Catalina Diaz
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Out of dark times
About to finish high school our parents took us out of school, my father was going towards bankruptcy. We knew about his profession since we were kids but we really didn’t get involved, we innocently enjoyed the benefits of his hard work. There were several large debts, more than a couple of sues, and a daunting tax debt that puts my mother’s freedom at risk. I was 16 or so, it took me some time to acknowledge the magnitude of the situation (my father wasn’t very clear about what was happening). So I learned my father’s trade of Tool and Die Making, a beautiful trade. We start working just the two of us, a bit later my brother joins and then my mother, we pay all debts after 4 or 5 years. My father is a natural teacher but he was also an alcoholic, which made everything even harder. We came out of it slow and steady and with a lot of scars. I learned a huge amount of things from that time, I became resilient and resourceful, I found things about me I didn't know I could do or feel, one thing became clear and true to me since then, you get to know people more intimately when working together. In this case, there was no paycheck waiting for us, only debts and scarcity, so you see clearly; the stamina, the ideas, the solutions, the proactiveness, the tiredness, the sadness, the frustration, the fear, the commitment, the loyalty. There were no masks, nice words won’t fix things, there is no one to steal ideas from, you won’t get away with it if you mess up. You just get real, and you answer to yourself about what you’re capable of, your values come to surface inevitably, your quality as a person or professional ethics, wherever you want to call it, is evident. So besides learning the trade, this time left me with other tools, at the time I wasn’t sure the use I will have for them, time will tell.
By Catalina Diaz5 years ago in Humans
