CHAPTER 24...

One game I really liked playing as a child was searching for little ant lions during summer. My mother told me you could use those little creatures to grow breasts.

We used to call them “Tu gogo” she said once you dug it out of the sand, you place it on your nipple and let it bite you. That’s when the magic happens. The swell from the bite could last a day or so.

My mind fell in love with the idea of having big breasts at 10!

So it became a sport.

I wore my blue bare back top and my floral wrap skirt, my hair always braided into cornrows. I would anxiously step into my flip-flops and run to the sand in our front yard. It felt like a treasure hunt. Going in search of something so precious.

These insects were so clever, they left tiny air spaces in the sand and would leave their claws hanging out the sand. As a child I thought this was so they could breath. Since the sand was probably too air tight. Now though, I’ve come to learn that they do it to catch their prey, the little ditch they dig is to trap other insects, once it falls in they use their claws to choke and kill the ant. Very genius.

So I would look for a tiny stick, because even though I had tiny hands they were still too big to use to dig out the tiny ant. I would stir into the tiny ditch until the brownish grey ant surfaced. In excitement I would place it on my palm.

Sometimes, it took longer to get one, so I would spend hours moving from one tiny trap to the next.

Once I caught one, all was forgotten, the scorching heat, the dirty feet, the messed up clothes. Nothing mattered it was just me and the ant lion ready to grow some breasts. I would gently pull down my top and place it on my flat nipple, literally forcing it to bite me. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t. And somehow this trick didn’t help me in any way. My chest was still as flat as they came at that age. I did it anyway. Because in my mind, if it worked for mother it would work for me.

But it didn’t.

Soon enough I realized that.

I’m pretty sure my mom lied to me too.

It was probably one of those comebacks parents have when you ask them for the impossible. Though most of my friends had already grown their first breasts. And I say that because they usually go away and grow back after sometime.

My body was just not ready. And maybe my mother was trying to teach me a lesson on how not to force things that will eventually grow naturally. It took me a while to catch that. LOL.

But then I stopped going in search of the ant lions and started using a cooking stick. I hit my chest pretty hard for those breasts.

But eh, still got nothing.

No swell at all! So much for trying to fit in.

My mother gave me the craziest solutions for my very urgent need for breasts.

I realize now that as I grow, much like when I was a child I like to play a similar game.

The fitting in game. The I want to have what everyone else has game.

And I would go to any length to fit in.

And much like the conversation with my mother I go to God and tell him what I would like. It’s usually things that God has in mind for me already. Just like how I eventually got my breasts at 12 then realized I really should have waited.

God always has it well planned out for me. A great future and all.

But then I always go to God to ask for things prematurely. Because everyone else has got their ABC and I’m still at A.

I ask for what I should do to get it all too. Ready to dig out the ant lions to bite me. Ready to beat myself up! For something that will eventually come.

I never actually stop to think that maybe it’s important for me to live in that season.

Just like it was important for me to be a 10year old. For me to be more consend with being a child because the time would come when the growth would be my main concern.

I pray for patience.

The patience to wait and not ruin my now while I do.

To trust that whatever comes naturally should not be a major source of my concern

I should instead, trust GOD and enjoy my now.

This new age is showing me a different kind of sky.