I know I’ve been MIA for a while. Life got crazy, and often this blog ends up on the back burner.
But I’ve been happy to see a lot of people are still visiting it anyway. Thank you all for your support.
This year has been one of the hardest I’ve gone through since before my dad moved out.
Just a list of things that have happened:
I went to the ER while on vacation.
My new (used) car needed two major repairs within the same year and a few smaller ones.
I lost one job and wasn’t able to continue the other because of school work being too much.
I had an ear infection that cost me some of my hearing in one ear.
I had my laptop break down and it took three tries to find a replacement.
I cut off my dad again.
My cat disappeared for 4-5 days straight (luckily someone found her).
Debit card got hacked and I had to freeze it.
Honestly, there was more, I just can’t remember it all at once.
At the same time, I did accomplish some cool things this year.
I had three yard sales that raised near to $1000 in total that helped me repay my car debt.
I had friends who contributed to a GoFundMe for another $600.
I was able to finish some stories and start a podcast.
I organized almost my entire house, cleared out the garage, got rid of unnecessary things, sold others, and fumigated our shed for termites (all with my families help).
We cleared out our storage unit also so we don’t have to pay for that anymore.
Despite all the setbacks, I was able to set aside some money.
Thankfully, I caught the debit card fraud before anyone used it to buy something.
A friend of ours at church actually gave my sisters and I each $100 to start investing with, just out of a wish to help us out.
Somehow, though I’ve been wrecked financially, I’ve still had enough to cover my basic needs. I cut down on spending, but was able to find other methods to get stuff, and my family has been nice about paying for things when I can’t.
Through all this, I admit, it’s been hard to feel like God is really helping me. Not because I haven’t had blessings, but because they have not been what I wanted.
I really wish to be more financial stable, even if I can’t be fully independent. I wish to have a different job in childcare, one I could actually grow in.
I wish to have accomplished more in my life than I have.
I wish I wasn’t single still at 27.
The fact is, I wanted a family by this age, I wanted a better job. I never imagined I’d still be in nearly the same financial place now as I was when I was 20.
“Try everything” like the Shakira song says has been my motto this year.
I have learned a lot, I admit.
I’ve heard that if you end up in the same place over and over again, it’s because you haven’t yet learned what God wants you to learn from it.
The truth is, my idea of success is too important to me.
Blame it on my dad for beating into my head (against my will, really), that jobs were all important. He criticized me so much for not having one, and not looking for one once I’d realized my methods didn’t wokr in the modern job market (once I switched to online job sites, I had success finally, but he never told me to do that). He also used to say he wanted to kill himself when work was bad.
He and my mother also made some poor financial choices and didn’t always think ahead, though they had some back ups, but we had to file for bankruptcy when I was 9-11. And we moved, not for the last time.
I had a life coach briefly also who blamed me for not having a job when I told her the same thing I told my dad… she wan’s my life coach after that point. The 30 minute long lecture I don’t ask for just killed it for me.
My dad also encouraged me to put up with toxic bosses which led to my first several jobs being very unhealthy ones.
So yeah, I wasn’t set up to take this job thing lightly. Even when I know it’s not my fault and the market is bad, I find it hard not to take it personally.
When work is going well, I tend to feel good about everything else, and when it’s not…I feel depresesed.
Funny, I always thought my dad’s attitude towards it was stupid, but now I’ve found it hard not to adopt it.
So, maybe, God has allowed this reoccurring joblessness in my life to teach me both how ot rely on other people (as I’ve had no choice but to do), and to not make jobs all important.
I can’t say I’m happy about it, but I’ve gone on with my life, chosen to pursue hobbies, home organizing, doing what I can when I can’t work, to keep busy and productive and not to see it as only worth doing if I’m making money.
I have many days where I still feel stressed about it, and I’ve had dozens, if not hundreds of set backs on this journey.
Still, I know that many people wish they could have what I have. I don’t have to pay rent since I live with my grandma still. I have support. I’ve been able to pursue my interests because of free time.
Is it really so bad?
The truth is, I know it’s not as bad as it feels.
I wish, honestly, that I could be as grateful all the time, and as joyful, as I think I should be, conciser how much worse it could be.
Sometimes, I do find it funny, the struggles I have, since they are almost cartoonishly numerous this year, but most of them were small, compared to some.
My nature is to worry, really. To let the problems I have steal my joy. I’ve been that way since I was 5 or 6. The same time my anxiety disorder started.
I used to think if I looked forward to things, they were more likely not to happen. I’d try to trick fate by thinking against things happening…which we know now, actually makes it more likely they won’t. Positive thinking makes success more likely.
I still sometimes feel jinxed, and I hear the same things in my head that I heard my dad say, over and over again.
As if God is testing me, as if He has abandoned me. As if he will keep me afloat, but not let me do anymore than survive, which is stressful.
And that that is not fair.
Yet… do I really know best?
Perhaps, like my father, I’ve not been responsible enough with money to really warrant making more of it.
I’ve learned a lot more this year, and I do feel more ready to make wise choices financially once I go back to work.
Perhaps it’s that simple, God didn’t want to give me more when I wouldn’t be a good steward of it.
One thing He’s put in my head, many times in the last two years, is “he who is faithful with little will be faithful with much’ and “I have better things for you.”
Better than to settle for the same crap as before, I hope.
But have I been faithful?
I hope so. I try to be.
When I do have money, I do try to give and be generous with it. Not always maybe as much as I should, I’m never sure how much we should, but, I try.
Yet, the thing I keep thinking is, maybe God is not doing this to punish me.
My dad would say that, but I never believed it in his case.
He thought job success was proof God was pleased with Him, and anything less meant he was failing.
Well, he was failing, but not at working. He failed us at being a good father and husband. The areas he needed to grow.
I have learned more about stewarding my home and family this year, as I’ve had time to make improvements around my house and rally my family to do so also.
I got us all to start taking more notice of our grandma’s health, and to start thinking of saving money together as well, and I got us all to sell and get rid of the unneeded stuff so we had room for our things and don’t need the storage unit anymore.
I’ve cleaned more, rearranging more, and gotten more cost effective lighting options even for our rooms.
All in all, I’m proud of it. The house is almost a different place than it was last year.
All this is stuff my dad never did, and to be honest, I never used to do either. I might never have bothered to try if I was working more.
It has taken some of the pressure off my mom also, though she still has to do the heavy lifting financially for us. But by bringing more income and eliminating the storage unit cost, I feel I helped at least a little even if I couldn’t work. I did repay her for the money she loaned me for my car, almost all of it. Still have $900 to go.
I would love to do more, but, I can’t right now.
Still, I wasn’t useless. I wasn’t wasteful with what time I did have.
If God looks for us to make the most of what we have to work with, I hope that He is satisfied with my efforts.
I can’t tell you all where I will land on this, but this year has been crazy for everyone. Everyone I know has had problems this year, so I guess we’re all in this together.
Still, while I’m struggling, my spirit is not broken.
Not many people my age believe they will have a bright future.
I think it depends on what you go by.
While I find it hard to be optimistic about the state of the world in general, I know I don’t know everything.
God finds ways to bless people no matter what goes on in the world, somehow. That’s always been true if you read books by people of faith.
So my fate isn’t tied only to the world din generals, however much it feels like it.
Success may not look like what I wished, but I might still find it, in my way.
The clouds have silver lining.
I can’t know for sure if the end of next year will see me in a much better place or not, but, I can hope.
Even if it doesn’t, I hope I will have learned not to take it all personally, not to base worth on money, and not to blame myself for things I cannot control.
Wishing all of you the same, and a good holiday season, stay honest– Natasha
I had to read this book for Literature class last year called “Esperanza Rising”.
I liked it, though I saw many people did not care for the main character, but to me, the story was relatable in many ways.
I’m not Mexican, nor am I an immigrant, but nonetheless, the themes of Esperanza feeling like she must support her mother and be “la patrona” reminded me of the transition I went through at 20 when my father moved out.
My sisters and I wanted him gone. We no longer felt safe with him around (I wonder now if I ever felt safe around him, even as a small child).
Still, having a parent leave was like yanking a pillar out from under us, in some ways.
My father was never the most emotional stable or mature person,so it was odd to me that him leaving shook us up so much. When he was around, he spent most of his time ignoring us and a good portion of the rest of it tormenting us for kicks or because he was taking out his frustrations of the day on whoever was available.
Not a reassuring person.
It’s strange how even a bad father can still sem like a staple of your life. Even his presence alone can change ow you feel, though he may be mostly checked out of your life.
I guess our dad controlled our household ymanic. We might have hated it, but we couldn’t avoid it.
We lived around him being home and getting around his moods and whims. He’d sometimes have family meetings whenever he wanted to change something.
Often the change didn’t last, but we had to be there. And he didn’t like to wait.
I sometimes got my way in the house by getting dad on my side, if it was something I knew he’d approve of. That’s how I got chickens and ow we go out garden started.
I really did the hard part, but my dad’s insist was what go my mom to get going on it.
My dad literally would tell me sever times that my mom had to be dragged into things “kicking and screaming”.
Not the nicst way to talk about your wife, I thought.
Me and my dad are go-getters. We are the people who initiate things.
However, a trait I had that my father seems only to have in small amounts, is the ability to plan and execute efficiently.
My father can start a basic idea, like a business, or suggest a backyard garden. And he will take some steps to bring it about. Like print fliers and canvassing from door to door, or paying for chickens or the coop etc.
But after that he’ll run out of juice. His business was always very disorganized and he struggles to find consistent help for it. He made few improvements to it over time and then wondered why he lost so much of it with the recession and other issues.
Knowing what I do now, I could probably help him fix some of it, and I’ve made some suggestions, but he is reluctant to listen to me, a 26 year old who’s never owned a business.
My Dad is very good at marketing. Whatever parts of a job involve that, he’ll excel at. He also is good at acquiring some skills of the trade.
But polishing it, and knowing how to adapt to a changing audience and methodology is not his strong point. (I’m trying to illustrate how I think I diverged from this.)
From as far back as getting a dog, I remember taking over family projects. My parents talked about getting one, but my mom wouldn’t sit down and start looking into it till I pushed for it and got my father on my side.
This started long before my father recognized the power struggle in our family was coming down to between me and him.
His words, by the way.
He later, once I was a teenager, would say I was trying to turn my sisters against him. Which wasn’t even true because for many years I barely said anything about our issues to them because he didn’t like it and I didn’t think they were on my side anyway.
When I switched churches he made me promise not to influence either of them to leave his church. I didn’t outright tell them to, but they came to me of their own accord to say they don’t like it and wanted to leave and of course, I told them to do what they thought was right but I wouldn’t say 100% to leave (keeping my word.)
But they knew what I thought and they had already agreed with it for years, so once they were old enough, they left.
After my dad moved out my mom left it too. I wasn’t surprised, I knew she didn’t like it either.
The funny thing is my dad knew all of us didn’t like his church but had no issue forcing us all to go, and even when my mom had tried to find an alternative, he manipulated her into staying by having big emotional argument about everyone going to the same church as the man of the house, or he didn’t have proper authority.
I now think this is a stuipd argument. Though it’s best if everyone goes to the same church at least while you have young kids, I think a mature family can work through it if they have slightly different preferences. As long as everyone believes in the same basic things, I really don’t care if you prefer charismatic or traditional church style.
But I digress.
Since I left first,my dad blamed me, but really if he hadn’t forced me to go in the first place, it wouldn’t have happened. And for ages after I switched, he made constant digs about me “missing a great time” at his church. And if I ever had an issue with my church, he’d say “I wouldn’t go back” after that.
He visited I once (after he had a falling out with his pastor), and didn’t like it.
Anyway, the funny part is he left his church after COVID anyway, since he didn’t agree with the Pastor so way of handling it. I didn’t agree with my pastor fully either, but I thought it wasn’t any reason to leave. I had community there.
Does this paint a picture of how my father and I are different? Good.
And why am I bringing this up?
Well, it’s complicated, but the idea I’ve circled around in the last 6 years is that once my dad moved out, even before that maybe, I was pushed into the role of head of the family.
La patrona, as the Mexicans called it in the book.
My dad left a hole in our lives that felt like a vacuum. All the energy we sent avoiding pising him off now had no object.
To be honest, for the first year, we fought with each other a lot. We were addicted to the drama and we didn’t know how to function without it. I remember a lot of the fights now as pretty stupid ones but they seemed legitimate at the time because they were similar to the ones we had with him.
My mom had a hard time keeping it together, as she became the main provider for the family (though my dad did provide some support) and had three daughters who were emotional wrecks.
I handled it better at first and then months in my physical and mental health broke down. Thankfully, by then my other two sisters were a little more recovered and were able to support me through a darker time.
Then I climbed out of that, with help from God and friends and family, and began to build my new life with other my father in it.
But even in those times, I still very much seemed to fulfill the role of head of the family.
I pushed for more and more changes. Like I started to work on de-cluttering our house, implement new systems for homeschooling my youngest sister, finding ways to organize who did what around the house.
Not all of it stuck, but we made progress.
I don’t do it alone, my sisters certainly help and my mom still does most of the financial heavy lifting.
But leading the family is not the same as providing for it. I found out. I may not contribute as much money but when anything needs to be done, I tend to be the one to push for it.
Like getting our pets taken to the vet when they clearly need it. Didn’t happen till I pushed for it.
Adopting two new cats, I pushed for it till I got my way.
And just the other week I organized my family into cleaning and organizing our garage which has been needed since we moved in, honestly, but my Grandma would never do it. And couldn’t even do it, since she can’t lift heavy stuff anymore.
My mom’s talked about it, but admitted that she probably wouldn’t have thought it out the way I did.
I came up with a strategy, to take one section per day, clear it out, sweep, dust, disinfect, and the put stuff back in a more organized way and throw out what we didn’t need, or recycle it.
After the first two days I also designated spaces for stuff we were going to take to E-waste, or hazardous waste.
I enlisted my family to help based around when they were working, since I had the week off. It was mostly between me and my sister who doesn’t have a job yet, but my mom and other sister pitched in based on their schedules and we got the thing done in 6 days, taking one day off because we were so bushed.
If you could see what it looked like before, you’d be amazed 6 days was enough. And that included moving a lot of the furniture out of it, then back in in a different order, moving some heavy cabinets and shelves to a new spot and then clearing out every spider infested corner.
It’s not a pretty looking room now, but we can walk in it, which we barely could before, and we have a lot more open space, and will have even more after we have a yard sale and get rid of the hazardous waste.
I noticed something about myself while planning and overseeing this project.
One thing is that I didn’t do it the way my dad would have.
Sure, he would have pitched the idea and insisted we do it, he probably would have even helped…but I remember how it went when we moved and the same thing happened.
Stress, tears, and a lot of arguing. Also a lot of getting mad at us girls for not helping the way he wanted.
There was some arguing this time but only because my Grandmother didn’t want to get rid of literal trash or stuff she’d never even used (and she didn’t even buy it, it was left there by other people who lived in the house).
My grandma is a hoarder, unfortunately, so that I got her to agree to let go of any of it was a small wonder in of itself.
But I have learned something that my father never did, which was that if I pitch something a certain way, I get better results.
(At least if my father knows this, he only uses it in business. With personal stuff he just scares people into submission.)
But I don’t like to do that.
So I thought my Grandma would be more willing to get rid of the stuff if it was for a yard sale, which is going to raise money to cover my car expenses.
My grandma is a kind person who will help you out if she can, but she lacks imagination.
That being said, she’s willing to help us out but often had no clue where to begin. So, I came up with this idea.
Though, we did have some arguments ensue even so…but we worked around it.
It was a lesson for me too in what my family is best suited for. If I need someone to work fast and get rid of the most stuff, my mom is better. If I need someone to sort things out with details, my younger sister is better. If I need someone to just help me move things I can’t do by myself, my middle sister is best.
And they all admitted upfront that I was the only one with a clue how to organize everything, or a vision. My mom and my middle sister are both neat people (far more than I am, ironically) but they don’t have a lot of creativity when it comes to arranging stuff efficiently.
I’ve already made lot of changes around the house that maximized our space with very little effort, and they would never have done it, but they adapted to the new arrangement with gratitude.
Makes all our lives a bit easier.
But another thing I took over(to be honest, long before my dad moved out) was emotional health.
I am the first person to pick up on if anyone is not feeling well or is upset in my household. And usually the person who jumps to do anything to comfort them.
I remember I started helped my youngest sister deal with her nightmares or fear of the dark once my mom stopped doing anything about it.
I talk to my sisters about their dreams and problems, and my mom also. They don’t always listen to my advice, but I’m there.
I’ve never considered myself to be a very sympathetic person, it’s mostly been trial and error for me to learn how to help, but I know that if I don’t pick up on it, half the time, no one else will.
Right after my dad left, I was dealing with the emotional outbursts and mood swings almost every day because my mom was at work and I didn’t currently have a job…it was not fun.
But we got through it somehow.
Now I mediate stuff even between my dad and the rest of my family…Which is the crowning irony after he made it out like I was the one turning them against him.
Which he’s never apologized for saying or taken back, I doubt he remembers saying it now.
I think I started doing this stuff when I was a teenager, maybe younger, and once my dad left, it just became official.
And running all these projects, I’ve learned to compliment them and ask for their help respectfully, instead of doing what my dad did and bossing everyone around and berating them for not doing it fast enough.
I noticed a difference between myself and my dad when my sister was doing something that I didn’t really want her to do yet, and I said “I appreciate that you’re doing this, really, but right now I need this done faster because we have limited daylight.”
And she stopped and helped me, no issues.
And the funny thing is, I didn’t even really think of it as being a different way to handle it till I remembered that my father would never have said that to any of us.
I mean literally, never could I even imagine him using that approach. It would have been: “Come help me do this” at best and angrily saying “What are you doing that for? you’re supposed to be doing this” more often.
I also made sure they had breaks and tried to overlap so that someone could rest (including myself) and someone else tagged in.
Another thing my Dad never did. He once yelled at me for being lazy and told me to get off my “ass” (his words) when I was resting from moving stuff into our new house.
And that’s just one example.
But you know, I used to be way more like that. I used to talk to my family a lot like my dad did.
Till I realized that I sounded just like him, and I began to consciously choose to be kinder and more respect.
And I found that I really felt that way.
Doing the right thing actually felt pretty easy for me, because I’ve practiced the skills of guiding people more nicely and motivating them without threats.
I think that my family agreed with me that it needs to be done, but I’ve motivated them to do stuff they didn’t think about at first also, with the same method.
I felt weird about it at first though. Like, am I managing my own family? Is that really my job?
And I realized that parents do it all the time, but since I’m not a parent, I didn’t think of it in that light.
Of course, you may think it’s kind of sad that I, the oldest child, am in this role, instead of my mother, or my father.
And if I was honest, there are times I feel like I’m not getting fair treatment. Frankly, my emotional needs are often overlooked in my household because I’m the strongest personality. If I don’t spell it out for them, they will just not notice I’m upset.
But I notice even if they don’t tell me.
The price of being the most sensitive person is that you are usually giving out more than you’re getting in many situations.
There are things they do better than me. And more of. I do have shortcomings.
But it’s not want to say I kept the family together. I don’t think any of the rest of them would have or could have done what I did. Or still do.
To the point where I worry about moving out because I wonder who will take over. I hope that by then they’ll be more independent and it wont be as necessary. I know I can’t do this forever.
Some people would probably hate it. I don’t hate it. I like feeling like I can take care of people, and like I have an important role in the house.
I do resent it sometimes. I think all of us at times feel under appreciated and like we do more than we should have to.
And I dream of a day where I could live with someone who would want to put in as much as I do. I find it hard to picture. I know that my family is just not wired that way, thanks to years of abusive cycles.
We’re still way better than we used to be…but it may never be my ideal. I may have to start my own family to make that happen.
And it’s not that I expect perfection, (in case you’re getting that idea). I expect there will be tantrums and issues and fights even if I have my own family, I know my husband and I will not always agree.
But my wish is that it will be on my terms, that I can work out things without someone shutting me down or shutting me out, and that I can know we’ll at least have the same goal. Something I’m not sure of in my current household.
The one good thing about marriage is that you do get to pick your spouse, you can choose someone who has the same vision as you, you don’t get to choose your kids or anyone else in your family except them, so you need to choose wisely.
I think it will be good practice having run my current household.
The funny thing was, my dad always said from when I was a kid that Was the most mature one. More so than him. (Red flag by the way. A parent should never say that to a kid.)
I knew it was not true probably when I was 7 or 8…by the time I was 15 it was true. And by the time I was 20, it was saddeningly true. And now, it’s almost ridiculously true.
I’ve matured so much that I don’t really need my father anymore. I don’t mean this in a defiant way. I mean that I literally don’t need him. When we talk, there is nothing at all I feel like he can tell me or do for me, expect help out a little with money, that I can’t do better myself or find a better source for.
He seems like a small person in a way to me. I think love makes people seem larger when they do it well, but when they are selfish it makes them seem small, if you’re not under their control.
Since he lost his control of my life, I’ve flourished, though I’ve made mistakes and had dark days…but I’d never go back.
He was holding me back at 20, to be honest, and he’d really hold me back now.
That is not to say I’ve abandoned my father. I don’t plan to do that…but I know it’s never going to be the same…and I hope to goodness it’s never even close.
My family is aware of my position, but they really don’t like to acknowledge it. I think, in a way, it embarrassed them that so much got put on my shoulders. They don’t often thank me for it.
I’m hurt by this sometimes, but then I remember that it’s partly because the situation is so messed up that they find it hard to talk about. They’re glad I’m there, but if they try to face it, they fear it will crumble on them. Maybe sometime they’ll be ready to talk about it.
And I really don’t want constant affirmation about it, I find it awkward to think about too.
They have surprised me too, I’m not saying it’s one sided. But the power balance always has been in my favor
My dad became a self fulfilling prophecy. He also told me I was more mature then him, it’ll it became ture. He said I was trying to take care of the same from him, until he basically handed it to me by default.
I remember that he told me “you win” when he left.
I wan’t trying to win…but I was trying to protect my sisters and my mother from what I feared was going to be the same treatment I already got, or worse. It was turning into it before he left.
I played my dad masterfully to get him out of the house, and I didn’t even do it on purpose. I think God must have guided our actions, because we just went on blind instinct and it made our dad more and more angry till he exploded at my mom enough for us to point out to her how out of control the situation was.
I have to appreciate my mom for stepping up also. She’s not always been the perfect mom, but we certainly couldn’t have done it without her and she’s at least tried to change. Which is more than my father has.
I’ve learned that you get what you get, with your family. You can wish they were different, but to be honest, don’t you think they wish you were different too?
I know that my family finds me a little too driven and too pushy for comfort…and I try to rein it in, but I can’t always go with the flow either.
Family is just a balancing act, like most things. And I’m okay with that now, I wasn’t always.
So I’ve learned to accept things and not let them ruin my happiness.
I think I sound like a much older woman than I am, because of the responsibilities I had to take up…but you know, after I listen to my generation talking about how they feel like they have no purpose,and whine about every little hardship, and lack the basic skills to manage their own lives…I think I might have been Lucky.
Maybe God used all this to spare me from becoming someone with a victim mentality…which is the worst torture of all, though they don’t see it as such while they’re in it.
Sure, I would like to play the victim card sometimes, but…I know I shouldn’t. Society makes it easy for me to, but I try not to give in.
See, on this blog I can come to show only my good side, or I could do what many people do, and gripe about my flaws and struggles only, without ever balancing it out with my success.
I don’t think either extreme is really helpful to people or realistic. We all have our Ws, and our Ls. Our highs and our lows.
My story is unique, but that doesn’t mean other people can’t see themselves in it.
I don’t know how many people could do what I did, you’d have to have the circumstances line up the right way for it.
But you can generally do something, even if it’s small, to improve your life and take some control over it.
I find little changes lead to bigger ones.
And big changes often happen very fast and feel uncomfortable, till we get used to them.
My point in all this is that becoming the head of the family is the role that I grew into because of circumstances, and then in it, I found joy and the satisfaction of learning some of my own strengths, as well as weaknesses.
So whatever your thing is, your situation, your opportunity, I encourage you to make the most of it. Often the present is just a stepping stone to the future. Even if you don’t have the opportunities you want now, you may be able to get there if you use the ones you do have.
I try not to complain too much, but I have the usual things. Traffic, weather.
I have cut down on complaining by listening to stuff during traffic, so I don’t get as impatient. Sometimes when I’m in the groove, I’m almost sorry it’s over.
I think though, that my biggest complaints have been about people treating me in a belittling way, or like I’m wrong.
I have fairly good judgment (with some exceptions) and it annoys me to no end when people act like I’m not informed on something or not thinking about it the right way.
The car incident being the latest example of this.
Everybody said I was overthinking the problem. That it was fine. That it was just the car’s quirks.
Even the mechanic said that.
But they were wrong. And I almost listened to them.
Taking people’s advice is nothing I have a problem with. I ask for it all the time. But I always weigh the different advice I get against my own judgment and what sounds right. What feels right. Or what matches my faith.
I’m not really the type of Christian who takes the “It will all work out in the end even if we do nothing” approach to life. I don’t really think it’s a biblical approach, in most cases. Religion is not an excuse to be inactive.
I do recognize some things are out of my control.
But here’s one hard truth that not everyone is ready to hear:
Sometimes, you assume things are outside your control because you’ve grown up around people who just accept problems and never change them.
I realized the difference between myself and my parents over the last 6 years. Ever since my dad moved out.
I don’t complain about anything unless I intend to find a solution for it. If I accept it the way it is, there’s no point to complaining.
Grwoing up, neither o f my parents modeld that.
My dad complains about everything. Money, church, weather, his friends, his family.
Other than weather, all of those things are ones you can affect directly.
And I got real sick of hearing it even as an 11 year old, about when I realized it was kind of on him.
It was like, if you don’t like your relationship with your family so much, do something about it. Do something else to earn money.
He did eventually, but he complained for years before he finally came to that conclusion. I would have done it immediately. I know because I do it now as soon as I have a problem.
Churches can be changed (he did that too, still complains though, and he’s done it again even since he moved out, though he told us the church he was going to when he left was the best one).
And then all the either, little, petty things that he would get mad about.
The house being messy, but he never cleaned it, his areas were some of the most messy.
That type of thing.
Still, my dad is more proactive than my mom, and f I had to guess I get that trait from his side of the family more than hers.
With her, while she’s a nice lady, she doesn’t really fix problems. She just tries to work around them.
With my dad for one thing.
And with a lot of other stuff, she just takes the L.
Stressful work sitations.
Health issues.
I mean not always. We’re not totally out of touch. But it’s more often than not, basically.
If she talks about a problem, and I have a solution, she won’t usually do it unless I’m basically doing it myself.
I’m not sure if my compulsion to fix issues is because both my parents are inactive. I do know that it got on my nerves from when I was a pre-teen up till now.
I don’t want to be unfair to them. Mostly they are smart people who avoid getting into problems as it is, so they don’t usually need to get out of them.
It’s just that life can knock you down sometimes. And you have to find a way to get back up.
And with you can do it slow, or you can try to find a way to speed it up.
Many people are never taught to think that way, and they accept problems very passively, or with anger, but no real approach to solving them. Both my parents were taught that by their parents.
It’s a cycle.
I’ve noticed it in my sisters often too. The willingness not to change anything, even if they don’t like it.
Granted, I’ve gotten in trouble for jumping the gun and trying to change stuff. People don’t like to be told they’re wrong.
I’ve realized since this car issue started, that people also don’t like being told that you don’t need their help to fix it anymore.
See, when I help someone, I try to make sure they need it first. I don’t push them towards my solution past that point, usually. Im’ not perfect, I have don that.
But since I’ve been told off for it, I think I learned to think more careful about it.
I don’t like to bite people’s head off or tell them they aren’t really helping me. But sometimes I wish they’d pick up on my hints that I don’t really want them to tell me what to do.
I asked my middle sister if she was annoyed when people told her that, and she said it just doesn’t bother her the same way as me.
So I said. “That’s because I tell you what to do all the time, so you’re inoculated to it.”
And she said “yeah” without one second’s hesitation.
I guess the joke is on me there.
To be fair, my sister is the kind of person who forgets simple things so often you have to remind them a lot and procrastinator on taking action. She’s very good at working hard and she can do a job well, but that initiative that I have isn’t her thing.
Basically, I’ll try to improve any work environment I’m in in some way, whether I’m asked to or not. Been doing that since my first job–which makes a lot of people think I’m arrogant.
And maybe, sometimes, I can be. I suppose anyone can be who likes to put their own spin on things.
When I write, I often do it to improve on ideas I got from someone else.
There are whole careers you can make out of doing that, though. So I guess I’m not the only one.
Maybe I should become a life coach (lol).
Look, the point I’m making it sno tlen to brag on myself, though I think it praon sounds that way.
I never thought I was good at this stuff. It’s only because I’ve noticed that my decisions work out better consistently that I’ve learned I might be.
I didn’t always expect them to.
What I’m trying to say is that if you’re the type of person who is like that, who doubts yourself because other people seem to doubt you, you might want to consider if you have a good track record. Maybe you’re doing better than you think.
And then we won’t need to complain so much. Better to fix it than complain about it, I say.
This might sound kind of weird, but, I don’t know that I’ve ever “felt loved”.
I mean at least not by a person.
I am a Christian, and I have experienced God’s love. I think most skeptics would doubt that’s a real feeling. And since I can’t prove to them that it is, I don’t know if that counts for them.
I think there is a psychological reason for why I don’t feel human love.
I recognize love, in my mind. But there are walls up that block it from reaching my emotions.
Growing up with an emotional manipulative and abusive father, it’s not rocket science.
For my father, saying “I love you” was usually only a thing that happened when he was berating me.
It was pretty twisted in a way.
“We’re doing this because we love you, Natasha.”
And what they were doing was berating me for everything I ever did around them.
If you want the full story of how this started, keep reading. Otherwise that was my TLDR explanation.
Let me explain:
I was told I was rebellious. Even though I hardly ever broke a rule in my entire life. I’m not kidding, I barely even broke bedtime rules. I like limits and boundaries, they make me feel more balanced. I wasn’t the type to unravel them without a good reason.
But yes when I decided something wasn’t good for me or helping me anymore, I would protest it.
So when I decided I wasn’t enjoying drum lessons anymore, I said I wanted to quit. That’s where it all started.
This was after a year long of taking them, which my father agreed on as a trial period. When I brought up to him that I didn’t want to anymore, he said “Oh you’re not gonna quit.”
Mind you, I hadn’t ever actually used the drum in a real performance, or any performance. And the only time I even tried to play along with my dad and his friends, they criticized it because it was too loud…you know, because you learn drums to play a quiet instrument.
Since I saw no purpose whatsoever in learning it anymore, I was miffed at my dad breaking his agreement with me.
After thinking about it, I pointed that out to him, respectfully enough, I thought. And he said fine, I could quite.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
He talked to his best friend and the friend’s wife, as well as my mom, about me wanting to quit, like it was one big crime.
I couldn’t understand why they cared so much. Since I wasn’t using the drum for anything, what did it matter?
But it turned into a whining session where his friend aired some other grievances about me that I had no idea he had.
Apparent’y, I made some joke during one of his music lesson with one of my sisters. Just about tomato sauce. That was it. I didn’t even really direct it at him, just made a joke about the ingredients in tomato sauce. He was deeply offended.
Now, as an adult who has taught a class, I completely could understand why he might have been annoyed that I interjected while he was teaching.
However, as an adult who teaches 10-11 year olds, I would expect that behavior from that age group, without it really being malicious. And I was only 12 at the time of this conversation.
A 12 year old interrupting to make a joke isn’t , in my mind, a big deal. If it happened to me, I would have simply given the kid a warning, explained why it was disrespectful, and left it at that. If they didn’t do it again, I wouldn’t even tell the parents because who the heck really cares that much?
Apparently, my dad’s best friend.
Now he never said a word to me about this, oddly enough, nor did he ask my mom to talk to me about it delicately.
I didn’t hear about it till this big confrontation with 4 adults, all of whom told me I was a brat, disrespectful, and not nice to other people.
At the time, I also took singing lessons from this best friend’s wife.
She didn’t like me much because I couldn’t stand still while I sang. And I got tired easily. Also I didn’t like the music choices that she insisted on. She didn’t ever teach us any songs we actually got to pick, and when I asked if we could learn any songs I actually knew and liked, she said no because they were pop songs.
I guess it was her right as a teacher not to teach it if she didn’t like it, but she really shouldn’t have expected me to be interested in learning if it was all music I didn’t care about. I’m pretty sure music teachers in actual public school pick at least some songs the kids like.
I found out years later that the reason I can’t stand up easily is I have uneven legs, so I tilt to one side when I stand (good think my name isn’t Eileen), and I have a more curved spine than usual and a curved tailbone, making it hard to stand straight for long periods of time. I have gotten a bit better with some chiropractic treatment and exercises to improve my core, but it’s never been easy for me to move the same as other people, and it probably never will be unless the problem is resolved. Which is unlikely.
So she got mad at me for something I couldn’t help. and I told her and my mom that I just got tired and didn’t feel right standing.
The crazy thing is, you can sing sitting down. It wouldn’t have been a big deal. Sure it’s better to stand,but I wasn’t going to be doing any Broadway musical, it would have been fine for me to sit while learning. She sat while teaching me.
Even moving around, which was still easier for me than standing because I could at least shift balance, she wouldn’t allow.
I suppose, maybe it’s not her fault that she didn’t know I had a real problem and just thought I wasn’t listening to her. But the issue is, she never even considered any alternative explanation other than I was trying to be defiant.
Well, to be fair, after she got on my nerves with this crap for weeks on end, I was trying to be defiant. But it didn’t start off that way. If sh’e d been nice to me, I wouldn’t have wanted to act out. But she did all this from the start, when I wasn’t trying to do anything to set her off.
I know, not the most mature thing–but I was 12 years old. 12 year olds aren’t mature. Even so the worst I did was probably roll my eyes and act bored, which is rude, but hardly the kind of rebellion I would think would warrant a four person intervention.
Again, no one just sat me down and talked to me about this in a normal way first. Which is my first recourse as child care provider myself. I always gives kids a warning before I jumped to a full lecture. If they ignore the warning, then I know they’re blowing me off. But if they don’t, then they were just being kids with short attention spans who don’t know social etiquette yet. I make allowances. It’s not like every kid is going to be able to figure this out intuitively.
Anyway, to get back to how this tied into love.
During this dialogue we were having, which felt more like a one sided monologue to me, they were criticizing pretty much everything about me.
Even at the time I didn’t think it made a lot of sense, 4 adults, two of whom I didn’t really know that well, and barely talked to the one, and my parents, all criticizing me.
I’m now very against this approach in practice. I think most people with experience with kids or even teenagers would be. Two people is about the limit for any confrontation with a kid that’s not a medical emergency, I’d say, without it feeling like you’re bullying the kid. I’ve seen kids cry over less, as it is.
Oh and I was crying through most of the conversation. Do you think they stopped? Do you think they tried to comfort me and get me to calm down?
Nope.
Tey told me I shouldn’t cry anymore.
And my singing teacher even picked apart the way I was sitting as being a defensive psotiosns.
Can’t imagine why I would have feel the need to protect myself , under the circumstances.
Now that I’m experienced enough to know how weird this situation was , I’m amazed my mom didn’t see it that way. But I figure my father probably bullied her into it, as he usually did.
The icing on the cake of all this was that one thing I was getting in trouble for was something my dad told me to do, and though I even expressed doubt about doing it to him, he said it would be fine. So I did it.
It was not fine.
He conveniently had forgotten he told me to do it. He admitted to it during the confrontation.
Do you think they stopped? Do you think they apologized to me for the mistake? Do you think they admitted it wasn’t fair?
Not in my memory. But I have blocked out a lot of it, I could be wrong…I do know it wouldn’t be in character for them to do it. I can’t recall either of the other two adults ever admit they were wrong.
My dad would only admit he was wrong about imagined things, not real things. Go figure.
The part that made this about love, much to my dismay both now and then, was that they claimed this entire humiliating experience was done out of love.
Yeah…it really felt like being torn apart for 2-3 hour staring was an act of love.
In the end, though, I did still quit the drum. I find it funny that the thing that set this off was still something I won about. Yet, I feel like I lost more than I gained from the experience.
I’m not sorry now I quit drum, it wasn’t for me. I’m not even sorry I took singing lesson, I enjoy singing. Granted, I hated taking them for that woman, but I did like learning it and I like knowing a bit about it now.
I do still wish she’d taught me how to sing different styles than she did so I could have used it more widely, but them’s the brakes.
Of course one incident might not have given me a complex about love, though for some people that might be enough to do it, but I’m a reasonable person, and I was even as a teen, though less so then, of course.
Still, I could have probably put together that that wasn’t right, if my dad hadn’t reinforced it over and over again.
But pretty much any time my dad and I were alone for longer than 10 minutes he’d start up on the subject again. Bring up every example they had, remind me that his two friends,and even their family, didn’t like me. Say I was a lot like a narcissist.
The funny part is my dad is the the actual narcissist, or has BPD. One of other or both, maybe. I now know it’s common to project your own toxic traits onto someone else, I don’t know that at 12, of course.
Always though, my dad would end or begin or interject into the middle of these lectures, that this was done in “love.”
I’m a very sensitive woman. I always have been. I won’t say verbal abuse is worse than physical abuse, both suck.
But to a sensitive person, it was devastating to hear this so many times.
I’m not a meek type of girl though. I fought back.
But since fighting back, both the first time,and every time after that, never got my anywhere, it created this complex where I feel like nothing I do will ever change people’s minds about me, and I expected them to dislike me, secretly, even if I’m not aware of doing anything to them to cause it.
I expected that for many years every time I met any new person.
Unfortunately, the world had a lot of touchy people in it, and sometimes, I got proven right. I’m sure my insecurities didn’t help with that, since insecure people tend to do things to tick others off anyway, but sometimes it really just came out of nowhere.
The unlucky times my dad got involved, he would usually agree with whoever it was. Even if it was the Sunday school teacher beefing with me for causing problems just by sitting in her class doing nothing.
My sister was there too. They don’t call her in for questioning. She didn’t even know what I did, to this day, I don’t know. But I know my dad was always ready to agree with anyone who had a problem with his daughter. Didn’t matter how unbalanced that person was to begin with.
All the little things my dad did to sabotage my life, but they added up.
I can’t of course, lay the blame for everything at his feet. Some of it was my fault. Some of it was other people’s besides my dad’s.
But the person who twisted the knife every time by calling it love, that was my dad.
I’ve never had people comment on how little I seem to be able to receive love.
Because when someone says that word, I flinch sometimes, inwardly.
I actually prefer if people use words like “I care about you” or “I appreciate you” because they ton’d set me off the same way. My dad certainly would never use words like that.
But “proud for you” is a trigger too, because he used that also.
It never meant anything. I figured out years in that he didn’t mean it. And I figured out also that even if I had done something to be proud of, he would have meant it. He didn’t think that way.
Pride in us wasn’t about what we did, or even about us being his kids, it was always about what he thought we wanted to hear to do what he wanted.
See, some people just never give love, and that’s bad enough.
Other people use love as reward for good behavior, and that’s just as bad, or maybe worse.
The type of person really talk about is the kid who uses love as a motivation if and when threats aren’t working. Just so you can be both scared, and then feel guilty for being scared.
Gas lighting at another level.
Thanks to this, I can’t feel love easily.
I won’t say it’s impossible. I feel love for other people. It’s easier when it children, people who don’t scare me.
That’s what got me, truth didn’t help. Truth is very important to me. If I assume something about someone, and alt er find out a fact about them that calls that into question, I actually changed my mind. I can’t imagine not doing that. But there are many people who will never change their mind, no matter what the truth is.
It’s hard to realize that when you’re not that kind of person.
But I’ve learned to let it slide off my back more.
I’m not writing this to say that my dad ruined my life. Or even that he ruined my relationships. I have good relationships with some of my family. And I have friends. I’m learning to get better at all this.
I hope one day to have a good marriage–which I will probably get counseling for, but that’s just good sense.
And a good relationship with my own children, if God grants me them like I hope.
But I’m not going to lie about my life and say all this didn’t matter or have some effect. Admitting it mattered actually is part of healing.
So it did matter and it is sad. Even saying that took me years to get to. I’m glad for the people along the way, here and there, who did take my side and tell me that that wasn’t normal to go through that.
I had a very good grandmother who would sympathize with me, she was still there for me when my parents weren’t. I had a good youth leader who helped me see at least some of what my dad did was wrong years before I could go to therapy to her the same thing.
I wasn’t always alone. I was just alone too much for it to be good.
But we take what we get in life, and I see no point complaining about it. I think we get what we need ultimately if we seek it, but not always the way we imagine it.
I’ve still never really had father figure other than God. But God has been enough, I know that will sound weird to the person who’s not a Christian, but it is what it is. Think I’m crazy if you want, I really don’t care. Until you have a better cure for broken hearted and lonely people, I don’t really think I’ll swap out mine.
I hope that I will learn to like the word “love” when people say to me again.
I think all this came to mind not just because of the prompt, but because of a thing one of my friends, who is a very blunt person (too much like me probably) said to me at my birthday party.
She pointed out: “Look how loved you are.”
I was thinking that it was nice of them all to show up. And I thought she was right, they were trying to show love.
Yet, when she said it, I felt nothing expect probably confused.
Like I usually feel when someone says that. Or uncertain. Maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s just doubt. Maybe they’re the same thing at bottom.
If I accept that, then how will I handle it when they end up doing the wrong thing to me, or leaving me? As everyone will, sooner or later.
Unfortunately for the person who has “avoidant attachment” disorder, as one therapist told me (he was an ass though, but he might have been right about that–he didn’t help me with the problem though), the fact is that being separated from the people you love is inevitable.
It’s hard enough for a healthy person to accept loss and grief. It’s harder if you’re someone like me who has had very little chance to even feel loved at all, so any short stint of it that will be taken away again feels cruel.
I have learned however, that often we’re more loved than we see.
And that the way I interpret love is not always the way people show it. A lot of stuff is just not communicated right.
And recently, I had an ordeal that my friends did not exactly make me feel better about. Doing a lot of the same things that set me off–but I didn’t blow up at them.
I was a bit upset, but I didn’t lash out at them because I knew, at least in my head, that they meant well and were trying to help.
While I would rather actually feel better, I do at least derive some sense of comfort for the fact that I have people who will attempt to help me, even if they don’t succeed. Having grace for people is important.
And that’s a huge stride for me, from where I started from.
So if you related to this post at all, I can tell you that it’s small things like that are along the path to health.
I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I know that at least being able to treat people with some degree of trust, even if you have doubts and anxieties, is the only way to start.
It might take years for me to feel it the way others do. I can be mad about that– or I can accept it and keep trying.
Maybe this is my favorite Naruto characters are Sai and Gaara. Both characters who pretty much embody the journey of learning to feel things again and feel them the right way.
Or my favorite author is C. S. Lewis, who wrote that it was important to be able to feel the right way about things, to be a whole and happy person. [It’s in the “Abolition of Man” book.]
If you met me in person, you might not even guess this about me. My friends have told me they wouldnt’ have before I told them.
I take that good sign. I’ve worked enough on the issues I have are not all obvious. That’s progress. They used to be blatantly obvious to people, based on what they told me.
I’m not a closed off person in every way either.
I guess my point in all this it is to say that these issues don’t define me, and they don’t define you either. You can have issues like this and still be a loving person. So they make you more loving because you over-compensate, in fact.
But I think you can never been too loving, so it’s a win-win. Sometimes broken stuff can be fixed to be stronger than it was naturally. Like when they cut off the trunk of trees to graft in a stronger trunk, but keep the old root system. (They can do that with fruit trees, did you know that?). You gotta know what to keep and what to throw away.
Well this got pretty long for a daily prompt post, so I think I’ll end it here. I hope some of this was encouraging, since it was kind of raw and heavy for this kind of post, but it was where my mind went, as as you know my motto is to keep it honest.
Several years ago my family went on a road trip to Wyoming to visit relatives.
That was the last road trip I went on with my father.
That was the one he punched me on.
Only in the arm, but, it was still a violation of trust. He threatened to do worse if I ever hit him again.
I hit him because he walked in on my in the bathroom, deliberately, and then just laughed instead of apologizing. Acing like a middle schooler (no I’ve know middle schoolers who were more polite).
I’m not defending my actions per sec, I still probably shouldn’t have done that (though if it was any other guy doing the same thing my father would have been fine with it). I guess I thought if he’s going to act like a creep, I’d treat him like one.
But that logic didn’t go over well with my family.
Still, my dad retaliated too much. He hurt me when he hit me back, and he could hit harder than I could. Also, he hit me twice. But it wasn’t really the phsyical pain that bothered me, it was that he did it at all. Something my mom always said he’d never do, though he’d threatened to plenty of times.
My dad had a nasty temper, and the thing I realized was it didn’t matter if you could argue I deserved it (which is what my aunt basically said). My dad got mad over stupid things all the time, even if this time it was valid, if he’d hit me over this, he’d do it when it wasn’t valid too.
I was scared of him getting that angry again–but then I always was scared of his anger.
I didn’t know at the time hat that kind of fear shouldn’t be the kind your father inspires in you.
That with a safe man, you wouldn’t even be able to picture them hitting you even if they were angry.
There are men I know like that, but my father was not one of them. Not from when I was a little kid.
The next year, when they all went on a road trip, I stayed home. Best decision I made where that was concerned.
By the year after that, my father had moved out. Actually, it was right after their trip. Where I heard there was plenty of drama that I was happy I missed, no doubt I’d have ended up in the middle of it.
Something died between me and my dad on the trip though. Maybe if he’d let it be a wake up call, and had tried to change, and fix things after that, it could have recovered.
But instead he blamed me for what happened, claiming he “didn’t know what else to do” since I “never respected him”.
Even though the entire incident was started by him disrespecting me.
But my dad is good at gas lighting.
My father wasn’t often physically abusive. That incident was the closest he came to it, usually he didn’t do more than yank me out of chairs or rooms he wanted to be in, and threaten to hit me if I talked to him the way I did.
But since it had gotten worse over time, I had a feeling it would just keep getting worse till it became a consistent thing, if we pushed him enough. We all walked down eggshells around him because of that.
My life got much better once he moved out (really we made him move out).
I’ve shared the story on this blog before, more while it was happening, in fact, but, I doubt most of my new followers have read those posts, so sharing it again after all this time is probably a good idea for context.
There’s too much to really tell the rest, though.
I’ve had good road trips since that time, and I hope I will remember them for years to come, but it’s probably not up for debate that that one is the most memorable.
I’m likely to remember it till my dying day unless I get dementia in my old age.
I’m not really sad or mad about it now, it just reminds me of why we did what we did, and why it needed to be done.
I hope other people had more pleasant memories for this prompt though.
I’m waiting for my family to get ready so we can open presents, since, you know, that’s how we do.
I thought I’d write a short post about how Christmas has changed for me a bit this year.
We still did all the same things, but I felt like I wanted to do them myself more this year.
The last few years, I’ve kind of lost my enthusiasm for a lot of the things I used to like as a kid. I didn’t want to decorate the tree, listen to the music, or do cookies and lights and all the other stuff.
I’m not sure if it had something to do with my dad moving out, and the subsequent depression and anxiety that followed for a few years, or if it was as I’ve become an adult, I don’t have the same childlike enthusiasm as before, so I didn’t see a point to it all.
This year though, I found myself wanting to do those things again. And I did, I actually helped do a lot more than before. I set up the tree, and my sister and I made cookies since our mom had to work.
My sisters and I have all had to step up more and more often as our schedules get more busy and our mom’s does too. We’ve taken on more and more responsibilities.
That stressed me out more last year, but this year I felt more into it.
But I really think the change is more of tied to my new job somehow. I’ve noticed I’ve become a lot more productive even at home, since starting it.
It’s hard to believe how much of a difference it makes but because at this job I’m treated like an adult (instead of a student like I was at the last job), I’ve grown to see myself with more self respect.
It’s not that I didn’t try to be a good worker at previous jobs, but I felt always lile I was treated as beneath my boss, even when they were nice to me.
This job, even though I’ve made mistakes, sure, everyone does, I’m never belittled or treated poorly. So I’ve gained the ability to be able to offer solutions to problems and enact them myself. And instead of getting in trouble for doing things differently than the others, I’ve been told it’s good that I came up with my own approach.
I now understand why people find good work environments make such a difference. While I coudl survive in a bad one, if I had to, the good one makes you feel more like a person.
And carrying that self respect back home, I also made more contributes to the household budget (small ones but I tried) and did more chores and stuff. Because now I feel more like an adult.
I’m 26, I’ve been an adult for several years, but the mindest just wasn’t fully thre for me. I mean, I’ve not been immature, but I guess it was more of not feeling like other people gave me credit for it. That feels different now.
It shifts, really.
To cap it off, I bought my second car (first one I’ve paid for though) this month, and that was another milestone.
I also wil file taxes for the first time next year. Yay…
But actually, making enough income to even need to worry about filing was something I prayed about. I don’t relish the idea of paying them, but if I’m finally not under the poverty line, then that’s good. (I know you can file even if you are, but I made a few thousand at most the year before this so it was literally pointless to even bother with that. This is the first year I’ve made more.)
I think also, as I’m older now, I’ve realized that I won’t always be able to do all this with my family.
Not that I’m planning to move out, get married, or anything else any time soon. But it will happen eventually.
I know everyone says that, but, I think it is true. Maybe it’s just a phase of life to realize that. Kids are always looking forward to the next thing, which is not bad, they have their whole life ahead of them.
Elderly people tend to look behind them, though some of them don’t, but many live in the past.
I’m not sure there’s any one age where you decide to live in the present, at least not universally, but I think that’s kind of what I’ve been thinking.
And Christmas is the time to think about present, right?
Ha ha…I know, bad joke.
But at the same time, I mean…yeah, the holidays are kind of what let us slow down and see where we are right now.
Maybe that’s why God commanded so many of them in the bible. A lot of people don’t know this, but Celebration is actually considered a spiritual discipline by the Christian church.
Because it is a discipline, isn’t it? It takes work to make celebrations. And it’s something I’ve never been very good at. I was an anxiety ridden teenager and child, and as an adult, I’ve only made steps outside that in the last couple years.
So I understood why it’s actually an act of self will to celebrate.
But if you do, if you build up tha muscle, eventually you’ll come to see why it matters so much.
Feasts, dedications, festivals, they help us remember the good things that happened in the year.
Gretchen Rubin, author of the the “Happiness Project” wrote in her book that “the days are long but the years are short.”
That’s so true.
We experience the present as a long time, day by day, but it drops away from us into the past so quickly. The older I get, the faster it goes.
I’m not really sad about this. I think change is important and it’s often fun, and good. I’m not as afraid of it as a I was as a kid.
But nonetheless, we can miss what’s good in our lives if we never pause to think about it.
Every book and movie about Christmas feels like it’s about that, doesn’t it?
Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe it’s something that humans just know, deep down, about holidays.
And remember that in the Bible, the angel told the shepherds “Peace on Earth and good will to men”. Designating the birth of Christ as the time to celebrate and have good will to each other.
So I have good will that all of you will have a good Christmas.
And even if you are dealing with some tough stuff this Christmas, try to find something to celebrate.
(I get to have a dentist appointment tomorrow that I didn’t want, and that’s just the beginning, so no, my life is not perfect right now, but, I’m not letting that steal my joy.)
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight, day, and whatever is in between.
Until next time–Natasha (do you know that name means Christmas? Fitting right.)
drybonestruth 