Dear Tee,

“I am glad you are safe and sound! I also hope that your friends who remained on Jamaica are safe too.” Apparently my guess was correct, there wasn’t as much damage as we expected, especially since Jamaica has a lot of mountains so my campus was pretty much safe.

“It was interesting for me to read that there is corruption and immorality in your own community as well” Well obviously no person is that perfect, they would have been involved in some kind of politics but the type seems to vary depending on the type of people.

“Which tells me that not only Caribbean people are involved in immoral activities, but also those in your own community.” Oh come on, I am not that stupid. I am not saying that only Caribbean people are involved in immoral activities. But activities similar to cheating on their partner and other similar immoral activities appear to be higher among the Caribbean community. My community has its own set of corruption, usually religion-based or just plain politics of turning people against each other and stuff and financial cheating. One guy got murdered right in front of his kids cause he was a businessman who managed to steal a 20 million dollar diamond from another businessman.

“You have expressed that you are considerably wise, not stupid” Lol don’t misunderstand, I am aware that I have some wisdom, and I know that I can definitely make better decisions than B, but that doesn’t mean my so-called wisdom is enough. There are a lot of skills that I still lack. I am not stupid enough to use their love as a role model, but I was still stupid enough to not see through B. I am not dumb enough to BLINDLY believe B, but I was still dumb enough to trust her when I shouldn’t have before the whole mess started. Me learning from my mistakes doesn’t change the fact that I was still dumb enough to make those mistakes. I have made good decisions before but they were not good enough to save me from my suffering. My father gave me enough wisdom to guide B to make better decisions but it didn’t save me. I still fell for the things my dad warned me about. I will still be viewed as immature and stupid cause there are many skills and knowledge that I still lack. I have wisdom, intelligence, maturity and some skills, but I don’t enough of it to put to good use. I can make good decisions but they are not good enough. That is why I said that I still lack wisdom and etc.

“You have expressed that you are more mature than your peers” I know I am mature, I am just not mature enough. I may score 40% in my exam, and it may be the highest score among all my peers, but it is worth nothing because it not enough. I am more mature than my cousins, more mature than a lot of my peers, but that doesn’t mean it is enough because I still lack a lot of maturity. I have guests over at the house rn and they will be staying with us for a while. They have 2 kids really close to my age, and I know for certain that I am more mature than them, but that doesn’t mean I am mature enough. Especially not compared to an actual adult. That is why I say I still lack maturity. But it still doesn’t change the fact that these kids are better off than me. One got accepted into a prestigious college with full scholarship all the way in Australia and she is also going to be studying med. The other is still in high school scoring higher than I ever did. The other kids I know are in Toronto and New York and North Carolina and other places now and they have made so many achievements that my achievements look like nothing. Even the kid I used to teach is one of the top students in the entire country and his scores make my top scores look pathetic and he got accepted into a good college too. What did I get? I got stuck with Jamaica cause I didn’t get accepted into the other colleges or I could not get a scholarship that could handle their huge tuition. I chose Jamaica to reduce the financial burden on my parents. But even then they are paying 28k for just the tuition. I am not as good as I wanted to be. Now I have multiple exams I need to retake cause I missed the passing mark by a few percent. I may have good morals, but morals can’t substitute my lack of intelligence and skills etc.

“You said you were on of the top students in your country, which makes you rather intelligent” My scores were the highest at the time, but they were not good enough to get me accepted into the good colleges. The others managed to get into good colleges due to their interview skills and other test scores for the colleges. Not to mention, some of them had the government supporting them. Like my guy friend. He got a scholarship from the Bahamian government despite scoring lower than me but I didn’t get any scholarship. The kids from our community graduating now have scores that make my scores from back then look pathetic, that is just how big the gap is. My parents are not making it any better for me by showing me all the awards and etc those kids got while I had no awards when I was graduating.

“You said you possess respectable music skills” Yes I have good music skills, but they are nothing in the eyes of other musicians. I may look good in front of non-musicians, but compared to my classmates in the music class, my scores were no where close. My sight reading skills are so poor that the teacher had to take me aside from the rest of the class to provide me with private training for it. And that skill is still poor, I barely improved it for the sake of passing the music exam. Fortunately it did not have a large impact on the final score, which is why I managed to get a distinction. I ended up sitting in my class watching as the other kids played difficult pieces while I had been practicing the same song for the past 5 years cause there was no better piece for me. AND EVEN THEN, they managed to play the song better than me. Imagine how pissed I was. So when I see all this “evidence” you can’t blame me for hating myself for the things I lack.

“It seems you take some pride in being so care-giving to those “idiots” who don’t deserve your help? It seems you feel better than them.” No it is the opposite of that. It makes me sick cause I know I will only be taken advantage of. I know that kindness, love and care is generally a good thing, but for me specifically, all it has done is cause me more misery. Besides too much caring can be bad too. Like I cared too much about the girl my dad wanted me to talk to. Cared too much that I forgot to give her space. That is why we ended up breaking our friendship. Because I am just too stupid to stop caring. I know that my kindness and caring nature is good, but caring too much is the part that I hate. Like there could be a homeless man and if he were to ask me for money or something and I can’t give it to him, it irritates me and stays on my mind and continues to bother me. My uncle with the cheating wife had the same weakness, which apparently is one of the reasons why she left him. Idk if his issue was that he cared about others too much, but whatever his reason may be, he always helped out people without expecting anything in return, whether it be financially or physically or etc. And the annoying part is that everyone takes advantage of him for that reason, by borrowing money and never returning it, and he is not a rich guy anyway. He was so kind that he even bought cake and gave a large amount of money to the guy his wife was cheating on him with, without an ounce of suspicion. He wasn’t even suspicious when his wife removed her wedding ring. His own wife took advantage of his nature. That is why I told you a while back that my uncle is known to be a very good man in the community, even other families were grieving for him when his wife left him and they all shunned the wife and kicked her out of the community entirely. It is one of the reasons why I hate making friends, cause either they reject me or make me beg for their friendship or just use me for their own gain.

I know who I am. I know the good in me and the bad in me. I just hate the bad side of me cause I won’t survive in society if this keeps up. Whether it be my inability to communicate properly, my stuttering, my lack of knowledge, etc. The only good thing going for me is my good morals, but good morals won’t exactly save me in society cause you need to be at least a little street smart to survive.

Paradoxy