Standing out from the crowd

I want to say thank you for people who have been so supportive of me writing on this platform. I'm not doing it to get attention; I'm doing this to invite you to help us heal from bad wounds that have happened in your life. My goal at the end of all of this is to see life in a different way and heal from things that were tough for me to process. My time on this earth is questionable because I don't know when I will reach to the other side, so I don't want miss something in my family's life because I never had the chance to heal those things. I want to be able live life to the fullest and not look back. 

When I was little, I always thought I was different than everyone else. I was very confused in my younger years. Why I never had the same color skin at my parents? Reading books and learning from your health teacher that your DNA should match your parents, I remember thinking that I have nothing that matches my parents. Remembering coming home and asking my parents, "why don't I look like you?" My parents would tell me, "Well you are adopted and you're from a country where you have darker skin than we are, but that should never make you feel that you don't belong with us because we love you so much." When my parents would say that to me, I would start thinking, okay I have parents who love me so much, we are going to be good. Sometimes I would ask my brother, who is also from Colombia, "Do you ever feel you don't belong?" He would say, "Yes, I feel I belong." Another great thing in this family, I had a cousin who is from Korea, and she is adopted as well. I thought it was really cool that our family was spread out in the world.

A time that I felt I was standing out from the crowed is when I did this summer robots camp. My mom walked me into the doors, and we see all the kids who were in this camp. I remember seeing two tables at this camp and they were kids sitting there, so I walk over, and I sat down, and this boy comes up to me and tells me, "The color kids sit at that table." Sure enough, there that table was mixed race, some Asian kids and Indian kid and me. I remember looking at my mom and seeing how sad and upset she was that people don't accept my son. So as any kind of mom who doesn't want her kid to get bullied, she went into momma bear mode. She went up to this little boy and showed her arm to him and asked him "What table do I need to sit at?" The little boy responded to her and said, "Look around. White people are over here, and color people are over there. You're white. You can sit here." My mom was pretty distraught a little boy would say these kinds of words to anybody, so my mom got off the chair and told him, "It doesn't matter that he is darker than you. We should be accepting of everyone for who they are, and not judge them." She walked over to me and said, "Let's go. We don't need this." And we left. 

Now that blog 3 is done. I want to wrap it up by saying, if you think you're standing out from the crowd, look at yourself and take 3 big breaths and tell yourself you're worth it and loved by so many people. I still struggle with this, but I have a wife who tells me you are worth it, and we love you. Next time you see a friend struggling, just tell them you're worth it and I'm here for you no matter what happens. I'm going to be here waiting for you. It might be the best thing you ever did for that person. Have a great Saturday.

Tim