It all stays with us...

Everything that happens to us, stays with us. Our own unique story. All the stuff I'm doing as a parent is forever stuck to my children. All the stuff my parents did is stuck in me. Shaping us and our perspectives, our impressions, our openness or closed-ness...  It isn't like you can leave any of that stuff out - because it's there forever. It's how you choose to carry it.

If we all have stuff, I have my own share. My childhood was marked by the feeling of restriction, of walking on egg shells. I was cared for and had an upbringing that taught me responsibility and a strong sense of duty. I learned to be conscientious. I became very independent. And I believe my parents did the best they could. My mother was very young and naive, my father resentful and insecure. I think they both felt like they were missing out on something - that their lives were supposed to have gone a different direction. I never got the sense that they were content.

I'm wondering about processing those years and how I've been carrying them -- have they shaped me in the way they were meant to, or have I allowed them to twist and disfigure, to bloat and carry more weight? Have I left them "in the past" without properly categorizing them to lighten the load?

The way I (poorly) handle my anger tells me that I didn't learn the right way to deal with strong negative emotion. I didn't have a good role model, and I am not the role model I want to be for my children. This is something I intend to fix. This work has never really been done, and I've always told myself that my childhood was so easy, so ideal, so non-traumatic. Why would I harbor such strong feelings when it comes to my parents? Why aren't those relationships more relaxed and fulfilling? More mutually enjoyable? We are not comfortable around each other. I make my parents feel uncomfortable. Why is that? Why be a jerk? What is that about anyway?

Work to be done...