Another Lesson Learned

For the last few months, I've gone through a whirlwind of emotions. At first, things were great. I started dating someone I considered to be a very good friend. Someone I was comfortable around. Someone I knew I could have a good time with. We did fun things together, took trips, experienced things we'd never done before, together. It was an amazing few months.
Along with a new relationship, came new responsibilities. Things others wouldn't allow me to get away with, I now could. And things I had been getting away with in the past, suddenly were halted. I learned new things about what I like and don't like, and what I need and don't need. Important things. Things that made a difference to my happiness.

I began to become unsure about what I wanted and needed from him. I was too set in my ways to accept change, yet knew I needed it. I tried to welcome the changes, but things just unraveled in my mind, and I couldn't undo the feelings I was having. Friends and family tried to encouraged the relationship to continue, because THEY wanted us to be together.

Then, a voice from the past caught up with me. A voice that said, "This isn't really what you want. Your heart isn't into this. Stop before someone gets hurt."

So stop I did. We parted ways, vowing to remain the friends we were before.

Dear Lord, please help me accept these changes for the better. No matter how hard they seem, they are best.

Life Experiences

It’s 3AM and these life experiences are trying to get my attention again. Lately, my mind has this sneaky way of attacking me in the middle of the night while I am sound asleep. It attacks me by waking me up and sticking a thought in there for me to chew on. It’s never a deep thought, just a simple one that my ego can grab hold of like, “Why did she have to post that picture on Facebook?” You know, important stuff like that.

The problem is, a thought like that attaches to deep-seeded issues centered around trust. These issues are hard-wired in my brain from the past and once the thought starts down that pathway, all the emotional pain from those old experiences comes rushing up to the surface.

It’s like I’m back in high school. I’m seventeen and all I care about is trying to make people like me so I wasn’t so sad and alone. This usually in turn meant sleeping with guys who claimed to care about me. Or even junior high. My seventh grade boyfriend, shows up the first day of eighth grade to tell me that his mommy won’t let him be my boyfriend anymore because she thinks I’m too old for him and am going to teach him bad things. (Please know that in 7th and 8th grade, Catholic school had made me a huge pussy and I had yet to do anything bad or against my parents wishes.)

We all have this stuff. It’s part of growing up, of experiencing relationships and life. I get to see where I made old agreements not to trust and ultimately how I became untrustworthy myself. It hurts to look inside and discover these truths and also to face the pain that comes when my mind connects new experiences with old ones. Sometimes I’d like to do what Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet did in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. I’d like to just erase it all. Erase those old experiences, erase the new ones which are triggering the same emotions. Start fresh with a spotless mind.

But the reality is, I’m in this life to grow and I know through my experience that when I feel pain, it means I’m growing. I have a choice in these moments to run away from the pain or to walk through it. I’ve done a lot of running in the past. There are so many things to cover it up: alcohol, drugs, work, sex, food, shopping. The problem is, when I run, the pain just gets covered up and pushed down inside, only to come out again with more intensity later on or perhaps create illness and disease.

So instead of running, I do my best today to face pain by dealing with it in the moment. In times like this when it strikes in the middle of the night, I write, get it out of my head and onto paper. Lately, there have been pages and pages of stuff and I’m carrying my journal with me everywhere. At other times, I call a friend and talk it out. I have a therapist. I have a spiritual advisor. I have learned that I can’t do this by myself and as hard as it is to ask for help sometimes, I feel a great sense of relief every time I do.

I guess this path I’m on is my own version of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. This is what it means to be a grown up. By facing my issues head on, I am attempting to re-wire those old pathways in my brain with new thoughts and beliefs. In doing so, the old thoughts are slowly fading away each time I recognize them. My new experiences can be just that, new. They don’t have to be connected to the painful ones from the past. The pain suddenly becomes the admission price to a new life.

Still learning

Every single day, I learn something new.

I learned that in the original Wizard of Oz movie, Toto didn’t open the curtain with his teeth/mouth. He was rigged to a loop that he stepped into, and as he walked, the curtain opened.

I learned that when someone tries to tear you down, keeping focused on all the good makes for an amazing reaction.

I learned that no matter what someone’s negative opinions are of me, I know first hand how much I’ve changed and how far I’ve come. Their opinions aren’t damaging to me anymore.

I learned that Real Housewives of ANY city, is a stupid television show.

I learned that someone’s inability to find or hold a job, is not my concern, and I wish they’d stop blaming me for their struggles. I have my own.

I learned that no matter how much I complain about it, the dogs are STILL going to wake me up before I’m ready to get up in the morning.

I learned that nobody cares about my thoughts except for me.

I learned that I envy waves. They are so powerful, free, and careless about what they do. Maybe this is why I love to sit and watch them. Their lack of care in what they destroy is sometimes overwhelming, yet fascinating nonetheless.

I learned that no matter how impressed I am of Kyle Busch’s driving, every race, he finds a way to impress me even more. The guy is just simply amazing.

I learned that after looking at pictures a friend sent me from NY, I so badly want to experience New Years Eve there. And I won’t let the cold stop me. I will enjoy it and embrace it and accept it as part of the experience.

I learned that if RM#1 doesn’t put the bowl of Candy Corn away, I will eat it all.

Anger

From the very start, it's important that I get one thing straight. I am not to blame because I struggle with anger. I am not a bad person because I've forgotten, perhaps repeatedly, all my resolutions to be cool and calm. Rather, I am a person in pain. Whether the pain is occasional or chronic, when it hits, it feels overwhelming. It's a wave that drives me into a state of mind where nothing matters but expressing what I feel. I shout it out. No matter who gets hurt or whatever the consequences.

Anger is a way of coping. It helps, temporarily, to overcome the hurt and helplessness. For a moment, I feel back in control, and it's exactly why anger is so hard to control. If I try to "put a cork" in my anger, I will feel the pain that triggered it, and that is, after all, what I’m trying to avoid. Feeling the pain of the moment.

Learning how to control my anger hasn’t been easy. Plain. And. Simple. I started paying closer attention to it about four years ago. I was beginning to grasp the power that my anger had, and with the help of some friends, really turned some things around. There were, however, lots of areas that still needed help. I was nowhere near fixed. Over the last two years, working on anger issues kind of took a backseat to some other things that needed much more attention at the time. I find it easier to work on one issue at a time. Some friends of mine didn’t like that. I say too bad. It ain’t about you. And those people aren’t even in my life today. Awesome.

I am a constant work in progress. I accept this. Taking the hard road more often than not is rough, but it’s me. For now.

These last eight days of vacation, I’ve learned so many more things about myself. Most importantly, I’ve learned that anger doesn’t have a place is what I’m creating. The happiness that I seek out is much more enjoyable.

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, Zip-A-Dee-Ay

“OHMYGOD! I WANT A PICTURE OF THAT LICENSE PLATE. CAN YOU TAKE ONE FOR ME WITH YOUR PHONE, PLEASE?.” Picture taken and sent. Ha. Ha. Success! She loved it.

 

Okay. Let me start at the beginning. As I was growing up, I had some hard times as my parents got divorced. I know, I know. Who doesn’t. I get that. Divorce is hard, especially on the kids. I’m not saying it isn’t, I’m just saying it was hard for me. Moving on …

It was the typical divorced parent/child setup. Saw dad every other weekend, whether I wanted to or not, starting at the age of 7. As I grew up, I felt like I needed daddy there for me, but he wasn’t. Or was he, and I just didn’t initiate the contact?

Contrary to popular belief, and what I’ve lead others to believe in the past, not ALL the times I spent with my dad were bad. Some, but not all. I remember going to a city bbq and pigging out on ribs and potato salad and helping my grandparents hand out rosaries, and Halloween parties at the local park, restaurants that had fun trains bringing us our food, places that taught about God and about how drinking alcohol and/or doing drugs ruined their lives, going camping and seeing my first skunk , laughing at silly jokes that I probably shouldn’t have been allowed to hear at such a young age, going on one weekend vacation where my sister left her baby blanket in the sheets-maid had already changed the sheets by the time we got back and they said they didn’t find it. I remember going to restaurants and laughing at people for making grammatically incorrect sentences, and playing darts at a local landmark that was one of the first buildings in my home town, and singing songs in the truck as we drove the freeway on a Friday night, and praying with him at night before bed-he’d always make sure to mention Mom & Frank’s names, no matter how much it hurt to bite his tongue. I remember going to the fish hatchery in Ventura and learning about how that whole thing works. I remember going to the beach and swimming out so far that it worried everyone but dad-he knew i enjoyed the excitement of being out so far and under the wave, so he let me enjoy it. I remember going to Jack In The Box and being able to get whatever we wanted, but only as a special treat. I remember going to family functions before everyone hated everyone else and being proud to say to the new member of the family I was meeting, “Hi. I’m TK’s oldest daughter.” I remember dancing with him at a birthday party for one of his friends and another time at a party for a family members birthday. I remember him taking us to church, even if we didn’t want to go because he thought it was important.

I can hear the question rambling around in your head right now. Don’t lie. You’re asking yourself, “How can she hate the man she describes here?” Because I also remember… the yelling, the screaming, the accusations, the hate, more yelling, the being called names,  the fist-in-the-face “almost” punch he thinks is so funny, the throwing of things, more yelling, and the black & white way life had to be. I remember the anger I would get in return if my opinion was different than his. If I caught him in a bad mood, and I needed to say something on any subject, it was 9.5 out of 10 times, a negative statement I’d get in return. With a 28 year age difference, we are guaranteed to not have things in common. His interest in guns, women, politics and star trek, didn’t appeal to me as a 15 year old teenage girl. My interest in NASCAR, country music, boys and cars, didn’t appeal to him…and still don’t…and he lets me know, sarcastically and angrily. I remember him going to one basketball game of mine, and after we lost the game, his comment was, “It’s okay. You don’t need to be Amazon Woman to get boys to like you.”

One of the most wonderful memories I have is of my dad teaching my sister and I the song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah”. We’d sing it all the time. When things were tough at Mom’s, and I would call dad, he’d tell me to just sing our song and things would be fine. I can remember times during high school when I’d secretly sing it to myself, only to have Dad ask me the next time I saw him, if I had in fact sang our song lately. It was sort of a strange connection. Perhaps the only connection. Or was it just coincidence? Was I desperately searching for a positive connection with him? I don’t know. He took my sister and I to see the movie “Song of the South” and I can remember being so happy and cheerful as I sang that song out loud every time it played during the movie.

         

Almost every day on my way to work, I see the same exact car (color and all) my dad has, going in the opposite direction as I, at the same part of my drive. Every time I see it, I think to myself, “Stop! Stop thinking about him.” But… you know, you just can’t sometimes. I had to be given a ride home a few days ago by a guy I work with, and he has the same car only a different color. As I was riding in it, I couldn’t help but think about all the fun stories we shared driving to/from the store or meetings, up/down the freeway, and then the times I’d be sitting in the backseat because I just couldn’t bear the thought of sitting next to him in the front seat, or afraid he’d put his arm very quickly in front of my face as if he was going to hit me but doesn’t, or the times he’d be yelling at me because I hadn’t done something he thinks I should have. I hated every moment of the ride, and couldn’t wait to be dropped off at JK’s house that day. It brings back more bad than good vibes, so I will think twice before asking him for a ride in the future, even though he lives a few streets from me.

So today, as I sit here and ponder what has become of my life and where it will go, I now see, very clearly, that I will, one day, be the person sitting on the cream colored recliner, playing on my laptop and watching my favorite TV shows. No friends to call, no family to visit. Just the company of a dedicated dog, a prissy cat and the occasional drop by of my son, if I’m lucky. This, is not who I want to be. This is the result of an unhappy life, and I have way too many things to be happy about, to let myself fall this far and fail in life. I’m happy when I’m happy, and I’m unhappy when I’m unhappy. Why in the hell would I want to be unhappy? It’s not fun. It’s not something I look forward to every day. WTF?

I remember…

I remember this one time, at band camp, when I was about four, my parents just wouldn’t stop fighting.

We lived in The Valley, and my grandparents (my two favorite people in the whole world, at the time) lived less than one mile away. They came over often and vice versa. I remember the fighting being so bad, that I guess it was mom that called my grandparents and told them to come take my sister and I away from the situation.

They got there, my grandmother, in all her motherly instinct, came immediately to calm my sister and I’s cries. Grandpa, well, he was a bit more like my dad, so he had to get in on the action. I’ve heard stories about how mean of a person he was to his family members, but that’s just not the same man I knew. The grandpa I knew, loved to hold our hands in the store, enjoyed telling all his Knights of Columbus buddies about the apple’s of his eyes, looked forward to sharing a bowl of popcorn with us late at night while watching The Golden Girls or Mr. Belvedere, or even enjoyed working in the yard together a bit more than he led on.

So, grandpa tried to talk to mom and dad and tried to pray the rosary with them. My grandparents were extreme Catholics who attended church more often than most people ate, so it seemed the only thing that got them through any times at all, was praying the rosary. Maybe that’s how their marriage lasted 52+ years before he passed.

I don’t know what ever happened that day, because if I remember correctly (and at the age of four, that’s a bit tough), we ended up going to my grandparents house and staying the night. I don’t know if mom and dad continued to fight, but I’m pretty sure my grandpa was able to smooth things over. At least for that night.

Moral: Today, I prayed the rosary, and thought of all the times I prayed with my grandparents. It’ll help me. I’ve seen it’s power.  :-)

What I Learned Today:

“If the truth hurts, then it’s working.”