Looking at what I've been choosing to write about so far (about a month's worth), it strikes me that there are a bunch of hot topics I've neatly avoided so far. In the 11 months ahead, I'm thinking it might be tough to avoid these and have much of an authentic quest to bloom...since they are fairly foundational.
Perilous topics I've avoided so far:
- Step parenting and step children
- What it looks like at the brink of divorce
- The case of my missing brother and his family
- My mom and how I don't want to turn into her (because I am my own person)
- My dad and how we don't connect in a real way
- Being a biological parent and how I almost missed out on that, and how the experience is flavored by having first been a (crappy) step parent
- Losing a friend to alcohol, and what being a poser feels like
In particular, I think there's a bunch of stuff to revisit on the step-parenting phase of my life. Lots of unresolved stuff. I don't have a good relationship with my stepsons. I don't have "any" relationship with them actually. And they lived with us full time for 8 years.
How sad is that?
And, of course, I'm married to their father, who loves them dearly. So there's that.
That list could be crazy - full of violent survival or illness and surgeries. But it isn't. That's my hard-to-talk-about list. There are things I remember about childhood that I feel badly about, but they're normal growing up things:
- I distinctly remember making fun of S.R.'s wrap-around plaid skirt and pulling on it until it unraveled on the playground, and then laughing (UGH!).
- I remember joining a sing-song group of girls poking fun at A.B. on the playground until we made her cry (UGH!!!).
- Begging for an elaborate (expensive!) pirate ship play mobile set, getting it for Christmas, and then never playing with it.
- I remember being targeted by mean junior high kids who graffitied my locker, and being teased for wearing a red home-sewn A-line skirt and a new yellow cable knit sweater to school (never wore that skirt again, despite all the work my mom put into it and how much I told her I loved it).
- Being abruptly dumped by my best friend A.D. for another girl whom she met once we got to junior high; she pretended I didn't exist any more.
- Utterly and completely mortifying myself by trying out for the high school play without ANY preparation (OMG that was awful).
- Bringing a boy back to my college dorm room and pretending I didn't know my roommate was there, trapped in the upper bunk while we made out in the lower (hot flush of shame....).
Like I said, pretty normal, dumb kid stuff.
But looking at the top of this post, there's those old bones for me to chew on. As I work through my quest to bloom, I don't want to be held back my guilt, old regrets, or lingering resentment. I want to address and move ahead. Learn and grow. Practice adulting. What's really dragging on me that I can't see? Am I really okay? I don't think so -- I'm too quick to anger. Too insecure and unbalanced. Too quick to feel that I don't belong. I want to be present and fully self-aware and able to give authentically in a loving, calm and relaxed way. All the time. That's my goal. And I want to find my purpose, at least my "next purpose," and figure out how I'm supposed to contribute and what I want to say. Doing that with a bunch of anchors dragging is not the way.
I intend to peel it back. Flay it open. Let it bubble out. And let it go.
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