Good or bad memories?

Traveling through time

Isn't that what I remember, a story that I have told myself many times, and have decided to believe?

All memories are like this ... travel in your mind wherever you want to go, meet with whoever you have left something pending, and rewrite the story in a way that makes you happy to remember it. The best thing to do with all that definitely does not make you happy: thank life, recognizing that it happened like this, to give you the freedom to change your path.

For example, for many years, I felt a mixture of pain and resentment for the abandonment of my father, I believed that there had not been enough love on his part and that is why it had disappeared when I was 8 years old and then, we had only had contact occasionally. All my memories of him were clouded by that resentment, especially those of the last trip we made together, as a family, to an absurd house, imported from the United States and built on large wooden poles, on a small island in the Colombian Pacific, to the one that we came from far away amid the skepticism of my grandparents and uncles, for whom the decision to live in the middle of nowhere with three little girls was one more madness that would have no future.

When they woke me up and I saw that it was dark because it was so early that it had not yet dawned, I felt that this trip was not starting well ... and it did. We traveled from Bogotá to Cali and in that city, we had to wait several hours in the middle of suffocating heat, then we landed in Tumaco, where everything looked dirty, messy. We left the airport towards the dock and the panorama was even worse ... the dock seemed about to fall, made of half-rotten wood and the ladder you had to go down to get on the boat, had several broken steps, the sticks you were holding on were slimy and it was disgusting to take them, but fear not to do it, because the sea smelled rotten and all kinds of garbage floated on its surface. Getting to the boat was chaos and then, getting into it, another ... it was a wooden boat, also half-rotten, with sticks crossed to sit on and dirty water in the center ... could it be that it has a hole and is going to sink? I asked, feeling that my new tennis shoes were getting wet with that dirty water ... they laughed at me and told me not to worry ... and then, the engine would not start no matter how hard they pulled over and over again on a string ... Every time someone moved, the canoe tipped dangerously to one side or the other.

My mother's face reflected the terror that was seizing me too. We managed to start and we left for the island where we would live and in the middle of the road, my younger sister began to cry ... Don't cry! The boatman claimed my mother, if a child cries in the canoe, the dolphins turn us around because their babies cry the same and they think we are carrying one ... I wanted to personally cover the little girl's mouth.

We finally reached the island ... as the tide was low, you had to disembark in the water and walk to a muddy beach, "very carefully so that the stingrays do not bite you" and then climb other wooden stairs until you reach the dock of the house. Upstairs everything felt different, it was the best house we had lived in up to that moment, it was connected to a kiosk and the sawmill where my father and mother would work as a team. We would not have to go to school, but a teacher would come to teach us at home. Everything was very different, I wanted with all my soul for it to turn out well and for us to live happily ever after, but, as my grandmother and my uncles had predicted… it didn't work. My mom decided that we should move to Cali, to get into a good school and my dad promised to come to visit us on weekends. Very soon she did not return and she did not send any money, so they seized everything we had and we went to live at the grandmother's house. This story crushes me, it seems dense and heavy, it hurts.

Relatively recently, I discovered that I had the ability to travel back in time, through the same photos that support the first version of my story (the one I just told you) and build another one that is equally true and that fills me with enthusiasm, magic, it frees me, it amuses me ...

My parents fell madly in love being almost children, for several years love overcame the fears of being, or not capable of giving their daughters, what was necessary to be able to grow up and have a life at the same or better level than the one they had had. When I (the oldest of the 3 daughters) was 7 years old, they lived their last adventure together as a family, with which they closed with a flourish, the chapter of their teenage marriage ... my father invited us to live on an island in the middle from the sea, away from the homes of grandparents and uncles who until then had been in charge of helping us take care of us.

We were very excited about this trip, which was the greatest adventure in our lives, we woke up happy when it was not even dawn and very excited, we dressed in the new clothes that my aunt had given us for this great event, everything was beautiful! To me especially, it seemed amazing that my belt was the same yellow as my new tennis shoes. I looked at myself several times in the mirror ... I was sure that my dad would be very proud to present his beautiful daughters and his wife to all the people who would be waiting for us. The trip was spectacular! Ride two planes on the same day and land in the middle of the jungle at the edge of the sea, get to the dock and board a fun boat where they allowed me to sit on the tip, which has been since then, the place where I feel full and happy without any conditions, I love it! ... to see dolphins jumping free and playing around us for the first time in our lives, arriving at the island where we would live, where a magical house was waiting for us, imported from the United States, in the middle of the peaceful sea.

There, we were the princesses of our little kingdom, with the imposing sea lulling us every night and immense gray sand beaches, full of colored shells, little blue and orange crabs that ran sideways to hide in their little holes, when We ran happily along the beach with our new friends, who were very different children from the ones we had known up to that moment, because they had grown up there, surrounded by so much nature, without any obligation other than spending their time playing and telling fantastic stories. , and they were delighted to receive us and show us all the hidden treasures on the small island, where it was allowed to play dolls with real babies, have special pets such as monkeys, turtles, and snails, collect shells, swim when the tide rose to jump from the door of our house, riding in boats with the breeze caressing our faces and the infinite sea playing up and down as e n roller coasters at amusement parks… it was a perfect life, where adults and children shared all the time and had fun together. So several months passed, until one day when my mother changed her vision of life for a more adult one, realizing that she could not live in the middle of this fantasy forever and decided to move with her daughters to a relatively nearby city, so they could get into a good school, and receive the same education that their parents had. My dad wasn't ready to give up his dream and stayed to live it. We all managed to understand (some first and others later, each at their own pace) that this was the best for our family because each one lived what was their due ... he stayed forever in his little homeland, where he was the King, without much effort and we, we overcome these limits and we fly away, with what we lived in our hearts and the absolute freedom that it gives, not having to return for anything or anyone.

The latter is today, my new story, and that is how, from this wonderful journey to my memories, I began to live grateful for having been liberated and not resentful for having been abandoned.