IMPERFECT Lady

Choices Matter

There is a frustration, and an excitement, when I feel out of control, or more wanting to control - a place that feels familiar to so many past events. A rage and carelessness floods through me.  

 

Mostly it is when plans go awry.

 

I have an inappropriate reaction to reality.

Or, an appropriate one, coming from whence I came.

 

When I was old enough to babysit - every few months or so, I would arrive home from school or wake up in the morning and my mother would be gone.  Leaving the house to me and all the kids.

It didn't matter to her, what plans I had made, what was going on in my life - her needs eclipsed it.

There was no asking.

 

I would be plunged into caretaking with a careless heart.

Into her world of raising children.

Lots of children.

Too many for a young girl to handle, on her own for a whole weekend.

Without prep.

Without notice.

Without the proper skills and understandings of child rearing; I was but a child myself.

 

And, then after a few days, she would appear.  She would be there in the morning.  Having come back home the same way she left, unannounced.

Her morning wake up call - would announce she was back -"Rise and Shine Everybody".

To which my anger abounded into a full blow rage at her.

Seething inside a volcano of hatred.

For her audacity to have left me in charge.

 

She appeared to have rallied.

To have found her re-charge.

And, was back - for now.

No explanation.

I never had a way to reach her.

Nor, did I ever know where she went.

 

This feeling of being in control - but out of control - and to be at the whim of another's choice - has stayed with me.

 

My responsibleness - and love for my siblings had me doing my best in the worst situations.

Caring for children who were left behind.

I wasn't their mother, but I was left to act like it.

This happened mostly before I could drive.

I wasn't allowed to drive a car; but I was allowed to care for way too many kids.

 

So, in my nowadays world, when someone abandons plans - my knee jerk reaction is to see my mother's past behaviors.

A question that is asked in the healing of the past is "What does this remind you of."

 

I wrestle with my emotions and control when others change plans.

 

It feels deeply hurtful to me.

I feel disregarded.

In a volume way way too loud.

 

I believe, that these are the expressed emotion I had way back when - when my mother changed her mind on being a Mom, on those weekends.

 

Her running away, literally - to escape - left me unseen.

Her emotions, her feelings, her life mattered more; than mine.

 

As a child I didn't have a choice.

I was left in a home with babies and young kids.

Without a parent in charge.

I had to stay and live out the cost of her choice to leave.

 

I had to bury my resentments and cope.

To be in charge in way that was impossible and way beyond my means.

 

She would often praise me for the good job I did - or bring home a 'gift' as perhaps payment.

But, my rage and resentment towards her never really got to be fully expressed.

I wasn't able to voice my anger and feelings.

 

It is the way of a dry drunk. When they are happy, you are not going to bring up the crap and set them off again.  In a way, I suppose I was happy she was back - for the simple reason - I was no longer in charge.

 

I resented the fact that she could pop out of her life whenever she wanted.

I resented the fact that she came back cheerful.

 

What I didn't know way back then - was all the abuse that was going on in my home, and in my neighborhood. The sheer volume of what she was leaving me in charge of blows my mind.

 

I have been wondering about the exaggerated feelings - when someone changes plans - and how it affects me so deeply.  I tried to find the links backward.

I guess what is even odder, is that now I get left usually having fun - not left in a mess of untold proportions.

 

I know that my feelings are my problems.

Mine to resolve and express.

And, that anytime I feel out of control - I have given my power to someone else.

 

Of course as a child - especially in toxic homes - we are powerless.

Powerless is actually the voice of our childhoods.

Not love.

Not responsible love.

Not caring.

But not being seen.

 

I get me - and my weird overblown responses.

 

We are formed by our childhood experiences. I seek relationships that are solid and reliable - and I also know that I am the one who needs to be the most solid and responsible - for me.

We are all free to chose - our choices matter.

 

(For those who don't know. I was the second oldest to 14 children - and the oldest girl.)

 

 

 

 

 

Right Now

“Wherever I am, wherever we go, home will always be the in-between place, a wilderness I've grown to love.” “EVERYONE WHO IS born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick,” Susan Sontag 

I finished Suleika's book "Between Two Kingdoms".

I highly recommend it.

 

What I was introduced to is the Between Space.

Where many folks live.

 

In life things happen - and we can't go back to the before, and we are not fit for normal.

Or, we have changed so much, there doesn't seem to be a place among the rest.

 

Again, hard to explain - but it feels right for me.

 

I am different.

Not the daughter and sister I used to be - nor will I ever be again.

I am not striving to fit into a new place in the family.

I am living in the between space of both.

 

No longer defined by the labels - rather living without them.

 

Life is often defined in or out.

With or against.

 

When there is the third option.

I didn't understand that what I was doing was developing the third option of in-between.

While you feel like it is an outcast position - it can also be an empowered one.

A sovereign space - where you live from.

As an individual.

Honoring your truths and experiences - being/feeling/knowing differently.

 

I am thinking there are more of us in the in-between.

And, instead of feeling like the "other" - we can make that a more normal space.

We are tossed into this space typically by a life interruption event and often strive to fit back into

something - and it is impossible.

Little did we know, the in between is a life space.

An honorable one.

 

The vast space of freedom to NOT fit in.

 

We are different.

Unique 

Outstanding

 

Subconsciously I felt less than - due to my in-between status.

Suleika has shown me the beauty of not living in the kingdoms.

 

So, if you find yourself outside of the norms or ensconced in the family - know it is not only okay but a valid

place.  

It is your land.  

A kingdom of your own. 

And, you the queen of it all.

It is up to you how you decorate and orchestrate the things that live in this space.

There are no rules to be had.

It is the space where you are free to be you.

Untethered and detached from so many of the labels and constraints of 'normal'.

A false unreachable space.

I am so grateful it is impossible for me to reach normal.

The freedom that has given me is immense.

Freedom to just be, here as I am, right now.

 

 

I will be her - until...

 

 

 

I am reading her book "Between Two Kingdoms" - well listening to her read her book. I love the way she re-frames things in order for her to really live life.

We often feel like there is a 'correct' way of being.

And, that after life interrupting events, there is a 'normal' place that is waiting for us to arrive.

 

What I know from experience, the quicker you can disregard the ideas of normal - or believing that you are 'supposed' to be this way or that, the quicker you will find a new stride.

The new stride doesn't have to feel easy or comfortable.

The new way of being means you are okay with you.

 

The 'after' you.

 

She is right in saying that the hardest part was after the trauma.  The hard part is to integrate back to a life.

A life that now holds a stranger - You.

 

It isn't as if life itself all alters and reflects your own changes.  Instead we have to adjust ourselves in order to hop back on the merry-go-round called life.

 

Some of my hardest days came long after leaving my family.

Long after the last conversation.

 

More, the hardest part of all, was becoming the new version of me that now held sexual abuse -dysfunctional family- toxic religion. How do I live as this?

 

She talks about leaving the hospital without the inner scaffolding inside of her.

THIS, I know way too well.

 

Inside of us, unbeknownst to us, is a scaffolding that holds us up.

It is who we know ourselves to be, and fit into the world around us.

You don't know know that it is there - but you will certainly know when it is no longer there.

 

Learning to re-build a life after a life interrupting event - takes time.

And, Fearlessness.

an, open heart

and the belief that you can live a life worth living again.

That you can take the heart that has been shattered, and love from there.

 

My second build of scaffolding was done by me.

It was directed by me.

It is strongly structured by things I know that strengthen me and bring me love, peace and joy.

 

Early on I realized the before me would never live again.

I had to find a way to be me, without her and what she was built of.

 

It is hard to describe the hollow scary spot you get left in - when your scaffolding collapses.

When there is very little that is holding you up.

 

I love how she sees the world of two kingdoms and how we move between the two.

Yet, in estrangement - we mostly are divided into one camp or the other.

It is rare for us to move between.

You are either in the family, or out of it.

 

So, while she worked to assimilate back into society and find a new self.

I was more learning to live without a family and be that girl - in society.

 

Our society has placed great value in family.

With reason.

 

I too believe in family.

When family has a pure core.

 

It is funny, in a peculiar way, that in order to save my own family - I had to leave my family of origin.

 

If we live long enough, all of us will face some kinds of interruptions in our lives.

 

The lives we believe will go on forever will, at some point, be changed.

And, when that happens, you will have to change - in order to live whole.

 

Accepting the unacceptable - is to live whole.

Bringing with you all the broken parts and live and love from there.

 

I have felt that the cost of leaving my family had to equal the value of my new life.

I needed and sought out a life worth having.

I intentionally brought in what made my heart happy. 

I wasn't interested in doing or being fake for the sake of someone or something.

I needed/wanted a scaffolding of value - as this new me.

 

The biggest lesson we can learn from her, is that we don't need to be defined by what happened to us, and that we can change who we are when life changes us. And, that all life dark times don't last forever and we can have a wider broader and deepened sense of self - after.

 

We should teach more of how life can change us.

How we can live more than one self in our life times.

 

I love the 2.2 version of Me.  

I will be her - until...