Family, Childhood and Who I Am Today - Thanks for Making Me a Fighter!

These days in Slovenia it's very popular to talk about who can raise a child into a respectable grown up. I'm not going to talk about sexual orientation issues (which are obviously the toughest problem for most) yet this debate got me thinking even harder of my family, my childhood and who I am now.


In my first year of school I learned to believe that a good day at school will always be followed by a bad day at home, and until recently I believed that whatever good happens to me there will be something equally bad following. But I wasn't afraid of an alcoholic dad, no, I'm sure dad wasn't addicted at the time. My greatest fear was mom, who got very angry very fast, yelled all the time and hit us. As the years passed I started to understand she has hard work and is really tired and in bad mood when she gets home. I also learned dad's mom hates my mom and that we can sometimes have fun - as long these two aren't anywhere near each other. Before I became a teenager I already honestly hated my mom, avoided her as much as possible when she was at home and was often terrified of her when she was in bad mood.


Dad was an angel, (almost) never yelled at us and hit me rarely, not even at the times when I knew I wasn't behaving well at all. I followed him everywhere, I helped him at the workshop, I often behaved like a boy to be more like a son to him (I guess).

Then grandma moved out and things changed radically, it took many years and long conversations with mom to realize what was the situation that was going on before, the preassure mom was under because grandma didn't like her daughter in law. Not to make this post way too long - I was always very fond of dad and grandma and today I am also very close to my mom. I understand the arguments they had in between them and I take the bad things that happened when I was little as the lessons they had to learn. My memories of childhood are mostly positive: I spent a lot of time in nature, on my own or with cousins, swimming in a river, running through the forest, playing with cats, I had many friends at home and in school, I had good grades and only had arguments with teachers when ending up in a fight with boys.


Whichever bad memory I have, I try to understand: why it happened, why it hurt me and what I can do to learn a lesson from it. I don't regret, I don't blame anyone, I don't hate, I'm not afraid of unknown, I have no problem standing up for myself.

One third of who I am today is my family,

second third is the environment I was/am growing up in,

and the last third is myself - the secret recipe of my uniqueness.

Things changed radically since I was a child, my dad went from a sweet dad to an alcoholic addict who is fighting with himself every single day over drink. My mom went from yelling and strong fighter to a submissive wife of an alcoholic. My siblings are trying to find their life path in their own way just like I am. Things aren't easy but I'm not trembling for the 'bad' stuff that were supposed to follow whenever I have good time.


I get what I ask and work for.
Day by day I do mistakes of my own and learn not to blame my parents for them. They did their job of raising me up to a grown up, no matter how imperfect they were/are as parents. Now it's my time to use my own head and heart to keep on growing the way I think I am best. And that is a tough lesson!


Thanks god they raised me up into a fighter! ;)
I'll always be grateful to my family and all my friends, no matter what future brings, I am a fighter because of you!

Cause if it wasn't for all that you tried to do, I wouldn't know

Just how capable I am to pull through 

So I want to say thank you 

'Cause it makes me that much stronger 

Makes me work a little bit harder 

It makes me that much wiser 

So thanks for making me a fighter 

Made me learn a little bit faster 

Made my skin a little bit thicker 

Makes me that much smarter 

So thanks for making me a fighter  

(Writer: C. Aguilera, S. Storch)