How far the apple falls…
Are we doomed to relive our parents’ mistakes?
You are your mother’s daughter.
Many of us have heard these sayings in regards to similarities between our parents and ourselves, whether it is a striking physical resemblance, similar likes or dislikes, or similar personality traits. But to someone who is haunted by the actions or flaws of his or her parents, what could this mean?
And when we see our parents taking part in the negative influences of the world, we are deeply affected. Society says our parents are supposed to be our heroes, and provide a perfect example of how we can live our own lives. We are supposed to want to be like them. But what happens when they’re not good examples? What happens if they’re actually the opposite, and are the cause of strife and sadness in our lives?
The truth is that for many of us being like our parents is our worst nightmare. The weight of the possibility of repeating the mistakes of our parents seems daunting when we think about the example they set for us and the role genetics play. Scientists say that our personalities are composed by 50 percent genetic influences and 50 percent social influences. That may seem like pretty good chances to some optimists depending on a healthy social environment, but could also be a complete shot in the dark.
The daughter of an alcoholic, she grew up in a sad home, and later became a depressed woman stuck in a loveless marriage struggling with her own addiction. Consequently, as a constant reminder of her failures in life, she took her struggles and imperfections out on me.
Eventually she told me she wished she never had me and our relationship progressed over the years into constant fighting and bitterness.
My father in addition was victim to many of my mother’s violent tendencies, and I watched them fight nearly every day of my childhood. My father was peaceful and passive, always singing and giving hugs. Consequently, I grew very close to him, and was always on his side during an argument. He was nearly perfect in my eyes, until one day I discovered the sad truth of his secret life.
He had been having a gay affair.
I felt as though he had completely deserted me, my family, and anything he had ever taught me in life. However, what disappointed me the most was that he was my example. He was the one I was I was supposed to look up to.
Now, I’ve been told repeatedly just how strong the correlation is between alcoholism and heredity. I’ve been told repeatedly that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, many of those resulting from affairs, and children from what people have labeled “broken homes” are even more likely to end up with failed marriages just like their parents.
Yes, it is something that I will always have in the back of my mind as I choose to socially drink or choose a spouse, but it is not what regulates my life. Instead, I choose to focus on the ways in which I have been set free from these chains or restrictions in life.
Scientifically, I have been given 50 percent of my personality to factors other than genetics or heredity, and that is the 50 percent I choose to focus on. 50 percent of my personality is my environment: my choices, my social interactions, and my decisions. More importantly, I have been given a savior to overcome worldly addictions, failures, and anxiety.
There has been a man who has already fought the battle for me, and has freed me from ever having to fight this battle on Earth alone. Simply knowing that Jesus has already fought the battle and overcome the world (and everything terrible in it) reminds me that the war has already been won. Because I know that I have a savior and the price has been paid. My destiny is already been set for me.
And because He is good, I know that it is looking bright.
June 15th, 2012. A day that I will never forget. But this story starts long before that day and long before I was ever even born. Flash back to the 1985. My parents were in their mid-twenties and had just gotten married. One day, two months after they had gotten married, my dad suddenly felt an immense pain in his chest and lower back.
A relatively healthy 25 year old, he had no idea what was going on and was rushed immediately to the hospital.
They had no idea what was happening or how to fix it. My dad died that day. But luckily a miracle happened and after over a minute without a heart beat, they were able to revive him. Had that not happened, I would not be here today. Doctors later discovered that his aorta had ruptured due to a genetic disease called Marfan’s Syndrome. No one in his family had the disease, so he was a fresh gene mutation. Marfan’s Syndrome is a genetic disorder of the connective tissues in the body. Connective tissue is one of the four types of biological tissue that support, connect, or separate different types of tissues and organs in the body. These tissues are found all over the body. Marfan Syndrome causes those tissues to be weaker than normal and sometimes deformed which caused the connective tissue in my dad’s aorta to be weaker than normal and burst under the excessive growth.
Despite all this, with his second shot at life my dad took advantage of everything he could.
He went on to start his own business and have three children. But the issue with Marfan’s syndrome being a genetic disease is that it was hereditary, and my parents had a fifty-fifty shot of passing it on to their children. Good thing they weren’t gamblers because all three of us ending up inheriting the disorder.
The early years of my life with Marfan’s were practically normal. Other than having to go to the doctor once a year and take medicine every morning, there was nothing drastically different about my life. Sure, I was a lot taller than the rest of the kids because Marfan’s causes the legs and arms to grow longer than normal, but that has definitely ended up more of an advantage than disadvantage.
As the body grows larger, so do the internal organs. The accelerated growth of our hearts was concerning to doctors because they didn’t want the same thing that happened to our father to happen to us. They told us that once the diameters of our aortas reached a certain size, then they would have to intervene. As a thirteen year old boy, I basically brushed this aside and said there is no way that I would have open heart surgery. Even knowing what happened to my dad 20 years before that, I still thought there was no way it could happen to me. Even when my older brother ended up having to have the surgery, I still believed that somehow I was different and I would not need it.
The bubble of ignorance I was living in was finally burst when I was 16 years old. During my annual summer checkup, I was told that I would most likely need to have open-heart surgery the following summer. I was in complete shock and disbelief. How was I supposed to undergo a life-threatening and life-altering surgery the summer before my senior year of high school? I became angry at the world for dealing me this awful hand. Things that I used to love seemed to not have any meaning to me anymore. I stopped caring about everything. I started drinking way more often than I should have been as a junior in high school. I was constantly anxious.
I lived like this for an entire year. It was one of the darkest periods of my life. Eventually the time came for the surgery and I was trying to be tough and strong on the outside but on the inside I was a complete wreck. The day before my operation was scheduled, I was walking on the street in between some of my pre-op appointments when an elderly man stopped me. He handed me a piece of paper that had a prayer on it and nothing wanted to do with religion at the moment, I tried to hand it back to him and keep walking.
But the man grabbed my arm and looked me in the eyes and said, “If you say that prayer, the holy spirit will come through your chest and bless your heart.” then went into the store in front of us. I was so shaken up that I just sat there and stared at the piece of paper for a little but then I went into the store to find the man. He was nowhere to be found. It was a small store and there wasn’t an exit in the back so I have no idea where the man could have gone. I am not trying to imply anything and I don’t know if you reading this are a religious person, but I am just trying to say what happened. After this event I was weirdly calm and comfortable about my surgery the next day.
I woke up from the operation on June 15th, 2012 feeling like I had a new lease on life, surely similar to what my dad had felt 30 year before that. After a recovery period of about a month, I went back to my normal routine but with a completely different outlook. I had been given a second chance and there was no way I was going to waste it.
These days I try to take advantage of every opportunity possible. I don’t complain about the little things because I know it could be ten times worse. And most importantly any time that I am down, I think of that strange man that gave me so much comfort in my time of need and that comfort comes rushing back. It truly feels as if I had one life before my surgery and another life after it. June 15th, 2012 is the day that I was reborn.
“Is there any way you can get your waist and hip measurements down? Then we’d love to have you.”
There is something very wrong with these words that are being said to many girls across the world. It’s not okay to make girls think that if they don’t have a 24-inch waist, they can’t walk the runway.
That they aren’t wanted. They aren’t beautiful. Because that’s definitely not true. People tell me all the time that at 5’11 I should be a model. But every time I get close to being sucked into the industry, I am sent back to reality and realize that I don’t want to support this industry.
Just because I have good genes means I get an opportunity that others can’t have? That’s not right. I love being in front of a camera and getting to dress up as a new person each time, and that’s something every girl deserves. Everyone deserves to feel beautiful, even more so than the Victoria’s Secret models.
Because there are so many girls out there who aren’t being recognized for their beauty both on the inside and outside. It’s easy to feel self-conscious about yourself, but just know – you aren’t alone. There isn’t a person in the world that doesn’t have insecurities about something. So recognize yourself. Be proud of yourself. Don’t let what you see in magazines and on TV discourage you, because under all of that professional hair and makeup, they’re normal people just like you and me.
So get out there – dance like nobody’s watching, sing like nobody’s listening, and enjoy life to the fullest – and capture it with your memory or camera. We all deserve to feel happy and beautiful. After all, we are just ordinary people capable of extraordinary things. Oh, and don’t forget to smile!