To Drink from Others’ Wisdom Is a Privilege
Learning from elders will help you shape your life journey
Play this sweet music and let it play while you allow these words of mine to simply flow in your mind.
To understand that our parents have a life story as well is to become comfortable with listening—to be willing to ask questions like:
“What are your dreams ?”
As I get closer to turning 25, I’m also getting closer to my parents. And there’s this loud feeling in my heart saying: I wish I had met this side of them before. I wish I had learned who they are—beyond being my parents—as the characters in their own story.
Perhaps it’s only now, at 24 and stepping into my mid-twenties, that I can understand why I’m beginning to see more of them. And with that, so many questions have begun blooming in this sweet mind of mine.
What is your life story so far, Dad?
That’s the question I asked my dad as we hiked together—for the first time in the last two years. He smiled, surprised and mesmerized by my interest in his story, because I had never asked before.
Being African, I know many of our parents were never taught that it’s okay to sit down and talk about their life stories and dreams—that doing so doesn’t take their authority away, but actually brings us closer. I realized I must be the one to ask these questions and be willing to learn from them. To understand that it’s their first time living too. That they have a soul, still full of dreams and desires.
My dad told me about how he fell in love with Salsa, and I told him that now I love Salsa because of him. That conversation helped me see how many of my passions were influenced by him—and brought me closer to myself. It was never a coincidence that dancing freed my spirit.
Drinking from the wisdom and stories of those closest to us—especially our parents—can serve as a guide in discovering ourselves and understanding some of our own “whys.”
To see them as the main characters of their own story… let’s not wait until it’s too late to ask the questions we may one day wish we had.
