**Another old post from July 2004. Ten years later, I honestly feel like I'm actually dealing with and moving on from some of this stuff. Finally.**
Another earth shattering revelation...!
If I just accepted all those things about me on my list I've been making...just accept and keep going...I would be a totally different person! Without even realizing it, I put a ton of effort and energy into covering those things up, or fixing them, or working really really hard to make them disappear. If I would just chill out and be happy the way I am, then I'd be happy the way I am!
If I was OK with what I am and what I'm not, I would be a happier person, more confident of myself, and probably a heck of a lot more fun! And it would really help me to feel OK with myself if I thought those closest to me genuinely thought I was OK the way I am. I don't feel like that's the case.
It takes a lot of energy to live as the pretender. To live every moment as something you're not. Been doing that for years. And I learned it from my mom. That right there is what scares me about someday being a mom. My mom never set out to teach me to cover up who I really am in order to be what pleases people and what looks better on paper. We didn't practice that every Saturday like we practiced reading. She never told me that it's not all right to have a difficult time with driving directions (this is long before Siri told you where to go.) in the same way she told me it's not Ok to drink milk out of the carton. But those are the things I learned from her regardless.
In my education classes we call that "hidden curriculum."
In church we call that the "human factor" or "human-ness."
We are all people with our own thoughts on things, our own likes and dislikes, and as long as one person is conveying information to another person, information in any form, it will have some biases of the presenter. No matter how hard you try to be objective, try not to emphasize any words more than any others, try to not make facial expressions or give off body language, no matter how hard you try, you do it. I think it's the really smart people that are least effected by it. I'm not so sure what I mean by 'smart' right there. I don't know if I mean common sense smart, socially smart, or book smart. But anyway, the 'smart' ones are the ones that can take the intended material and learn from it and pull out the biases and not be effected by them. That's so not me! With most things, I am so easily swayed by people around me!! But I'm starting to find my voice and have an opinion, and have reasons for my opinion, and the hard part...sharing my opinion and reasons without backing down at confrontation. Ouch. We'll leave that lesson on the "To Learn" list cuz I'm not so much there yet. Anyway, what was I talking about?
Oh yeah, being like my mom even though she didn't explicitly teach me to do that. But I learned it.
I learned it.
Every last nasty habit, wrong assumption, prejudice, mind set, emotion, and expression. And although I've spent a lot of time trying to reteach myself in these areas with "good" material, I'm not there yet. And I wonder if I ever will be. (I am now. WIN!) And even if I am, I'm still not perfect, and I'm going to inexplicably teach my children the things I'm not good at. I guess kind of like teaching them that the color red is called yellow. Maybe it doesn't hurt anything, but maybe it really does. I'm so not cut out for being a parent. I'm still carrying around a lot of guilt for hurting people in my life as a result of who I am. I can't imagine the guilt of watching my children struggle because of something I taught them, whether I meant to or not.
Watching my children struggle as a result of something I taught them.
Watching MY children struggle as a result of something I-I-I taught them!
Guilt. It's such a short word. But it's heavy. If I had to draw a picture of what guilt looked like, I think it would be a big glob of murky clay with weeds and bugs and stuff in it. Ugly. Heavy. Sticky. Smelly. Dirty. And it stains. Did you know the kind of clay you pull up from the bottom of a pond (I guess a pond in Michigan that is) stains? Did you know that guilt stains? At least that's been my experience. When I feel like it should be gone, and I feel like I've given it up, and every last little piece of it is gone, my hands are washed and I've cleaned under my fingernails, I still look down and see the stain it left and that brings back memories, and memories seem to invite me to pickup that nasty glob of guilt again. What would the word memories look like? I bet my depiction would be a lot different than yours.
Back to stains.
Stains.
But God washes white as snow?
White as snow.
You can't have a stain on something that's white as snow.
But right now I'm thinking "white as snow" is just a cliche. Probably cuz I've never experienced it. Yes, I'm the little kid with the mind set that if it hasn't happened to me, then it hasn't ever happened. (That's not little kid mentality. They believe in Santa Clause without ever seeing.) That sounds more like an adult mentality. An egocentric adult.
Egocentric.
Add humble to the list of things I'm not.
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