Insights from the inside

This could also be titled “Full Circle”.

We act out that which triggered us from the inside. Stored up commands.

Encoded instructions (like our own software version if you will).

Years ago, we fled by barge.  FOB. Then when we reached safety, inside secured camp  boundaries, we started to fight our ways to survival: each man to his own. An extended family that fled together ended splitting up into four units: college-bound, work-bound and American-style nuclear family and my mom, left all by herself, a retired school teacher with no taker (sponsorship).

I was completely crushed due to my helplessness: a few months before that, we had already left our house and my Dad. Then my Mom (knowing that she got mess hall pass and a bunk bed to sleep in did not ease my pain).

That’s how dramatic the script was: I was detonated into adulthood with everything (country, culture and cocoon ) disintegrated all around me.

No warning, no orientation. In fact, I missed the pre-registration period when various student organizations recruit incoming freshmen.

No fraternity, no fellowship.

Years later I volunteered to be back at those camps in the South china Seas. Even then, I did not recognize that deep motivation  of ” no man left behind.”

This marine-like motto came from no where. I continued to come back the second time a year later upon graduation from grad school.

It’s a trajectory unavoidable.

The insights came much later. Like yesterday. All of a sudden, the past resurfaced and revealed itself to me. Ah ha.

One guy found me after 31 years. Full circle. I helped him, he now helps me.

Then I realized why I came to help him: I couldn’t have done it for my mom in the early years.

As soon as I could, I did, even for strangers I had yet to meet.

An act of atonement.

Guilt and shame.

How do I live down after the break down.

Now, with distance and time in between, I could connect those dots.

No man left behind.

That’s what makes us who we are: social beings. Yes, we should love ourselves.

But we should not forget those two commandments: Love God and your neighbors.

These actions are not mutually exclusive. Try it, and you will find there are plenty left for  yourself. You see, love is not finite. In fact, the more you use it, the faster it replenished itself. Infinitely. I don’t know much about life, how long it lasts, what does it really mean etc… but I know a thing or two about love, or the lack of it. Especially, when it shows up and plays catch up with you. It hurts. It was real. It exists. Like yesterday, suddenly, this insight came uninvited but got me teary. Then, I was freed.