CROSSROADS EXPLAINED TO CHILDREN

 

Escapism is a discipline well known by those who have lived dense matters, traumatic events, without experience to fight against adversity. Neptune regulates this matter. Scorpio knows this depth well. So does the moon. And in this material world, unloved children, who grow up in the god of God, always find bifurcations or crossroads that make them victims of such escapism, which can be drugs (and this is the most drugged society of all, if you don't believe it, measure it by the amount of anxiolytics, neuroleptics and antidepressants, alcohol, and all the drugs manufactured in the laboratory and outside of it consumed by unhappy and frustrated adults), it can effectively be a disease (which we know well to be producers of) or the arts. 

Escapism is not a good or bad place, it is a place inhabited by our pet ghosts and our ability to know how to deal with them. 

When I got up, I was still asleep, it was the cell phone far from my hand that prevented me from continuing to sleep. The alarm clock raised me, but it was the worries that led me to the kitchen. I peeked into my mother's room, she was still asleep. The heat remained absolutely desperate and typical of the time, I just had to approach the kitchen window, next to the stall. The orchid, the sword of St. George, the spice pots kept water in the saucers and remained lush. And I was in here, a hostage, which is what I have felt for three years, I wondered when I would wake up in a full garden, in a rough sea or mild with temperatures and away from the worries that are suffocating me. We are poor figures of rhetoric, puppets instructed to repeat the script of others, in a démodé comic strip, where accustomed to sacrifice or lack of autonomy, we get tangled, without even questioning leaving the box, the script, the social dictatorship and we continue the same path, practicing the same mistakes, the same mask, the very same sadness that death should have swallowed by now. And worse, to teach children that it has to be so. In my near-death experience, what expelled me from paradise was not one of those figures of rhetoric that had been placed inside me, it was the standardized formatting, through DNA, which has a brutal force, of the rooting of old and absolutely outdated beliefs that we should honor and sacrifice our self to the detriment of the selves of others. First the family and then you. First the mother and then you. And yes, this all comes from the family and is obsolete. First ourselves and only then others. First me. But a child educated and regulated in the box obeys these standards, even if he is raised to the god will give. In my knowledge as a psychologist and teacher, many cases have confirmed this truth to me. A child is mistreated, whether in the absence of values, food or affection, even when taken away from his parents, even when he has all these things in excess in the institutions that promote and protect of minors, all of them, all of them invariably choose to return to their previous circumstances, to the place of belonging, to the crossroads where they were placed ad hoc, without responsibility and without affective maturity. In reality, what my ancestors revealed to me, the light of my truth, my self, take it as it pleases you, was to follow my intuition, my heart. What was he saying to me? And I wanted to listen to him. I refuse, for personal reasons, to reveal what the source told me. It is also of no interest to say it now, it is enough for me to know this truth, which was told to me. And yet, the formatting was stronger. The others won. I lost myself. I lost, because my compass, self, divine spark or whatever you want to call it allowed itself to be trapped in the lisms of the repetition of patterns, in the permanence of obsolete values, where the self does not exist, except for adults, and which they themselves can tie up, to manipulate and convert into affective slaves the children who cannot perceive the prison, which is a place of emotional blackmail and where sick adults, due to the most varied traumas, repeat what has been done to them. And getting out of repetition requires, more than courage or daring, to think, to question, and to take measures that lead us to tear up the box, the formatting, the expectations of adults. We did not come to fulfill the dream of others, but our own. No father, mother, no relative, no responsible adult can demand our subjugation. I didn't come to be the hairdresser or doctor my mother liked. We are free, from the moment we are able to fly. And nature teaches, animal life demonstrates what we forget, because we are hostages of old family patterns. I'm 57 years old, I'm one of the many children who grew up in the god-will-give, where permissiveness only didn't meet promiscuity due to excessive reading and character, i believe. I am a caregiver for my mother who is currently eighty years old and does not want to go to a home, does not want to live with the other child, with whom she has always lived, because she cannot manipulate him anymore and who found in me the circumstances of fragility and belonging to the old repetitive wheel and as I am of commitments, here I remain.

So, this text is really for specific children, those raised to the god, those who came to be an accident in the lives of adults, those who had an absence of affection, neglect of care, and an unhealthy easiness, who even though they did not lack food or expensive objects, failed some values of great importance. We are not victims, except of our choices, of our inability to get out of the box, of our inefficiency in tearing these ghastly veils. That adults choose the life they want and not the one imposed on them. 

Yesterday at lunch, after having breaded the octopus and having made a bean rice, malandro, a cucumber and tomato salad, after having served my mother's glass, having invited her to lunch, she came with a good-natured face, although delayed, she started to eat after we had served ourselves and began by saying:  I dreamed of your father! You see, that in all these years, not once have I dreamed of him and today I dreamed of him. And I told her that I had asked God to allow me to see him, I who needed to see him, I did not dream of him. I smiled and asked him how the dream went. She told me that he was aged, that he was no longer young, that he was preparing to climb a slope, briefcase in hand, that she was with her mother-in-law that she did not like, grandmother Bina and that she called him:Francis, where are you going? You didn't come to sleep at home, where are you going now? My father passed by them, without looking at them and continued. She told me he was angry. She didn't know if it was with them or with someone else. And that that briefcase was glued to his hand, that he walked as if the briefcase was the most important thing and that he should be dealing with lives, pensions and retirements, which was the last professional activity of my father, a social security technician. I asked her, if my father was old, how were you and Grandma Bina? She replied that they were the same, grandmother Bina the same as when she left and herself as she is now. Only my father, who died at the age of thirty, grew old. Dreams are nobody's places, there is no one to govern them, no taxes are paid and no presidents of the republic live there, there are no noble titles and no special people. I know, because I regularly inhabit these places and I know that it is a land of nowhere. The mother ate everything, even the octopus that she said she didn't like. And she still wanted a slice of sponge cake. She didn't ask me for coffee or liquor and as soon as she finished, she spoke to me again as if she was apologizing for existing. - Cristina, before i go, I would like you to know, I don't want anything to be cremated, when I go. I want to go to the same place where your father went, although I know that your paternal family won't let me, but that's where I want to go. Now, I'm going to the living room. Perhaps she is, like me, sensing the presence of the immortal black woman who comes to reap good and evil. Making a clean slate to all souls.

And Eva reminded me of the family's quarrels about the family tomb in the Paranhos cemetery, which at the request of the great-grandmother was bought, but that my godmother, married to the great-grandmother's son, mine godfather António, whom he always humiliated, she had placed in her name, Alzira Guedes, appropriating a place that was not her. And that's where my mother will go, if she dies while I have the strength. Because that's where my father's remnants are and it's her will to stay there. And with my great-grandmother I already settled accounts. All that remains is for me to settle accounts with the living. And while she walked to the living room, I watched her walking, aided by the cane, and at her feet the arraiolos rug that she is still making, next to her a yellow knitted cardigan, on the table the word searches and the pen case, the cell phone and the glasses. I turned on the television to her always on the same channel, where she could watch the programs of Júlias and forensic experts, pimba music and forged marriages, and I went back to my chores. After having fed the animals, rectified the water in the buckets and pots, pampered those who attended, I decided to sit down to think about my troubles and the course of things. In progress, I keep the lamb that took away the sin of the world, the emails that I await a response from the ICNF, the lawyer, the NOS, the hell that breaks them all, institutions that hang people in an indefinite wait, because we are a number, a dossier that does not weigh on their responsibilities and that they want to put on pause, thinking about parties and vacations, fireworks and superficiality, inviting waters and vouchers, investments in the stock market and international politics, daily misfortunes and the afflictions of others, if they are televised,  in the scandals of the stars and in the new bars, in the hookups and in so many other things that are far from becoming empathy. I also take refuge in relaxing music, in books and in Kabbalistic teachings, in astrology and in all the occult sciences, because these are no longer hidden for those who know how to read people. And if we realize, the day advances to the night, time burns and tears the weeks turning them into years, nothing changes for the better, and better than living a life prisoner of your own choices, is, without a doubt, that dreamlike, privileged place, where we find people who, without using their mouths or hands, tell us stories of real people, people who feel, people different from the ones I know, who the ones I met vary between two poles, sometimes they dip their heads in the sand so they don't see, so they don't express an opinion or don't have to roll up their sleeves to do justice,  using predictable cowardice, or they envy from afar the anonymous lives of the people they liked to be and never dared, who criticize and loved to see them on the news and and in morgues for the most absurd reasons. 

I was born in the twentieth century, and of this twenty-first century I am very little of human admiration. On the contrary, all the lives of previous centuries keep me hopeful in the future, which through them and their lessons, I see with lucidity and coherence the path of evolution. I have lived many crossroads and notice, crossroads are the most dangerous places for us humans, because it is in them that we make decisions, the wrong and the right ones and that, when we falter and do not make decisions in time, we risk being held hostage to an involuntary choice. This year is a great crossroads for humanity and, by virtue of my positivism and not the circumstances that can be seen around us, I know that we will choose the best way to circumvent this threat of implosion. And from crossroads to crossroads, we can imagine the future, between flying cars and humanitarian hits, between beloved children and regulating justices that can vivify what justice is after all, if not the plates where truth and repentance are balanced, rights and duties are egalitarian, in the understanding that when we harm the other,  we are doing it to ourselves, by loving the other, we are allowing love to begin in us, that righteousness and commitment to the others are not only expected, but also minimum required. Tomorrow is still a non-event, but do not forget to measure your words, thoughts and deeds because it is with this matter that tomorrows will all be made. Positivism has to be the best app, along with intelligence, along with dreams and the will to fight for them. There is no adult who can prune your dreams. And if you think so, don't reveal your dreams, communicate as little as possible about yourself. That enemies grow, mingle and mask themselves, like your relatives and friends. And learn to listen to the heart, because that is, without a doubt, your best friend. Learn to love yourself and trust yourself above any other human being. And it reads nature, it is faithful more than most humans. You are your best friend. And if you can be your best friend, learn to value yourself, your integrity, your conscience, discovering more and more of yourself. You are a fantastic human being and you came to live just that, the stuff of your dreams and learn to discern at the crossroads, where your heart sends you and not to listen to the opinion of others. The others will always be the others, responsible for themselves. You are the most important part of your world, nothing overrides you, no one can do with you what you do not accept. We must be flexible, but not in terms of dreams and life choices. This is the truth that will sow your way, the stuff of your dream. And there may be many crossroads, many decisions to make, but be shrewd and choose the fights you want to fight. Prioritize yourselves. The others do the same. We cannot give love, unless we are love ourselves.