BEING REAL

“RECOLLECTION & REALISM . . . . . . . .”

I was pondering about all my interests from early childhood to now and this post deals with it. For many years if you were to ask me about who I was and what I liked I would mutter a few things but honestly I could not tell you much since I really did not like to think about me. You see for a long time I did not like who I was or the things I did, I had the tendency to make up things and become what I said I was. I did this as a defense against my mom and the world, so much so that my lies became real to me and I lived them out. I developed deception to the point that a lie was muddled with truth to become real. My wife had pointed this out to me so many times in the past that I refused to accept that this was true. In the past it would take S. to push me to realize my problems and it became frustrating since I got defensive and turned the situation to focus on her. I did not want to deal with issues and preferred to deflect, but in doing so I was slowly losing my identity and becoming a empty shell.

I would say here that if it were not for God in her life and his love for me I would be lost or dead by now, certainly divorced and alone. I have to admit I am a stubborn man, I like having control of my situation and I did not like any person or God to have a say in my life. I preferred to deal with problems and felt that only I should. I felt that if I could fix myself, I could then approach God as a good servant and in doing this I made it worse. God, I know now, would use my wife to bring up major areas in my life that needed to be brought up and dealt with. A cycle had emerged in my life of late where things would be going along without any fighting or issues emerging but still nothing was moving forward in our marriage. My wife and I were taking care of the children while we were working, I had become complacent in that I felt that my marriage would simply work itself out and that God would see us through. I felt that just opening up to God would enable all my hurts and pains and those between my wife and me to repair itself with minimum effort. In fact what I was doing was not dealing with it at all. My wife made a good point that God did not bring her into my life to become my psychologist and she did not want to become a shrink dealing with a child who would not grow up.

I understood this because for a long time I was afraid of growing up and taking responsibility for my actions. Yes, I was a coward in many respects, especially when it came to sharing and dealing with personal issues. For a long time I hated myself and had a low self-esteem issue which I allowed to flourish. Thus I would always put myself down and blame myself for problems; I was abusing myself. I also escaped to this area of my life because if I did not think I was a good person then I had an explanation for what I did. If I wanted to get out of this cycle and really become a man I needed to grow up, shake off all my insecurities and inner demons and confront all my closed boxes. A major part of dealing with this was recognizing that I was a very selfish person, one who did not think of others but me and protecting me from people. I had developed this in defense against my mother and held on to it. Even when I got married, I did not allow my wife in fully and kept many things quiet and to myself. This was unfair to her and really showed I did not trust, a foundation of any relationship. Dedicating my life to God was truly the turning point. I really let go of my stubborn nature and put my whole life in his hands. After that I turned to my wife who for so long had loved me unconditionally and who loved me in spite of all the pain I put her through. Since I had gotten married I had lost focus of the fact that my wife was part of me and that, as part of me, she shared in me. But I really had closed myself to love because of all my past experiences and in doing so I lost me for a while. I built a wall around my heart and yet I knew in that heart held a love for my wife that had to come out some time.

For years I had built up a cold iron foundation which allowed me to do wrong things without thinking about the consequences. I hated myself and went about telling myself that I was ugly, not worthy, evil and unlovable. I did not trust myself and I did not want to hear about love. For a long time when my wife told me I was handsome I did not believe her or put her down for it. I know this hurt her very much and if it were not for God telling her I was the one and to hold on we would have gone our separate ways a long time ago. At the beginning of this year I began truly opening up to my wife and telling her feelings I had suppressed and secrets I held back or felt she should not know. For a time I would stall for fear of hurting her but this has been slowly improving. For the first time since I was a child I understood how love was a natural and unconditional part of a person’s being. Letting go of my wall was a liberating experience; even more so that I could share fully with the one I love...something she and I thought would never happen.

For a long time loving myself and knowing myself were nonexistent. To really love God, my wife and our children I had to find myself and know the man God created. Dealing with all the hurts and pains I put my wife through will be dealt with separately in another post. What I am writing here is the man I am and the things that I like that made me a person. Below are my interests from childhood to now: some which, although I developed them out of hurt and pain, are real and those that I love and just suppressed over time.

As a child I loved nature, exploring and just living life. I did not want to miss anything and I would stay up till late at night because sleep stopped me from finding out things. I enjoyed the outdoors, especially the soil, you could catch me up late at night digging in the dirt. Once my parents found me digging dirt in the early morning while everyone else was sleeping. Also from an early age I loved scary movies and would find myself between my parents in their bed after having sneaked to watch one. I liked watching scary movies and even as late as my early thirties a good suspense was exciting. In my early years horrors and suspense movies excited me because they were, for one, fascinating and, second, they really made me wonder about the world we live in and the people and things out there that could create in people such fear. Also the types of monsters and the story line or plot really captivated me. I really found that after I watched a show my mind would run away with me and I imagined these things to be real and I would come up with all kinds of ways of destroying or vanquishing the enemy. I must admit I use to scare myself silly and was not able to sleep. In the last few years I have really come to understand that horrors can really influence people to explore the dark side of life to embrace evil and to really in some cases repeat or improve on them in the real world. I was always interested in Vampire movies, my first being “Barnabas” but these days many horror movies have no plot or story line, so I get very bored.

My childhood was full with playing with my dogs and even sleeping alongside them when I could. I loved animals and my parents always said they were amazed by the fact that animals did not run away from me. I would search for snakes and lizards and, when I could, catch frogs for fun. I would put lizards on my shoulder and walk around, they would sit there never trying to move. A few times I brought garden snakes inside and let them slither on my hand. I remember once I held a coral snake and brought it inside. My family including my grandparents saw it and freaked. They rushed towards me and shook it out of my hand and then killed it. I remember them saying they were amazed that it did not bite me. As I grew up, my love for animals grew, I would walk up to people’s dogs and pat them while the owners mouth dropped open and they would say that their pets never went to people. I also had a lot of other animals as pets including: pigeons, rabbits, chickens, squirrels, parrots, canaries and fish. But I loved dogs most of all and still do, all animals had a place and still do with me. I once even brought some baby rats home and my mother made me kill them and in another case I brought a kitten home and I had to return it because my mom hated cats.

My love of animals did not stop at just holding and keeping them as pets, I remember raising abandoned baby pigeons, feeding them from young and having them thinking I was their parent. When I watched movies about animals I got very upset and would cry if the animal died or got hurt. Even today I don’t watch movies that have animals in it. I take a determined interest, even now, to look at birds that fly in my yard and I get very upset with my dogs for killing a dove or black bird. Animals to me were just like humans and I would treat them as such. They were the only ones I could talk too, especially when I wanted to deal with a problem. I even thought they could understand and answer back. The first dog I remember having was a Doberman who died from poisoning. I still remember sitting with her in my lap and crying. Up to this day the emotions and images are still there. My brother and I would have mock funerals when our pets died and we would bury them in the yard. My rabbit, called Princess, had red eyes and followed me everywhere, Princess lived in the house, but one weekend while I was at the beach she died and when I returned home my dad told me he had to get rid of her. The story then changed later on to my mother no longer wanting me to have it in the house and she wanted him to get rid of it. Dad told me he took it to a rabbit farm where she could live out her days. To this day I remember how painful this moment was.

The real world was not a happy place for me, as I have noted in another post, and to escape this world I would day dream a lot. I would go in and out of a fantasy realm where I was the hero and where people like my mother could not get me. I loved to dream and make up stories, in my stories and dreams I was the hero and I was always on a quest to save someone. When I was in a stressful situation I would usually zone out and start a dream. I remember once in class at the age of 8 my teacher asking me a question in English class and I was not paying attention. I told her that I was not interested and that I was off on an adventure. Of course I got punished. My dreams became so real to me that when I was answering people in the real world I usually answered them in my head. This would get them upset because they would say they had to ask me a number of times the same question and I would say I answered it, when the answer I gave was in my head. The earliest dream I remember as a child was one where I was an angel saving two beautiful women from evil men. I was flying and was shot in the wings by these men, was forced to land but I had saved the girls and that’s all that mattered. I enjoyed dreams where I had wings and flying, escaping was always good since I was in control and free. My interest in dreams continued well into adulthood, I would remember every detail of my dreams which on numerous occasions I would try to write down. In one case I dreamt a friend’s house and an attack on her father. When I told her about it she told me that I freaked her out because I described it perfectly. A few weeks later her dad was attacked by robbers and when she came to school she told me to stay away from her because I was strange. There were many instances of this while I was growing up and after a while I stopped telling people my dreams because they thought I was weird. It was only when I met my wife that I again began talking to her about my dreams. I know a lot of people look to astrology or a dream book to understand dreams, for me dreams are either from the devil or God and they always have a meaning.

In my teenage years I started to dive into reading. This was a time when I would stay in my room and absorb myself in books by Enid Blyton. Fairy tales were always a good escape and I read a lot of adventure books including such books as “The Famous Five”. I also became interested in books like the “Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe” which made me cry, especially when the Lion was killed. In my late teens I was interested in Sci-Fi written by Isaac Asimov and books like this. I had once read Tolken’s “Lord of the Rings” and the “Hobbit” when I was 19 years old and read them over until I lost the books. It’s funny; I always said they should make it into a movie and who knew that nearly 12 years later they would. By my twenties I was suddenly interested in horror writers, books written by Steven King were intriguing and I would digest them and move on to the next, but they soon got boring and I lost interest after a few years. These days I read historical stories that closely follow historical events and a few fantasy books where the story line is out of this world. Books were good for me, as many of my ideas and thoughts came from them. Also I was able to escape and recover from my mother’s ‘licks’ and abuse. I numbed my mind and my flesh from all the pain. The world around me would disappear and I stood in the centre of the book’s plot. I became a character and no one from the real world could get me. Sometimes it would take a shaking from some one to bring me back to reality. These days I like relating stories to my children when I can and living life with my wife is great so that I do not need to escape into a book.

Along with reading came my interest in history and history books, this out of all my interests is my favouite. As a child my great grand-mother use to talk to me about the days when there were no cars and television. Granny A. would talk about her days riding in a carriage and a time when people lived a simple life. I was mesmerized by this and wanted to know more. In school the only subject I liked was history and my history teacher Mr. J. made it fun- especially the days of the Amerindians, the Spanish and the coming of the French and English to our shores. I did well at every level and continued my studies in history at the University level. I loved history books, not only on local history but all world history. Understanding world civilizations that went before really helped me understand why people behaved they way they did, added to which I was a history book collector. When I did my research on my family history, which I really enjoyed, I realized that I was good at remembering dates and times as well as events. I continued to pursue history because it was one area where my family could not touch me or say they were better. History continued to be my focus and the career I chose is made up of a large component of it. However, it did have its bad side- in that, because my focus and love for history was so single tracked, I put everything second place to it. My wife on many occasions told me literally I was making it my wife and I agree I was. I put more energy into it than any other area. It is only now that I can see the danger of an obsession like the one I had for history. The history of Russia is one of the most fascinating to me and I have fallen in love with its rich history and culture. One day I hope to visit Russia with my wife and experience its history.

History also had a part to play in my hobby of Stamp Collecting. From 1987 to about 1996 I was so focused on stamps and “First Day Cover” collections that I spent all my allowance on it. I liked stamps for their history and because of how rare they were. It was fun getting a stamp and reading about its history. I would admit I liked the idea of a stamp growing in value as it aged and hoped one day to own a stamp that was worth a lot of money. But by the time I was 26, I began to lose interest, and now, I may, when I remember, buy a stamp or First Day Cover but it is not a must. I also did not have the money to buy stamps all the time.

In my late teens I wanted to know more about my country and I joined a hiking club with a few friends from my church youth group. In the next couple of years we hiked, climbed and walked all over Trinidad’s Northern Range as well as other parts. I loved hiking because it brought me close to nature and God. I loved the peace, the quiet, the trees, the fresh air and the sounds of nature. I loved to explore and the freedom of movement really felt liberating. I liked reaching destinations where no one else ever went before and seeing the landscape especially the forest, caves, rivers and waterfalls just took my breath away. It was also something I could say I accomplished using my physical energy and would prove to everyone I was not lazy. For a time it was also a form of penance for my sins, working out my problems and the wrongs I did by a strenuous hike really seemed to help especially the long periods where I had time to think and process life. It was also something I did that no one else in my family would do so it gave me a sense of power and control, especially when I came home and told everyone about it. As I got older and I began to work, hiking became less and less practical. The last time I did anything closely related was when I kayaked down a river in Massachusetts in 2002. One day when my kids get a little older I want to take them on hikes, that’s if they are interested. I had a dream once to try out as many extreme sports as I could and if God would allow I would love to try hand-gliding, sky-diving and mountain climbing. A combination of history and hiking has me interested in traveling across Europe, Asia and South America.

I come from a long line of cooks and everyone home cooked, if you could not something was very wrong with you. I started from early childhood to watch my mom cook and record in my head the recipe and ingredients. My grandmother also was a good cook and she hired a lot of servants from Grenada and up the islands that cooked for her. I used to ask questions about what they put into food and I noted the taste in the food. By my teenage years when I was allowed to touch the utensils and stove I began to experiment with food. I loved to look at recipe books and try them. Of course my early attempts came out horribly but with time I got better. I like food and I found when I ate outside the food either tasted bad or I could improve it or it would taste good and I would want to copy it. A major reason I started cooking is due to the fact that my mom’s cooking was not that hot. When it came to cake and certain things, yes it was good, but you know that saying “when it was good it was very, very good but when it was bad it was horrid”. For as long as I remember I made food from scratch and liked following recipes. My cakes, puffs and Bar-B-Que were good and so were my brownies. I felt very complete and happy to see people satisfied and happy after they ate my food. Cooking also helped me deal with stress. I put all my emotions into my cooking and I really worked on being patient with it. I have actually done some catering on the side. After I got married I took to cooking less and less as I started to do other things. It is only now that I have found a renewed love of cooking not because of stress but because I love to cook for my wife and children.

These are just some of my major interests while growing up and which I have come to recognize are part of who I was. There are some good things I take from these and I still hold as interests. Others I have not mentioned are my love for planting and seeing things grow from seeds. It was said when I was a child that anything I planted grew and my grandmother said I had a green thumb. I loved growing my own vegetables and flowers but I stopped that when I was a teenager. I would love some day to plant my own garden, maybe when I retire. Also I love to take long drives and explore roads and tracks. I would also drive to the top of the lookout and just sit and allow the wind to blow in my hair or just think. It is while I am driving that I do my best thinking and have the best conversations with God. Television used to be very addictive but since my children really have control of the remote I only have time for an occasional movie, it is a real joy to see myself in them and also their reactions to the cartoons they watch. Many of my interests were once done out of pain and hurt, but now I have a new positive and God centered outlook towards my interests and will continue with those in my family who are interested. This is just a small part of who Daniel is.