And I thought **I** was bad!
Dry your eyes, everyone. Too much cryin' goin' on around here.
Actually, I was going to post that pic for Livey several weeks ago. She was caught in a really bad winter snowstorn, completely stuck inside her house like there was a hurricane outside, with a sudden dread realization: that right when she thought she was Totally Prepared to be snowed in, she'd actually just run out of...
Toilet Paper!
Yes indeed.
This is a true difficulty.
And under the circumstances, I just didn't have the heart to post that pic. Not when her dilemma was still, oh, current. Even if she did have lots of kleenex. Even if I was Real Proud of how I never run out of TP.
But now?
It's springtime, she's long been free of that snowstorm and full of spring fever, and she got her TP all stocked up again. So now it's safe for me to rub it in. hee hee! Thank you, woman, for such an excellent photo op.
Okay.
I'm...
I'm floored, and flattered, and a bit discombobulated at the response to that *It's Simple* post.
Thank you all. For your comments, and posts, and links direct and indirect, blogrolling, and nomination for a Thinking Blogger award based on one whole post. I really mean it.
I don't quite understand it but I'm trying to.
My life has taken a number of very strange turns. That *nightmare memories* reference in my profile? It's there for a reason.
From the very beginning of this blog, I knew I'd want to address some of that, somewhat. But how, and how much, and when, I wasn't sure. I figured time would tell me.
In the context of a post over at Pretty Lady's, it was brought up again in my mind. That woman has a brain on her that will not quit. Serious business.
Yet, like me, she's gotten into some unhealthy relationships. So I wanted to let her know she was most assuredly not the only one. In fact, it looked to me like she was right on an age-appropriate track for that time-honored tradition of having codependent relationships, then reaching our limit and saying, No more!, and learning the detection and enforcement skills to accomplish it. Smarts don't always keep us out of situations like that, especially when we're younger. Hearts and minds don't always cooperate with each other.
I was glad I said what I did. She seemed to feel better, yay! And on my part, I realized that those particular memories - the summer of 1991, and the subsequent 1992 version of my series of bad health episodes - had much less power to wound me than they used to.
They aren't the only set of nightmare memories I have. Nor are they the worst. But they are a part of the whole, and I feel better for addressing them here in the 'sphere.
One thing I'd rather not do is visit my nightmares on others. It's not helpful to me if they hurt people I care about, and I know for a fact that I have a much higher tolerance for pain of all kinds - including the shock of blood and gore and fear, of emotional and physical pain - than some other people do. We're all made differently that way.
So I didn't put in the details, nor even some of the most important awful events.
Yet it seemed enough to make some people think about different aspects of rough situations, of addressing life's challenges. Of looking for, and finding, the strength and the good we have inside us and in our lives, in the people around us. And that made me very happy indeed.
You see, if I have any overriding goal, both as a blogger and a person living a life that took turns way beyond my control, turns that kicked it away from the goals I'd envisioned in my youth - the one thing I'd like most to do is, I just want to help people think.
I don't, however, believe I'm all that unusual as a survivor. My feeling is and always has been that most folks, given the same circumstances, also would have made it through what I did. No doubt in my mind. I am surrounded by survivors. That was my point.
Walter doesn't entirely agree with me on this. His view of humanity overall is not quite as positive as mine. Is either one of us right, or wrong? To me, this sort of thing falls into the category of Unknowable. Good to think on, not so good to think you know the One Single Answer to.
Answers don't always come that way.
I'm a little concerned that as I continue to post, and you continue to read, you'll begin to see my weaknesses more clearly and get irritated with them. They're most certainly there. For example, like many folks, more than a few of my problems in life are of my own making.
And I've gotten to the point where I don't think we should beat ourselves up over that. Acknowledge it, take that personal responsibility, yes. Learn, grow, move on. There are those who feel...ripped off, if they don't get to witness more self-flagellation than I'm willing to commit.
It's also true that a strong tendency to make lemonade from one's lemons can get on people's nerves as well. I've run across that more than once.
I understand these human traits, and they don't much trouble me. We are none of us perfect, which is good, because if other people were, then I would be in some really serious embarrassment.
So, again, thank you all. Very much. Whether I agree with it or fully understand it or no, you have honored me. As time goes by I hope I won't let you down.
And I hope y'all like pretty flower pix too.
12 comments:
Yeah ... It's difficult to be without toilett-paper, especially if you have to do a shit. ;)
But have faith ... spring is coming
Well said.
See, K.... what I like about you is that you take the shit life gives you and then you turn it into fertilizer and then you grow pretty flowers in it....
:0)
My flowers are still just little bitty seedlings; I put the first of them outdoors today, as it finally got above 50 degrees.
No kidding about that 'making lemonade' thing getting on people's nerves. Some people are just Never Happy! You put a positive spin on things, they think you're being 'competitive' or something! What is that about?
It does seem as though 'intelligence' and 'good relationship decisions' have almost nothing to do with one another. A lot of the reason I made bad decisions was that I felt that I had enough and to spare, and it was thus my responsibility to spread the goodies around a bit. Made sense at the time...
kirsten, ain't it though!!! BUT. (hee hee!) But, I think that going behind a rock for a nice pee, then suddenly realizing your nice pee is DISSOLVING the limestone ground beneath your feet, has GOT to be scarier than running out of toilet paper!
You are very brave. I know many people would say that riding through the desert alone on a camel, touring around, is unspeakably dangerous.
I dunno. Out here, just driving to the grocery store has its moments.
But I sure do envy you that trip.
Earth dissolving under your feet, or no.
Sue, thanks!
Nancy!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! That's just exactly like Granny J's *fertilize,* BTW. She spent childhood years in Jacksonville, FL, where they taught her the proper words for such things.
PL, the thought of your seedlings out there brings back such fine memories of Real Spring. I don't want to pay the price to experience it fully, because that would mean living through a Real Winter, which I do not do, any more. Ever.
But boy, I remember that spring feeling, that wonderful resurgence of life bursting out everywhere.
And of seedlings pushing up all hopeful and shy.
I think for some people, the lemonade bit sounds like phony Happy Talk. I despise phony stuff myself. But there's a difference between false *Happy Talk,* and when it's real.
Problem with people like that is, they often think happiness is ALL phony. This is not logical and certainly unpleasant as well, and always makes me wonder why they bother sticking around. Do they derive that much sustenance from being So Scornful, walking off with the Sneering Trophy for the day? That competitive thing, striving for the *best of the nasty* award? Wastes my effing time.
I had a large element of that motivation in my own bad relationships too. However, a true difference in our backgrounds is family, upbringing. Yours sounds like absolute heaven. Mine...granted I could NOT have been an easy child to raise, but my own family was definitely not of the supportive, build the kids' self-esteem variety. They understood the concept and valued it. In application, they often reverted to a certain Old School approach of, *It's better for the kid to understand Right Now that they aren't anything special and that life sucks...*
Not in such words. But the *save the kid from a fall by teaching them not to put themselves forward - it's For Their Own Good* was big.
So the Chicks with Low Self-Esteem thing was another huge factor in my own Abuser Magnetude.
And I really thought, at the time, that I was so flush with an abundance of inner strength that I had way extra to hand around. I mean, I didn't even realize I had a self-esteem problem.
One great opening for the horrible first husband to work on me, there.
and it was thus my responsibility...
ooohhhhhhh, YES. And did he work on that too. Guilt-tripped me half to death, using reverse snobbery on my upper middle class background. How I owed everybody this huge debt for what I'd been given, rather than earned, in life...
It took me around 5 years after the divorce to even begin to realize that, rather than being Mr. Noble, wanting a better life for the downtrodden of the world...
actually, he was jealous of my background. Felt like he deserved it and I did not. Meaning it was All Unfair. Meaning he was Perfectly Right to tear me to pieces as payback.
Ick!!!
now I feel like I need a bath.
And some nice flower time.
In reverse order.
But the *save the kid from a fall by teaching them not to put themselves forward - it's For Their Own Good* was big.
Oh, there was a bit of that. We worked it out. But I think a large portion of my problem was the subliminal message I received that it was only okay to put myself forward if I was helping someone less fortunate. I wasn't allowed to do so on my own behalf.
So I continually picked up losers in order to justify doing what I wanted to do, i.e. have an art and writing career instead of going to medical or law school. My excuse and my shield, if you will.
And I think I also picked up the subliminal message that I was unattractive and shouldn't be interested in sex or relationships, because my mother was terrified that I'd get raped. So I had no idea how to set or negotiate boundaries--it was either everything or nothing.
Which, of course, set me up to Selflessly Commit to the first misunderstood, manipulative, narcissistic loser that I stumbled across. And the next, and the next, and the next.
Bath is right.
(Pssst! But I had a Date this week with Someone Nice! Don't tell!)
No one with even half a brain could ever... EVER... think of you as phony.
Pretty Lady, hearing that your wonderful family was, at least, not quite perfect makes me feel a little better.
That *not on one's own behalf* thing has really got me thinking. It seems a strong societal pressure, that one, before family even enters into it. I wonder if your little brother felt that way too?...
That could damage a person's self-esteem. Most certainly. I'm sitting here for two days now trying to figure out how much of that aspect, alone, had its effect on me.
Do you have any idea why your mother had that terror? Was it just subconscious absorpttion from those around her, or did she have some personal experience that left her with that fear?
I think your choice, development, what have you, of your persona was so very good for you in so very many ways. Such a healthy way of putting on some Attitude.
And now, a nice one. Nice.
That is progress.
And that simple thing, allowing oneself to finally appreciate that attribute in a man, is such a gift.
Jean - ahhh, thank you. That means a great deal to me.
Damn I had a thought and lost it. I'm on overload right now. thanks though for the smile. Love ya!
Livey, if it came down to it, I was ready to express ship some off to you!
You have hit the mark. In it something is also to me it seems it is good idea. I agree with you.
You will not make it.
Post a Comment