Today, I had a sudden inspiration that forced my thinking into motion. I was driving randomly, as I do every now and then and almost always while I’m bored, when I happened across the Saint George Cemetery. There is a house directly across the street from the grave of my father, which is another story entirely, that houses an old lady that I know by the name of “Aunt Illa”. Technically, she is a great aunt of mine, connected by my step-father (who I call dad) that sleeps in the grave. She is old, perhaps beyond sixty, and it seems to be her fate to live in that house, now alone, until she dies.
Years previously, perhaps six or seven, she lived with and tended to the needs of my Great Great Grandmother, who was well over ninety years old. It seemed to me that Aunt Illa lived in that house with her mother for many years, many meaning decades, and it seemed to me that the life of Aunt Illa was, aside from certain essentials, completely restricted to the insides of the house. Never was she allowed to live like most her age do, and never has she had children, or done anything to maintain her name and dignity. She has no lover, and as far as I am aware, has had no lover for many years, many meaning decades.
As I drove past that house today, I asked myself a question, “How can someone live like that, without the freedom of life?” I am very young at the age of eighteen, and I cannot imagine suddenly depositing the entire fate, path, or destiny of my life into the empty void of becoming nothing. I cannot imagine succumbing to the will of even my own mother, and allowing her to live, while I allowed myself to die slowly, never living the standards of my life which I set for myself, and while never grasping, or even losing that grasp, on dreams which I hold. I recall specific events as a child where I would visit Aunt Illa and my Great Great Grandmother in there home across from the cemetery, and I remember the look that Aunt Illa possessed in her eyes. I enjoy studying people’s eyes, and faces, and relating the state they hold to their lives, and let me tell you something – Aunt Illa never seemed happy. To me, she looked like a lost child who was afraid to do anything that might conflict with the wants and desires of her superiors.
I know, through the experience of living a very hard life, that sometimes, and usually more so than not, you need to blow off others and do what best suits you. I’m not talking about the little things like giving rides to those in need, or donating money, or allowing someone to cut in front of you at the bank, but instead I speak of those things which hold a bigger, more important value. The things which have a great effect on your life down the road, towards your final destiny and fate, and perhaps toward your designated happiness.
People need to learn to let go, and allow others to be disappointed, all in the favor of allowing themselves to do what their heart truly desires. You need to illuminate your own path, even if that path seems to totally disappoint those whose opinion you value the most. Your parents want you to go to participate in High School, go on a mission, then go to a good college, and become a lawyer, not become a rock star, or even any other dream which you hold. But, this is your life, not theirs. You need to make up your own mind, and allow yourself to live free.