checkpoint in this trial and error life. I will continue pouring into my base,

and continue building pillars and painting pictures.