Reflecting on lost opportunities

By George Davis

THE YOUNG woman looks at her surroundings. She feels the bile of poverty rising from her stomach. She spits when the bitter taste of under-opportunity, squalor and hopelessness combine to form a bolus in her mouth. She wonders what she could have been had her single parent been able to keep her in school. Just one more year would have taken her to fifth form and who knows, by that time things could have turned around sufficiently and she could have taken five or six subjects at CXC, and she wouldn't be here right now.

The young woman now regrets not applying herself in her first four years at high school, despite the fact she regularly didn't have lunch money on those days she actually attended. She smiles ruefully, thinking about the four other girls who left primary school with her and got into the same secondary institution. None of them were any brighter. Yet, one is a supervisor at a juice factory in Cross Roads, St Andrew. One has her own hairdressing shop with four people working for her. Another just got promoted from cashier at the supermarket in Liguanea, St Andrew and the fourth gone to foreign.

Reflecting

The young woman hisses her teeth and contemplates how she can escape this hole she has helped to dig herself into. She quietly laments the absence of an authority figure in her life, someone who didn't speak to her through bad words and threats. She wondered why her mother, who birthed her at age 14, never hugged or asked quietly how she was doing. Never. It was always cursing and shouting at the top of her voice with every neighbour, even when they didn't care to know, hearing in graphic detail, things which should only be spoken quietly between mother and daughter. She wonders if her mom's anger and coarseness towards her is because she used to wake up at nights and see first hand what mom used to do to afford the lunch money and taxi fare. Was her mom angry at her for seeing her 'take' all kinds of men or was she angry for being forced, out of necessity, to 'take' these kinds of men? The young woman once asked, and swore never to ask again, after the question was met with a crashing right fist to the face and a counter question from mom asking if the growth of hair on her 'private' made her now feel like the big woman in the house.

The young woman's eyes moistened as she looked back at a life of setbacks, obstacles and abuse that delivered her to this point. Here she was, sitting at a stall on the main road in her community. A few bottles of drinks lined the small shelves. She also stocked cigarettes and mints, items which she often went days without selling any of. Years ago, when she dreamt of her future, she never imagined that at age 23, she would have three kids, no real job, was still using a pit toilet and living in the same two-room house with her mother. She thought of all the lies told to her by her two babyfathers. She could slap herself for being stupid enough to believe when they said they wanted to make life with her. How could she be so 'fool-fool' to believe the first stud, when he had never worked a day in his life? He did naught, apart from dress up, smoke weed and chill with his friends on the ends. And she let him breed her. Not once, but twice. The second babyfather she met at the round robin, who said he was an engineer at the radio station on Mannings Hill Road. She never saw him again after giving him the flesh on that same night.

Masking her pain

As the young woman reflects, she cries. She quickly dries her face as a female customer approaches. The woman greets her brightly, orders two cigarettes and then pays. The woman smiles broadly and wishes her all the best for the holidays. The young woman smiles and shakes her head. In all her years of living, holiday or not, she has never, ever known the best of anything. Selah.

George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.