My Blue-Eyed Four-Leaf Clover

The journey of trauma is exactly that: a journey. Unlike most trips where you have a map to guide you, trauma offers no physical coordinates. Instead, its mapping system is built on the emotions, thoughts, and actions we experience along the way.

The lives we are born into serve as the canvas where our mapping trails begin, and our experiences become the compass. Growing up in a broken home with incompatible parents and an older brother’s anger imprinted the wrong coordinates on my map from the start. When my dad left when I was seven, it left me searching for that loss for many years to come.

By the time I was sixteen, the first “man” to love me in a way I’d never felt mapped out a trail of wrong turns and incorrect coordinates. It resulted in a broken compass that took decades to replace.

People often ask: ‘Why replace the compass instead of fixing it?’ The truth is, some things in life remain damaged even after they are “fixed” because they never return to their original design. For years, I tried to mend my broken pieces, only to find them held together by “duct tape” and “screws”. Eventually, I realized those old pieces couldn’t be fixed—they had to be released.

I had to replace the old map and its subconscious habits. I used everything I learned to create new trails and a brand-new compass. Our old ways of thinking do not have to define us; we always have the choice to nurture ourselves with something new.

That “something new” for me arrived when I least expected it. After the loss of my first experience at sixteen, and later entering my late thirties, I felt my body was running out of time. I wanted to try one more time for a miracle. That miracle is my blue-eyed four-leaf clover—the son who proved that even after decades of wrong turns, you can still find your way to a beautiful destination.

© 2026 Antoinette Robles. All Rights Reserved.