Stuck In Between The Spring and The Summer

PUSH!!!! JUST ONE MORE PUSH!!!! Yes, finally the baby is out and alive. SMACK!!! Just making sure, don’t want to ruin the moment. Dominiq S. Gilyard was thus born and started thinking “ Where the womb at?” That was 17 years ago and I’ve grown since then. I remember back then I was very mature at a young age, I was often commended for it. But in the back of my mind I wanted to be crazy and act like I was high on crack. The only thing that stopped me was my mother, my crazy, crazy mother. Now at 17 I stopped thinking so much about how much my mom felt about my actions. When I was 7, instead of kicking old ladies and torture helpless squirrels with sticks. I was in the house, reading books, playing video games, and being very “mature”. At the age of 8 I knew what I wanted to do with my life, to join the Army and be all I can be!! I had a hold on my life and knew what do with it, yea. Yea, that’s right I had a hold on it, but now everything is changing. From the ages of 10 to 16 should a kids golden years but it wasn’t for me. I was injured by a some latch-key kid and it ruined my childhood. Yup, it totally sucked because I was able to do anything. Time seemed to pass me by like a missed train. Soon I was 17 and I feel conflict in what part of my life I should be in. I wasn’t able to express my kid side aka the spring of life. I was able to express the mature and controlled part aka the summer part. Its weird to be conflicted in between two things.

Maturity isn’t something we all can just get or apply, right. I had discovered my maturity at a young age. At the age of 7, at the time I never really got to explore my the inner kid in me and in all us. This lead to me being dull and awkward in social gatherings. This one time during my first day in Greenfield middle school. I was meeting all the kids and you know the whole new kid ordeal. They were talking to me and saying funny things and talking like, kids. Whole the time I was thinking why can’t I be funny like them or have the same “ I don’t give a fudge” out look on life. Those kids showed me what I missed in “Golden Years” of my life. I hadn’t, at the time thought much what I saw, but later it had profound effect upon my maturity. When was a 8th grader my maturity level started to change. One day my friends and I were at lunch eating. Someone says really loud “ I don’t wanna cock fight!” Usually I wouldn’t laugh or comment. Instead, I laughed, I laughed at the kid and I didn’t even notice I had. I’m remembering this because this moment was the first time I laughed at something that was immature and stupid. I know it not that funny or important to some but its significant to me. Finally, at that moment I stopped being so darn awkward and weird, well not the entirely, but I was well on my way. So, now instead of being all robotically correct or dulled out, I became cool mature. Meaning that I’m not all acting adult and controlled but I learned how be a kid and be mature at the same time.

We may or may not know what we want to be in life. I had made a decision about this topic when I was 8. To join the Army, I was tell my mother, that’s all I want to do I told my mom. As I grew up, I realized that joining the Army wasn’t the only thing I want to do. That was computer engineering, Genetic scientist, even being a doctor went through my mind. Only thing that stood out was all the jobs that dealed with technology. From the time I was 8 to 17, I researched jobs that involved that field. One time during science class in 3rd grade, my teacher taught us about how biological agents worked in nature. Like poisons and Nero-toxins in plants and animals. The teacher asked the class how humans used this poisons in the real world. Everybody was dulled out and scratching their heads on this one. I rose my hand with great confidence and said “The Military use the poisons and Nero-toxins in warfare, it called Biological warfare.” Teachers face dropped to the floor, either shocked or interest, he asked me to explain. At the board I listed with speed the names of all known Bio-weapons. Anthrax, Ebola, Rocky Mountain Fever, even Yellow Fever. It was at that moment I realized what I wanted to be apart of, the Army. U.S. Army which was my original goal but this time I was sure about it. Before I wasn’t sure of not why I wanted to join, but why I was interested in joining. Confident about my chosen profession I would shape my whole life around it and only strive for it. Just at 8 years old I knew my profession and knew my goal in life, but I didn’t know what would happen 2 years later.

Age 10 was suppose to be the beginning of my “golden years“, but instead it turned into crappy 3rd place “bronze years“. I was in 5th grade and one of the smartest in my school. With being one of the best comes with great haterism. With haterism many fight started and many haters getting send home crying. I was did like life at the top and was so happy to be in my early “Golden Years” of my life. The “Golden Years” were to me like the retirement for kids but you don’t get money and move to Florida. A trip to my great-grand parents house that summer before the start of 5th grade, sparked this idea of “Golden Years”. Great-Grandma, I called her that because I didn’t know her first name. She told me a lot about being young and how she acted at my age. I was surprised she remembered that far back, because she was old, like civil war old. She told me that I was in my “Golden Years”, the years before life truly begins or I start getting into girls and responsibilities. Young as I was I didn’t realize it at the time, and soon came to understand what she meant. I had been pushed down the stairs but a bully aka hater, 3 months into the school year. Next day, I had intense pain in my ankle and foot, my mom thought in might be a sprain. Doctors told us after X-Raying me, that I had a bone over-growth and that I needed surgery. One surgery turn into 5 surgery and 7 or so procedures. That was over 6 years, I don’t even remember most of those years. “Golden Years” they weren’t, they become known to me as the 3rd place bronze “thanks for trying” years. Some sucky years, presently I have some responsibilities and stuff but I feel I was denied the slow introduction I was due. This left me clueless how to do certain things and clueless on how to react to certain situations. I found my self feeling like I should just be like a little kid to make up for lost time. But my other side says to stay mature and continue that way. Yesterday I read a story called Marigolds the character Lizabeth, I think had the same problem. The character family was going though economic depression and she took care of her younger brother. Her father lost his job and her mom is unknown. Through out the story she seems struggling with life and conflicted. Like she knew what side of life she was going into and didn’t want to. Lizabeth in the story, taunts this old lady Miss Lattie, calling her a old witch and singing a chant at her. “Old lady fell in a ditch, found a penny and thought she was rich” and she including her younger brother and his friend chanted this while throwing rocks. We can understand her younger brother’s and his friend’s reason for joining in, but why did she start it. I personally think this was an act of defiance toward going into a older part of her life. Its like she using her actions as words, she saying “ No, I refuse to be go into my summer years without a fight!” The fight being throwing rocks at an older lady, who is a symbol of her future. She acted just like I felt at the time, defiant to go into my summer years without get to live my “Golden Years”.

Well, in the end one can not expect for time or life to conform to one’s needs or wants. Though writing this essay I’ve learned something new about my self. In the beginning, I thought I was conflicted in the middle when really I’m not, I’m still living my “Golden Years” or my summer years turned golden. I thought before that I was stuck in the past but instead I’m stuck in the future. I expressed maturity at a early age, I knew what I wanted to be at a early age, and I also thought about the future I was living at the time. I lived the “golden years” and I’m still living them now, even though I lost years, I came out transformed. The whole premise “Golden Years” are centered around, the introduction to responsibilities and girls! I experienced all of this during the so called “bronze years”, and you know what is weird? I just now realized that, I just now realized my growth and what phase of life I’m living. I am living my summer life and I am still living my “Golden Life” Well, in essay I focus on the past I should be talking about the future, like I am doing right now, in the present. So remember you can think about what phase of life your in, but in till you look at your past you’ll never know where your going. My past lies in my future, so where does your past lay. Yesterday’s past, today‘s present, tomorrow’s future.