2014 was such an
amazing and strange year. It started out not so great. I struggled with some
on-going, low-level depression, which a lot of us do, I'm sure. Some job
related stress. Again, very typical. But really, the most disturbing thing I experienced was this vague, overall feeling that things were just not right,
and they weren't going to get right either. It was subtle but urgent at the
same time. I was so blessed to have the opportunity and emotional support and
trust of my husband to take a 5 month sabbatical from work, from life in
general, really. I knew better things were on the horizon. I couldn't explain how I knew, or what they were, but I just knew that after an extended vacation, things would work out.
Here is where this post takes a slightly unexpected turn....
What I believe, and
you are free to disagree, is that the rails of the tracks that we will travel
upon for the rest of our lives are laid down in our childhood. You can live a
charmed, blessed life, like the one I feel I'm living now, but you can't jump
those tracks. Not ever. You will be reminded throughout your entire life of those limitations by the way
you see the world, interact, develop and behave in inter-personal relationships (including
the most important one - the one you have with yourself), react, feel,
retreat, heal, explore, etc. You can choose to make your journey whatever it is you want
and need it to be, have no fear of that, as long as you work within the framework of the tracks that
were laid.
I am happy by
nature, I try to be anyway. Sometimes…maybe…I try too desperately to be happy,
which is a dead give-away if you ask me, that things have not always been
sunshine and ponies.
I'm always surprised
when the past rears its ugly head and I'm reminded of the tracks that were laid
for me. I get sad. I get angry. I feel guilty. I want off. It's exhausting to
feel like I have NO right to be sad, to be angry, to be regretful. I mean, take a
look around the world. Comparatively speaking, I…live…a….charmed…happy….life.
I know a lot of you
had alcoholic parents, it seems to have been, and remains an epidemic, so let
me start by saying that this blog post isn't about comparing my childhood to
yours, it's not about "how bad I had it". It's not a pissing contest. I know people have had it WAY worse
than I could ever imagine. And one of the worst things you could do is say you're sorry or express pity, because that makes you and I different and I learned to hate that kind of pity growing up. I also don't want to be too disparaging against my father. I think he had the capacity to be a great man. This is simply my experience that I choose to share because it's cathartic, it's sort of what I do.
With that said, I first want to say that this is one of
the biggest, life changing, relief-offering epiphanies I had in 2014: No matter
how much bull shit you go through, and how much subsequent work you do to move beyond it, no matter how blessed and charmed your life appears to
be, even through your own eyes, the rails of the tracks you will travel your
entire life upon were laid in your childhood and it's OK to travel them. Did you
hear me? It's O.K.….you can make do with what you have and where you're going
and what you've been dealt.
My dad left us when
I was 10. Not of his own accord. He was an alcoholic and struggled with some
mental illness issues as well. He was still around sometimes, but it wasn't
pleasant, at least not for me, certainly not my mom. After too many embarassing
episodes, I had to ask him to stop coming around. He wasn't allowed at the
stables - he once brought two shifty looking drunk derelicts out to "meet me and my pony" who sent shivers down my
spine (they later beat him, hog tied him, robbed him of his meager belongings
and left him to die in his apartment). He wasn't allowed at my birthday parties. Horse shows
were completely off limits, unless he promised not to tell anyone he was my
dad. He would say inappropriate and random things to people. They would come up to me and say "Uh...Eline? Is that your dad? Is he ok?" (that pity I grew to absolutely loathe all over their stupid faces) "No. That's not my dad." He was not OK. I eventually
refused to drive anywhere with him because he always threatened to run people
over while chuckling maniacally and it scared me. He talked about
death a lot too - mostly his own. He told me I'd be beautiful if I plucked my
eyebrows, always such weird, random things. It was uncomfortable and scary to a child
of 10 or 12 and I was happy when he moved out of state. Of course I felt a terrible
guilt after he died a few years later, until I realized one day, in my 20's,
that I was a child. He should have been better for his child. His ONE
responsibility in the world should have been his children. And we couldn't be,
because he was sick. I know he loved me and my siblings very, very much, and it
was all about the disease. But when you are a child, you are not able to understand
that those actions, that life, the shortcomings, the human flaws and
failings that your parent might have should not, in any away, affect your own
feelings of worth, value, being loved and cared for, supported by a parent.
But they do. Sadly, children are ill equipped to make sense of these things and will
usually, if given the opportunity, and if they are lucky enough, retreat into
their own world and the resilience and self preservation of youth will get them through to adulthood with minimal scaring or hand me down diseases of their own.
My oldest sister
died shortly after my dad moved out of state, and that was another sad blow to
an already crippled family. Erica had brain cancer and was just 18 when she
passed away. My mom did her absolute best and I can't even imagine what her
life was like…she was a little younger than the age I am now when she was
dealing with all of this. When my dad died a
few years after that, I was 15, and I hate to admit it but it was more of a
relief than anything. I didn't miss him then and I haven't missed him to
this day. Sometimes I miss "A dad". A different one though. One who never materialized. I wish I had fond memories. I wish he was a healthier father figure.
But I don't, and he wasn't. Although I've never
missed him, I've often looked for him and his approval in others. I married a man similar to him, with
issues, and divorced him just as my mom had divorced my dad. Trying to relive
and fix what could never be fixed. Very typical.
When I became an
adult, my mom would sometimes fret and tell me that she always worried about
what my childhood was like, that it was sad, how it affected us all, that it
wasn't what she hoped it would be for me. Was I all right? I always reassured
her that there were plenty of happy times. That it was…good. Shoot, I could
hardly even remember any sad stuff! How in the world could I tell her
otherwise? How could I even dwell on that when what she wanted, what we all
needed, was to just try and remember the good parts? And there were good times,
there were happy times, I'm sure. It's just that those 5 or so years really did
a number on us all and have had lasting consequences.
I think the reason
this is all coming up now is because I just never felt like I was allowed to
feel anything about it. The past was the past. I've always been strangely and
intensely annoyed by people who stay stuck in their past, place blame for their
lives on their childhood. Oh god, get over it already! But sometimes we are
most annoyed by the things in others that we, ourselves, possess. But ghosts don't stay buried, the past catches up, and every other cliché ever spoken is true. Dwelling on or feeling sad, or remembering would put me into a panic. I could feel a lump in my throat and a pit in my stomach and I would just think of something else. But I think that all of that repression was the cause of my "slightly off" 2014. It just caught up to me. It manifested itself in a
longer lingering sense of deep general sadness. Then I would get angry because I
thought I had already done all this work. I've already "healed", I've
already "forgiven". I did my time. I've grown up. I've become happy. I stopped being
afraid of dying, (which is a strange benchmark, I know, but it's how I know I
am living my life the right way). I'm super balanced. I DO YOGA! Why NOW?
Strangely, I think part of it is the horse. As a kid, my horse was my salvation, my savior, my therapy. Horses have a way of sucking the sadness right out of a person like venom from a snake bite. Even if you don't want it to happen. Over the past year or two, I often found myself stroking Maddie's neck contentedly, then suddenly tears would come from nowhere. You just can't be around them without being forced to feel things - both pleasant and unpleasant. At least I can't. Maybe it's an old habit.
The big take away
here, the BIG, BIG picture, is that 2014 was a banner year for me. It all
led up to this New Year's Eve. Things will never be exactly the same. Things will be better. Sometimes things will be worse. I know now that the tracks I travel are the same ones that were laid for me as a child but I'm ok with it. I'm who I am, good and bad, strong and weak, happy and sad, alive and well. I've allowed myself to experience these things again, out loud, because it's what I do, it's cathartic. I've let
go of some things and look forward to letting go of a lot more. A LOT more. I'm not going
to feel guilty for having some lingering repercussions from a shitty, painful
part of my childhood. If I want to be sad once in a while, I will be. Who cares? I'm not going to let my few low moments give me panic attacks.
SO without further ado…..my
resolutions for 2015!
- Continue being intuitive
because it is amazing, the amount of things you can accomplish for
yourself in all areas of your life if you would just stay the hell out of
your own way!
- I think I should start
dressing like an 80's female rock star more often because I'm really feeling
that sort of pioneering, devil-may-care, bad ass-ness that they emulated
and it really works with my hair cut anyway.
-
This goes along with #2, but I think I'm going to allow my freak flag to fly a little higher. In the words of...somebody on Facebook....I'm all out of fucks to give.
- I am going to continue loving
and accepting myself the way I am, because I can now. And I happen to be a
165 pound Jungle Cat, so if you know what's good for you, you should
probably humor the kitty and allow me my moments of self-adoration and
selfie taking. Fuck you, I deserve it.
- I'm going to continue to be
awesome and work at being awesomer.
- I'm going to continue do the things that make me shine, that light the fire, and anyone who tries to put that out will be dead to me. Life is too short.
- I'm going to try to say (and mean) only nice things to and about people. I want to be like my Grandmother.
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