My Life Story-I Played By Their Rules And Still Won With Mine
- Annelise Lords
- Jul 20, 2025
- 8 min read
I live the good I want.
I found out that I was poor in the second grade of primary school after my mother gave me a dirty ball wrapped in brown paper as a gift to give to a child whose name I had picked from our annual Christmas party list. I was seven years old. Christmas is the happiest time of the year for children in my culture, even without the presence of Santa Claus. We don’t believe in him, and we still don’t. Perhaps it’s because we don’t have chimneys, but we do think that the Santa Claus idea makes no sense and is a profit-driven concept.
It’s also the only time of the year we eat so much food in one day. Hearts that were sealed all year open an inch every Christmas to give something back.
Yes, we eat foods we couldn’t afford all year. The class party was a happy occasion too, because parents donated food that we couldn’t afford. Some we have never tasted or seen before.
Poverty denies us of many things, food is one of the most painful ones.
When the teacher saw the gift that I was supposed to receive and the one I was giving, she tore open my gift in the brown paper, then she shamed me in front of the class. Then threw my dirty ball in the garbage.
Did anyone think about what that does to a child?
The emotional state of children is never under consideration in my culture, especially if you are poor.
I tasted poverty and I hated it.
I had a brilliant mind, no one knew or cared. I had lots of hopes and dreams, too, but at seven years old, I wasn’t aware that poverty would deny me my dreams. I was unaware that no resources were available.
I dreamed of becoming a Lawyer. I attended school without breakfast or lunch. Many days, I walked more than a mile. I learned on an empty stomach and without the help or support of my parents.
My dreams stayed with me, even when there was no water to water them. No motivation, encouragement, or inspiration to maintain and support them. I didn’t know the way. I knew I hated poverty and wanted a better life than what fate and destiny had planned for me.
Poverty was pain, and I felt it all, the shame, the cruelty, and the thoughtlessness that accompany it, too. Many humans in my life and culture didn’t allow me a second to forget I was poor and destined for hell. This wasn’t limited to the community we lived in, the hospitals, or the health centers. Some teachers treat the children of the poor without humanity.
Many of us were aware of the negative treatment issues to us. Everywhere you turn, you are reminded that you were poor, so your life had no value.
What a horrible world we live in, where material possessions have become our value. Not much has changed since.
My heart was good, and I wanted to save the world. I thought the laws and how they were enforced were cruel, so I could make a difference and change something. I didn’t like the rules, but I must play the game, so I thought I could change them. I was unaware at that time that I wasn’t battling with humans or laws. I was fighting mentality. I would be fighting how humans think, not what they are doing.
Our thinking can be a friend or a foe.
I lived in a sheltered world where church and school were my life. I believed that our world was a perfect place packed with love, kindness, understanding, forgiveness, and all things good. That was in my heart. I trusted humanity. Even with the cruelty I endured from a mother who couldn’t love me. I gave the good I want, so I thought that was what the world was.
I had a conscious belief that the world was good.
Yes, I was an aware child who felt the pain of others. I still can, and it hurts. It hurts to see and feel the pain humanity shares daily, and I can do nothing to stop it. It hurts to live in a world where cruelty and hatred are watered daily and allowed to grow to destroy innocent lives. At the same time, humanity remains silent. I am an aware child who couldn’t understand the cruelty of society, but still believed in being good.
My world boxed me in so tightly that I took the wrong bus home from school and got lost just ten minutes from where I lived, and I didn’t know. I didn’t know that I lived up the road and could have walked home.
That was the day I met my husband. I was thirteen years old. That was the day my life changed, and I didn’t know it.
I asked a lady where to get a specific bus that would drop me off in front of my home. She instructed me, and I followed her instructions. On that journey, I met the man I would spend the next forty years with.
Rising early to take two buses to school helped set my body clock while building discipline. A catholic all-girls high school taught me well. Attending school with rich children showed me another side of the world—one where hunger, hopelessness, and deprivation of the necessities were unknown. One where dreams are planted in minds, hearts, and souls from youth and are nurtured and grown with love and kindness.
Not having breakfast, lunch, or dinner on many days taught me the importance of endurance and resilience. I get to know all sides of hunger. No books or school supplies remind me of poverty, forcing me to keep fighting. Poverty showed me how to fight life. Poverty knows life lessons wealth can’t understand and will never know. That’s why many wealthy humans ended up poor; some go back to where they came from.
I learn to depend on myself, learning everything I needed to give myself the life I wanted. I became strong and independent, with wisdom and common sense, while learning how to give balance its due. Balance must be paid, or it will take what it may.
Being aware, I was informed that when I achieve my level of success, I know where I will end up if I make foolish mistakes that will send me back into poverty. I vowed that when I get out, I intend to stay out. #Iintend2survive, no matter the war, and strife humanity adds to my life.
My father fled to save his life, leaving my mother to raise six children by herself with no job and limited resources. Hell increased for us as children, as her actions and pain introduced hatred and cruelty to us. She had three nervous breakdowns in one year.
This was life’s way of paying her back. She mistreated my father. Yes, we taste hatred and cruelty from the ones who are supposed to love us. They taught us that first. My dreams went on the back burner as I had to fight her cruelty and physical, emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse.
Dreams, even with no hope or resources, didn’t matter because I had to be alive and mentally healthy first, before I could fulfill my dreams. I had to save myself while making adult decisions without the proper knowledge or experience. I got to know life in my teens and began a fight for mine, as puberty sidestepped me.
That was good for me.
I was so busy fighting life. I couldn’t accommodate puberty. No mistakes or stupid decisions, or else death would await me. I had to live or die; there was no middle ground.
Life has taught me how to live and do everything with a purpose, so that I will be left with minimal regrets. Life also taught me how to elicit reasons from humans to make the best decisions. It showed me how to use the lives of others I know as my manual.
I learn from the lives and living of everyone, while playing by their rules and winning.
I had to focus on what was in front of me. Fate and destiny stepped aside, and I fought life with the tools I had.
I met my husband again while fighting life. It wasn’t time. I met him again, and we talked longer this time. Then we met again, and it’s been forty years since we were together. We’ve been married for thirty-six years this year.
In those forty years, life has shown me many times that my life went as it should. Being a lawyer, my morals and ethics would be compromised every day. I have seen the dishonesty of many lawyers in my country. Some played games with us when we bought our property. One held onto money for a year that should have been turned over to us. I found out when I went through old papers a year later. I didn’t have a good experience with them.
As an introvert, the law would not be the right field for me. I would have to be talking to clients, DAs, Investigators, police, judges, the media, and others. I don’t wish to be talking all the time. I love to think and spend lots of time alone.
I raised four children, and grew up with them. I get a chance to go back through puberty with all of my kids. While raising my sons, I learn more about males than at any other time in my life. I understand why men are the way they are and why they do many of the things they do, just by going through puberty with my sons.
We became friends as we grew up. Life gave me a second chance to experience puberty through my children. If I had gotten my wish to be a lawyer, I wouldn’t be able to give my children a trauma-free childhood, like the one I didn’t have.
I learned that being there when your child needs you is priceless. The joy and happiness in their hearts, on their faces, actions, choices, and decisions last forever.
This also helps them raise their children more effectively and be better parents. They learn more about life, love, and take on their responsibilities. They also did well in school. Being there for your child is a gift to both parent and child. I have happy memories with them.
Many humans are now regretting their lives as they hit menopause and andropause, unaware that many times, our lives go as they should for a reason. You need the wisdom, strength, and understanding to be aware that your life is how it should be and for a damn good reason.
Regrets are destroying many lives today, but they shouldn’t.
My life is the way it is for a reason, and my actions, choices, and decisions made it that way.
I love the outcome of my life. I made mistakes like everyone, but I didn’t erase them. I learn from them and didn’t repeat them thanks to the guidance of my creator.
Gratitude for everything in my life, because the good and bad made my life what it is, giving me a choice.
I played by their rules, by living the good I want, and won the game.
You can play by their rules, by doing the opposite of the evil that they do, and still win the game. Annelise Lords
Thank you for reading this piece. I hope I have inspired you.
Comments