After turning my entire room upside down and rearranging it for the umpteenth time, I think I have arrived at something that would serve me because I will need it in the coming days with big plans. My mother, walking in and seeing a different thing she said much earlier that day, was taken aback by the crazy amount of work I had to put in yet again, but she was also not even surprised that her son was at it again.
I have been on to really adventurous endeavors lately. I have been channeling my inner creatives and cooking things. Like one of my fathers said, impressed by one of my recent feats, "Necessity is the mother of inventions." I took a moment to reflect on that during one of my adventures sometime this week and had a profound conversation with my mother.
My mother is everything and more to me. Without her gift, I most certainly would be a much different person than I am today—which I am not sure I would have liked very much. And while she sat in front of me as I cooked, deep thoughts started to form in my head, and I said to her, "I am thankful for you and how you have always allowed me to explore since I was your baby. The many things I am capable of and knowledgeable about are because you gave me the freedom to be curious and explore my curiosity." And then I reminded her of one of my "funny moments" growing up.
"Do you remember when our DVD player was faulty one time many years ago?" She began to laugh.
"You allowed me when I said, 'Let me fix it,' and when the moment of truth came, I plugged it in to unravel my moment of genius and..."
"Poof!"
"The house blacked out."
"I had connected up the wrong wires and caused the wiring of the house to blow up, and then we couldn't use electricity in the house that night until it was fixed the next day."
"Remember what you did, Mom? Nothing. Nothing but say, 'My engineer,' encouraging me for trying and letting me know you were proud of me regardless. And many more of such instances allowed Curious Jay to grow."
"I am able to be this innovative to solve some problems, largely because you allowed me to grow up like that." I said, as I was making my own DIY lighting softbox as she sat before me, watching.
Without saying much, she smiled. And believe me, my mother's smile is one of the most beautiful sights to me. Her happiness means so much to Jay. And then we went on to have even more conversations.
How we went from Jay blowing up the house wiring to discussions about the beginning and end of one's life, I don't remember. We just began talking about how one could not have gotten to write the first chapter of their lives but got to write the final chapter of their lives.
We discussed how certain successful people had successful parents on their side, and then about successful people who had nothing in semblance to what they are now at the beginning of their lives.
You can sit and complain about the odds against you and do nothing, or simply change how things turn out for you by actually doing something to positively alter the trajectory of one's life.
It's the mindset I am holding on to. It's why I stopped complaining and being frustrated about my electricity problems and took such a bold step to build our own solar power system. Now, as I write this, it has been about thirteen hours so far since we've been running on it, starting with a full charge. Although small, the system serves us well enough to keep our gadgets charged and for me to sit in front of my PC and monitor for as long as I need to work.
As I couldn't afford a light softbox at this time that my expenses hit the roof recently, I channeled in my inner creatives and sailed on a ship to make one myself. I just finished it a couple of hours ago, and I feel proud of myself for putting things together little by little somehow. Hopefully, I'll share how I built it soon enough.
There are many more adventures I hope to embark on moving forward. It's all in a bid to write my final chapter well, regardless of how things may have started for me.
Image credits: Olujay
