Character Is Developed Amidst The Darkness

Character Is Developed Amidst The Darkness 

March 19, 2017-03-19  

By: Gina Yoryet Román

When I was young, I was a rebel with “many causes,” or at least that´s My excuse. Being resentful, sad, confused and bitter at everyone for everything was MY perfect escape to avoid being disciplined. I literally declared war to My world and to everyone who revolved around it. Coming from a large family in which my mother always worked very hard, and much harder at times when she was separated from my father, I want to look back and say that life was always very rosy, but it wasn’t always like that. I would like to say that my upbringing was easy, but it wasn´t. I want to say that I grew up surrounded by love, I did, but not necessarily from one of the most important figures in my blooming years that would mark my existence for many years to come. I want to incline towards deceiving myself that my rearing created a self-confident little girl, an emotionally stable teenager, and a confident a woman, but the ugly truth is the total opposite. I´d like to acknowledge that my circumstances helped me thrive into what I was to become later in life. I´d like to attest that in my early years I had a clear vision of who and what I was meant to become, but I was afar from that.

Those displeasing random moments in my life brought upon a lot of pain, they were the culprit that shun me from defining my character. Or so I thought when I lacked maturity, when I was too afraid to acknowledge that in my pain was the answer, and that through that misery my character would be defined. Just like Yousuf Karsh said, “Character develops through darkness.” During that darkness in my youth, I stood aloof from my written symbol – my faith and the fundamentals that I would finally learn to stand up for during my early thirties.

I didn’t get the luxury of being walked through life, that is one of the reasons why I was always at a loss until my mid twenties when I rekindled my connection with my faith which would help me deal with my own ghosts, and fight them off for good.

Reflecting upon my early years, it wasn’t all bad, there was always light at the end of the tunnel. As the seventh child in my family, I was always surrounded by one of my greatest gifts – my sisters, and by my most faithful companions, my fear whom I have befriended as I figured it will be my most faithful companion for as long as I shall live. My top shields (books) to protect my soul have been always there, “Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret,” by Judy Blume. When I first read that book (which I still have), I was in elementary school, about the same age as Margaret, the protagonist of this novel. Another one of my shields, “Women That Run With the Wolves, By Clarissa Pinkola Estés, helped me reconcile with certain aspects of my culture. The most important armour is my faith and keeping that alive through daily prayers and self talk regardless of the time and place. Hoc tempore, allio tempore has also been my protection. Just like when I was a young athlete, en un grito desesperado, I always looked for God during all my intense trainings, I still do. I did back then, I still do, and I will always reach out to him to help me reinforce my character because through darkness real character is defined, and only the most resilient minds can withstand the never ending good, bad and ugly conditions in our journey. 

Now I can finally be thankful for even that obscure beginning because even when I didn´t know it, it helped me define the woman I was meant to become - a woman who is guided by her faith. I am no super hero, but I like to tell myself that I am my own hero who saves herself every day through her ABC´s that have clearly defined her character. I am NOT invincible, I stumble and fall every so often, but I bounce right back. Every once in a while, I get to my limits because even super heroes have their limits…yet they are defined by their character, and that character is defined by their conviction that makes them wholesome.