weight of living

I was one of those children always told by my mother to stand up straight, with my chin up high. And being the child that I was, I followed through. Walking like a proper little lady with all the pomp and circumstance I could muster, I made my mother proud. But then the growth spurt hit and my birthdays started passing by like cars on an expressway, I grew by inches and I grew by numbers. 

My height increased and I started to understand more and more as the years passed. But instead of walking like the little lady I was prepped to be, I found myself slouching and hunching. In the earlier years, I did my best to correct it, out of fear that I would become one of those osteoporosis victims on the telly. I kept trying to find out the cause, but that time all I thought it was a medical condition. Never did it occur to me that it was the social and mental conditions that weighed me down.

I was quickly turning into a teenager, learning too much and too little at the same time. I understood things that a child wouldn't. I experienced my own disappointments, my triumphs and my heartbreaks. I had my share of misunderstandings and missed opportunities. Everything started looking bleaker and bleaker and sunshine was a luxury I could barely afford. The world became much more messed up in my eyes. 

Understanding all this made me see that they were the cause of my distorted posture. My own set of excess baggage, keeping my head down and ruining how I view the world.