May | 2010 | Precious Happy

photo from worldofstock.com

I’m so sad. This weekend was full of revelations. I had such big plans to get a crack on my chores list. I wanted to get so many things done. Well, suffice it to say, we didn’t get much done errand-wise but we searched our souls until we bled. What a strange feeling… to go back in time and view your childhood with adult eyes, knowledge that only comes with experience, and wisdom that only comes with age. We now know why certain things were done, why certain actions were taken and yet we will never know for sure. It sucks to never know for sure. But that little bit of doubt that our surmises are unfounded is weak and negligible due to the incalculable amount of evidence we now have.

As grateful as I am for my decent memory recall and my continual flashbacks, I can’t help but think that maybe things would be easier if I didn’t remember very much. How do we retrain ourselves? How do we unbrain-wash? How do we undo the damage from a bruised childhood? Fond memories that when I now look at are tainted with the clarity of context. How can I start on the road of forgiveness if I am unsure that I should ever attempt that journey? Is it right to do? Does forgiveness really release your soul or is it just a cop out and an act of cowardice? Would forgiving someone for heinous acts be telling them that it was okay for them to have done those things to you?

I don’t know if my parents deserve forgiveness. I think it depends on what their motives were. If they failed because they didn’t have a clue how to raise children in a healthy environment then that’s one thing. But if they never had our best interests at heart, if they were too self-involved with their own flaws and self-obsessions to care for us or love us then that’s obviously another.

My husband didn’t win the lottery either. We grew up with different forms of neglect. Two ends of the spectrum. Him in a 4000 sq feet mansion with a physically abusive brother, emotionally-distant mother, and an absent father. People who didn’t bother celebrating his birthday after the age of 6 with the excuse that they didn’t have the time but it was really that they didn’t have the inclination. And of course that’s one example among many much more horrific others. I tease him and tell him that at least he had a refrigerator with food. My brother and I were lucky to find a pack of hot dogs to eat on top of physical, mental, emotional abuse by an addict of a father and a self-centered, negligent, promiscuous mother who taught us from day one that our sole reason for being was to be her slave and to serve her and sacrifice ourselves to her. Ahhh good times.

Yes, we’re like two peas in a pod… too damaged to be with other people and groping our way through life without having had role models from whom we could have learned. We are lucky to have found each other and together we vow to raise our children the way we never knew families could be; filled with love and joy.

Having him to weather the storm is Precious Happy.