Blog/Journal 7 Salvation and Pressures From All Around Me

          Langston Hughes realized that it is not always a good idea to lie just to please someone, although we all have done it in some way, shape or form. His insight has change him and the way he thinks and feels about himself. He was told that he would see Jesus and the fact that he wanted to see Jesus so badly and couldn’t, made him lie to himself, his aunt, and to the church. I believe he felt a little intimidated by everyone in the church and was pressured into going up to the mourners bench to be with Jesus as the others did. He also felt ashamed of himself for holding everything up for as long as he did when all he had to do in the beginning was go up with the other children and be saved. He may have felt a little better even if it wasn’t what he was ready for at the time. Peer pressure or any other pressure can be a cruel thing especially when you don’t feel right about doing something but everyone else wants you to. I sympathize with Fisher and can relate to some pressures that were put on me.
          I can recall several times where I felt pressure to do something or to fit in with everyone else, but sometimes it is not always a good idea. I’ll start with the time I was in living in the Bay Area and was in the 7^th grade attending Portola Jr High, which sat at the top of a hill in El Cerrito. I had a couple of friends that I hung out with and at the time I thought they were really cool. They always spoke to me in passing during breaks in between classes. They wanted to hang out me at lunch and after school. Because our school was at the top of a hill, we would meet up at the bottom of the hill and take the bus to school everyday; however, we would walk down the hill and go over to the shopping center where Safeway was located and just hang out until we ready to go home. One day my friends wanted to go into Safeway to get something candy. I didn’t want any candy and was going to go home instead and catch up with them the next day, but they wanted me to go into Safeway with them. I tried telling them that I wanted and needed to go home but they wouldn’t hear of it. They made me go into the store and threatened to cut my hair if I didn’t, and back then my hair was down my back. One of the girls pulled a pair of scissors out of her backpack putting them up to my hair whispering in my ear “I’ll cut off all of this long hair if you don’t go in.” The other girls even threatened to beat me up. At this point I was scared, my heart was pounding through my chest and I was shaking like a leaf, so I did want they wanted; I went into the store with them. They gave me a backpack and told me to go down the candy isle and start putting candy into it and that they’ll be in outside waiting for me. I didn’t know what else to do so I did what they demanded me to do because I was so afraid and didn’t want my hair cut off. My mom would’ve killed me if I had gone home with my hair chopped off!
          As I went down the candy isle nervous and scared, I stared putting candy into the backpack. People were walking by pushing shopping carts and putting food into them. I was so scared that every time I saw someone looking at me I would go down a different isle until the candy isle was clear of customers. I can still vividly remember this big, tall, baldheaded black man, who looked like he could’ve been a quarterback. He was pushing a shopping cart with food in it, and there was a clipboard in the front part of the shopping cart which I didn‘t think anything of at the time. He walked past every isle and a couple of times down the candy isle. This started to worry me so I began to head out of the store and as soon as I reached the exiting doors, I managed to take about five steps outside of the store looking for my so-called friends, and when I looked across the parking lot I saw them way on the other side at the bus stop, yelling and calling my name telling me to run. My hands were trembling and I was sweaty. As I started walking faster I felt a big hand grab my neck. Low and behold, it was the big, tall, baldheaded black man that had been watching me in the store. I was BUSTED! I had never felt so bad in my entire life. I thought these girls were my friends but I found out the hard way that they were not. Lucky enough for me, my father was called to come pick me up and no charges were brought against me; however, if my father hadn’t shown up when he did (he was at work so it took him awhile to come and get me), I would have been taken to juvenile hall. This is what happen to me trying to be friends with someone not knowing their true colors.
          Other times is when I hang out with one of my best friends whom I love dearly. Anytime she has a party or some type of function going on at her house, I am always there. Her and her family put on great parties and get together; therefore, they love to drink. They always put up their big blue pop-up canopy and big heavy wooded picnic table in the front yard. The music is always blasting and bumping coming from the garage, from her brother-in-law who’s a DJ, and he plays nothing but old school R&B and low-rider music. Everyone is always in the garage getting their dance on including me. There’s always plenty of food from pork carnitas, tri-tip, carne asada, to pasta salad, guacamole, spinach dip and ceviche, and there’s always beer for days. Sometimes I’ll have a couple of beers and other times I won’t because I’m not in the mood to drink so when these times happen, my best friend Eva will put a guilt trip on me especially if we haven’t seen each other in a few weeks. She’ll say things like “you haven’t come over in weeks and can’t have a drink with me but you can go out to the club with your other friends and drink with them?” “un hunh, I see how it is.” That makes me feel like I should have a drink with her and in some cases I will break down and have one or two beers because I feel bad. She’ll tell me that if I drink too much that I can always stay the night at her house and drive home the next day. I don’t like staying the night anywhere like that because if I have to stay the night somewhere due to me having too much to drink, then I just won’t drink.
          And then comes the dreadful times. These for me are the absolute worst. My mother whom I love very much can really put a damper on my day at times. Long story short. When I’m out in public with my mother or at her house and sometimes leaving her house, she‘ll call me to come over to see something or someone. I don’t want to do this due to the fact that I know what is going to happen next because when I’m with her, she likes to show me off. My mother will start playing around with my hair saying in a fairly loud voice so people can hear her, “oh daughter dear look at your hair, it’s just growing; it used to be down your back until you cut it, some people don’t believe it’s your real hair” This is so embarrassing to me and I’ve told her not to do it and that I don’t like it, but she insists and always wants to give me a hug and point out that fact that I’m her “oldest beautiful daughter who does not look her age and still looks like a teenager.” She makes me get out of the car to meet one of her friends and all I can think about is her playing in my hair. I don’t always want to go with her but I do because she keeps pressuring me to do it.
          We all can be sucked into peer pressure no what the circumstances are, we just need to know how to approach it, how to deal with it, and how to learn from it and move on. I believe we shouldn’t have to do anything that we’re not comfortable with doing especially if and when it makes us feel and look bad. It’s ok to fit in and have your own beliefs on certain things in life, but just know that the people pressure you into doing something will still be there for you (if they’re your family and your true friends) even if you decide not to be pressured into doing something you don’t want to do.