At the age of 39, I sat with my children, ages 3, 6 and 17 1/2 eating Chinese at a local chain. We were giggling, eating, and rebeliously feeding the pigeons. The children wanted to open the cookies as soon as they realized we were going for Chinese, but I held them off. Finally, the youngest, couldn’t take it anymore!
The 3 year old distributes them in an eerily perfect order. Truly, every cookie fit each person that popped it open. If they had been switched in any other order, they would have not been thought provoking, but this time…perfection. Unfortunately, mine didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already learned. My life would be difficult, but rewarding. Uh, duh?! Seriously, I read it and rolled my eyes in irritation. Everything in my life had been difficult, a fight, a competition. Nothing comes easy to me, ever! Or so I thought, until, I realized that I am blessed in the utmost way. I realized that, as I sit here typing I have a gift, that many will never have. I must be thankful and keep things in perspective.
While most things are a fight, pregnancy has never been a fight and I am thankful because I can’t imagine how devestating it must be to want to be a mommy and being unable. Knowing how to be a mom, has come rather easily to me, both in the sense of physcally, emotionally and spiritually. Don’t get me wrong, being a mom can be the most difficult job in the world, and more trying then anything else I will face. But, God has given me a gift, of knowing how to identify with my children and to remember what it is like to be a child. I have been blessed to be able to connect with my children, and that is most rewarding.
My children, are the one thing, that no matter what, I can find joy. I can have the most exhausting day or be living on a virtual roller coaster, via my job, or my relationship or fromtrying to help friends find their way through life. But, at the end of the day, I will open my door and my children, even the oldest, will be happy to see me and all of lifes dirtiest particles will fall away. I am always amazed at how their hugs and kisses change my perspective, in a instantaneous flash.
“Your life will be difficult, but rewarding.” My fortune cookie seemed right on, at the time, but now, I have had a chance to have my mind cleared from it’s cloudy self-pity. My life is rewarding and the difficulties only make me realize how pure and beautiful the little moments truly are.
Death, by guilt.
July 11, 2008
We are taught what guilt is at a very young age and what a brilliant tool it is to manipulate others into doing or feeling what we need and want. Very often, guilt is something that we are made to feel, over something we didn’t do or due to an inadequate response or feeling. But, should we feel guilty, even if that response is true and fair, even if it unintentionally hurts another.
I learned guilt at a very young age, so young that I think that I have carried it with me forever. I feel guilty for other peoples actions, reactions and even their ill feelings…even if all of this has nothing to do with me. Guilt helps me parent, to love my children properly, to be a good friend, to be a good wife, to take care of everyone else but me. Guilt, is my fuel and it was seared into my soul. But why? Why guilt? Why did my parents embrace this as a functional and approved tool of teaching. Did they know? Were they aware that they were burdening me with life with such a thing?
At a very early age, I knew my role switched and I am not sure why that switch took place or when it happened. I was once the cutie with long blond ringlets and big blue eyes, that made everyone smile and was such a joy. Somehow, I became the angry, troubled child who wasn’t living up to her potential. I was the one who lied and made things so difficult. I was out doing all sorts of crazy things and I was promiscuous…so they thought, or she thought and maybe he thought. But I wasn’t….until later, after I learned, that I was.
When did I learn, that no matter what, that I was always guilty. It was always my fault, even if it wasn’t. I began to die, inside, little by little. My death, was a death, by guilt. To this day, when something goes wrong, even if I am truly innocent…why do I feel guilty? How can I rid myself of this, so that all my pain, and sorrow and self-loathing, is finally stripped?
“Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.” Coco Chanel
