Finding Your Way In Life/Elodie's essay

Finding Your Way in Life

“There is in every true woman’s heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.” (Washington Irving). Being a woman nowadays is not easy, you have to fights stereotypes and be stronger than anybody else to prove you can do it and that you are not only the weaker sex.

Growing up and finding myself as they say, has never been easy for me. For a long time I thought that my family scheme was the way life was. I used to believe that woman’s duty was to be like my mom, a stay at home mother completely dedicated to her children and husband. But after my parent’s divorce I realized that this wasn’t right. I realized how hard it can be for a woman to speak up in order to make a change.
My whole vision of life changed at the time when my family collapsed.

I was 16 years old then, we had been living two wonderful years in Panama, and I was the happiest girl ever…well almost… My parents, my brother and I had spent our whole life traveling from country to country and living abroad when we had all decided that we should finally settle somewhere. Both my mom and dad didn’t want to live in France; they were both born in a warm country and could not imagine spending the rest of their lives in such a cold place (not only by the weather but also often by people’s mentality). So we ended up in Panama. This country was amazing, we had a great house, great friends, great weather, unbelievable landscapes…it all sounded ideal until the day I realized that something was missing.

After a few months living there I noticed a big change in my parents relationship. They were fighting all the time, being loud and aggressive toward each other. Finally I had realized that my dad had been unfaithful for so many years and that my mom had finally decided to speak up. My father had just pushed the button way too far for my mom to handle.
My dad had never been the type of dedicated father who really showed affection to his children or wife but this time he was almost never around which made my mom feel even worse then usual. Like many of the stay at home moms she had no personal resources, my dad was the provider, which made her really scared to leave him. Obviously she had thought about leaving him and moving on for a very long time but somehow she kept on trying to make it work, and Panama was her last chance. My personal opinion is that it was lost from the very beginning because in Central America most of the girls go after (I should say jump at their neck) white men as they are the ones that have the most money.

So my mom decided to break it off at that time, packed her belongings and flew back to France with my brother (I was already there for a month or two as I had to finish high school and get ready for College).
To see my mom struggling for her rights and trying to move on with her life as much as she could has been the hardest episode of my life. It really opened my eyes in many ways; I realized that in life no matter who you are, you need to be independent and self-sufficient. No matter the circumstance it is very important for a woman to accomplish her dreams before following someone else’s.

I believe that if my parents would still be living in Panama right now and had never gotten divorced, I would have probably never realized how important it is to accomplish my “Personal Legend”. Years have passed since my parents's got divorced, I am now in the United States following my heart and dreams with the great support of my mom because she believes that nothing is more important than being and feeling happy. Every human being has the right to make decisions for himself and as a woman we need to realize that we have the freedom to become someone and be happy instead of living through someoby else's life. My mom has always said to me “do not make the same mistakes I made, and live your own life before letting somebody in your life”.