Hello, My name is Maria, I like my name, it makes me feel protected and loved.
I was born in Medellin, Colombia in a household composed by my father, mother and 2 older siblings, one sister and one brother. Ever since I can remember I never felt quite accepted at home, I felt like I was occupying a space that I didn’t deserve. I grow up in a house in the city, my parents weren’t wealthy, on the contrary, my mom was a stay at home mom and my dad worked as a secretary in a bank (a job he make sure everybody knew he hated) and that apparently, weren’t enough to pay the bills at home, so when my mother realized she was pregnant with me, it was quite a shock. A low income family like them couldn’t afford to have many kids, and they were criticized by family because, on their opinion, my parents were being irresponsable having another child. So there was a lot of blame around my birth and I think that is why sometimes it feels difficult to me to occupy a space in an expansive way like I really mean to exist. This is something that I think has made me an introvert. Something that marked my personality and my destiny.
My mom told me this story when I was little, but she didn’t do it because she wanted to be mean to me, but because I asked her to, I knew intuitively that I wasn’t very welcome there. I never felt like that child that is cherished and cared like a treasure but I felt more like a responsibility, like a burden that had arrived by surprise by their door one day and they couldn’t refuse because they felt obliged by moral rules. My parents were exactly that, hard workers, moral and Cristian guided people trying to get afloat with their family. There was no time for hugs, bedtime stories, or play. Well, that’s not completely truth, despite the fact that my dad was working all day long, sometimes when he arrived home he got me something to play: a balloon, a coloring book, he certainly made an effort, and I loved to wait for him those days. I was 4 or 5 years old at that time. Ironically, my mom was much more distant than my dad. She was always busy in the kitchen or with the chores, or taking my siblings to the school, running errands, she was and still is very active and her life revolves around service even now that she has almost 80, something that I really admire about her. She has had a lot of struggles with her life too, fought cancer at one point and even though all of those hardships, she still has a great open, positive view about life and a lot of energy.
I want to end this written saying that I love my family very much and expressing my gratitude about all the teachings and shared experiences over the years that had led me to what I am today.
So today’s exercise was to share something about me to help me understand why I don’t feel like a very expressive person. I know my mission in life is to communicate with others, to get out from my confort zone and to talk, to write, to express my self in a creative way. So, this is it. Thank you!